Now they even plan to sell NPCs? Are there no ends to this?

Slapshot1188

Caspian ☁08/02/2019
@Duke Athorias Paleblood֎ You are correct. There is a plan to have NPCs in the EP store for mayors to customize their settlement's population.

Guess they figure the game will be mostly empty and devoid of players so they may as well cash in and sell NPCs to the settlement owners to stock their towns.  The Mayors may not have actual players to boss around but they can at least buy more NPCs to rule over...

Man, this game just gets crazier and crazier...

Albatroes

Slapshot1188 said:

Caspian ☁08/02/2019
@Duke Athorias Paleblood֎ You are correct. There is a plan to have NPCs in the EP store for mayors to customize their settlement's population.

Guess they figure the game will be mostly empty and devoid of players so they may as well cash in and sell NPCs to the settlement owners to stock their towns.  The Mayors may not have actual players to boss around but they can at least buy more NPCs to rule over...

Man, this game just gets crazier and crazier...

Lord British was selling his own blood and even tried to make money through his game by using his dead mother, so I think Caspian has just a little ways to go for the battle of the crazies, but he's making a good effort. He should make everyone start off as stick figures in the game's character creation and then sell them body models.

Viper482

Arterius said:

Albatroes said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Caspian ☁08/02/2019
@Duke Athorias Paleblood֎ You are correct. There is a plan to have NPCs in the EP store for mayors to customize their settlement's population.

Guess they figure the game will be mostly empty and devoid of players so they may as well cash in and sell NPCs to the settlement owners to stock their towns.  The Mayors may not have actual players to boss around but they can at least buy more NPCs to rule over...

Man, this game just gets crazier and crazier...

Lord British was selling his own blood and even tried to make money through his game by using his dead mother, so I think Caspian has just a little ways to go for the battle of the crazies, but he's making a good effort. He should make everyone start off as stick figures in the game's character creation and then sell them body models.

Wait is that true? Did his really try selling his own blood to make money for the game?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/buy-lord-british-blood-on-ebay/

goboygo

There is no end to what someone will do to stay afloat.  You just have to hope it stops at criminal.  That's a decision every struggling business has to weight.

DafAtRandom

So...

Selling NPCs to fill settlements because they will all be ghost towns otherwise ?

So...one duke/king whatever with a bunch of NPCs ?

So...like a single player RPG, except with worse graphics ?

bcbully

I can kinda see that as a fun mechanic 

Nilden

I mean 10,000 Pay2King already made me do nothing but laugh at this "game"s monetization.

Let's be real nobody is surprised. They would literally sell anything to make money.

Slapshot1188

bcbully said:

I can kinda see that as a fun mechanic 

What part of buying NPCs would be fun as opposed to having actual players in those roles?  Which part of BUYING NPCs which should be basic part of the game is fun?

Kyleran

Slapshot1188 said:

bcbully said:

I can kinda see that as a fun mechanic 

What part of buying NPCs would be fun as opposed to having actual players in those roles?  Which part of BUYING NPCs which should be basic part of the game is fun?

Buying NPCs is weird I'll agree, but as I understand a core gameplay mechanic is for NPCs to react to the decisions by leadership of their town, county or kingdom, by perhaps moving elsewhere or refusing to help defend their region.

Seems a lot like a 4X, city sim, or civ  game blended into a MMO which could be fun.

It was noted that while players can buy NPCs nothing changes in terms of loyalty mechanics.  Those NPCs could very well move away if they don't "like" their situation.

Sounds complex though and I really question whether this team has the talent to pull it off, at least not based on any work they've shown to date.

Scot

I have heard of this in other old games, but there was no cash shop, you used resources to create the NPC's. We all know it is P2W and this just shows it is going to be a stick of candy with "P2W" written at its core.

TiamatRoar

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

bcbully said:

I can kinda see that as a fun mechanic 

What part of buying NPCs would be fun as opposed to having actual players in those roles?  Which part of BUYING NPCs which should be basic part of the game is fun?

Buying NPCs is weird I'll agree, but as I understand a core gameplay mechanic is for NPCs to react to the decisions by leadership of their town, county or kingdom, by perhaps moving elsewhere or refusing to help defend their region.

Seems a lot like a 4X, city sim, or civ  game blended into a MMO which could be fun.

It was noted that while players can buy NPCs nothing changes in terms of loyalty mechanics.  Those NPCs could very well move away if they don't "like" their situation.

Sounds complex though and I really question whether this team has the talent to pull it off, at least not based on any work they've shown to date.

NPCs should be recruited in-game, not brought in the cash shop.   Once again potential content is canibalized so that it can be monetized instead.

Mendel

On the other hand, SBS is finally addressing how they expect to fill four servers with 100,000 population.  So, that's some progress.  Horrid, ineffective decision making at its finest.  Wait until Lord MommysCard quits.  Will all the "citizens" he purchased go away, too?  This crew is quite adept at creating work for themselves, work that they will never come close to actually doing.

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

bcbully said:

I can kinda see that as a fun mechanic 

What part of buying NPCs would be fun as opposed to having actual players in those roles?  Which part of BUYING NPCs which should be basic part of the game is fun?

Buying NPCs is weird I'll agree, but as I understand a core gameplay mechanic is for NPCs to react to the decisions by leadership of their town, county or kingdom, by perhaps moving elsewhere or refusing to help defend their region.

Seems a lot like a 4X, city sim, or civ  game blended into a MMO which could be fun.

It was noted that while players can buy NPCs nothing changes in terms of loyalty mechanics.  Those NPCs could very well move away if they don't "like" their situation.

Sounds complex though and I really question whether this team has the talent to pull it off, at least not based on any work they've shown to date.

But again... how does BUYING NPCS become appealing?  If there were ways to customize your kingdom's inhabitants.. sure I can see some folks finding that interesting... but what is interesting about BUYING them?

GeezerGamer

I have an idea for loot boxes.
We can call it "Personal Needs"
It will be the new paywall reality immersion mechanic.
Keys to pay toilet stalls!
I can't wait to see what I get.

some-clueless-guy

This is just the natural evolution of their flawed idea. There was no way players would be willing to pay to be peons in game, after slaving away for 8 hours at work.

The next step is probably going to be multiple "servers" so that everyone can be the King. I'm sure they know how bad these things are received by the non-indoctrinated, but at this point they need to keep going or the ship will sink, so anything that draws money will do.

BrotherMaynard

...because why would you sell a game when you can sell all its components separately, right?

Here's a few ideas for CoE, I hope they will like them:

• Chop the game up to the tiniest parts you can manage. Sell each for the price of a full game. Especially to your larger whales, half of them function on the sunk cost fallacy anyway.
• Do an occasional code sale. Introduce a new feature and ask the community to pay for each line of code.
• Don't just sell NPCs - sell their body parts too! The dukes will pay extra not to have a population of blind, immobile NPCs with no hands.
• Better yet: don't sell the NPCs - rent them! Why have one-time payments when you can keep squeezing every drop of blood from your players?
• You need to have several separate rental / subscription levels. So that your dukes can't pay for everything with a single monthly payment. When they buy NPCs, make sure guards and crafting NPCs are not included.

NorseGod

BrotherMaynard said:

...because why would you sell a game when you can sell all its components separately, right?

Here's a few ideas for CoE, I hope they will like them:

• Chop the game up to the tiniest parts you can manage. Sell each for the price of a full game. Especially to your larger whales, half of them function on the sunk cost fallacy anyway.
• Do an occasional code sale. Introduce a new feature and ask the community to pay for each line of code.
• Don't just sell NPCs - sell their body parts too! The dukes will pay extra not to have a population of blind, immobile NPCs with no hands.
• Better yet: don't sell the NPCs - rent them! Why have one-time payments when you can keep squeezing every drop of blood from your players?
• You need to have several separate rental / subscription levels. So that your dukes can't pay for everything with a single monthly payment. When they buy NPCs, make sure guards and crafting NPCs are not included.

Why not? lol

TEKK3N

When they gonna start selling the spaceships JPG?

OrangeBoy

:')

Slapshot1188

TEKK3N said:

When they gonna start selling the spaceships JPG?

Who needs em... so far they have made close to $8M selling a JPG game...

goldboyy45

Caspian has totally lost his mind, recently in discord he spoke about bringing new ppl to the community, this is what he said, he literally thinks that the way to bring NEW people to this community is making the official website better/more accessible...forget actually showing pre-elyria or actual game content...no...it's making the website better...this is who you guys gave 7.5 million dollars to, the disconnect between Caspian and the gaming community is unreal.

Link to his post here:

https://ibb.co/jW1xTYC

Kyleran

goldboyy45 said:

Caspian has totally lost his mind, recently in discord he spoke about bringing new ppl to the community, this is what he said, he literally thinks that the way to bring NEW people to this community is making the official website better/more accessible...forget actually showing pre-elyria or actual game content...no...it's making the website better...this is who you guys gave 7.5 million dollars to, the disconnect between Caspian and the gaming community is unreal.

Link to his post here:

https://ibb.co/jW1xTYC

He expounded more on this in the forums recently and he does not believe showing pre-Elyria to new marks....err potential backers is a great idea, at least until the website is up dated to easily explain why the game looks like poo at present .

"my statement began as an explanation of why we didn't share footage of Prelyria for a long time. Which is pretty simple - It's not what Chronicles of Elyria is ultimately going to look like. It is, not surprising, our Pre-Alpha client and is thus more suited for a smaller audience - in particular our Alpha 1 backers who have expressed a desire in seeing the game at this stage of development."

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/34173/suggestion-concerning-prelyria-footage-in-context-of-new-customer-experience-for-soe

Slapshot1188

goldboyy45 said:

Caspian has totally lost his mind, recently in discord he spoke about bringing new ppl to the community, this is what he said, he literally thinks that the way to bring NEW people to this community is making the official website better/more accessible...forget actually showing pre-elyria or actual game content...no...it's making the website better...this is who you guys gave 7.5 million dollars to, the disconnect between Caspian and the gaming community is unreal.

Link to his post here:

https://ibb.co/jW1xTYC

One correction.  His connection to the core (a few thousand IMHO) believers is intense. He knows exactly how to manipulate them, dangle the carrot, and tease their hopes and dreams.  He just raised something like a million and a half from people who have seen how little he has produced but are doubling (tripling) down... and he did it by creating some really sad looking procedurally generated maps...

It apparently doesn’t take much.

The current discussion on the forum is NOT about the absurdity of selling NPC for the high rollers in the 3 month no-wipe Headstart, but whether the sales should continue after the plebs get in.

Simply amazing... from people who used to shout about the evils of a publisher that would turn the game P2W.

Nilden

Kyleran said:

goldboyy45 said:

Caspian has totally lost his mind, recently in discord he spoke about bringing new ppl to the community, this is what he said, he literally thinks that the way to bring NEW people to this community is making the official website better/more accessible...forget actually showing pre-elyria or actual game content...no...it's making the website better...this is who you guys gave 7.5 million dollars to, the disconnect between Caspian and the gaming community is unreal.

Link to his post here:

https://ibb.co/jW1xTYC

He expounded more on this in the forums recently and he does not believe showing pre-Elyria to new marks....err potential backers is a great idea, at least until the website is up dated to easily explain why the game looks like poo at present .

"my statement began as an explanation of why we didn't share footage of Prelyria for a long time. Which is pretty simple - It's not what Chronicles of Elyria is ultimately going to look like. It is, not surprising, our Pre-Alpha client and is thus more suited for a smaller audience - in particular our Alpha 1 backers who have expressed a desire in seeing the game at this stage of development."

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/34173/suggestion-concerning-prelyria-footage-in-context-of-new-customer-experience-for-soe

The website is advertising the demos that they had not the actual game they have currently.

I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if they released something playable and it was the low poly pre-Elyria crap they showed recently it would kill the whole project. Like peeking behind the curtain to realize what Oz was actually doing. The whole thing is a smoke and mirrors routine at this point.

goboygo

some-clueless-guy said:

This is just the natural evolution of their flawed idea. There was no way players would be willing to pay to be peons in game, after slaving away for 8 hours at work.

The next step is probably going to be multiple "servers" so that everyone can be the King. I'm sure they know how bad these things are received by the non-indoctrinated, but at this point they need to keep going or the ship will sink, so anything that draws money will do.

Fresh start servers every week and whoever spends the most money in the cash shop in the first 7 days becomes King of the server!!!

YashaX

Wouldn't it be better if the npcs were attracted to towns/areas in an organic way, drawn by the prospect of safety/work/commerce?