NPC Employees / Slaves

Wouldn't it be AMAZING if you could hire NPCs to accomplish certain tasks for you?

Imagine being able to hire an NPC to go into the world and harvest resources?
Give him/her some armour, food and tool, Assign a resource to gather, Send it off into the world and hope it doesn't die and comes back to your home with some resources.

Or Maybe refine resources for you in your home? Restock your vendor for you?
Help in the garden? Cook for you?

Seems to me it could be fairly simple to accomplish / Script.

Assign a resource stash in your house. Assign a Tool Stash, Assign a workstation..
And just have them go from point A, to B, to C, performing the necessary functions..

Would be an interesting way to get your goods refined for you.

Maybe you could even hire some to actually make finnished goods..
They could get exp as well and get better at their craft with time.
I would think however, that their skill gain should be MUCH slower than that of a real player.
Thus keeping the better quality items crafted by real players.

I think this would make being a shop owner a lot more dynamic and would add a lot of life to the environment.

You could even hire out your skilled NPCs to others for contracts...

It would also add an intersting target in the world to kill for loot or steal from for real players.

 

I would be open to ideas on NPC crafter / gathering. Neverwinter does this, but I don't expect SotA to work like this at all. I'd like to see some Farmville style help your neighbor as well.

But it's something they'd need to spend a long time thinking through because there's so many ways to make it bad. Better to skip if they can't balence it.

 

I'd be happy if it was just a brainless mule to smelt my ore..
Save the player the monotony...

 

So if you have this NPC slave working for you I can murder it for the loot and steal from it!? Hehehe i like that idea. But.... if people like me are all out bashing your slave or stealing from him how you ever going to collect resources?

 

I dont know any cultures where murdering your slave was legal. They have always had rights to live a healthy life(thought health was relative depending on the master). It was their freedom that was restricted.

Also... Does slavery match the "time period", or the Avatar world? Time period seems to be a kind of advanced midevil age. Im not sure slavery does... Indentured servants seems to be a better match.

Lords letting people live on their land in exchange for working it. I think that would make more sense. Then you would need to provide a home on your land for the pesant.

 

Yea I like the idea of tribes we can steal and loot from, including taking their people to work for us.
Of course I think those tribes should come back and fight for what is theirs even if that means attacking a town that has one of their people working as a slave.
Of course you could also trade with them and get those people to like you and maybe eventually work for you.

 

There was talk of hirelings during the KS campaign, but nothing else has been mentioned of it since then. Whether or not they allow these hirelings as killable either by other NPCs, MOBs, other players in PvP -- or even by you -- remains to be seen.

 

To me, it only makes sense that, if there were NPCs that went out into the wild to gather & collect resources for you, they should at least, or most definitely be killeable. I think there should be a risk factor and that the resources shouldn't be guaranteed.

The issue of being killed by other players would only apply if the NPC hirelings were active in the multiplayer / pvp world and not if they operated solely in the single player world.

I guess that would be a risk you take for saving yourself the time of gathering yourself.

 

Very good point. Perhaps hirelings will be limited to offline mode, yet can be killed by other NPCs or MOBs. They've said that The Companions will also likely be limited to offline only as well.

 

Yes to multiple slaves collecting my reagents.

 

No actually, not really. The reason I play a game is so that I can play the game. Not have some sort of computer program play it for me.

 

Instead of paying gold to an NPC to gather for you, why don't you pay gold to a player who enjoys it to gather for you....? You may hate it, but there is rarely a shortage of people who do enjoy it.

 

BY THE VIRTUES! PROTECT US!

I doubt, and truly hope, that Portalarium doesn't allow anything on the subject of slaves or indenture servants! There are things from human history that need not be emulated in a recreational game environment and slavery is one of them.
Besides, it wouldn't take five minutes before warped minds would be trafficking and forcing their slaves into prostitution or locking them up in their basements á la Fritzl!
Remember that kids will be playing this game! I just don't see slavery or anything of the ilk being allowed.

Hiring NPCs for running an errand might happen to some degree, but I agree with NirAntae that tasks should be negotiated with other players to perform. I also agree with the Captain that we play the game to play the game.

 

So it is better to kill them then to put them into slavery?

 

Oh yes!
KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!!! BAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Slaughters men, women and children*
*Throttles the cat*
*Kicks the dog*
*Tears pages out of books*
*Hacks the roses to pieces*
*Pulls up the carrots and turnips*
*Spills out the milk*
Muhahahahaha!

This is a family game after all, one needs to respect values and keep things in perspective!

 

Agreed. This "warped mind" is now envisioning players taking full advantage of this. Slaves as meat-shields in battle. Hirelings given the command to jump in a volcano. Servants packed into someone's house and surrounding their vendors just to grief them. Once I get to "target practice" for crossbow users...I have to stop shaking my head because it's beginning to hurt.

There would be just be too many ways to exploit this. Offline, you can control it. Online...just chaos.

 

Talk about dumbing down a game.
Even the early games were about killing one another (almost all of them), people hacked up (chiller), slaughtering native people (seven cities of gold), dieing many gruesome ways (oregon trail).
Might as well plan on sitting on the beach and fishing.
I thought this had a lot to do with good and evil.
How will anyone ever be evil if you remove evil from the game.
Yes there should be penalties but one can't become good if there is no evil.

 

Npc hirees, would not stop you from playing the game if they are a part of the game.
If anything, I think it would make the game more dynamic.
Many players will play the game in different ways.

Exchange between players SHOULD be the main way to get resources, or going to get them yourself.
But where is the harm in having an npc hireling gather a few resources at a cost and risk.

 

Perhaps they wont be literally "slaves" just workers y'know??

 

The big big big question is....... Should we be able to defend this NPC from another player who decides to attack it!? =O