Customized NPC Creation

Greetings Everyone!

I wasn't entirely sure where to post this..... but I have an idea that I would like to discuss.

Customized NPCs for personal OR borrowed uses.

Why do I believe this is something that could be accomplished and reasonable for Ashes of Creation?
This would allow players who usually play solo, or duo enable themselves to do something a little bit more difficult then they would usually be able to do. Using the character creation system, you would create the NPC and choose it's class and race. It'll start at level 1 just as a player would and you would have to train and play alongside this NPC for it to grow. It'll have it's own AI and respond to commands all while having it's own "interface" option. Allowing you to fully customize it's skill tree and abilities as you see fit. All while staying alongside the parameters of it's class. Just as a player would.

How would you obtain this NPC?
I believe you could only have a SET number of customized NPCs PER ACCOUNT ( Maybe 3? ). So for instance, you could "unlock" your first space at 20. You could implement high level content to drop "blueprints" for other race drops. So you could potentially do a Fire Dragon Raid ( 40 man ) provide a chance to drop a "contract" for a Lizardman NPC. Once bound to the account, you can create your own unique Lizardmen NPC. However, due to the possibility of Racial Skills/Abilities I find this might not be something immediately done. Something to keep in the thought though.

Primary Reasons for Custom NPCs?
1. My dad and I often played Guild Wars many years ago. Often times it would just be him and I exploring the southern part of the map, the desert area where you had the Hall of Heroes, trying to get our exploration titles. With a true 6 man party we would have had to reset to find more members and greatly slow our progression. However since we could add NPCs to fill the void, we could take our time to do what we wanted and greatly enjoy it with minimal interruption.
2. It'll give players something else to work on that has a very clear goal. Level up my waifu/husbando so he/she can join me in slaying/farming this specific area. You need 1000 wood? Time to go chop trees. Need to farm 1000 berries? Time to farm berry bushes. Oh, the NPC can be tasked to help me gather? Amazing. Hasten it just a little bit. The NPC can only do something while you are online. Since it'll need tasks and commands ( not necessarily continuously and I'm sure macros will be created to help guide them ) to work off of.
3. It can help you run a shop. I once heard ( can't remember where so if this is wrong PLEASE correct me ) that a chef can cook food at a tavern ( which he can relocate ) and while staying near said tavern after eating, you get a secondary local buff. You can create a "restaurant" like feel by having the NPC cook and you take orders or vise versa.
4. The NPC can also assist in raids. Likely limit the amount of NPCS to a party of 5 so you don't have 20 people and 20 NPCS. However, the NPCs that are present and complete raid objectives can obtain loot. For instance, if you slay the Fire Dragon ( 40 man ) and were to receive a title, the NPC would also be granted the same title.
5. Giving you a sense of responsibility. Giving you an attachment. Allowing you to progress a second character in a way, without entirely having to start from scratch. Since you can level this NPC alongside your Main Character.

Cons of Custom NPCS?
1. Possibility of self power leveling.
2. Possibility of abusing the crafting system ( Custom NPCs should be allowed to Artisan a craft, at least not yet )
3. Too much solo play for such a socially wanted game
4. Wouldn't be able to take into Node Sieges, BUT they could be present at a Guild Hall or Freehold?
5. May not immediately exist upon launch, could be a few years before it comes to fruition.

If you read the entirety of this post, I thank you. It's my first post ( and hopefully I posted it where it should be ) and wish to further see what y'all have too say about this.

Thank you for reading everyone!

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Comments

daveywavey

I think this worked fine in Guild Wars where they had instanced world content, but I don't know that it would work in an open world.

Shinaso

3. Too much solo play for such a socially wanted game
^ This

Stretch

daveywavey wrote: »

I think this worked fine in Guild Wars where they had instanced world content, but I don't know that it would work in an open world.

My thoughts too. In GW it was needed since there was a lot of instances that you could enter and it might have been hard to find people looking for that particular instance.

I think you pretty much said the biggest issue with it in your cons:

Texaslizard wrote: »

3. Too much solo play for such a socially wanted game

I feel that players should be looking to group up with others when they can. Especially if its exploring.

My own little anecdote to this: In Gw2 I was exploring some jumping puzzles and ended up helping out someone else. From that we talked some more and ended up becoming best friends. We've met in RL (they're from Singapore and I am from Ireland) twice over the last 4 years. So you never know what will happen meeting up with people and I would hate NPC's to take away from that.

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