Originally posted by Quirhid
Don't really see a use for it. You can use regular NPCs to fill the world and likely you could make them more lively.

This.

To be honest, I am actually quite surprised that so many here like the idea.

If you'd like to stir the pot or add fuel to the fire...

ATRIARCH had this idea, along with...

FFA PvP

Permadeath

www.atriarch.com

Well thought out design? Hardly. Laughable? You betcha!

I was thinking that players can turn their characters into NPCs in cities mainly as a side "game" or another dimesion or progression.

For instance; you can develope your characters career by working for a city when you logout of the game. Your character can be a Guard, Vendor or anything and their jobs actually matter and affect the city.

When you get back to the game you get coin based on how many hours you worked and let's limit a character ability to work for, say, 6 hours real time then they have to rest.

You set your character to clean the city (since your resume is not that impressive, you start as a janitor) you log out. You login tomorrow (after 10 hours) you find your character resting/sleeping but with 10 silver coins from working 6 hours and a paper with a report of how well your character did. Maybe a promotion would happen after a few weeks?

Terrible idea no one should ever come with, making cities overcrowded areas with thousands of players that will surely make your computer stutter and your graphic card smell like grilled pork, not to mention the server capacity and bandwith allways used at it's max potential, oh god the lag and the daily maintenance killing the game...

Idiots.

When players go offline in Age of Wushu, their characters become NPCs, and those NPCs are ripe for the kidnapping. Nefarious players can attempt to knock out, kidnap, and even sell offline players. While conducting these slimy activities, players will be clearly marked for the Scumbag Thieves that they are, which makes them target for both heroic players and other kidnappers.

Kidnapping in the Streets:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5ANy51S8M&feature=player_embedded

Personaly have no idea how this actually works ingame because I aint playing the game........yet, for example what are the things your NPC character can do?

What would you OP like to see with Player characters turning into NPC when logged out?

Off-line crafting, setting crafting recipies in que and when you log off in a city your offline NPC character will find it's way to a crafting area/house and starts crafting with the desired animations for all to see. Your craft timer might work allot slower when you are offline.

Off-line combat, your character is send into a type of arena, you are in a guild, your guildleader is able to summon your offline character to fill up the group but he should have no controle over your character except from chosing a defensive or offensive role the rest of your character is AI controled. Might you want to login while your offline NPC is in a arena you could get a option/message saying: Join the Arena or Leave the Arena, both message's will be presented in game as answers to the guildleader.

It's not like every single player character MUST be active as a NPC at all times. There could be a cap.

Besides, this works best in sandboxes, where worlds are large and there's plenty of peaceful activities.

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by wormywyrm

I think this would be excellent for player housing.  I would love to leave my character hanging around his house and around my guilds city to protect the city if it is attacked.  It would be necessary for our NPC player characters to wander around a bit, maybe have some dialog (that we choose?) when clicked on.  It would suck if they just turn into pieces of still furniture or something :-/.

As far as those games go that allow toons to sit in cities selling stuff...  That is terrible!  There should just be an auction house or player shops as part of player housing.

This is why I support it. Logged off players remaining in game to protect player housing and halls 24/7 is the next step in making a persistant world. Making long term goals that need to be protected 24/7 is ultimate sandbox concept.

I was thinking about it more though and it might give some extra advantage to guilds having the most players possible...  That is already a problem, but this might just make it worse.  Lots of solutions though.

It really depends...

That your logged off character stands in your player owned store and peddle things or similar would work fine. Maybe work on your farm and similar rarely dangerous activities is not a bad idea at all.

You could also let the character share out quests for materials and similar things.

That your character plays herself on the other hand would be bad, I am controling my character, and my character do what I tells him. It would just open up for new ways of ganking and pulling people to weird and dangerous places.

I didnt vote but rightly done it is a good idea.

Roleplay. My characters are ME.

Want an NPC to take my place when I log out? Go ahead. But gen up a random name, at least, because it won't be ME, while I'm away.

Originally posted by Aethaeryn
You left out I like it. . when logged. . not optional.

Posting under the influence?

We had that in a max 128player PW(PVP) NeverwinterNights (Bioware!) Module (world) i've used to play for 3 years, then for one year in NWN2 a partial rebuild. The Design developed over the years, because we saw what worked and what didn't. In the End we had the following:

- When you log off, you Character started out as an npc.

- You could chose the location where your character had his "home" and what he did.
(If your logout position was different from your home, your NPC character started traveling to your home area, if you wanted). - in real time.

- There had been generic NPC scripts, like sleeping at night (fitting for races - it was D&D ruleset). Your character just did that then.

- If you had certain consumable items (like a campfire) your npc character would deploy those for a bonus (once you log in)

- Your NPC character could "die" either by other NPCs or other Players - meaning you log in dead, and need to respawn.

- Your character did get XP if he could kill those npcs / players just as if you did play.

- "Loot" of a Dead character was originally what you did wear and later a copy. Neither full loot or copy did work out great. Full-loot got quickly changed. Too many ways players could exploit it to kill the npc characters in an open PVP world (even with factions). The pure copy didn't work because Players killed their own characters with alts / other accounts for doublicating gear, not only for financial gain but to overall stock "better starting gear" even if the gear had no currency value.

The whole above loot system just don't work out when (other) players can get effortless kills on "NPCplayers" and then meaningfull loot or just to annoy people.

In the end we had a loot script, giving (a copy of) the worn "NPCplayer" gear with a "stolen" tag once a logout (not per death). You needed to remove the tag (inscription) which costet 80% of the item value and ALL Faction guards attacked you (if you didn't bribe with a dice check or handed over the tagged gear).

Important was, you couldn't carry 10 itemsets, if you wanted to loot a fullplate you'd better be 1. strong enough to carry it (weight) 2. got enough room in your inventory). Items have been placed on the world (outside your inventory). So you'd better had a good stockpile location hidden somewhere. Dangerous places had always a visual indicator (prettym uch like later in World of Warcraft skelettons of dead players) of naked dead npcs or trails of "stolen" gear.

- If your NPC character got killed (and looted) your items have been placed inside your inventory and you spawned "naked" as a visual indicator that you got looted.

- It was awesome seeing your own twinks / other characters wandering around in a town / sitting in your "housing zone". You could talk to them to change gear (pretty much like skyrim) and even recruit them as npc henchmans (NWN had it build in).

- It was always fun to see the NPCPlayers characters wandering "home" from the famous farmspots. (they could have logged out somewhere "safe" but didn't) sometimes even in groups. (And if faction was hostile, those NPC fought each other), then the players stalking those routes.....

There was always raiding an PVP everywhere. And logging out somewhere remote always ended up in fun suprises. (you could "charm" npcs in NWN D&D ruleset as a powerfull sorc, making them follow you for a few seconds as henchmans - as well as resurrect spells worked on dead npcs too). I remember once logging in to find myself "naked" in the enemy faction stronghold in a room inside the castle. (it probably took them over 2 hours to drag my NPCplayer character there).

It took me longer to get out alive...

Originally posted by sea.shell

I remember once logging in to find myself "naked" in the enemy faction stronghold in a room inside the castle.

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Originally posted by Icewhite

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Originally posted by sea.shell I remember once logging in to find myself "naked" in the enemy faction stronghold in a room inside the castle.

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"Waking up" to find you've been Big Bubba's Prison Toy certainly sounds appealing, yes indeed.

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If you put it that way....
I'd rather thought about the revenge i had and the friends that helped me (they attacked the city) to create a distraction so i could "sneak" out after finding another players npc stading about...all alone *smirk*.

I always could have logged out on a safe spot.

I just can see this happening.  It just seems odd,  having your toon turn into an npc that you have no control over.  I don't think so.