Can NPCs die permanently?

Is it possible that NPCs can die permanently during the course of the story?
Or what about if a town gets attacked by the evil forces? Does everyone survive or will some NPCs die - and stay dead?

 

Offline - would be a great feature
Online - I can see some difficulties here

 

Sacrificies are always a device in good stories in order to bring in some drama and excitement. Even in the old Ultimas, NPCs could die. Alagner in Ultima VII for example or more prominently Dupre in Serpent Isle.
Or what about a sense of danger and risk? If no one in the world can die then why try to save them in the first place? Nothing will happen to them if you don't try to help...

It would be very sad if such elements would not make into the game because of multiplayer/online.

 

It all depends on what they can do with their technology. I've played games where if you have finished a quest and someone else hasn't, particular areas or locations may look different to both players and they will be in separate instances. I don't think I have seen anything like that yet in this game, but that could be one way to handle this.

 

I like this idea. If this is too hard to implement in multiplayer it could be a part of the single player offline experience at least.

 

Yes. We will use instancing techniques to make this happen in multiplayer environments (there is one storyline NPC in the game currently who should optionally be dead as the result of player actions yet is not currently.)

 

Thanks. This is very exciting

 

I hope it's Edvard.

 

But... But... CEO! I killed you!!!

 

I killed many NPCs permanently in UO. Back in 1997 I killed an NPC just for their jet black apron and jet black shoes. Shortly after black dye tubs came out, and by came out I mean were introduced to the game via a hack via one of the first UO emulators called 'fuse'. I think UOX was probably the first UO emulator but 'fuse' was the result of the illegal black dye tubs. Then they released them officially as the 2nd xmas gift option. But killing NPCs..... they always replaced them in a few minutes with a replacement with a different name. And in modern UO they pretty much made every NPC of any importance invulnerable but from what I see in SOTA every single non-aggressive NPC is invulnerable. I'm hoping there is a time when we can kill an NPC and their corpse will have what they are actually wearing, their clothing pieces etc, like UO, but maybe that's hoping for too much.

 

I guess instancing means for the individual player, in the multiplayer setting.

Else I was wondering about the converse question, just for grins: Can dead NPCs in a scene be resurrected? If 'evil' players can murder NPCs, can 'good' players do the opposite to contribute the opposite effect?

 

We are not going to allow players to affect the story/plot of other players for hopefully very obvious reasons.

 

I'm assuming that it'll work in similar ways to the original GuildWars.

Fail to save a few people and they'll never be there again. Save them and they'll stick around but if you ever come in the zone grouped with someone who had them killed, they simply won't be around (emulating that they're elsewhere at this given moment).

 

It can work in an online game. You use instancing or plot flags for what different players see.

 

I'd like to see a hybrid PvE/PvP bounty system that utilizes this concept where writs could be issued from NPC Thieves guild, Assassin's guild or other factions. It could even create a conflict where groups of players have to defend a particularly famous NPC from being killed, while another group tries to complete the writ. This could create political intrigue in the game where certain NPC factions vie for control over towns and what not. Not sure if the game will be that dynamic...