Player Characters as NPCs when not logged in

Talin

I'm sure someone has thought of this before now, as I'm not the most inventive person in the world, but I'm interested in hearing the community's thoughts on the idea below:

Instead of having NPCs in the world, perist player characters as NPCs when they are logged out.

One might ask, what the heck does this accomplish? Imagine a player who really wants to craft, and gain renown as a crafter? allow them to buy a shop, and when they log out in that space they can set their character in "merchant mode".

Take this a step further....

Characters who log out in the wilderness somewhere persist as attackable NPCs, using all of the same equipment and skills they have available. Yes, you would need to build a customizable AI engine, but this is really no different than a standard NPC AI, except you have options for how to fight. If you implement faction-based PvP, you could make the same NPCs attackable when they are in an opposing fashion.

I look at a game like Darkfall, which I haven't tried but may someday, and wonder how barren the game is on off-hours. When you build up a game completely around players playing, what happens when they aren't? You have a much diminished world.

I think a concept such as this persists best in a "sandbox" world (I agree that the term is thrown around too losely, but it best describes my thought here).

Yes, you need rules around this (do I allow all of the 8 character slots to persist, or only the last one to logout, etc etc etc), and certainly a ton of planning (do I allow someone to set themselves as "agreesive" when they logout in town? In a "newbie" area? etc), but I'm not familiar with any game that has implemented this before. The closest I can think of offhand is the bazaar in EQ1 (as basic as it was), where your character would stand here as a "merchant terminal" while offline.

Has this been done? I'd be curious to see some examples. If not, I'm curious what people think of the idea.

Torik

I would imagine most players would just prefer to have a vendor NPC that sells their wares whether they are online or not (eg SWG).  It would be simpler to code and would mean that the player could log out in the middle of wilderness and still continue to sell stuff.

As far as players characters acting as mobs, I really do not see the reason for it.  It would just be a more customized mob.  If there are is a downside to being killed while in mob mode then players will hate it. 

Mrbloodworth

This has been done before. It didn't work out.

Orthelian

Where was this done before?

I recall it being a part of Atriarch's design, but that was never released.

Sandric

It has interesting concept, but implementation would be rather difficult.  Also, depending on the size of the client base, might be straining on the servers.  I would personally  pefer something similar to what SWG did.