14 replies to this topic

[Johannes Falkner]

There are plenty of gameplay related suggestions, but how about letting us do some customizing of our NPC associates?

I was thinking it would be kick *** to have Apone as my Lance Sergeant

or maybe another marine sergeant could fill the position.


[Mind the language...]

Lancemates would also be cool, see the crew of Serenity for examples
and many others.

What are your thoughts? Who would you want? Would you pay for them?

[StompyMcGee]

As long as I can have Windsor Davies, yes.

[Outlaw2]

When would a player interact with these NPCs during the game?

Edited by =Outlaw=, 23 March 2012 - 06:55 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I prefer the idea of Personalized Staff.

"PAUL! Where's that coffee I asked for?!"


But, seriously, if we have NPC's to talk to us, then we'd need pre-recorded briefing/debriefings, or mission descriptions, or whatnot that's typically associated with Single Player Campaigns. I can't think of too many situations when everyone in MW:O would need the same prerecorded messages for anything other than ISN Feeds, Corporate Advertisements for weapons/Mechs/Tech, and Solaris broadcasts.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 23 March 2012 - 07:52 AM.

[Johannes Falkner]

I was thinking they would show as part of the loading sequence. So you press the button to start a game and instead of "Loading...." you get a ~20 second cutscene (maybe 20-30 variants). It could be the sergeant coming into the barracks to roust everyone out or your lancemates giving you crap for losing that poker game, etc.

[FinnMcKool]

I dont think there will be NPC s.

[Morashtak]

How about.... Laaaaater™.

[Siilk]

To steer the thread in more serious direction, I think it would be good to discuss a bit different type of NPC staff customization. A mech pilots would hardly be able to do all the repairs by himself, so, while it would be implied that our place of staying would have a resident tech team, I think it would be nice to hire a personal team of mechanics. The personnel, you hire for that task, could vary in stats and, depending on their skills, could boost repair speed, modification speed, gain access to smuggled spare parts(if you hire one of those smooth operator types) or add the ability to fine-tune your mech to get tiny gains in speed, manoeuvrability sensors range etc.

I'd even go as far as suggest the similar hiring mechanics to work for hiring fire support teams(for use with commander skills) or maybe even spy teams, which could provide pre-match briefing with some info on the enemy team composition. The latter could be a bit over the top but I think you get the idea.

[Morashtak]

Siilk, on 23 March 2012 - 11:39 PM, said:

...would be nice to hire a personal team of mechanics. The personnel, you hire for that task, could vary in stats and, depending on their skills, could boost repair speed, modification speed, gain access to smuggled spare parts(if you hire one of those smooth operator types) or add the ability to fine-tune your mech to get tiny gains in speed, manoeuvrability sensors range etc.

Liking it but...

...or for House/Clan units be assigned better mechanics as your loyalty points increase? Would be another carrot/stick for them.

Mercs/Pirates could hire/fire at will but House/Clan units are at the mercy of their own conduct. Yes?

[Siilk]

Morashtak, on 24 March 2012 - 08:00 AM, said:

Liking it but...

...or for House/Clan units be assigned better mechanics as your loyalty points increase? Would be another carrot/stick for them.

Mercs/Pirates could hire/fire at will but House/Clan units are at the mercy of their own conduct. Yes?

Hmmm... Interesting thought. I concur, this would be a good thing to have. Additionally, each House's staff could have some unique traits, unavailable for the outsiders or low-rank warriors. Like elite Draconis tech teams being extremely efficient and hard-working, resulting in faster repairs and upgrades while FedCom could have some high-tech gadgets available to selected high-up pilots etc.

[Anita Chess]

I like the customization idea, I want a full female crew

[Johannes Falkner]

Anita Chess, on 24 March 2012 - 11:47 AM, said:

I like the customization idea, I want a full female crew

So many [sexist, rude, salacious....] comments to be made here.

I think you might run afoul of [AFFC, MRBC, DCMS, FWLM, KA or CCAF] hiring practices though.

I definitely want you to have the opportunity to do so though. Ethnicity should also be selectable. If I am creating a Capellan unit I should be able to have Chinese (or russian, I know) mechwarriors and techs. Same goes for Japanese or arab for the DCMS and English, French, German or Irish for the AFFC.

[movingtarget]

would be neet to see your "ground"crew working on your mech in the lab, wonder if repairs and mods will be done in real time? would be nice to see them replace damaged armor and swap arms on your mech

[Soviet Alex]

I suspect that repairs will be instantaneous. You click on what you want to fix, the C$ are deducted from your account & you are good to go. Since most games work like that, it seems a fair assumption. The idea of tweaking performance overlaps with the skill tree for your mech & pilot modules, so that probably doesn't have legs. However, having a human face to relate to when buying repairs, receiving orders, etc, would be a good idea for immersion. Even if it's just a portrait.

So here's an idea. We have already been told (I forget which Dev Q&A) that faction players can use loyalty points to unlock prestige regiments (7th Ghost please!). Wouldn't it be nice if the faces of the people you interact with between battles reflected this. To use the Ghost Regiments as an example, the generic japanese briefing officer which plain vanilla Kuritans get would be replaced by a woman from the Yakuza.

[Johannes Falkner]

The irony is that I posted a similar idea for prestige regiments and tried to start assembling lists. A lot of people seem to hate it though. The story seems to be that player groups have formed around the regiment names and they don't want to share.