I agree completely, however the problem arrises of exploitation and purposeful player manipulation.

This happened in UO where murderers would let their friends kill them and get the reward, then they'd split it.

Dynamic content is hard to pull off due to the massive amount of players in an MMORPG. So in order to counter, rules and limitations are made and thus add to the "static" feel of the game.

Even with these limitations I do not feel like developers are pushing the boundries and trying to enhance game play with the kind of systems you propose, but rather instead taking the "easy" way and going with "what works"

Though you cannot blame them, it costs so much to create a modern MMO and they companies (publishers) need to make their money back and some profit otherwise they won't invest in the project in the first place. This financial reality makes them much more afraid to try new and innovative, yet potentially game breaking and unwelcome advancements.

Thanks for the reply -

  as you can no doubt tell this was a repost of my part in an old discussion on another site.

I'm afraid i said some fairly similar things to what you replied to me - in my replies to someone else-

but again; as YOU said, I believe;

   considering the cost of MMO development (or any game for that matter; we're long past the days of Garriott making ultima in his basement or what not)

  Its NOt surprising that like movies or most books; the folks that have to foot the bill are investing in what is Proven to attract customers..

       ON THE OTHER HAND at some point; there is an end to how muchthey can compete for exactly the same demographic - someone HAS to innovate some changes that AREN'T tried and true - TIRED AND USED- in order to GIVE us a reason to play a new game!

 BRING SOMETHING NEW TO THE TABLE.

One way to take step in the right direction would be to hire a staff of people to play the game to drive certain factions.  Instead of having a set of police or bandits be a typical NPC, have some leaders that are players.  A group usually has a leaer, so why not have this leader direct his minions?  It would enable more dynamic actions from the NPCs, but still be somewhat controlable.  I'm sure they wouldn't run into trouble getting people to play these parts.  They could even switch out the controling players from time to time so that the players don't get bored being the same thing.  Switching the leaders would also change the tactics of the NPCs.  It would introduce new tactics into the game.  If you were to kill the leader, the NPCs wouldn't function as well, thus making them more easily killed.  I also think that if devs and other staff were playing the game as a part of their job function, they would see the same kind of glitches and problems that the gamers see. 

   i think both are damn good suggestions-

  and close to what i was getting at when i realized that day that i wished the game had "remembered" that i killed Elmo and that my band of now-bandits were at the moathouse...

 I think the DEV's playing AS DEVELOPMENT is an awesome idea - you'd hope they do anyway...

 in any case i think DEV's playing would reduce the TEDIUM as Gameplay model... :)

  i think also that some of the RvR play is MEANT to take advantage of what i call MMO's greatest resource - the NON artificial intelligences playing - (and we all know that people wil generate their own drama ... = interest)

 but as Heerobya said; it doesn't seem much HAS developed in that aspect - who will change that?

Originally posted by letum6030

One way to take step in the right direction would be to hire a staff of people to play the game to drive certain factions.  Instead of having a set of police or bandits be a typical NPC, have some leaders that are players.  A group usually has a leaer, so why not have this leader direct his minions?  It would enable more dynamic actions from the NPCs, but still be somewhat controlable.  I'm sure they wouldn't run into trouble getting people to play these parts.  They could even switch out the controling players from time to time so that the players don't get bored being the same thing.  Switching the leaders would also change the tactics of the NPCs.  It would introduce new tactics into the game.  If you were to kill the leader, the NPCs wouldn't function as well, thus making them more easily killed.  I also think that if devs and other staff were playing the game as a part of their job function, they would see the same kind of glitches and problems that the gamers see. 

I played Vanguard for 3 months and hit lvl 38.  Once I got bored with the cute emotes and nice graghics I wandered about aimlessly wondering why I was shooting the same re-spawned mob 20 times!! ugh.. 

Companies will keep churning out the same old system with some revolutionary idea for the world.  (hardly)  The gaming community is already bored with this system so hopefully more games like Darkfalll may come out. 

I only ask for a point to the game with a story line.  Join a faction you should bleed for it. 

I like the basic idea allot. But then you get back to the problem of grief. This kind of system would open that back up. So a game like this would still suffer from the carebear syndrome. If that's acceptable, fine, but I don't believe it would work too well, myself. I could be wrong though, and I really wish a good game like Darkfall would come out, done well, so that we'd know the truth here.

One suggestion, to ease the pain, so to speak, to the more carebear minded players, is to allow perma-death for the evil characters that players take on. That would alow for the "good guys" to be able to put an end to the "evil", in each instance.

But it would be really cool if players had a system to play any creature in the game, and build skills attributed to the creature, and in social creatures to be able to build "followers", and increase their powerbase that way, and control the followers dependant on moral.

Even more cool would be allowing these "evil" characters of players to join up, join forces. Especially if there's a faction system to keep good types for joining with evil types. Imagine Orc, Goblin, and Troll players joining their followers together to build an evil city/dungeon, and going out on raids.

More powerful creatures like Dragons could be allowed too, if there was some kind of system to earn the right to play such, and keep it from becoming a world overrun by such creatures. Or maybe go with the old Horizons system of growth and value of body parts to other players.

Damn, it would be cool.

I mentioned some of this to a game designer friend of mine that works at Bioware-Pandemic. Why not let mobs attack a player run town in an MMORPG?

He then asked me this. If there are thousands of players in the game- and everyone has their own village then why do we need mobs attacking their towns? Why not let *players* attack each others town.

I had no anwser, I agreed with him

Next, I asked why not code AI to do dynamic events in an MMORPG. His response again was why do we need for mobs to be dynamic when there are thousands of players in the game?

He emphasized in an MMORPG he said it would be interesting to see more emphasis placed on player interaction. He said dynamic AI is for single player RPGs - not MMORPG.

so my stance these days is use cutting edge AI for single player RPGs. I love Elder Scrolls Oblivion and always buy the single player RPGs for a rich storyline. But for MMORPG- I like to see player run content like EVE has

Amar I hear ya!

I always thought an amazing system (based around the NPC intelligence thing) would go something like this:

Using High Elf as an example. 

• At a certain level or special mission completion you gain the right to fight for your faction / race as a creature at a certain level.  The more faction rating the greater the creature. 
• Picture this.  You have the right to fight as a level 12 or under creature.  If an enemy faction attacks a city then a small alert appears.  You click on this and you have the option to teleport to that location and possess one of your faction creatures and you can fight as that beast.   
• This could also work for missions.  Say a raid party enters a dungeon that requires killing a race allied to your faction.  You can warp over and play the NPC's.  

What this does is 2 things.  First is a tonne of fun and even if I am crafting I have an option to enter a cool fight and even when I die I will just appear back at my crafting table thus not losing much.  Second the raiding party that is in the dungeon / location fight NPC's that act intelligently and not just scripted.  

Besides a system like this would be so much fun people would strive to be able to take over an allied NPC creature at lvl 50 etc.  

Originally posted by letum6030

One way to take step in the right direction would be to hire a staff of people to play the game to drive certain factions.  Instead of having a set of police or bandits be a typical NPC, have some leaders that are players.  A group usually has a leaer, so why not have this leader direct his minions?  It would enable more dynamic actions from the NPCs, but still be somewhat controlable.  I'm sure they wouldn't run into trouble getting people to play these parts.  They could even switch out the controling players from time to time so that the players don't get bored being the same thing.  Switching the leaders would also change the tactics of the NPCs.  It would introduce new tactics into the game.  If you were to kill the leader, the NPCs wouldn't function as well, thus making them more easily killed.  I also think that if devs and other staff were playing the game as a part of their job function, they would see the same kind of glitches and problems that the gamers see. 

I really thought LOTRO had an interesting idea with their monster play. would like to see this more

right now I'm on a NWN 2 server (Well just got my application approved). its full player interaction, 100% player economy, permadeath, full PVP, and XP earned based on real time. supposedly many encounters will be spawned for us dynamically by the DMs.

PD will be interesting. It will for sure be bragging rights when you reach the cap due to the hardcore rules.

Hardcore roleplaying- must always act in accordance with your character. You cant just kill a guy without provacation

Its just cool cutting edge stuff like this you'll see on player run servers hence why I love them so

i missed these posts somehow over the last few days...

  i realize the sandbox vs. structure argument is like the nature vs nurture of mmorpg's  ---

 so no easy answers - but I really think hell someone should at least give some of it a try

 the  point made that Ai is only really NEEDED for single player games is the one i was struggling to make-

  there will BE no shortage of players willing to play whatever faction you define as "villains"

 (hell; turn on the TV - its all-too fashionable to want to be a "gangster" in pop culture right now)

 MMO Games IMO are failing to take advantage of the one great resource they have - a ready suplly of REAL intelligences...

 When I was on DDO I was always saying the AI was FINE for mindless minions but for bosses there should be a

   "looking for boss" mechanic - a way for a player to play an evil alter-ego for a bit (how many times have you wanted to play without investing a night?)

  I had really hoped LOTRO's monster mechanic would be exactly this...

   Another thing to consider-

    let new players cut their teeth perhaps by playing ; for example; goblin raiders (lol) or other barely-trained conscripts...

 or that could be the free trail :) - you can demo it but not with a character you'd really keep?

   I'm joking but.. not entirely.

  One last thought:

   I posted on the AoC board how whenever player-run ANYTHING is discussed; people act as though we lunatics might ruin their asylum.

   And i say again? SO WHAT?

   start to think of, something as what was said earlier; the whole "realm" or server if you will as an instance...

 If it goes wonky; SO WHAT?

   let it evolve.. if it gets TOO bad (which to me means: boring) -

let it get invaded by a new faction... or suffer a revolt.. or or or

  or a thousand other plot devices;

  OR WORST OF ALL-

   reboot the damn game. Like we've never done THAT before.

Temple of Elemental Evil... I thought that I was alone when previously responded (numerous of times) to the usually recurring "Which Best IP/CRPGs for MMOs" type of threads, I had always mentioned Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Stuff from good old Troika Games had this kind of intrigues of handling respective moral alignment system and the way of specific titles' AI built around to accommodate the automatically ensuing challenges that comes from that.

In Arcanum, time; daylight - night progressions affects the NPCs' functions; spawn, shop open/closed..those kind of stuff. In daytime, most windows would be locked and there would be more frequent guard NPCs' vigilance, so thieving is tricky at best. Getting caught means that you'll have to deal with hostile guards and left with options of either; killing them on sight or run away.Some of the quests requires pickpocketing skills and most NPCs are well built against normal player levels' average (depends....should one just went along the MMO formula of trekking and killing out the world maps 1st before questing). You have a choice of either (if pickpocket successful); run off through the other window and avoid the standard guards' routes OR (if unsuccessful) you can try to finish off the said NPC with the added guards. The added risk to perma killing an NPC would be the loss of another set of quests that can be obtained from the same NPC.

Now for every action/path chosen, the guards never discriminate between the main character or its NPC hirelings. ALL shall suffer the consequences if need be. And you can't easily remove the 'alert level' statuses, you gotta hide out of towns and sleep it off a day or for some more hours.

To bring it back into the subject, imagine the kind of possibilities that this system can bring into a MMO? It's a matter of infusing some of the game mechanics at disposal for certain interested players. A guy can walk back into town and notice that the alarm bell had gone off and a group of players had just went off on a smash and grab antics, leaving a few bloody trails.

Now I'm no dev or coder and it sure is not that hard to imagine the impending headaches of marrying single player CRPG features into a massively derived situation but when we think about it, it's HARD when we look at it from default executions' standpoint, by leaving out player participations. How about setting up specific NPCs for players to actually use;

A. Select as quest

B. Select to pay out for hirelings and hunt down the criminals.

C. Select to prolong the alarm for others?

I took a cue from vajuras' POV on NWN methods of DMs' interventions/participations. To somewhat automate the tasks that if DMs'  to be included in the idea and naturally it's difficult to expect one to be around round the clock. How to deal out the AI instructions to coincide smoothly without wreaking havoc due to DMs' absence is an entirely different thing to tackle altogether but not impossible.

To be fair, this is only doable if a proper moral alignment system is in place and bears equal risks:rewards ratio for both good or evil doers.

And not to mention that DMs or GMs should have been more functional as logically as they should in a lot of titles past or present, why not make the content/feature interact from/by their actions to facilitate and moderate player-run circumstances?

It's about bring the 'P' into the PvE by 'E' setting it off for the 'P'...I thought that's how MMOs should have been formed instead of separating the 2 into completely different sets of 'tasks' instead as challenges.

But as life would have it, it's not gonna be easy...but it gets harder if no one tries right?

Im 100% for ANY type of dynamic content.  Thats one thing MMOs are sorely missing right now.  Sure, you have a world and you have thousands of players, but nothing you do really counts and nothing every really changes.  Its just static.

Lots of interesting ideas on this thread.  NPC raids on cities or just NPCs doing ANYTHING dynamic would be great.  But, that is a good point:  if you have thousands of players, why do you need NPCs to do this stuff?  If you have an open, faction based world, youd have all the set-up you need for player vs player city raids.  IMO, thats the PVP system Id really like to see, faction vs. faction with the option of guild vs guild.  Doesnt seem like youd need FFA if you could set this up right.

And yea, LOTRO almost had a good idea with monster play.  Early on a lot of us expected to see monster play in the form of instances, where players could take control of the monsters.   Would have been a pretty interesting twist. 

I guess, if you have a complex enough faction vs faction system, this is almost what youd get.  Experienced players that have earned the right, (however you decide this) would be able to unlock new character options.  In effect, theyd be able to start monster faction characters or powerful races from small factions.  Of course, youd have to have restrictions and strict penalties, but it could add a lot of depth to the game.