Add Wandering/Functional NPCs

Suggestions
1

Hey all,

An idea that would be neat are wandering NPCs.

I think this would be a good way to make the plaza feel a bit more lively and occupied, while also adding additional functionality to the plaza.

Some NPCs could just be do-nothing NPCs to take up space, but others should serve a purpose.

Some examples:

An NPC who walks around the casino and offers players on the machines something to drink/eat. This parallels with the real world, where often times casinos have employees who do just this - they walk around the casino, offering people drinks. This could also replace the current ā€˜afk checkā€™, where the NPC forces you to respond, and if you donā€™t, you get kicked off the machine. (I personally hate the current AFK check, since it sometimes pops up when Im typing in chat and end up getting kicked off since I was typing when the type-check pops up)

An NPC who walks around the Arcade (when it opens), offering drinks and food.

An NPC who walks around the plaza, selling party items like neon bracelets, party poppers, etc. Adds additional holiday themed items during holiday events.

NPCs who idle in the plaza, playing instruments or performing entertainment, similar to people IRL who you find in subways or on the street in public areas playing music or juggling, etc.
For NPCs who play instruments for tips, players could walk up to them, choose a song based on the instruments they have (or just open a soundcloud media option), pay the NPC a mere 100 units, and the NPC will play the song, which then fills the air.

You can even add some information kiosks, especially near the tower/train station, where players can grab a map of the plaza, and ask for info, such as how to do various things.

2

I really like the NPC playing music, but i dont think it will work really well, im just thinking about walking around plaza and geting my ears blasted with ear rape by someone who requested the song

3

Good point. I was thinking more along the lines of there only being predefined options set by the devs. Iā€™m not sure what songs they have access to via licensing, but if thereā€™s a guitar only street performer, then you can only ā€˜requestā€™ guitar-only music from a list.

Another option would be to let players record their own instrument-specific songs and submit them to the workshop, and the street performersā€™ music list shows all instrument-specific submissions from the workshop.

So, if I play some sick beats on my guitar and record it, and submit it to the workshop, then when a player browses songs to play from a guitar street performer, itā€™ll show my song plus any others people submitted under the guitar category.

This way you donā€™t get ear blasted by troll-y music or whatever else memelords blast through their mics as they walk through the Casino these days.

(If they go the workshop route, then this would be a good way for players to access premade music they can auto-play using instruments in their condo)

4

Thatā€™s actually perfect

5

As long as they are stylized as the resortā€™s employees/videogame creatures (just no resort visitors- thatā€™s us, the players), Iā€™m for it.

4 Likes
6

This could be a cool thing to have in a condo!

7

Oh? You mean like being able to hire an NPC, like a butler? I think something like that would be neat, but perhaps better as part of their plans to expand on condo functionality. An NPC you could script would be super useful, especially for condos players make that do moreā€¦ adventurous type things.

8

The replacement for the AFK check is perfect, however having him appear on the timer would have to be cleverly worked.

9

Isnā€™t the current AFK check already on a set timer? Actually - not the AFK check (the one that kicks in when youā€™re inactive on a machine) - but rather the anti-macro check. I should have specified. Ya know, the one that pops up and asks you to press a key.

Personally, I find that anti-macro/bot check to be too unforgiving towards those who are legit at their keyboardā€¦ and typing in chat. Iā€™ve had it pop up multiple times while I was mid-typing, and since I was already stroking away at the keyboard, I ended up hitting the wrong keys and getting booted back to the train station.

So, I was thinking of this NPC that idles behind a counter, then every X minutes, it makes its rounds around the casino, detecting nearby players on machines and prompting them with the same anti-macro/bot check, and also letting you buy from them (without causing you to get off the machine)

Actually, I think a better solution is for a popup, similar to the ā€œtype this keyā€ popup, except you are asked if you want to buy a drink or not, and the ā€œYesā€ and ā€œNoā€ options are placed randomly on the screen, position wise, so that bots canā€™t just click it based on X/Y coords, but a human looking at the screen would easily be able to click yes or no.

This still checks for bots, but also doesnā€™t interrupt those typing in chat.

10

I donā€™t like this idea, not because iā€™m against atmosphere or anything like that, iā€™m just worried itā€™ll creat more lag, which we could all really do without.

2 Likes