Long time character acknowlegment from NPC's

[bilbous]

Does anyone else like the idea that characters who make a significant contribution to game life could have their names incorporated into NPC chatter? Would this be appropriate recognition and how do you see this working?

[emeraldfool]

I don't see how it would work...

How do you define a 'significant contribution', and who decides which ones are picked? (Seeing as how it should only apply to a handful of people, and the people who would make these choices are probably the Settings devs, I think it could be open to a lot of bias - favouritism could be inferred, even if it isn't present. Which it very well could be...)

[Zan]

If we're talking about characters, then I agree. If we're talking about players, then I don't ... however at the moment it is extremely hard to make a contribution as a character. You'd have to be an excellent roleplayer and hold the respect of the large majority of the in-game community.

In fact I do know that one character accomplished this in the past: Kada-el.

She managed to name a not so unfamous tavern after her.

I agree with EF though, it should be a very rare occasion and in the hands of the Settings Devs.

[bilbous]

Well, my character has been around for a couple years now but I would not consider him to have made a significant contribution to game life as I mostly go about my business and rarely, if ever get involved with events either player or GM contrived. There are others who have played out grand schemes and attended many GM events, they are the sort I am thinking of.

As for how it would work, I think there could be a sticky on the forum somewhere where nominations could be made and pros and cons could be debated. I think it should be a three part process whereby players have input, GM's have input and devs have input. I do not think one of these streams should be able to unilaterally decide but that there should be some consensus reached. This idea is rather tenuous at the moment which is why I am asking for ideas as to how it might work.

[zanzibar]

Does anyone else like the idea that characters who make a significant contribution to game life could have their names incorporated into NPC chatter? Would this be appropriate recognition and how do you see this working?

Favouritism would be unavoidable.  People would complain about not being included.  It would be impossible to include eveyone who "deserves" it.  It would be extremely problematic to establish fair criteria for who is deserving.

[bilbous]

Favoritism is always unavoidable, it does not really invalidate the concept. People like to complain and will complain about having nothing to complain about, also does not invalidate the concept. It would not necessarily be an honor as the NPC's might say unflattering things. Campaigning for your own inclusion ought to be sufficient reason to preclude you or have you included in an unflattering manner. Fairness is irrelevant.

@ Zanzibar
Now please either add some constructive suggestions or go back to your own thread. Your 'NAY' has been registered.

[zanzibar]

If you don't see it as constructive criticism, then my answer is that damning criticisms are on topic as well.

[lordraleigh]

Why do our characters need to be acknowledged by NPCs when we have a whole community of PCs to ackowledge them in a more fair manner that will avoid "this is unfair, my character did.... and didn't get acknowledged" complaints?

[Quitarias]

Well personaly i think if the devs think someone has realy been making an impact on the comunity they might think over Bilbous's idea.
Personaly though i think its great not perfect but still good.Hats of to you Bilbo

[LARAGORN]

I think the idea just boils down to a popularity contest. As stated no one can have an effect on the game itself, only an effect on the players around them. Someone who is an 'Idol' to a few players, can be totally unknown to many others.

In my short time here, I can think of only one character who has had an impact on a majority of the inhabitants. My character has never been to one of his events but knows how sucsesfull and popular they were with all the other characters he has met. My character did however emensly enjoyed the auctions this dwarf put on before they were squashed by a *&^*&$#&^#$#$@#%@!$%&, and I know others enjoyed them aswell because of the turnouts.

I can see honouring someone like that, who created situations for all of PS, not just a certain group of characters but all characters.

But that in itself is what I find popular, so it goes back to my original thoughts.

[Nurahk]

It could be that key members in large events could be added to the NPCs' chatter but, as for just longterm achievement, I doubt that will happen.

And yes, Kada got it, but, I would regard her as an exception.  And somebody who still owes me pictures

[bilbous]

I actually see it as something to make the game more unique. Every game has npc's that know each other and talk about each other but I do not know of any where the npc's know anything about the human community. Now I think of it some more, it might be fun to have some npc's who are name droppers, who find some way to mention the last character that interacted with them, or claimed friendship with whichever character has interacted with them the most recently. Sure this is blue sky thinking but I think it would re-inforce the community aspect of the game.

[Caarrie]

How about the devs and gms dont know each and every person that plays so it would be almost impossible for us to determine who could be added to the settings of the game [npc speech is part of settings]. Unless another way comes up I dont see how any npc would talk about players and what would happen if that player left the game then the setting devs have to go back and rewrite all the speech about these people. The setting devs have enough work to do with improving npc speech the best they can and writing quests i dont see this happening unless we have a way for players to add chat to the npc knowledge base. If players can be able to add speech to the npcs at some point there would have to be some way to check it all so that we dont get npc's talking about things that are not related to the game.

[Nurahk]

I actually see it as something to make the game more unique. Every game has npc's that know each other and talk about each other but I do not know of any where the npc's know anything about the human community. Now I think of it some more, it might be fun to have some npc's who are name droppers, who find some way to mention the last character that interacted with them, or claimed friendship with whichever character has interacted with them the most recently. Sure this is blue sky thinking but I think it would re-inforce the community aspect of the game.

Aye, City of Heroes/villains had something like that, passer-by NPCs would blurt out factoids "Hey <playername> just did this or that".  Not sure how different what you are proposing would be.

[bilbous]

No I know it is kind of unrealistic, but it could work sort of like this: NPC's have a small buffer in which they keep the names of characters who have recently talked to them, they also have a buffer of semi-meaningless prefatory phrases to which those names could be added. Pick one name from column A and one phrase from column B, slap them together and insert someplace in their dialog. Once you get the factional stuff going it could adjust the phrase to color their feelings.
This is somewhat different from the original idea of course.