Partially Used: Pesky plauges of NPCs!

Hello, again, Amethyst and all!

I have been on Aenea for a bit now, and I really, really, really enjoy it. My concern in this post is a situation which has - now, see, 'bothered' has too much of a negative connotation, for my tastes, for me to apply to this situation. I guess I'll just tell you what my issue is.

I see it when I enter any number of the small towns and villages throughout Aenea - I round a corner and POW! a small mob suddenly spawns nearby! The first time I witnessed this NPC behavior, I thought that a horde of zombie-citizens was approaching me for supper!

Amethyst, is this mass NPC distribution system just a placeholder until you have some time to implement more appropriate behaviors? If so, I understand, but I must offer that, for me, having the NPCs mob-spawn in like they do now detracts from the sense of immersiveness that I get from playing in Aenea, and it makes many of the towns seem empty and devoid of life.

In any case, I have two suggestions for this issue.

The first idea - have you seen the Ultima NPC Scheduled Activities package, or something similar to it? This could provide you with a solid framework to build NPC behaviors on, particularly if you're strapped for time as far as creating lots of custom scripting. (I know I'll be investigating these routine packages when I begin building my new module.)

The second idea - (and it could very easily dovetail into the first idea) - more player involvement. I know you're a busy guy, and maybe NPC creation is too time-consumptive and low on your list of priorities. So I offer that you call upon us, Aenea's players, as an untapped creative pool. You could draw up some NPC guidelines much the same way that you did for the housing or the PC on the website. Certain areas could have different NPC requirements (an NPC from Primustown would look/behave differently than an NPC from Macedone) and counts ("10 NPCs needed in Starfall!"). We would submit them according to teh criteria, and you, Amethyst, could then place them where you needed!

In this way you encourage user participation/feedback, and also don't have to worry about spending all of our time making up NPCs. Let us fold@home for you!

Anyways, that's my 2 cents worth!

Im totally willing to help out in any way I am able.

Of course, I think I know the best solution to this.

We just need to clone Amethyst about 4 or 5 times.

He is a one man coding machine, but we need like 4 or 5 of him!

daveyeisley wrote:We just need to clone Amethyst about 4 or 5 times.

Hehe. Funny.

Eric, I'll take a look at your suggestions. Yes, the current spawning is supposed to be a temporary thing just to get some people in the towns so they're not completely abandoned and so evil PCs have someone to abuse.

Player contributions might be a good idea. I'll think about it.

I could just email the puttering script.

It makes NPCs putter, aka, fiddle with placeables, say one-liners to eachother, perform emotes, etc. Quite useful, if you exclude that its not as good as the Ultima script mentioned above.

Working on revamping NPCs in towns now.

First up, brand new commoner spawning script:
- all regular races (with differing percentages varying based on the location)
- randomized appearances (gender, heads, skin/hair colors, body size, clothing, names, alignment, patron deity)
- smarter accessories (lights at night, winter gear during winter, hoods when raining, small weapons for defending themselves)
- randomized spawn locations

Second, new commoner ai scripts (so they don't just wander in mobs)

Oooooh, very nice! I look forward to seeing how this turns out!

This could be a wonderful thing!

daveyeisley wrote:This could be a wonderful thing!

But what of our poor protagonist described here? Does this mean that he'll need to find a new job?

evilkittenofdoom wrote:

daveyeisley wrote:This could be a wonderful thing!

But what of our poor protagonist described here? Does this mean that he'll need to find a new job?

I thought being a bandit was his "new job". hehe

For the initial change, the new spawn script for commoners will stop using a standard encounter, instead using custom scripting. They should end up more spread out, rather that just standing in the way. They also won't be "walking with purpose" (the old encounter commoners had waypoints they walked between).

I'll be modifying the commoners' behavior soon, but I wanted to put in the spawning changes first and test them out. I've put them in a few towns so far to test out the changes. We'll see if it works or if I just end up with a bunch of TMI errors, since the spawn script is only about 700 lines of code.

Now I'm just waiting for a server reset to check in-game to see if hours of work actually function as intended.

The Amethyst Dragon wrote:

evilkittenofdoom wrote:

daveyeisley wrote:This could be a wonderful thing!

But what of our poor protagonist described here? Does this mean that he'll need to find a new job?

I thought being a bandit was his "new job". hehe

No, no, his becoming an obnoxious NPC WAS his new job.

He got promoted. He's the new evil kitteh. The old one got... well, old.

Is that to say that I'm getting boring now that I've been around a while?

evilkittenofdoom wrote:Is that to say that I'm getting boring now that I've been around a while?

Yes that is what they are trying to say!!! lol

Love the changes made already! Rayven got recognized in Macedone tonite, swelled his head a bit it did, seems as though he's a bit of a celebrity round there.