Importance of NPC in range of sandbox dynamic game...
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I perfectly know what Fractured Online is sandbox game...and also "dynamic" mmorpg. It's look quite strange,what all actions and changes in world of FO was made by players only. For many hours spend in game,i find "world" pretty empty and boring: quite empty street, empty roads, mobs stood in places, awaiting death( of course players periodically running around). Also i watched many reviews of FO, where also often heard word "empty", "dead" etc. And for dynamic mmorpg it's looks like "game in one gate", where palyer receive dif. opportunities and at the same time it happens in static world.
Of course it's my opinion, but it would be really nice to see much more NPC/their action/activities for creating atmosphere of fantasy,"living" world. Cuz NPC are not just models on your screen with couple options in dialog window, It's could be traveling merchants, mercenaries, trainers-masters of dif. dicsciplines, members of dif. guilds, cults, secret organizations, just beggars on streets, bards and drankards in taverns, patrolling guards etc.
And it's not only just about friendly/neutral NPCs...
Of course certain type of NPC and NPC organizations(ex.clerical/guild of assasins, ancient matrial artists orden etc)could be important part of Knowledge system.
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I could see some NPCs in towns randomly going around, and performing some (fake) activities, just to lesser the "ghost town" feeling of cities when players are not around.
I would like to avoid though having NPCs with actual active roles.
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One of the goals of FO is for things to be done/made available via Players, not NPCs, so things like NPC merchants, and of course, any kind of Quest giver shouldn't be added.
Some window-dressing NPCs wouldn't be a bad thing, and of course there are the NPCs that were part of some of the Kickstarter plans that would fit in. Mayhaps a Town Cryer that the Gov/VG can set to give messages of import to the town/guild could be a thing.
The 'empty' feel of Fractured is mainly because population numbers are currently very low. That's in part because we're amping up to a wipe, and partly because it being a Testing phase (currently closed Beta) people did what they came to test, then moved on until new stuff was dropped into the game, perfectly natural. Sure, some of us die-hards stayed, and that's good for the game too, but your going to see that population ebb and flow during testing phases. Hopefully, after launch, you still see an ebb and flow, but with a greater concentration of players during peak times.
I am, in other ways, not really in favor of too many NPCs outside of mobs within the FO framework. It's one of the features that attracted me to FO
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@spoletta with more people on server I think towns won't be so empty
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@Jacenson post the 15th, I think we will see a large influx of players. There will town builds everywhere and plenty of open world pvp on Syndesia. Hopefully it will be enough to convince people to stay around for a while. We shall certainly see...
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Well.., this topic is not about population problem it's more about atmosphere of living, dynamic, fantasy world(since FO position itself as "truly dynamic"). It's just doesn't feel so for me, cuz all environment(at least "living" part) looks static/passive.
Since it's dynamic game, there is also should be a dynamic world with own internal processes.
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@Junkie said in Importance of NPC in range of sandbox dynamic game...:
@Jacenson post the 15th, I think we will see a large influx of players. There will town builds everywhere and plenty of open world pvp on Syndesia. Hopefully it will be enough to convince people to stay around for a while. We shall certainly see...
Yep, surely this will look totally different than this alpha start.
Hopefully without trees falling under grass
