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

Slapshot1188

Mendel said:

Slapshot1188 said:

F2Plague said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Deveron said:

Shelvinarr said:

Quick! Everyone! Bust out your wallets! You can buy Tier 10 NPCs, grandmaster crafters, grandmaster quest givers, grandmaster tavern wenches! Isn't it amazing?! Spend your money! Upgrade those NPCS. Who wants a game where NPCs are included as part of the base design of the game? Not I. I want to:

pay for the game
pay a subscription 
pay for a plot of land 
pay to be "someone" in this virtual world 
pay for more storage space
pay for each shrub and tree on the plot of the land I have 
pay for a building design
pay for the materials to build said building
pay for upgraded NPCs
pay for icons
pay for hotbars
pay for skills
pay for passives
pay for attributes  

Everything that was included in games of the past for free, I want to pay for now, piece by piece!

How about if those items came in at very low price? Like real MICRO-transaction low and starting at just a few cents each. 

How about if you could create said items yourself and be allowed to sell them on a marketplace?

What if any in-game item bought in the in-game shop still had to enter the game naturally? So the resources would still need be to collected, the item still need to be build and delivered to the place where it’s wanted, either by NPC or PC via contract. Interruptible PC action.

Remember, prices would be low. You’d not be losing that much if it fails, but could gain something automatically over time, all the while creating content for others. 

Even big spending isn’t out of the question. A castle with a bigger price tag for instance. As an individual, you probably won’t want to take the risk. As a well-organized group, you might be up for the task to defend it’s creation on every step and maybe even hold it long enough to call it home. Other guilds may try to prevent that of happening. 

Again, content for all. Maybe they’d even chip in a bit, if that means entertainment for a longer period of time.
And the beauty of it, you could use the same system and just pay by in-game means, too. Tie it to participation and/or successes in game, so the scope of items available adjusts to the character in question.

Sure, there’s many pitfalls, but I still believe it’s worth exploring and discussing at least, how a different monetization approach could be beneficial to all and less exploitive towards the player base and still incentivizing investors to fund world sims. 

I, along with others, have consistently said that they should just embrace the P2W path and go for it.  What they have done is try to go part way by saying they will sell all this stuff but once it launches they will close the shop.  That is the WORST kind of P2W as it locks the advantages to the richest people that started before the game launched.  They have a core that loves buying stuff in the cash-shop.  They should give these people what they want.

In my dream world they would also launch a "clean" server with no pre-bought advantages but that would probably be where all the sheep went so it won't happen.

By Sheep, you mean the people who don't want to spend thousands on a bad game? orrrrr?

Yes.  I mean it tongue in cheek.   People have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars on advantages for this in-development game.  They need people to lord over.  

I thought that was the purpose of buying in-game NPCs, to have someone for the Kings and Lords to lord over.

If there ever was a setup like you proposed, then the worst possible news coming from SBS would be rumors of a "server merge".  At least that would be several magnitudes less horrific than their current announcements.

I do not think anyone paid $40,000 to lord over some mindless NPCs.  As far as horrific announcements... looks like they are going back to the drawing board to replace SpatialOS. 
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/487043/reason-for-the-massive-delays

TEKK3N

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...

Actually, that’s the only thing that make sense in this majestic mess.

No Players + Fat Whales = Sell NPCs

It’s a no brainer.

And I can tell you it will work.
I can see already the whales fighting with their wallet for who has more NPCs to show off.

At this point this game has become a race at who spend the most.
Might as well have a Leaderboard.

Torrsk

TEKK3N said:
At this point this game has become a race at who spend the most.

Might as well have a Leaderboard.

Funny you say that, at one point there was a leaderboard. The IP charts. I do admit it was somewhat nice to see my name move up that list. It was then removed to stop people getting into a bidding war. So what happened? People got into a blind bidding war and spent even more.

kitarad

Gutlard said:

Reading stuff like this makes me appreciate how fast the Devs were able to churn out Everquest back in the day, while being trailblazers.

What a mess the process is now...

Maybe I should buy EQ's new expansion just to show them some love.

Gut Out!

Exactly we have simply discarded the old games in favour of newer ones but the new ones are constantly disappointing us. I feel we can support the old but I would stick with P99 though...just my opinion.

deniter

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?

Lets say you play a role of blacksmith in this game. Your job is to level up your smithing skills and buy ore and coal from other players to fill your stock regularly. By buying NPC's you can keep up your business while you're offline, or just have someone to do the tedious smelting process to speed up the manufacturing.

I'd agree having actual players to do those tasks would be more immersive but i doubt someone would agree to smelt my ores for 8 hours straight or sell my stuff while i'm sleeping or working irl.

I have no idea what the dev team had in mind but this is how i would implement the feature.

Slapshot1188

deniter 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?

Lets say you play a role of blacksmith in this game. Your job is to level up your smithing skills and buy ore and coal from other players to fill your stock regularly. By buying NPC's you can keep up your business while you're offline, or just have someone to do the tedious smelting process to speed up the manufacturing.

I'd agree having actual players to do those tasks would be more immersive but i doubt someone would agree to smelt my ores for 8 hours straight or sell my stuff while i'm sleeping or working irl.

I have no idea what the dev team had in mind but this is how i would implement the feature.

There is supposed to be an OPC (offline player character) functionality that will enable your character to do all this while you sleep.   Also, what you describe is not what buying these NPCs would do.  This is for buying population or specific types of NPCs to populate an area.  If you are a Blacksmith and want to hire an NPC to work for you, you will have to create a contract to be signed by both parties (although I think for NPCs they have to create to contract or something).

Nothing like that has been demonstrated as functioning in game yet, but that is what was promised,