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Fill the Town (Design fun)
anemo
Member RarePosts: 1,903
This is a very open "design fun" challenge, where the only goal is to add as many useful/necessary NPCs to a town as possible. Basically when a player comes into town they should have "errands" and similar that they need to do before they leave it.
The goal is to obviously add as many useful NPCs as possible. If you need to add an "otherwise bad mechanic" to do so you're welcome to.
____________My Examples____________
The gate guards. You are given a short branching QA type interview. Based on what you are doing and based how you answered you could end up with an entry tax, or further mandatory quests.
Players can't loot in PvE, instead they fill out "ledgers" automatically (that thematically have location of corpses, the path they cleared, and similar). That are then sold to NPCs for the loot in town. For instance if you wanted gold you would take it to the bounty office, if you wanted alchemical ingredients you'd bring it to a botanist. (could easily add 5 to a dozen NPCs to a town).
Coin Changer. Each town has a different currency, so if you want to trade without a cost penalty with merchants you need to convert.
Healing is hard, especially that last 5%-10% of your missing health. requiring a combination of NPC medical professionals, and places to stay like an inn.
Adventurers Express. If you know your endpoint you could pick up some extra coinage by picking up a package here for delivery to your destination.
The goal is to obviously add as many useful NPCs as possible. If you need to add an "otherwise bad mechanic" to do so you're welcome to.
____________My Examples____________
The gate guards. You are given a short branching QA type interview. Based on what you are doing and based how you answered you could end up with an entry tax, or further mandatory quests.
Players can't loot in PvE, instead they fill out "ledgers" automatically (that thematically have location of corpses, the path they cleared, and similar). That are then sold to NPCs for the loot in town. For instance if you wanted gold you would take it to the bounty office, if you wanted alchemical ingredients you'd bring it to a botanist. (could easily add 5 to a dozen NPCs to a town).
Coin Changer. Each town has a different currency, so if you want to trade without a cost penalty with merchants you need to convert.
Healing is hard, especially that last 5%-10% of your missing health. requiring a combination of NPC medical professionals, and places to stay like an inn.
Adventurers Express. If you know your endpoint you could pick up some extra coinage by picking up a package here for delivery to your destination.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Comments
Player avatars could actually spawn into the audience when the troupe actually performs the play if the player isn't logged in, enriching the world through scheduled events that real player avatars filed into the ampitheatre to see, logged on or otherwise. The townsfolk would obviously be able to attend too, which would impart a little more liveliness to the world by providing events the NPCs react to instead of just standing in place.
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I'd put in an undertaker, your first step on the road to the afterlife. Do you go out in style, or merely scrape by? Either way, it's gonna cost ya. (Somebody's got to pay for all those dark suits and stovepipe hats.)
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This would be a big spender for the goths, they will pay tons for a big funeral, all the trimmings and a rent a crowd. You could even charge them per month for a shrine where you can visit the open casket of the last avatars body. For a goth, that sort of memorial would be more needed in game than housing.
Hmm. Off-topic to the thread, but this gives me the idea of begger as a playable class, with a corresponding skill-tree and sets of begger-gear (rags with stat-boosts and such?).
So, bad or semi-useless flavor NPCs? let's see...
Tax Collector - if you enter a town controlled by a guild you must pay a tax! This guy will wonder around looking for those who haven't paid up. The goal is to avoid him. If he finds you you'll get a forced dialogue with the option to (1) pay the tax (2) leave town (3) refuse to pay (in which the town guards will attack you until you either die, escape town, or surrender and go to jail)
Town Drunk(s) - They might ask you for coin or a drink. Will you get a drunken brawl or useful information from them? Talk to them to find out!
Fence (buyer of illegal/stolen items) - Have items too hot to sell to legitimate merchants? No problem! this shady individual will gladly provide you with some coin and take them off your hands no questions asked!
Landlord - Rents houses and apartments to players.
Offline Player Characters - town NPCs could even offer part-time jobs to adventurers similar to Age of Wushu (Wulin?.. one of the two). A player's characters become NPCs and perform these jobs while the player is offline. They could be town guards, farmers, blacksmiths, cooks, traders, skill trainers etc. The jobs pay legitimate coin (amount could be based on skill level in the skills relevant to the job) and would allow a player to be an actual resident of a town in a game instead of just being a jobless, homeless bum. Much more immersive than simply vanishing from the world when not playing. There could be a mobile phone app that lets you track your job progress and even chat with players in the game while you're an "offline" NPC.
Now, a couple of them is fine, maybe one for each larger country but one for each city is too much.
Also, make it so gold coins actually are valuable. Having people only using gold and paying thousands of them for items makes gold feel rather worthless. Copper coins or bronze coins are fine if you want large sums but a gold coin should be rare and worth a lot as it always have been in history (except possibly Spain in the 1500s who kinda got the same problem with economy as most MMOs).
Otherwise, good idea.
I have a second one to toss on:
By default the game has no markers. But talking to a guard in town can give you one to a NPC that has wandered off for whatever reason. Talking to a cartographer, or in some town's bookseller/mayor's aid/whoever else took on the role does the same to nearby areas.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Some will do interracial and charge you more, some will do same gender, not all are the same and not all buffs are the same and not all degrees of buffs are the same. You may get buff type A in differing degrees. It lasts for four hours.
Since prostitutes gossip, the more you use them, the more the other NPC will act different to you, some non prostitute NPC may solicit from you from time to time with specific and special buffs.
This is completely random as each player made character will have random things happen.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
We all have our expertise when it comes to areas of MMO design, Cyromatrix impressing us all with the depth of his wisdom.
It is the oldest profession in the world.
Another NPC: the snake-oil salesman, offers you potions that do all sorts of things but it is false. The thing is, it is intermixed with all sorts of regular sales NPC.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
How about adding an illegal casino? A hard place to find where players and NPCs can dice and play other games and maybe pick up a mission or 2 for the local thief or assassin guild.
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Can you be the hero who helps the necromancer get into the cemetery?
No Ye Old fantasy town is complete without the bunny girls.