I Don't think its in line with thier vision for Vanguard, though it might appear later in a expansion if its successful in some of the other mmorpg's being released. Like housing and crafting its starting to be a "must have" in mmorpg's these days.

Funny thing is SWG started it due to a bug in initial relase, then canned it. It proved so popular that other games started implementing it. Of course swg never brought it back witch is a shame since thier "bug" was the best implementation of the concept I've seen so far. 

I'm not sure it's a good idea.   You say you would use it because of "limited game time" but others may use it exclusively ALL the time and potentially alienate other players.  For instance, you could hire an NPC cleric for 6 hours and that puts other clerics out of a potential group.

The only way this should ever be implented is if the NPCs were drastically weaker than a PC equivalent, imo.

---

Originally posted by zethcarn
I'm not sure it's a good idea.   You say you would use it because of "limited game time" but others may use it exclusively ALL the time and potentially alienate other players.  For instance, you could hire an NPC cleric for 6 hours and that puts other clerics out of a potential group.
The only way this should ever be implented is if the NPCs were drastically weaker than a PC equivalent, imo.

---

this is correct, but also there would have to be a limit to the amount you can use per group, like one at the most. but i still think its a bad idea for vanguard....maybe another game that wasn't so Dependant on player interdependence.

just had a thought, npc's as group members could also help players that have a bad reputation and can't find a group because of their reputation. Also if the player base isn't large enough to fill the world up with players this could help to keep the game alive and bring more casual players to the game without hurting the core game think about it the groupers will still group, but casual players would also group just with npc's because of how easy it would be to grab some npc's and go. what do you all think

---

Originally posted by kilmor1
 I was just wondering what everyone/anyone thinks about being able to hire npcs's to either fill out your group or make up your whole group. So players with limited time could grab a few npc's to group with, and the npc's could be run kinda like pets under the control of the games AI with a loot, exp, and maybe out of pocket cost. What do you all think about this idea the good the bad and the you know.

---

And it works great in Guild Wars when you want to go out exploring improves your survivability.

Although the A.I isnt as smart as some real people, I have grouped with plenty of people who arent as smart as the A.I.

I'm sure this idea has been considered many times in the past already.  So I don't want to call it "my idea".   I posted an idea for an MMO that I would give my right arm to see made and this is one of the ideas I came up with that I did not describe just because I did not want to give it away.  But since you have mentioned it here, I will describe the way I would do it.  I think it is a very good idea if you put a limit on it

I would let every player hire one NPC, who I would call mercenaries.  You could go to a tavern or a guild where merc's would be hanging out and sell their services for cash.  One would be the limit because being able to hire a full group would allow soloers to essentially play solo all the time.  But the good thing about it is that it would also make getting groups together much easier when players are scarce.  You could make them somewhat expensive so that hiring them would be a last resort.  As payment they might take a share of the loot or require an item from time to time to keep them happy.

By allowing each player to hire one mercenary, soloing would become much easier.  A tank could hire a healer and do much more than he could alone.  A healer could hire a tank and use him as a "shield" in combat.  You could put together any combination you wanted.  This would also allow a full group of six to be filled out with only three people.  Each player could hire a merc and have a group of six characters.  I usually found when I was playing an MMO I only had about 2 or 3 really close friends that I always tried to group up with and filling out those other slots got kind of tough.  That wouldn't be a problem if you could hire a mercenary.

By the way, the idea for an MMO that I have is posted in the developers portion of this site.  Here's the link:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/77967

---

Originally posted by zethcarn

I'm not sure it's a good idea.   You say you would use it because of "limited game time" but others may use it exclusively ALL the time and potentially alienate other players.  For instance, you could hire an NPC cleric for 6 hours and that puts other clerics out of a potential group.

The only way this should ever be implented is if the NPCs were drastically weaker than a PC equivalent, imo.

---

   The NPCs will always be drastically weaker than a pc equivalent merely because they are npcs. The AI cannot foresee that "uh oh, I have to conserve my mana for the next battle", it cannot "uh,oh better protect the healer cuz' he can rez us all in case of a team wipeout".

   In short, the npc are incapable of on-the-fly tactical thinking and thats why a human will always be sought after whether it be as a tank or healer. Furthermore, GW had great success with this kind of npc implementation in the game. The point of being able to choose npc is that it should be thought of as an alternative to not going to that exciting cave or temple at all because you can't get enough people to join.

They have been used sucessfully in some games, but I think they would not be appropriate as group members in Vanguard (The Necro will bring his pet, "Igor," anyway).

Would like to see them used for simpler functions like a shop sales vendor, etc.