COMMUNITY - FORUMS - AGING & DYING
Log out equals NPC

Here's an idea inspired by the d&d downtime activities section of the 5e dungeon masters guild. What if, when you log out your character continues his or hers life as an NPC, AND, you, the player, can loosely program said character to preform simple tasks at certain times/seasons of the day/year. This npc version of you could also be set to respond to actions performed against it. Say if your attack he'll ether defend him self (AI judgment of your skill and defends appropriately) or runs away attempting to get the help of the city watch.

Example, it's bed time and you just got the seeds you need for your farm, so you go to the schedule menu, set your character to take care of the task of planting and tending to the farm in between it's eating/drinking/sleeping phases. You log out, your character continues on until you log back in. You could do this with so much more but I believe this would both in rich the world and appeal to casual players while avoiding to undermined hardcore players (unlike most casual play mechanics found MMO's today).

Side note. Popping out of exists when logging out has always been disruptive to my immersion in games, and the few games (ark survival) that don't do it tend to leave you defenseless. This suggestion seems like the bridge needed to overcome those issues, or so I believe.

What do you guys think? Should the game have such a mechanic? Or is it just a waste of processing power?


12/8/2017 12:30:08 PM #1

Pretty incredibly, you've guessed one of the game's original confirmed mechanics. Have a look at one of the design journals on Offline Player Characters.

Caspian even agrees with your exact sentiment there: 'Aging and dying in a world where characters pop in and out of existence creates a world of inconsistency.'

The short version is that yes, you will absolutely convert into an NPC form when you go offline, and there will be scripting tools to produce schedules for your character to make it less like games where you just become a sitting duck once you're offline, while still preserving the integrity of the world.


12/8/2017 2:46:54 PM #2

For reference, in CoE these characters will be referred to as an OPC (offline-player-character) rather than a NPC (non-player-character).

Now, take your enthusiasm and go read some developer journals, lol.

12/8/2017 4:42:04 PM #3

Heh that's a great idea man, sorry you're a bit late to the party... but better luck next time ,)

12/8/2017 8:17:41 PM #4

Posted By Lithian Kross at

What do you guys think? Should the game have such a mechanic? Or is it just a waste of processing power?

I like.

Yes.

Only waste of processing power was reading this post because it's already a key part of the game's design. ;P


12/9/2017 9:14:36 AM #5

lmao, well I appear to be the fool. Nvm my statement, though admittedly I'm even more excited for the game now lol


12/9/2017 12:51:17 PM #6

Posted By Lithian Kross at 09:14 AM - Sat Dec 09 2017

lmao, well I appear to be the fool. Nvm my statement, though admittedly I'm even more excited for the game now lol

Thank you for the chuckle, I remember that hype, I still get it every so often when we get new info.

Tell me when your having dreams about Coe, I did once or twice during the height of my hype