World that lives on its own

A few days ago I watched a video about space games, which reminded me of Space Rangers 2, which in turn reminded me of its world that didn't need the player to "finish itself". The game had a feature where you could skip an in-game day, and if you sat on the very first planet and skipped years-worth of days - the game could've completed itself, because npcs (on both sides) worked towards winning the game on their own. And the difficulty you set would determine whether the good guys won or the bad guys.

So I thought, what if Ashes had smth similar? We know that we will be able to hire merc npcs, which will supposedly help us defend ourselves. And we know that there'll be progressive events generated by different player actions (or potentially just randomly).

So what would you say if there was some time limit for "player response" and if that limit runs out the NPCs take over and the event resolves itself, which then triggers the next stage of its progress? The "good" npcs would auto-spawn in this situation, so no player activity would be required. Players could still join the process if they're late, but, in theory, the game could "play itself" even w/o players.

I'd love this mainly because this feature in SR2 made the world feel the most alive I've ever experienced (especially for a single player game). And imo this would also help the game to still feel alive even if the server had a somewhat low population, and it would be a tool for devs to use in those situations as well.

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Ace1234

I love the thought of npcs acting autonomously and having their own motivations, goals, and behaviors in and designing those things to play out in an emergent way.

Raven016

NiKr wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Don't we already have a bit of this (we don't know how much) built in? IIRC, there are events that spawn corruption which could flood a node if the players don't successfully defend the node.

In theory, yes, but it's a one-sided progress of things. I'd like if there was the possibility of movement towards the other side as well.

Guild Wars 2 has also areas where the evil side pushes an wins because the story is about players helping the good side.
AoC hints you can follow the Others, you will not really help them by becoming corrupt. Some first wave of settlers joined the other side but we will be the 2nd wave.
To go completely to the dark side we should have factions and corruption mechanic protecting only against own faction. Or multi factions, like race wars or religion wars and alliances. Without players nodes stay level 1 I guess. Nobody farms, no NPC mayors to make trade caravans and node wars...

Should we have NPCs as mayors and some force randomly pushing nodes to level up to let say level 3? And that to be the default state?
If the AI force would push more, it would give an unfair advantage or it could be an advantage players should fight to gain. Like attracting a clan of dwarfs to your own mines...

The event from the stream suggested a caravan being attacked. Players could join any side. My feedbak in the pinned thread was that I want the caravan to really move and become attacked rather than to spawn in destroyed state.

Enigmatic Sage

Ace1234 wrote: »

I love the thought of npcs acting autonomously and having their own motivations, goals, and behaviors in and designing those things to play out in an emergent way.

having npc's live and act out their functions adds to the world liveliness. If an NPC is carry something, show them carrying it and placing it. If they're working on something on the forge, show them making and assembling it.

Raven016

There should be also a complex political evolution at NPC level based on NPC clans having a territory, religion, economy... each NPC could get rich or poor, be able to change clan or religion. Imagine a dwarf blacksmith willing to relocate to a human settlement to retain his job but reluctantly changing religion. We should see his children growing up as we level 2-3 alts.

So we could have 1000 NPCs (beside the filler regular NPCs) which would create their own history, specific to each server.

Enigmatic Sage

@Raven016
One thing I would really like to see with religions is a gesture/action for tribute to become attuned upon religion or adjusting of augments.

IE:
- go into a temple, kneel/pray, divine effects occur with npc's worshiping as well.
- raise weapon for school augment for frost, fire etc.
- kneel in front of religion relic while changing stats

something to show your actions committed to the change of character but doesn't force players to sit there action locked.

Raven016

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

@Raven016
One thing I would really like to see with religions is a gesture/action for tribute to become attuned upon religion or adjusting of augments.

IE:
- go into a temple, kneel/pray, divine effects occur with npc's worshiping as well.
- raise weapon for school augment for frost, fire etc.
- kneel in front of religion relic while changing stats

something to show your actions committed to the change of character but doesn't force players to sit there action locked.

Religion specific gestures and habits?
Careful not to mix them up. The Gods will not be amused

unless your quest is make them angry...
You could maybe learn secret religious customs from NPCs too, in ways which not half of server could do. Not everything must be about BIS and legendary items.

Enigmatic Sage

Raven016 wrote: »

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

@Raven016
One thing I would really like to see with religions is a gesture/action for tribute to become attuned upon religion or adjusting of augments.

IE:
- go into a temple, kneel/pray, divine effects occur with npc's worshiping as well.
- raise weapon for school augment for frost, fire etc.
- kneel in front of religion relic while changing stats

something to show your actions committed to the change of character but doesn't force players to sit there action locked.

Religion specific gestures and habits?
Careful not to mix them up. The Gods will not be amused unless your quest is make them angry...
You could maybe learn secret religious customs from NPCs too, in ways which not half of server could do. Not everything must be about BIS and legendary items.

true, maybe giving the wrong gesture could cause some funny interaction lol

I was just going off things like templar knights kneeling with their swords and praying as gestures. Even thinking back into games like dark souls, there was hidden things in the games gestures to access factions but no need to go that deep into it.

Percimes

In my mind, the NPCs' goal should always be to bring back the world to what it was when the server launched. As if the players had broken an equilibrium. They want their territories back, that's what is triggering their attacks/sieges of node cities. That's why so many are hostile towards players.

It's a 'lorification' of an auto-reset mechanism. Natures reclaiming what was hers.

Raven016

Percimes wrote: »

In my mind, the NPCs' goal should always be to bring back the world to what it was when the server launched. As if the players had broken an equilibrium. They want their territories back, that's what is triggering their attacks/sieges of node cities. That's why so many are hostile towards players.

It's a 'lorification' of an auto-reset mechanism. Natures reclaiming what was hers.

That would be the case if we assume only human players come to Verra. But can be NPCs too.
IS can create the history of NPCs too.

Dygz

Looks like the Highwaymen Hills Bandits are from Sanctus.
All the people who were on Verra before the Portals re-opened should be bestial hybrids.

Player characters are also hostile towards player characters, so... hostility is not primarily about trying to bring the world back to waht it was prior to the Portals re-opening.
Verra is just repelete with conflict.

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