Originally Posted by Sirisian
Exactly. I mean I'm kind of okay with the idea of passive creatures, but hostile creatures add a lot more gameplay value to the game. That's why it bothers me when people interpret what I say for "deer and birds". Someone mentioned a dragon earlier. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned a wyvern type ice creature on Esamir which is basically a dragon.
Definitely more into hostile creatures wandering around in the game capable of being aggroed by players either on purpose maybe toward enemies or by accident when not paying attention. (In the case of a wyvern you might see a few flying around a mountain top. You can fly through them and they might use an EMP NTU attack (remember evolution Auraxis is fun) or go around them. They might also land.
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My concern is when NPCs become detractors to the intended gameplay. It deals with the "value added" part of play - while immersion is something that they *might* add, they can sure end up as an irritation. I'm fighting a 2v1 air battle and I happen to get EMP'ed by a stupid dragon, which shuts off my weapons and ends up in me being killed. That takes away from the primary goal of the game, in my opinion.
Originally Posted by Sirisian
Everquest Next already has pathfinding for its mobs. Chances are that means Planetside would easily have it. I mentioned this before that the actual development cost is a hard debate since it's hard to know how easily things are for them. I mean they could already have a full animation system for creatures in Forgelight so dropping them into Planetside 2 might be trivial. Saying one way or the other would be kind of jumping to conclusions.
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I've been a software developer for over a decade, so I know that "trivial" things have a way of becoming very complex. :P You're right though, we are jumping to conclusions but the simple idea of adding this feature means an engineer has to spend time figuring out if it is trivial or not, which impacts schedule. There's something to be said for if they have one of the EQ2 devs that has intimate knowledge...then maybe the impact is small, but you also are dealing with art resources and such.
Originally Posted by Sirisian
You stop when it makes the game not fun. We're looking at an ideal implementation, or I am, where they are added to make the game more enjoyable and immersive. They shouldn't detract from the core gameplay, but enhance it. Some people hate the idea of an NPC creature killing a player that wanders close to it or in its territory. Personally I find such an idea very immersive where you have a world with thousands of players and also a world that can fight back indifferent to the war. Like they've been there for millions of years before the 3 factions go there to fight for it.
Yeah I agree. I made this point earlier when I said priorities. I'm waiting to see their 3 year plan to see if creatures ranks higher than any of their decisions. It could be what they have planned is far cooler for Auraxis.
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Immersion to me is being in a battle where I'm trying to figure out how the hell to get out alive. It's not driving through a forest wondering if the giant slothbear is going to try to eat me. But that's me, and not everyone else. Personally, I think you spend 100% of the resources getting the PvP rock solid and healthy, then you can worry about adding what's, in my opinion, fluff.