A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

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luminier
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#21 Post by luminier » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:16 am

Rudolpho wrote:I've my doubts a Holy Word can drive one guard to the gremlin hill and the other two to the cliffs leading to Naarved.
Yes thats true, I've run up to 4-5 rooms away from being "scared" from a holy word or a mob "frightening" me. I think the naarved road is about 10 or so rooms away from the normal "patrol route". Mustve been more than one holy word for sure... unless the patrol routes have changed since I last checked?
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#22 Post by Delia » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:21 am

It is rare but sometimes fear effects can drive you very far away. It was a long time ago but D once ran around ten rooms worth.
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#23 Post by luminier » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:23 am

Ah, must've been a lucky one then
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#24 Post by Phelan » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:49 am

Near Elvandar I fought two patrol elves, the priest and one of the warriors, and both ran away. A wizard has the log. None of the elves was shackled or arrested and placed where you found them, at least not by me.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#25 Post by Delia » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:51 am

I also think that resisting stuff is harder after a proper beating. Not sure though but it would make sense.
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#26 Post by Rudolpho » Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:15 am

Without accusing any player or group of players of anything, I would like to pose some questions to the player base to further this discussion. Is using the Holy Word miracle or Holy Aura invocation to disperse guards or patrols without the intention of killing them any different from arresting them and carting them elsewhere? The effect is still the same. You now have the opposing guards or patrol out of your way until reboot. A guard or patrolman would naturally return to their post eventually; however, due to code limitations they cannot. Is this not also exploitative? I could be wrong, but it seems so to me. What if a character could theoretically remove the weapons and key pieces of armor from all the mercenaries in the game rendering them useless? What if that would behoove that character especially considering the likelihood of certain mercenaries to be used against that character's interests? Would that not also be exploiting mechanics in a way that doesn't keep with the spirit of the game? I believe it would. I just think being told "Don't do A and don't do B because it would lead to Z," doesn't mean you can do X and Y if the same result is still Z. Again, that could just be me. What do you all think?

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#27 Post by Delia » Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:33 am

Sounds very logical to me which I personally like. Still this raises the question of how all the different fear effects, which are several, should be handled? Just not using them would simply be a step backwards.
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#28 Post by Rudolpho » Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:44 am

Let me be clear; I'm not intending to shine some light on fear effects and saying they should be down-scaled or removed. Instead, I meant to talk about intent and player responsibility. I would imagine if a player's intent was to disperse a blocking PC of opposing faction or if the intent was to disperse a large group of NPCs to make them easier to kill off separately then this is all fine and good; however, if the intent is to run a guard or patrol off their intended purpose, knowing the code won't allow them to automatically return to where they're intended to be, then these effects are being exploited. Even if this is an accidental side effect, and the guards or patrol cannot be dispatched, would it not be responsible of the player to maybe alert a wizard about the situation? As Drake mentioned earlier, there really needn't be any difficult code added when we the players could just follow the spirit of the game.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#29 Post by Phelan » Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:00 am

When I fight alone a group (npcs or players) I use holyword because it has an area effect, the fear effect is just a secondary effect that happens rarely and can be more annoying than helping.

But just because that might happen and the result could be that the patrol or any other npc leaves the route or place, is not a valid reason for me to stop using it.

On the other hand, I don't mind if the fear effect is removed from all holywords, it doesn't happen often anyway.

Further, the other side has much more effective fear abilities that are used to disperse guards or undeads and nobody complains about that.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#30 Post by Rudolpho » Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:22 am

Again, I'm not accusing anyone or trying to comment on the merits of Holy Word. I think the crux of all this is that for years, the Elvandar patrol merrily follows its route unimpeded. Then, they start getting captured and removed from this route. On October 30th, someone mentions how this shouldn't be done, and on the following day, the player-arch reiterates this sentiment. Twelve days later, for whatever reason, the patrol is still finding itself far from its intended purpose. Must be coincidence or perhaps dumb luck.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#31 Post by Delia » Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:42 am

Personally I do not mind if undead and other non-living beings not posessing free will can be driven away relatively easily with effects specialized towards that end but living(disciplined)beings should be much harder. I know little how good the taniel/crusader powers are in this regard.

Magic however has several effects that come either as a primary effect or secondary that can scatter mobs or force a move. Effectiveness depends on a variety of factors though. D has a tendency of scattering weaker undead atleast which is a secondary effect of a spell. As Phelan put it, it can be somewhat annoying at times. Sometimes not though.
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#32 Post by ewelyn » Mon Nov 12, 2012 11:02 am

I personally like the "fear effect", so I think it would be a real shame if it was removed (what I dislike is that neutral peeps can now throw this miracle...)

I would start by taking a step back and ask if there is a reason to do "routine" guard killing? I do not see how that enrichens the world in any way, except for perhaps making some "evil background noise". But that is not a role I think is interesting or beneficial for the game (unless something substantially more is built on it).

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#33 Post by Delia » Mon Nov 12, 2012 11:22 am

Then again...the patrols and such can be considered akin to orcs, ogres and such for the evils as they have significantly less hunting grounds.
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#34 Post by fernao » Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:52 pm

ewelyn wrote: I would start by taking a step back and ask if there is a reason to do "routine" guard killing? I do not see how that enrichens the world in any way, except for perhaps making some "evil background noise". But that is not a role I think is interesting or beneficial for the game (unless something substantially more is built on it).
The reason for evils for killing the Elvandar Patrol or other elvandar-related guard-type npcs is the same as you goodies killing evil npcs such as ogres, darkelves and the like. They attack you, the guards attack us. The attacker follows a different deity, set of morals etc and since missionary work has proven fruitless, they will be destroyed to please ones own god. Taniels capture the souls of slain evil enemies in their soulstone and gain favour for that, sathos sacrifice their enemies for the same reason.

And apart from that, the simple reason of travelling through an area without getting attacked is reason enough. ;)
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#35 Post by Skragna » Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:54 pm

I dunno. It'd be kind of interesting to just wander around, at full HP, and suddenly some psychopath leaps at me with a couple of knives as Skragna.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#36 Post by fernao » Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:57 pm

Seems you haven't been to the Arborean sewers in some time, Skragna... There "psychopaths" DO leap at you with a couple of knives. :twisted:
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#37 Post by ewelyn » Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:00 pm

Delia wrote:Then again...the patrols and such can be considered akin to orcs, ogres and such for the evils as they have significantly less hunting grounds.
Well, yes. To some extent I agree that routine killing of orcs is also bad (guilty!).

But. I think good and evil has two totally different roles to play. The good side are the "heroes" of the game and they can fight with power and brawl. They represent hope, commoner's interest and are quite dumb/uncomplicated. Villains on the other hand would act more cunning and selfishly, driving force of conflict of the game (and thereby much of the story).. If they become "routine" then it hurts the game much more because they need to be interesting. Doing bad things just for the sake of doing bad things is not enough.

So I think there is a difference between killing orcs and killing goodie guards, because it is at least my opinion that roleplaying games that are based on good vs evil need to be asymmetric. I.e. an orc on the good side isn't equivalent to a guard on the evil side.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#38 Post by fernao » Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:18 pm

Absolutely correct.... Just count their numbers. :twisted:
But on the other hand... isn't good and evil often a matter of perspective?

Who brought peace to Forostar? Who made the forests of Elvandar safe for all to travel? I guess it was the Sathos!

And who rekindled the war? Broke treaties? And is aiming for even more war? :wink:
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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#39 Post by Skragna » Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:00 pm

The only reason those places were safe was because you guys all but stopped playing, and because goodies squished the few who did play.

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Re: A general comment (treatment of NPC's)

#40 Post by Zehren » Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:11 pm

fernao wrote:Absolutely correct.... Just count their numbers. :twisted:
But on the other hand... isn't good and evil often a matter of perspective?

Who brought peace to Forostar? Who made the forests of Elvandar safe for all to travel? I guess it was the Sathos!

And who rekindled the war? Broke treaties? And is aiming for even more war? :wink:
Good and evil a matter of perspective sounds awfully modern.
In Geas, where the Gods are objectively defined as good and evil, this becomes rathermore a complicated question.

However, it is oft the case in classical literature that someone does something they know is bad, but which seems to gain them more than behaving well. That is, selling souls to the devil. Which is rather similar to what Sathonites do.
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