Half of the game is about the player performing as an economic creature in the system. I cannot begin to fathom how we're going to develop an NPC without using AI recognition to create an entity that can recognize how an economic and value system works, think, and set reasonable prices that would facilitate a part of the monetary vector that would cycle the economy. In fact, figuring that out as humans is the fundamental block of the game's challenge. To provide anything that doesn't abide by the same needs and rules as any living player would be an insult to game balance otherwise.
My biggest struggle has been finding a consistent solid community that i can play at my own pace with, solo has always been a huge grind and while not the intent of Eco I'd love to play start to finish in a world where there's npcs that can help me. Huge plus one here
+1
I like this idea, not just for single player. How about if the player(s) need to build or do something to attract them? It might help grow or stabilize the market if they would buy or sell somehow, which might in turn help stop players from leaving a server. Or fill the role of a player who already left, or who wants to go away for the weekend!
It is great idea for me. I like this game how it works and want to play it with just a few friends, so bots will be a very helpful feature. You can assign them a job, especially with the garbage collecting system coming soon.
This is a social game, why would you play solo? Go play minecraft or something
i l ike that idee
That would be amazing. If a couple of friends could log in to the NPS session, it would be great.
to be honest some NPC in a low number of player would be nice ,just giving some atmosphere would be a good start , when playing alone because no friends is interested in the game so I play alone and sorry not a fans of public server. NPC would add this little thing , like minecraft having some NPC around reduce the feeling of been alone in the game. NPC can do some really basic task like farming and breeding which would be the most helpfull to get the basic to survive I would say npc should not be able to modify the area like digging or building. They should show how happy their are based on their requirement , like enough decoration , amount of food , air quality etc
I was thinking the same thing yesterday. They can occupy all the fancy the housing we build. Work the machines during the day and sleep in assigned beds at night. We can hire them based on their specialty chain: farmer, engineer, miner/mason, etc... Fully autonomous other than you assign them a bed, a table to work, and an icebox to eat from. Maybe they quit if their happiness dips too low because we don't have enough decorations in their room. A good mix of The Sims and Conan Exiles.
I think NPC's could really flesh out a server and pick up where players leave. They can play all the time players can not so when you are on your store or restaurant could feel alive. However, I do agree that there are other things that out weigh this feature right now. With Eco being a resource depleting game I am not sure how long term servers can function without there being an end to the game loop, spawning in new resources, or creating new lands.
Not only is it not the vision or design of the game, but it would also be extremity difficult and time consuming for the developers to implement, that time being taken away which could have been spent on other things.
Dave247: I understand that, but I would say that this is something that is better off being left to a post-1.0 version in the *far* future. In my view, it should not be completely ruled out.
As a person who loves to play open world survival games but lacks friends, solo all the way pls!