G33X Nexus Entertainment > Precursors

What do Characters do when Players go offline?

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Morgul:
More and more, I find myself thinking that I really hate the idea of characters not doing something when the player goes offline. Instead, I'd like to propose a few ideas I had, and get some others for how we can do something different here.

My thought is that while you're playing, your character will have a general routine. Whether it's a trade run, or hanging out in a bar, or something. This might even be able to be decided by the player. While youre offline, and AI controls your character, and performs what you told it to do. I think that you should be able to get as detailed as possible with the AI, and even give it the ability to respond/talk like your character, and make decisions you would make in that given situation.

Now, the problem would be if the character dies while you're offline. While we could say, "program your offline AI better" I think it's a cop out. We could also cop out, and make offline players 'unkillable' or something... I still don't like it. Instead, I think that we should allow for players to decide where/what they're character is going to be doing offline, and if they choose a dangerous thing, then, they better be praying thier character stays alive. Now, that doesn't garud against unhappy players, and things like that. So, if we give them a "Ressurect Token" or whatever, if thier player dies, then they won't be quite as pissed. They might also choose to leave the character dead, and make a new one. It will add a new depth to the RP aspect of this game.

What do you all think? This is a pretty controversial idea, I'd say. Give me feedback! :-p.

Rosencrantz:
I think that this is a really good idea. It allows the player to perform mundane actions without actually having to do them. One of the major things that turned me off of SWG was that I *had* to get on and deal with the upkeep on my harvesters. And I had to do that before a specific time, lest I lose my investment. Forcing a player to get on and play is not a good thing, but in some cases it may be unavoidable.

Also, this sort of thing has to be balanced so that you can't perform large complex actions while offline, or actions that would lead to significant advancement.

topher:
I would say that only repatitive tasks while logged out are allowed.  Even then its seems higly exploitable/bottable.  It ruins the fun for the average joe if some rich person (in real life) purchaces 5 accounts and just leaves that logged out at all times, completely without risk.  Not that we would mind because thats five monthly fees.

whitelynx:
Well, what would be the problem with that? If there's a lot of people who just script their AI's well and leave them doing complex actions, what difference does it make? Ideally, you won't be able to tell the difference between an NPC and a real player, so why should it matter whether the player character is being controlled by the player or by an AI? The characters will still have the same restrictions as any other PC, so they really shouldn't be able to "cheat"...

Dave

topher:
As long as there is risk vs reward it should be acceptable.  Most games I've played, the community at large hates Bots, scripters, etc...then again, maybe because they feel they are at an unfair disadvantage.  If we had the tools for everyone to do the botting maybe its more mainstream and ok.

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