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Malena

Villages need to be populated with "decoration" NPCs

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I'm a new player. Got my deed, built my houses, trained a little fighting, bred some horses, made my first armor etc. 


 


After having played around 4 months and I'm now at the stage where I'm finally confident enough to go horseback riding and explore the lands, to see what kinds of deeds are out there. Up till now I did do a little exploring via boat, but never dared venture in land nor dared to walk around in any of the villages.


 


Now that I'm starting to do that, something is becoming very evident to me: There are a lot of gorgeous and huge villages out there, but no-one lives in them aside from a single owner who may be online but most of the time is not. It feels desolate, empty, sad and like a waste. It makes me question what the point of my own progression in the game is if -that- is the end game: an empty and lonely village. It also explains why so many players try to lure newbies into living on their deeds so they'd have a little life in them. But this is mostly short-lived since sooner or later these new players either quit the game or move on to go and make their own deed.


 


The game needs something to "populate" villages with: NPCs.


 


I did a search for all the suggestion threads for bringing new type of NPCs into the game and I understood why they all waned off. People had thought up grand plans for the mechanics and I can understand that from a developer's point of view, they might cross that out automatically. NPCs which craft, gather, fight and do a legion of other things all sounds amazingly fun in the description, but it's a no-go for a small development team due to how such NPCs could completely break the flow and balance, even nature of the game. 


 


So what I am suggesting is an NPC which is something visually there but does not impact the game in any other way. NPCs in different outfits and tools in their hands, doing the assigned animations which our own characters already do, which we could populate our villages with to give them some life, however which would not interact in any other way than saying some predefined sentences like "G'day! Just doin' a bit of blacksmithing" or something as generic as "Well met traveler!".


 


For us players, living in our villages would seem a tad less lonely. I don't know about you, but at least I feel less alone by the existing animals and guards - as silly as that is. Imagine planting a smithy next to your forge or a cook into your house kitchen. How about a stable boy into the pen with the horses, or a fisherman onto the shore. Again, none of these would buy, sell or generate any wares for you. They'd simply be decorations much like a table or statue.


 


It goes without saying that I'd be over the moon if they actually did do something, like for instance a fisherman when planted on a tile next to water would actually start generating fish in his/her backpack that you could buy - that would be sweet. Or other things like what was suggested in those other threads, but for now I'd really be so much happier with just the visual aspect alone. 


 


 


 


Edited by Malena
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i think this is a great idea tbh...most villages have no real life to them once they are expanded out, because many players do quit or move on...leaving nothing but memories behind, having something that tricks the mind into believing it is more lively might also help bring mor elayers to the game cause as a new player going to a random deserted village might be a huge let down for the game.


 


so i give this idea a ++++1


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-1 for any humanoid npcs, even those without function


 


Feeling lonely ? Bring in some villagers.


Edited by Elen

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Posted · Hidden by Elen, March 9, 2014 - Potentially offensive.
Hidden by Elen, March 9, 2014 - Potentially offensive.

-1


 


This is a massively multiplayer online game, not a massively autisticplayer online game.


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Wat?   No!  


 


-1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


 


Would be kinda amusing but no,  especially when noobs walk up and ask for NPCs for help, and just getting ignored, or if it was done on Chaos or Epic, where HOTS would keep them for the ability to butcher the corpse and make meals out of em. 


 


Yes, it will happen.   If no one hasn't butchered Targos in Shores of Hazeron, or made a meal out of one of your more idiotic navigators when you were hungry and forgot to bring food on a starsytem survey mission, then you haven't played a good game with completely freaking, idiot NPCs that run everything for you.   


 


This just isn't a game that was meant for NPCs, and it would really destroy the immersion to have stupid walking robots going about their useless pointless robotic lives just for window dressing.  That is so sad it isn't even funny.   


 


This isn't civilization, this isn't Banished, this is Wurm, and its about living breathing players working together to make communities.    The immersion of the game is dependent not on the kind of window dressing your talking about, but everyone filling a role in the village and working as a team.   

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-1, because of the nature of the game. Wurm tries as much as reasonably possible to give us the feeling of, everything is player built, player done, with small concessions made for guards and traders. I think adding in villagers simply to decorate is counter-intuitive to this, but would also result in additional strain on the servers, especially where many deeds are present.


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-1     decorate villages with real players this is MMO


Edited by vill

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+1


 


Nothing wrong with a bit of visual spark to make a place look more lived in. Maybe have it dependent on the size of the village and number of active human players present to determine how many random "villager" npc's are present so it's easy to see by looking around whether the town you find yourself in is busy or more or less abandoned.

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Very well written, nicely done.

As much as i and many others believe the game needs more `dressing`, for the reasons explained above i don't believe zombie npc's are the way to do it.

More functional NPC's possibly, I think that's been covered before (barman, caretaker, etc)
The effort is appreciated tho, good thinking for 4 months in

 

-1

Edited by Steveleeb
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+1

We already have NPC tower guards so NPC villagers makes sense. They could give some overall bonus to the deed they belong to if they get fed/clothed/housed. And if they get killed in raids they respawn after a week or so.

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decoration? nah! gritty dirty obviously medeival is how i like my wurmonline - no to 'pretty' -


 


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How about there is one NPC per offline villager.

+1 as long as it is just decorational. I honestly see no issue with this. They could walk around and stuff, to make the game seem more alive on down times. I've noticed what the OP said about rows of empty villages because everyone is offline, and its a bit annoying. This would make the world seem a lot more alive, instead of just rows of empty houses 90% of the time.

I also like the idea of NPC families living in houses, or something. As long as it is purely decorational, who cares.

On PvP servers, they shouldn't be attackable.

Should only be possible on deed, of course. Also should be limited to prem accounts only, so one town can't spam NPCs without limits.

Edited by Ganken
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 might also help bring more players to the game cause as a new player going to a random deserted village might be a huge let down for the game.

 

Thanks Eld, yes, this was my reaction at least. I spent a whole weekend literally doing nothing else except exploring the lands on Independence. Seeing all of those gorgeous villages, so lovingly built looming empty and quiet just gave me the impression that "Wow, apparently this game used to be something big and grand, but seems like everyone's got up and left. All these villages are just abandoned. So sad."

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-1 for any humanoid npcs, even those without function

 

Feeling lonely ? Bring in some villagers.

 

Easier said than done. 

 

a) What if I'm the type of player who actually prefers living alone on my deed. I enjoy being part of the MMO world and seeking out company when I'm in the mood to socialize, but I would not want to live together with others. With people comes complications, negotiations, compromises, drama, surprises, ups and downs. What if I already have enough of all that in my real life and just enjoy coming to Wurm for a little peace and quiet, for a little crafting, groom my horses, build something. What if Wurm is my get-away, the place where I charge my batteries so that I can deal with all the people messes in real life. So, you might say: "It's an MMO, go play a single player game then!". Ah but I do enjoy the fact that there are others in the world I can interact with. I do enjoy that my friends can drop by. I do enjoy exploring and hearing the sound of sawing in the distance, following that sound and meeting a new person. I just don't want to LIVE with anyone. For me, the joy of having NPCs is to enhance immersion. They are just as "fake" as the polygon trees and grass that sway in the wind, they're just as fake as the modeled baby horses which frolic in the meadow and they're just as fake as the audio file playing the sound of the waves. However all of that simulates a world to live in. Seeing the guards going out for a swim or having one pass by me makes the world feel more real to me. More cozy. 

 

B) In the case that I did happen to be super social, the only people who would be interested in joining my village would be new players who didn't know any better. They would only stay a while until they realized they could make their own deed and life on the deed would be an endless cycle of exhaustion in trying to find new villagers, help them get set up and see them leave. Doesn't sound like too much of a battery charge to me! 

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i think this is a great idea tbh...most villages have no real life to them once they are expanded out, because many players do quit or move on...

Having a lively and active village is something that requires constant effort. You need to make an active effort to pull in new people to keep a nice healthy population. If you stop then the village is going to stagnant and diminish.

 

leaving nothing but memories behind, having something that tricks the mind into believing it is more lively might also help bring mor elayers to the game cause as a new player going to a random deserted village might be a huge let down for the game.

And encountering big villages filled with lifeless, pointless NPCs isn't going to be an even bigger let down? If the village hasn't been making an attempt to grow and keep populated then it should be seen as a ghost town.

If you aren't playing with other people why are you building villages anyway? Should just make a fancy homestead or maybe a few houses if you're with friends. If you want to have a village then put in the complete effort to make one and do recruiting.

B) In the case that I did happen to be super social, the only people who would be interested in joining my village would be new players who didn't know any better. They would only stay a while until they realized they could make their own deed and life on the deed would be an endless cycle of exhaustion in trying to find new villagers, help them get set up and see them leave. Doesn't sound like too much of a battery charge to me!

You don't know until you try. I get new people and established people that happen to need a place to stay. Some people stay and others leave. And yeah it can be exhausting, takes a good bit of work, and if you're smart you delegate the work among your villagers. Once you get some momentum and the village becomes a bit better know it gets easier to pull in more people and friends of you villagers might end up wanting to join in as well. But I think the effort is well worth it because it's really nice to log in with a bunch of people saying hi and having village chat be active as well as seeing other people working and doing their thing throughout the village.

Edited by Theodis

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Would be kinda amusing but no,  especially when noobs walk up and ask for NPCs for help, and just getting ignored

 

As I said in my suggestion, the NPCs could respond with pre-scripted sentences instead of standing there mute. Even better if their lines of text were a slightly different color to make it clear they are NPCs in local chat and only visible to those who are inside the deed at the time. This sort of thing has been done in a gazillion games before. Works fine.

 

 

, or if it was done on Chaos or Epic, where HOTS would keep them for the ability to butcher the corpse and make meals out of em. 

 

They could be either made immune to attacks or so they yield nothing on the corpse. There's a solution for everything.

 

 

This just isn't a game that was meant for NPCs, and it would really destroy the immersion to have stupid walking robots going about their useless pointless robotic lives just for window dressing.  That is so sad it isn't even funny. 

 

In that case, we might as well remove all animals, monsters, guards and merchants - no? To me the more immersion breaking experience is entering a huge city and expecting to find it bustling with life, only to realize that there is not a single living thing in sight. 

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-1, because of the nature of the game. Wurm tries as much as reasonably possible to give us the feeling of, everything is player built, player done, with small concessions made for guards and traders. I think adding in villagers simply to decorate is counter-intuitive to this,

 

It could be that as a new player, I've not yet learned the Wurm ways completely. I do respect that the Wurm veterans cherish the game for it's unique qualities, so I certainly wouldn't want to suggest anything that would ruin the very essence of the game. I do however see the issues that I originally spoke of, as being a valid ones. Any suggestions on how that could be remedied the "wurm" way without forcing everyone to recruit villagers? I mean let's face it - just as in real life, there are extroverts and there are introverts. Introverts who like to build cool things and who are willing to slap down their dollars to pay for large deeds should be just as valid players as the social types, dontcha think?

 

but would also result in additional strain on the servers, especially where many deeds are present.

 

If this is true, then this is an extremely valid point. However do we know that for certain? And couldn't this same argument be posed for pretty much any new content suggested for the game?

Edited by Malena

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decoration? nah! gritty dirty obviously medeival is how i like my wurmonline - no to 'pretty' -

 

That was not the point of the suggestion my fine feathered friend :-). Hell, the grittier the NPCs, the better if you ask me! 

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If this is true, then this is an extremely valid point. However do we know that for certain? And couldn't this same argument be posed for pretty much any new content suggested for the game?

It could be posed for any new content, yes, but moving coded objects like NPCs present far more strain and tax on the server I imagine, than something like a barrel rack, a bridge, or new types of trees, because of the nature of shadows, the NPC moving around, and potentially having it's own health. I assume that is why there is NPC caps on servers as is, but not furniture/structure/tree caps and all. If it could be done in a fashion that was stationary and without movement, this would obviously lessen the strain, but then would also lessen the desire to have them I imagine, as it would be like living with cardboard cut-outs, no? 

As for your desire to make villages feel less empty, without forcing people to recruit villagers, I'm a little confused. You're trying to think of a solution for people who don't want to socialize or interact with others, but who don't want to live alone, or at least feel like they are living alone? If my assumption there is correct, then I will concede, that this is probably one of the only solutions, short of additional tame animals, like house-cats, tame wild-cats, cats, or more cats, but my reservations with additional fake people remains.

For context, I live alone (with my alts) on my own deed, and it does get kinda boring, rather boring at times, but I feel like that's the price I pay for absolute decision making on all matters.

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Nah, NPCs should serve some function: bartenders (who feed newbs for free and vets have to pay for food) or whatever.

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