NPCs in an MMO; interest check and brainstorm.

Quite interested. Considering making a shopkeeper in the Prohibition era world who has his store robbed by gangsters as an early quest for the P Cs. Once he becomes sentient, he decides to kill all the gangsters himself and create a store empire!

Well, I think that's enough generated interest that I'll work on getting a signup thread done. Don't know if I'll have that up tonight though. Additionally, the RP itself definitely won't start until at least next week; I've got some technical computer stuff to do, hopefully sometime this weekend, (Literally replacing everything about my computer except the hard drive and disk drive.) and I don't want to get the RP started until after I'm done with that.

@Theodore: That reminds me...

The MMO NPCs do have default roles that they're normally in, but are not locked to those roles. (The default roles are enemy, shopkeeper, and recruitable ally, for the record.) Since the MMO uses procedurally generated quests, sometimes it tags the NPCs with a different role for the quest. These include some additional roles besides the defaults, such as quest giver, lost/captured, (for rescue missions) or incognito. (For missions where they have to track down a specific NPC that won't have a quest marker, for whatever reason. Sometimes to interact with, sometimes to kill.)

The reason it's a procedural system instead of being set in stone is because of how NPCs can level up like players. It would be rather inconvenient and frustrating for players if a tutorial-style quest where you're supposed to fight a level 3 miniboss had that level 3 enemy manage to get up to level 30 somehow, but still have the quest be the same.

Part of you guys becoming sentient is realizing that you don't have to follow what these tags tell you to do; but that won't stop the system from tagging you anyway. (After all, the developers don't seem to know that you're turning sentient, so everything is still working under the assumption that you're merely AI programs.) And most of the MMO's player won't know any better...

So in a case like Theodore's example, where his Old Town shopkeeper NPC (Presumably having a few levels in something like "Slick Talker" by default.) manages to get up to a really high level by whatever means, the system would probably end up tagging him as an enemy or incognito with a quest explanation that he's actually a mob boss.

edited 22nd Jan '15 10:17:13 PM by FirockFinion

Do all NP Cs become sentient or is it just non-monsters/enemies?

All types of NPCs are becoming sentient, but not all of the NPCs. So you guys can pick any kind of NPC you want.

I'll even let you guys decide what their default level at respawn is, within reason.

My character idea is a priest from the Fantasy Part who realizes that his deity has only ever been a simulation and suffers from a crisis of faith.

My character idea is that a robot Mook from the Final Frontier finds out about the Fantasy Lands and decides that there's nothing he wants more than to be a wizard.

I'm thinking of some kind of miniboss from the Conquest Lands who gets tired of being defeated over and over again, so he runs away.

I'm thinking of a Distressed Damsel who gets tired of constantly being kidnapped in various settings and decides to learn to fend for herself.

Speaking of levels, what's the level cap?

And I'm thinking of a pharmacist/alchemist/shopkeeper who realizes that having static prices is stupid, and begins to do a bunch of stuff he's never done before to earn profits (going into dungeons for raw materials so that he craft more items to sell, going into the field to sell high-priced potions to low-health players, etc.).

This is quite the novel concept. I'm interested, but would like to see an example of what you'd like for a character sheet.

This reminds me of Mog World, in which an overly-advanced MMO has AI too advanced for itself and NP Cs start doing their own things, but with more focus on zombies.

Speaking of which, what about an enemy Warlock or some-such turned quest-giver so that he can 'hire' players to kill a rival?

edited 23rd Jan '15 2:48:29 PM by TruthHurts22

Interest, but would like to see more info.

@Stanman: I haven't settled on that yet actually. I've narrowed it down to either being 100, or being effectively limitless but 100 having a big difficulty spike. I have decided that if I go with the limitless option, the highest any player will have gotten so far will be like, 270-275.

@Truth: Such a character could certainly try to become a quest giver, but he'd have to ad-lib it unless the procedural system decides to actually tag him as one.

Something like this:

• Name: Duh.

• Default zone: Which zone they spawn in.

• Appearance: Picture and/or description.

• Spark: What specifically in their former life before their latest respawn finally pushed them over from emulating sentience to actually being sentient. (I'll elaborate more on this later, but I don't have time right now as I have to leave for work after making this post.)

• Default type: Enemy, shopkeeper, or ally.
  • Intended role: What they're usually supposed to do, except when the procedural system decides otherwise.
  • New personality: How they behave now that they're truly sentient.

• Default class(es) and level(s): What class they spawn with and what level. (They can spawn with more than one, but all their default classes have to be from their default zone.)
  • Default skills List with additional bullet points as needed.

• Stat listing:
  • Listed stats: There will be a full list once I've figured out what all the stats will be.

• Default items: Stuff that actually counts as items within the MMO. If they look like they're holding something, but that doesn't actually appear in their inventory, it doesn't count.

• Drops: Stuff besides their items (which rarely drop) that they can drop upon death.

You may notice there's no gender or age. Because technically speaking, you guys won't actually have genders. Also you'll all technically only be a few years old, at most. (In the RP, the MMO will only have been out for about 6-7 years.)

I will be back later, after work.

edited 23rd Jan '15 3:47:36 PM by FirockFinion

So like, are we meant to fill this out, or is it more like an outline for when the true sign-ups happen?

Also some question(s) on the whole Multi-world thing going on. Would all the NP Cs be aware of the fact there are different places in different times, or would they only know of their specific world they were made for, pre-Sentience?

Outline; after all, it doesn't even have all the necessary info yet. When I'm done with it, the signups will be their own thread. Which you can probably expect later tonight, unless I get real bad writer's block.

They'd only know of them directly if any players had taken them there or caused them to go there, but they already know the other settings exist. They would have encountered plenty of players with classes and items from the other areas.

Pre-sentience, it never really mattered to them much. But now...

The NPCs of the MMO do learn, which is part of the great appeal and popularity of the game, but they do not normally learn on the fly. Instead, all their experiences of a life are bundled and analyzed upon their death; it is then compared against the summarized analysis of all their previous lives, allowing them to learn by comparing how different circumstances come to different outcomes.

This knowledge is then passed on to their next life when they respawn, but the experiences of their previous life are normally not. For example, let's say an ally NPC becomes "friends" with a shopkeeper NPC who sells weapons; later, the ally NPC dies. After respawn, the ally NPC would know the name of the shopkeeper, and know that they sell weapons, but would not remember being their friend or the time they spent together.

Though both of these change as you guys gain sentience. The Spark as it'll so be called (Possible placeholder name if I think of something better.) is something that happened in your character's previous life that, after being analyzed by the algorithm described above, somehow pushed the AI past simply emulating sentience to actually becoming sentient. After that, you can learn on the fly without having to die, and death and respawning doesn't necessarily make you forget all your previous experiences. AKA, I will let you guys do with that as you want for roleplay purposes.

As for the Spark itself, it could be virtually anything. Something a player said to you, something you saw happen, something that happened to you, whatever.

edited 23rd Jan '15 10:25:25 PM by FirockFinion

Alright guys, signup thread is up! Go ahead and take discussions and any further questions there, and start posting characters.

Once again, though I will get to accepting or denying characters as I can, the RP will definitely not be starting for at least a few more days, possibly more. I will try to keep you guys updated.

Don't want to waste space on the official sign up thread.

Are you going to toss up a discussion thread? I have a couple questions about your setting before I make a character.

Ask and ye shall recieve, though I am going to work momentarily so I won't be available to answer questions for a while.