Profile: ladyattis
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• • Why haven't any new MMO's used a day & night cycle for NPC's?

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    Originally posted by neonwire
    

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    Originally posted by chryses

    For those that don't understand what I am trying to say here.  I am looking at a Oblivion model where NPCs actually have a day and night cycle where they will leave their house in the morning, go to work, close the shop and head home for dinner. 
    Surely it does not require ground breaking coding these days. 
    Some features that would really develop the RP element to an MMO:
    * NPC shop keepers do exactly what I listed above.  Leave home, open shop, close shop, head to open tavern, laugh and mingle with other NPC's and then head home. 
    * At night when the shops are closed a black market could open up that only the nastier players can access.  
    * Guards are less active so players can become more ruthless and attack in more areas of the city. 
    * Different areas open up at night time.  Maybe a night time flea market that sells  additional crafting components or other items.   Taverns open up  and incorporate brawling, card games, PvP mini games inside and allow betting on fights.  Also have NPC's playing instruments etc. 
    By doing this a game will feel like its living and breathing.  Imagine players are in a tavern playing games then they are forced to leave when closing time comes around and venture elsewhere.  Picture leaving a late night tavern and then seeing NPCs leave their houses and walk over to their stalls? 
    This will have to be the next evolution in MMO's IMO.  It can be done and should be done ASAP for this genre.
    

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    This is a fantastic idea and I cant see why it shouldnt be implemented into mmos. Although it would be more time consuming to give each npc their own script and therefore open up a whole can of worms for potential errors I think the benefits of doing it would be tremendous. The first mmo which manages to pull it off successfully would set a whole new standard and leave all the others in the dust. My god I might actually start trying to roleplay again in mmos rather than just treat them like the grind fests that they are. Immersion in an mmo? Bloody hell!

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    It's not that hard to code scripts like this for entire classes of NPCs then have each NPC queue a "timeDayNight" object to see what time it was for them to execute the given set of instructions. Only at runtime would there be minor issues, but this isn't the problem. The problem is as everyone else has said: some folks don't want to wait to get their 'quests' done. Basically folks have been trained in one way to play and that way to play is assumed to be the default for all MMOs. Thus, it's not easily argued in the best interest in MMO developers to change from what people expect unless they market based on that fact of being atypical and different/unique.

    All in all, I support such an idea because it's as old as MUDs and it's an easily understood set of program behaviors (event driven computing) unlike what others may have you believe.
    

  • Posted: 10/26/08 12:36 AM
    General Discussion
• • Most anticipated new games? (Not expansions)

  • Spellborn and Fallen Earth for me. :)

  • Posted: 10/15/08 11:41 AM
    General Discussion
• • WoW Player Has 36 Accounts, Raids by Himself

  • And I thought the multi-character MUDs and MUD clients was bad. o_O

  • Posted: 10/12/08 11:53 AM
    General Discussion
• • Will the fate of TCoS be the same as Age of Conan?

  • I have cautious optimism for TCoS for the simple fact that after listening to one interview with them talking about how they actually went through about four 'forks' of the game to get what they wanted shows two things: a young company that's building a tool set to work on future projects and a company that is willing to spend money on vital work to make a product that is worth the purchase. It's development cycle seems to be much unlike AoCs in which Gaute literally gutted the work that came from pre-2006 to redo it in what we know of today (both in pruned classes and lost content and maps). Thus, both companies and development projects from the outside seem to exhibit different traits and behaviors (FC had the behavior of a badly managed company and AoC a badly managed development project. TCoS and its developing company by comparision have the behavior of a decently (but unexperienced) managed company and project).

    What may kill TCoS is the lack of public awareness and not its current development state, which is where the cautious part of my optimism comes into play. Along with the worry of whether or not they got cash investments over bank loans to fund key parts of development which could put a damper on long term success (and profit).

  • Posted: 10/01/08 1:20 AM
    The Chronicles of Spellborn
• • 38 Studios: Schilling Gets Political

  • This is why I have to wonder why do folks even listen to 'pro'-athletes? o_O

  • Posted: 9/19/08 12:47 AM
    General Discussion