Introducing NPCs day/night cycles

[miadon]

My opinion is that quest based NPCs should currently not move or just move around in a small area.. like a guard walking up and down a wall..

But there should be more NPCs added that have a larger walking area... that aren't involved in quests at all and are just background/ordinary/citizens.

[tman]

My opinion is that quest based NPCs should currently not move or just move around in a small area.. like a guard walking up and down a wall..

But there should be more NPCs added that have a larger walking area... that aren't involved in quests at all and are just background/ordinary/citizens.

+1

Same goes for trainers.  Although I've always held the opinion that every skill should have 2-3 trainers for all levels below about 80.  If there were multiple trainers per skill the problem of NPCs disappearing wouldn't be as big of a deal.

But still, storage and major quest NPCs shouldn't disappear.

[Mordaan]

The problem there is almost every NPC (except some of the new ones in Kore and Amdeneir ... and even some of those) are involved in one quest or another.  Add trainers to that and you pretty much cover them all.

I like the idea of having more redundancy with trainers (especially in different areas), and especially with beginning levels but that would involve a major overhaul in trainers...which will probably be worth doing at some point.

Oh how the projects pile up.   

[Primordial]

Interesting.
Do/will all npcs and ai entities move along pre-defined way-point based paths, or will there be space for dynamism there, like a nav-mesh?

[weltall]

they use both

[Cairn]

This is fairly exciting, and explains why I couldn't, for the life of me, find my blasted vendor t'other day. This does add extra semblances of life.

[Primordial]

they use both

Good stuff.
Movin' on up.

[Vakachehk]

I don't mind guards roaming around patrolling, but vendors leaving at night is the stupidest thing ever. No other game does it for a reason, time consuming for players. No player is going to want to wait around for up to 2 hours (12 hours IG time, I believe?) waiting for their NPC to arrive. Instead they'd go get a life and stop playing Planeshift and buy Minecraft or WoW instead.

I could probably guarantee that WoW had this idea but dropped it because of it's time consumption to their players. You want the players to stay playing the game and not be bored, thus give them what they want when they want it.

With guards patrolling, making them stop walking when you want to train, talk or trade with them, would be a good task to place on your list of improvements, possibly at the top.

As it is Planeshift is frustrating enough with it's amount of lag, bugs, imbalance PPs, mobs and training, and broken quests.

This way, PlaneShift is developing from a playable and enjoyable game to a graphic demo you can just watch but not use...

I feel this way more and more with each update.

+1

[tman]

With guards patrolling, making them stop walking when you want to train, talk or trade with them, would be a good task to place on your list of improvements, possibly at the top.

I'm fairly certain NPCs already stop moving when you talk to them.

[weltall]

buying wow and minecraft means getting a life... intresting point of view.

[Jawir]

I admit sometime I hated when I didn't find some npcs in their own place, especially when I log in always at the same hour and "luckily" it is IG night! 
Anyway, I think having npcs that have day/night cycles make sense and give more realism. At least you could add a feature that asking to some available npc about the npc we are searching for, he will answer where he has seen him approximately, or if he is at home and the IG hour that tipically he come back.
Just a little idea!