There was talk awhile ago from the developers about make a mobile companion app that could give you updates on your Offline Player Character.

This subject hasn't been brought up in a bit as we are still awhile from launch, but to my knowledge it is still on the table.

I'd even like to be able to do online character monitoring. Just login and switch between OPC and actually playing. Whats wrong with just seeing my OPC play for me and taking over whenever it pleases me? Why do I need to logout for OPC to take over, when I just want to be away for 10 minutes... OPC could just do something viable with my downtime and it might be fun to watch my character play.

Posted By Gromschlog at 7:11 PM - Mon Dec 03 2018

I'd even like to be able to do online character monitoring. Just login and switch between OPC and actually playing. Whats wrong with just seeing my OPC play for me and taking over whenever it pleases me? Why do I need to logout for OPC to take over, when I just want to be away for 10 minutes... OPC could just do something viable with my downtime and it might be fun to watch my character play.

I agree with this, the only downside I could see is having people switch between OPC and PC very fast could cause lag issues

I expect it has as much to do with skill progress as much as it might with lag.

OPC's can't actually learn per-say, they essentially 'maintain' what you've already learned. You have to be online to actually learn, doing the skills yourself, to increase them.

If they let people have an OPC (Offline Player Script) take over while players aren't actually offline, it would cause issues with the system kicking in.

It would almost certainly get abused too, since people would just use an OPC script while not actually offline to AFK raise their skills, which is the opposite of what they want people to do.

I hope OPC have some ability to progress either skill or knowledge, albeit at a reduced rate or level capped. Without it how do knowledge based skills such as farming or animal breeding progress without becoming a profession grind?

I also hope there is a system to allow a quick command to be given, to continue what you are doing for example or continue travelling towards a known location for the case of short notice AFK, ie call of nature, make a coffee, answer a phone.

It's how Dreamar said. OPCs do not gain in skill or knowledge. They can be used to do menial things like say, make all 100 of that order of nails, or even daggers or swords if your skills are good enough, but they do not gain experience.

Otherwise what is to stop us from just having opc sweatshops in our academies doing research.

Now the best we can hope for is cheap sweatshop shoes. :D

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 8:32 PM - Mon Dec 03 2018

I hope OPC have some ability to progress either skill or knowledge, albeit at a reduced rate or level capped. Without it how do knowledge based skills such as farming or animal breeding progress without becoming a profession grind?

I also hope there is a system to allow a quick command to be given, to continue what you are doing for example or continue travelling towards a known location for the case of short notice AFK, ie call of nature, make a coffee, answer a phone.

Snipehunter has said that OPC will level skills up to and including Apprentice level. So there will be some leveling with it...but probably nothing other than the basic everyday stuff.

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 2:32 PM - Tue Dec 04 2018

I also hope there is a system to allow a quick command to be given, to continue what you are doing for example or continue travelling towards a known location for the case of short notice AFK, ie call of nature, make a coffee, answer a phone.

While I'm not completely positive on whether we'll have an auto-run (ie auto-forward movement), I believe they've mentioned a few times that there will be no auto-pathing in the game. (At least for an non-OPC)

Your best bet will simply be to quickly log out to character select for that short time if you have to leave your PC/Character or just let it stand there for a few minutes.

Personally, if I was going to take a quick phone call or have a bio break, I would rather kick in the OPC to run my store for a few minutes rather than either logging out or my character standing around looking stupid.

Posted By Dreamar at 10:58 AM - Tue Dec 04 2018

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 2:32 PM - Tue Dec 04 2018

I also hope there is a system to allow a quick command to be given, to continue what you are doing for example or continue travelling towards a known location for the case of short notice AFK, ie call of nature, make a coffee, answer a phone.

While I'm not completely positive on whether we'll have an auto-run (ie auto-forward movement), I believe they've mentioned a few times that there will be no auto-pathing in the game. (At least for an non-OPC)

Your best bet will simply be to quickly log out to character select for that short time if you have to leave your PC/Character or just let it stand there for a few minutes.

Or you can use classic auto walk by having something on your keyboard that will make your character keep going on the direction you want :)

Great posts, great dialogue. Cheers to the OP (Lanane_Silverwalker).

If we can't monitor the OPC we are gunna have some dramas. Although, worst case scenario, I can easily imagine an enterprising group of players documenting OPC behaviour and distributing the scripts.

Posted By Dreamar at 10:58 AM - Tue Dec 04 2018

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 2:32 PM - Tue Dec 04 2018

I also hope there is a system to allow a quick command to be given, to continue what you are doing for example or continue travelling towards a known location for the case of short notice AFK, ie call of nature, make a coffee, answer a phone.

While I'm not completely positive on whether we'll have an auto-run (ie auto-forward movement), I believe they've mentioned a few times that there will be no auto-pathing in the game. (At least for an non-OPC)

Your best bet will simply be to quickly log out to character select for that short time if you have to leave your PC/Character or just let it stand there for a few minutes.

My understanding is they said there will be no autopathing to unknown locations. That is a lot different to say give a command continue travelling towards home or say your nearest major city, or continue travelling with the caravan. Also there is no logout to character select as far as I know, it either stand as a look stupid target waiting to be hit or select full OPC mode.

Can you picture trying to move a 100 person PC army to an expected battle point if you can't keep moving as OPC? There will be stragglers all over the countryside within 30 minutes.

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 9:07 PM - Tue Dec 04 2018

My understanding is they said there will be no autopathing to unknown locations. That is a lot different to say give a command continue travelling towards home or say your nearest major city, or continue travelling with the caravan. Also there is no logout to character select as far as I know, it either stand as a look stupid target waiting to be hit or select full OPC mode.

Can you picture trying to move a 100 person PC army to an expected battle point if you can't keep moving as OPC? There will be stragglers all over the countryside within 30 minutes.

My comment was specifically to do with player characters and not OPC for that part.

When you're offline, naturally the OPC script will move you along. But there won't be auto-pathing, in the manner of "it walks for you while you're sitting there having a drink staring at your character" kind of way. ;)

You'd have to log out for it to take over.

Posted By Dreamar at 05:04 AM - Tue Dec 04 2018

OPC's can't actually learn per-say, they essentially 'maintain' what you've already learned. You have to be online to actually learn, doing the skills yourself, to increase them.

If they let people have an OPC (Offline Player Script) take over while players aren't actually offline, it would cause issues with the system kicking in.

It would almost certainly get abused too, since people would just use an OPC script while not actually offline to AFK raise their skills, which is the opposite of what they want people to do.

I don't get this :) You are stating that OPC:s do not learn and cannot raise the character skill, but then being online and using OPC scripts would be abused to raise skills??? Why would the skill increase depend on being offline/online, why wouldn't it depend on using/not using an OPC script?

What are these issues with system kicking in?

I'd love to be able to switch my character to OPC while eating lunch, or taking some other short break, or simply to see how the scripts work. It feels pretty stupid having to log out for OPC mode. Flight sim players do not log out when they engage auto pilot.

I understand that it seems dumb Kurko, but I think SBS decided to do this to reduce server load as an OPC don't need to be fed all the data a players client demands. Even if they tried to reduce the amount of player data while running a script a lot of information would still be required when passively looking in the form of world data.

Because of this I won't expect the OPC app to have any visual interface, just an ability to switch and monitor scripts, be made aware of events and encounters, reply to messages and similar.

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 11:07 AM - Tue Dec 04 2018

My understanding is they said there will be no autopathing to unknown locations.

That doesn't necessarily mean you would have to manually go there one time yourself. I think by unknown it means "lacking map to location". This is why cartography might be a critical necessity in the game.