I did do a search but didn't really find anything directly linking to this. If I missed it because I'm a lazy sod please fire a shotgun shell into my leg, thank you
The Main IdeaRight, I was thinking (no way!), I don't know weather all NPC's have a faction tag or not, but at least some of them do, which is the main focus on this. If we are in a giant stalactite and are allegedly attempting to fend of the grizly hordes of mutant rats, large clawed ape men, odd backwards spider things and rotting demonic entities among others, then this should be generally a good base for RP right? The problem is that the NPC's are mostly static now, and it makes them boring. It makes them 'un-lifelike', they appear just as they are - models with some animation and a small amount of AI. Now we have seen the general fun and at times havoc that harniquests wandering could make and this feeds into several differant idea's. This might get longwinded, so bear with me.
People complain about empty landscapes, RP being slow, grinding, NPC's etc.
So, My proposal is this to fill up those empty landscapes in between major cities, and at the same time make them places that people would want to stay in aside from the diesire to hit a large rock with a pick axe and grab some ore...
As I understand it, Harniquests wandering route is determined by a set path or two. (I'm not sure if he even wanders anymore, but it's besides the point). As far as monsters in a large area go this would make things predictable, boring. It would make things interesting but only for a while before everyone knew where to find them. Thus you don't give them "path1" and "path 2". You give them nodes and algorithm. You place nodes around the landscape and the NPC follows it's own AI and chooses a point to walk to, once it reaches the point it chooses another and so forth. Aha - we have a hunt! A hunt in this game generates RP, you might have cuase for some group hunting.
A tavern, an outpost etc dotted along the map. Outposts would probably be off the path, out into the wilderness. A travel stop tavern would be on the track, and you can sit down in there, meet some weary travellers etc, grab a drink what have you. A little more RP is created. It may not be the most exciting RP, but it's something, no? The outpost's have some decent to highly trained guards, military trained fighters, they know what they are doing. The Tavern probably hires out maybe one hgly trained guard or a couple fo peopel looking for some coin and know how to swing a club and brain somthing hostile. Not trained, but can get the job done. The tavern guards stand outside the door looking mean and they don't move. They're good little guys. The outpost guards for the most part don't move, they might wander a bit, patrols and all that, but nothing extreme it's a tight radius (and for them you could use a set path like Harniquests).
The NPC's (all of them) have faction tags. Here is where it could get quite deep and I might come back to this and jazz it up, but as this is an unrefined idea I'll keep it simple, seeing as the indepth idea's are not focused yet. The enemies are spawned with a "monster" tag or somthing along those lines, the guards are spawned with some other faction that's player freindly until proven otherwise. If any of the roaming monsters come to close they will first yell something and alert anyone within range that there is danger and then charge off to have a fight with this monster, no one knows if the guards will in or lose, so you'd best help them! Suddenly the players from the tavern have an excuse to go outside and help these poor guys fending off an angry Tefusang or two. Or if they are so inclined to help the monster. The monsters will try and kill any players or player friendly NPC they find. The Guards will attempt to kill any monsters that come within range or their tavern or outposts.
So the guards and monster look for the player friendly tag (or whatever the label is) and are hostile to it.
Sometimes the outposts might send out a further patrol or scouting party, to check out the landscape, see how things are going elsewhere and send out some free roaming guards. Also a road patrol, a few guards with a set path walks from one point of the road to another and keep it clear of danger as well as showing new players the way from point A to point B.
This could becomes confusing if one of the free roaming guards crosses paths, or comes near the path patrolling guards.
Suddenly the NPC's are a lot more lifelike and you can actually have an RP experience while you grind your way through those ever increasing weapon stat numbers. Things become more immersive.
This requires:
A couple of new models at the most (one outpost model and one Tavern model, although it might be feasible to use the Hydlaa tavern model, depending on how you look at it.)
Some editing of the AI (coding faction/tag recognition/reaction and Node/path following)
Some editing of the maps (placing nodes, paths and spawn points and some models. )
The undeveloped idea's that I'll put at the end for further development and discusssionNPC monsters - are they friendly towards things other than their own kind? Eg: is a tefusang likely to be pals with an Ulber, or will they in turn kill one another, this leading to tags along the lines of "ulbernuaght" and "tefusang" and "bandit" and not just "monster".
Grouping - Survival is surely easier in numbers so will NPC's team up? If one roaming guard finds another roaming guard, will they decide on a leader and then one follows the Algorithm and picks it node path around the map and the other follows? Same thing with monsters.
if you took the time to read through this thank you.
