Moonlighting: Characters Playing as NPCs Offline

[Jerich]

Moonlighting – A Method to Build Community with Micro Transactions: 1 of 4
At PAX, I was blown away by how gracious and enthusiastic the devs were about Torchlight. I wrote a long review about my experience and immediately started showing the game trailers off to all my friends and acquaintances. They would always ask the question about payment and I would tell them about micro-transactions. They were usually ok, but often said, "Well, I can't see myself buying anything in a store like that, but I will still play the game." This started me thinking about ways that could entice people like my friends to pay money for a game like this... ways that made people want to pay for a game without feeling like they were being forced to.

The next day, I started to think about why I played MMOs. I came up with 6 core reasons. I then realized that the reason most micro-transaction schemes fail is because they undermine one of these reasons. All of a sudden, the idea of moonlighting popped into my head. It opened a floodgate of ideas as I began to think of how Micro-transactions could be used to build community. Every night for the next three days, I would wake up with an idea and jot it down. I started working on a post to explore the idea. I started to write, and talk to my gamer friends. They were also excited because none of them had ever heard anything like it. I then decided to write it up in detail and post it on a semi-permanent blog at jerich.wordpress.com simply so I could have a time stamp of it and apply a creative commons licences, (mainly because I plan to apply for a phd program in using online gaming to motivate math learning in a few years).

Anyway... 43 pages, 12 webcomics and a week later, here is the idea. Note I am starting from the middle of the document. I will list the outline, then skip parts I and II in this segment and go straight to moonlighting. If you want to read the whole post at once, go to my new blog at http://jerich.wordpress.com.

Question: “What is my avatar doing when I am offline?”
Answer: “Moonlighting as an NPC!”

Overview – What makes an MMO successful? How can a micro-transaction system help or hinder its success? In this paper I introduce a novel system for community building and player advancement I call Moonlighting. In it, players become philanthropic npcs in their off hours, accumulating fortune and fame while helping their fellow player. I believe that moonlighting is particularly well suited for a micro-transaction system. I present this essay in three parts.

Part I Building a Framework: How can we Rate Micro-transaction Systems?

1. What motivates players to play RPGS? http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=512
2. What motivates players to play MMOs?
3. One motivation I did not include in the framework.
4. What kinds of players will pay real money for virtual items? http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=532
5. What makes a good micro-transaction? The framework defined.

Part II – Using the Framework: Bad Examples of Micro-transactions and Why They are Bad.

1. Negative Example 1 – Buying uber items / gold etc
2. Negative Example 2 – Unlocked Content like new zones that are available to the individual player only.
3. Negative Example 3 – Charge Store Money for Player Respecification (skill reassigning).
4. Neutral Example 4 – Vanity Items

Part III – Applying the Framework: Positive Ideas for Micro-transaction that Build Community.

1. Moonlighting <---- This POST
2. Name Vetting

Part III – Positive Ideas for Micro Transactions that Build Community
In this section I introduce two concepts that that use the principals described above to build community through micro transactions. It is divided into three parts: Moonlighting, Guild Skill Trees, and Community Name Vetting.

Part A: Moonlighting. Moonlighting is a method of playing philanthropic offline avatars where players can “Moonlight” as NPCs while they are offline. Characters get rewards from moonlighting, but are also helping the community at large. Eventually a moonlighting character will go through NPC ranks and be able to retire, permanently becoming a game NPC or a guild sponser.

Part B: Name Vetting: Name vetting is a method with which the developers can harness the power of community to ensure that only characters with good names are allowed to moonlight. Characters without community approved names are forced to moonlight under a pseudonym or buy a previously vetted name from another character. (explained in a future installment)


A: Moonlighting

Moonlighting Summarized

• Player characters can pay to moonlight as npcs when they log off for the night / work etc.
• Their character is then is a game npc and fulfils a specific job.
• Each of these jobs benefits the gaming community as a whole and provides services for both non-paying and paying members.
• The jobs also benefit the moonlighter, giving rewards depending on the job. Higher status jobs cost more but give more of a reward.
• The jobs are split into three main paths, noble, merchant and crafter.
• Players accumulate path points as they moonlight, which allows them to moonlight with higher and higher status jobs.
• Once a character accrues sufficient status, they can retire. They then become a permanent in game NPC and provide their descendants with a steady stream of revenue among other benefits. (They can even become a guild sponsor, opening up guild skill tabs)

1. Why will Moonlighting Make the Game a Better Place to Play?
Moonlighting supercharges the six core reasons people play RPGS and MMOS.

• Advancement / Rewards: It gives players a way to advance in multiple paths. Players also look forward to logging in and seeing what their moonlighting character did.
• Exploration: It provides tons of new content to explore and gives people reasons to start new characters due to the retirement system.
• Problem Solving: It promotes problem solving as people chart their player’s growth.
• Competition: It provides multiple ways for players to gain the respect of other players by harnessing the powers of name recognition and altruism
• Cooperation: Players must coordinate to unlock the best guild features.
• Community: Moonlighting encourages players to actively help each other and respect each other. Player interaction and good will is increased.
• For anyone keeping track, that is +6 positive with no negatives. Nice!

2. Why will Moonlighting Make the Producers Tons of Money?

• It encourages people to spend money each month.
• It can be implemented a bit at a time, starting with the basic jobs.
• It provides motivations for every type of spending player.
• Non-paying players gain benefits, so they also have buy-in.
• Charging more for higher rank jobs is actually beneficial to the community because it keeps these jobs rare.
• Community will be increased, so people will want to help / impress their peers.

3. Moonlighting in Detail
Multiple Paths of Character Advancement – In the real word there are different ways that people earn fortune and fame. Some rely on their skill, ability, or charisma such as athletes and movie stars. Others are merchant tycoons and build vast financial empires. Still others garner political clout and eventually are given positions of power. Finally, some people are master builders, artists and engineers. Each of these groups is respected by our society because they work at what they do and provide services to us. We are ok allowing people to have power / respect as long as we gain some benefit.


a. The Merchant Path
The first path that people can choose is to become a merchant. They spawn as a special merchant that either offers unique goods or gives other players a better deal when vendoring items. While people are merchants, they get a slight experience boost (perhaps 100% xp for 1/50th of a level) for each transaction someone makes with them and also a small cut of the profit. They also gain merchant points which let them advance in merchant rank. This rank allows them to take on increasingly challenging jobs. At the higher end, merchant points can be spent for fabulous rewards.

Merchant Path Jobs (in order of increasing rank)

• Dungeon Merchant – Spawn as one of the random merchants in someone’s dungeon. You give the player a better price for their items and get a small share of the take.
• Town Merchant – Spawn as a merchant in the overland for a set amount of time. You periodically spawn a set of interesting items that cannot be found anywhere else.
• City Merchant – Spawn as a major city merchant. You take over for one of the prominent city NPCS. If that character gave out quests… you are the new quest giver!
• Raid Dungeon Merchant – You spawn as a major raid dungeon merchant. Who knows the fabulous items you can sell or the amount of straight profit to be earned when players repair their gear. mwahaha
• Respec Trainer – You become the trainer that allows people to respecify their character points. You get a reward each time your character respecs someone else. Note: this should probably have an achievement requirement attached.
• Broker – You become a broker like the kinds in Guild Wars for various items that otherwise cannot be bought and sold on the auction house. You are linked to a central database of items and get a small cut of each transaction. Note: this is the only way that players can trade real money gold for dropped gold.
• Auction House – You become the in game auction house barker. Players congregate around you, waiting to click on you and browse the auction house. As before, you get a small cut of each auction house transaction. Wow!
• The Town Banker – You are the city banker! People must click on you to get their stuff and when you are present, extra bank slots are cheaper for people to buy. As always, you get a small cut of the profit.
• Specialists – High level merchants who also have completed fantastically hard in game achievements will be able to spawn one time in their life as a super rare merchant that can sell a unique limited release item. (Example, a high level merchant who collects 100 mini-pets can spawn for one hour and sell a mini-pheonix that can only be bought in this special case! The phoenix has is limited release and has your character name on it!)

Merchant Path Rewards (In order of increasing rank)

• Better merchant prices: Your skills at bartering have given you a discount at stores (this increases as your skill improves).
• Ability to buy special merchant related items for your guild, like access to repairers, better guild stashes, newbie equipping stations, shrines to avarice and greed (increase guild percentage of dropped gold and items), auction house barkers, etc.
• Ability to hire lackeys that will do things like set watches on the auction house, search the lands merchants for rare items, contract out as sub merchants, become your own traveling outfitter, etc.
• Ability to buy a player owned townhouse that can be used for your descendants.
• At the highest level, you can retire to provide unique services to your guild, i.e. a fully accessible bank in the guild hall that has a ton of extra space.

b. The Noble Path
The noble path is designed to serve other players. You are a wandering philanthropist, fighting evil and supporting your fellow adventurer. Each time you do this, you accrue noble points which allow you to advance down the ranks of nobility. You also get slight experience rate bonuses like merchant does and an ever increasing chance of your share of the loot. At the highest levels, you can open raid dungeons and become the king of a town!

Noble Path Jobs (In order of increasing rank)

• Become a dungeon savior. When people die in a dungeon, there is a small chance that you will spawn, resurrect them, and then fight with them till they are safe. (You must be a high level character)
• Newbie area guard. You become the guard of the newbie zone. New players can run to you for protection. They can also /salute you for a short term buff.
• Randomly wander a high level dungeon, offering to join other players. If they accept, they get extra drops and you have a chance of getting an extra drop from each boss just for you.
• Sponsor a dungeon expedition. You become a quest giver that lets non-paying players venture into an elite dungeon (perhaps 10 groups total). When they complete it, you get noble points and a chance of a rare item.
• Your character becomes a dungeon quest giver. Unlocking the ability for players to find a huge chest or special boss.
• Become a raid event. Whenever help spawns, in a raid encounter… it is you! Completely buffed up in this case.
• Open a raid dungeon – Hire a mercenary band to open a raid dungeon for the server. Any items that drop in the raid dungeon have your name stamped on them! Your guild gets power gaming points for each boss that is killed and you get a small chance of an epic item mailed to you for each boss kill.
  Sponsor a tournament. You can post your own prizes and players can enter ahead of time. The more people who enter the more noble points and fame you get.
• You even get a chance for a unique reward yourself.
• Become king of a town for a week. NPCs bow down to you as you pass them. Once per day, as you log off, the town npcs form a procession through town while you march to the castle. Once you get to your throne, you hold court, giving quests. Any player can come to you and /bow to you for a long term adventuring buff. Each time someone does this, you get nobility points.

Noble Path Rewards

• Increased chance of another noble spawning to help your party when something goes wrong.
• Special titles that increase in power … i.e. Sir all the way to Duke. These titles can be passed on to your decedents.
• Ability to buy a player owned keep or special guildhalls. These are passed on to your descendents.
• Random NPCs cry out for all to make way for you when you come into town.
• Ability to unlock amazing guild items like a statue that increases experience gain for both normal and path fields.
• Ability to become the class trainer at high levels.
• Ability to open up more and more epic areas for other players.
• A squire who will carry your armor for you (enables you to change gear between two full sets quickly).
• A bard who accompanies you, singing your praises and giving your party a small buff.
• The ability to retire to unlock guild sponsorship skill trees.

c. The Crafter Path
The crafter path is for someone who loves the crafting system and wants to both improve their skills and help other members of the crafting community. You wander around helping people gather from nodes and can spawn to help people make increased quality items. As you help people, your crafting skill has a chance to go up and you also increase your chance of making high quality items. Eventually, you can give people crafting quests and take the place of in-game trainers. You can retire to build special guild crafting stations that provide players a buff to crafting.

Crafter Path Jobs (In order of increasing prestige)

• Gathering Expert. Whenever someone gathers from a node, there is a small chance that you spawn and buff the node with a bonus for the gatherer. You have a small chance of gaining a gathering level and will also share in some of the items.
• Master Tutor – Whenever someone makes an item in your chosen specialty, there is a chance you will spawn and help them craft an elite version with your name attached to it. Each time you do this; you gain crafting skill and also increase the chance that your next few items will be elite.
• At high level, you can give people quests to make certain items that can only be made this way. You get one copy for each 5 versions of the item that is made. In order to do this, you must also be a master of the craft
• Become the master trainer. The only way for people to train to mastery level in your craft is to find you hidden in the bottom of a certain dungeon when you are moonlighting. Other trainers will give hints, to where you might be at the moment. You get a large amount of the leveling fee and become a master yourself.

Crafter Path Rewards

• Learn new recipes that only crafter path people can know. These recipes are for utility / vanity items and are sometimes bind on pickup, sometimes bind for guild, sometimes bind for account etc.
• Repair other players gear in dungeon
• Get bonuses from nodes and increased chances to make better items
• Retire to create guild crafting stations that buff anyone who uses them.

4. General Benefits for Moonlighting – Most moonlighting paths give these benefits.

• Gain a small amount of experience rate bonus when you moonlight
• Buy new titles and achievements with your points.
• Pass down a portion of your skills, achievements to your offspring.
• Get mail whenever you log in describing what you did and what rewards you got while you were gone.
• Get statistics and achievements that track your path level progress.
• Both you and the non-paying community benefit.
• Buy special edition items with the extra points you have accumulated.
  Examples – Limited item mini-pets
• Bid on a town statue
• Bid on retiring to become a major figure in the next expansion (with name approval)

5. Rules for who gets what job – Some jobs will have stiff competition. Here are some rules to make it fair.

• Each time people gain a level, they get a certain amount of moonlighting credit. For Instance, 1 hour at level 10, 2 hours at level 20, etc. To do more with their character, they have to pay.
• Make some jobs free. That way anyone can moonlight. Middle range jobs cost less than a latté per week or month. Highest level jobs cost significantly more per month.
• Limit jobs to a certain number of times. i.e. You can save 30 people before you are done for the night, etc.
  Job frequencies are split among categories: I.E. Actively moonlighting players get 50% of the spots, retired in the last month 30%, retired in the last 6 months 10%, retired more than 6 months 10%.
• Once you help one person once, you have an increased chance to help the same person. This is done to build community.
  Some jobs are on a first come first serve basis (i.e. you are lucky enough to be there when it opens up), others by lottery, others by queue and still others by auction.
• Some jobs institute phasing so that different players see different people when they go to an area
• Some jobs require rare skills or achievements and are thus limited.
• Perhaps there is the option for people to buy the ability to moonlight two characters with the same account or even moonlight an alt while they are online.

6. Character Retiring – After a long time of adventuring, it is time for your character to retire. They will pass down their titles and give their descendants the ability to rapidly rise through the ranks of their specific path. There are multiple ways to retire a character (Note… most of them cost a small amount of real money)

• Permanently start another job – Your moonlighting job just became your characters fulltime job. They will spawn as an npc for the rest of the games life giving their heir a permanent stream of revenue and path points. Even though, they will spawn less and less as the years progress, you will still sometimes get mail saying they did something years from now.
• Become a sponsor for a guild – The character retires to become a guild specialist, permanently increase the functionality of a guild. They can open up guild skill trees, build crafting stations, open banks etc.
• Allow the character to choose a surname – You choose a surname and have it approved by the community. After this, you are able to make all your character with this surname. People will start to recognize your last name and you will start to get player recognition.

7. Guild Sponsorship – Players have different motivations for joining guilds. By retiring a character, you can unlock a guild skill tree that meets your guild names

• The social guild – Unlocks mini-games. More mini-games are added as your guild plays the existing one. Eventually your guild gains the ability to link guild chat to another guild for massive guild party channels.
• The power gaming guild – This tree gains points for killing raid bosses. Abilities include cheaper guild repairs, extra marking features, etc.
• The cloud of gamers guild – Gain experience the more people level and quest. Abilities include slightly faster xp rates, crafting bonuses… things the solo player cares about.
• Group of close friends – Gain guild experience while grouping together. You get abilities that slightly increase your efficiency play when together.
• Casual gamers – Gain xp for offline time (stops after 12 hours), you gain the ability to delevel yourself to help your friends get experience rate boosts etc. (Note, this is because one friend in a casual guild is always more hardcore than the rest. It is some kind of law.)

Coming Soon in another Installment:

• Name Vetting
• A Method to Rate Microtransactions
• Micro Transactions Rated!

- Jerich

P.S. If you can't wait and want to read the entire thing at once, please visit my new Blog at http://jerich.wordpress.com.

[prestige]

Hi Jerich. I don't have a reply nearly as exhaustive as your plan, but there are a few thoughts I had:

Why would moonlighting necessarily be tied to mircotransactions? I'm not claiming that the two don't fit; I'm just asking why they do. I like your idea of moonlighting, enough that it could be a core game mechanic instead of just an MT thing.

I also don't feel the need to have achievement in the moonlighting system lead to becoming a permanent NPC or statue. I'd rather see the permanent parts of the game world remain uncluttered, tightly-designed and made by Runic. I feel moonlighting players should remain transient, spawning only when needed (which is what you describe in most cases anyway.)

Also, I like the idea of moonlighting as an enemy. I'm not usually into normal PvP, but I'm intrigued by asynchronous PvP.

[XchokeholdX]

Even though the idea is cool, I do not think that players will PAY for being OFFLINE....

as a free option, or paying with ingame currency, it could work..

How a bout a totally different look on Micro Transaction:

Macro Transactions:

Have the dev team suggest some BIG IMPACT game changes (new class, new spells, dungeons, towns, etc..) and have players PAY a share price for it. as soon as the "buy it" price has been reached, it will be implemented into the game.

It would be awesome to know that YOU contributed to that new class that was introduced.. or not?

[Rithe]

Now, would you have to pay for each character to do this, or purchase it once, and all descendants or characters on the account can do this.

Very interesting idea though. I do agree that it could be argued for a game feature, not a purchased addon. But, it wouldn't change the core game, it would be a secondary benefit.

The one issue I do see is how to balance the later levels of NPC-hood. So, you can gain the ability to become a shopkeeper in the city. How long would that last? What about everyone else who has that ability as well? Would it be a random pick of who can become an NPC? Or, would you become an NPC, and then not have a chance to be an NPC for X amount of time? Would you be an NPC the whole time you are logged out? A portion of the time? How long?

This is more about balancing it I guess though.

Another thought, would this let the people who got this become "richer" (rich become richer, poor become poorer idea) too easily? I won't argue that if you work hard, you shouldn't get more out of the game. Why should I (who plays it for an hr each night in theory) be on completely equal footing as someone who is able to spend 4 each night. But at the same time, you don't want them to have an unfair advantage. (some of this probably gets into the endgame idea as well)

Overall, it's a great idea. Can't wait to see your later parts.

[Xander]

I think this is such a big comprehensive idea that developers would almost be inclined to make it a main selling point for a game and a feature. None-the-less, managing a world where "Sxybaldgi" is your NPC shopkeeper would be a massive undertaking if the game got incredibly popular. Some of the merchant ideas you're toying with remind me of the player-shops in many Korean MMOs except in an automated form. The entirety of your ideas actually caters really well to a more player-driven persistent-world than the Torchlight MMO will likely be. Balancing all of this would be a tremendous feat, not that it would be impossible.

It's a very interesting perspective, and I'm sure most people would read your work and say, "this can't possibly be achieved or work", but I think it very well could be a way to curve in paying user-ship. I'm just not sure about it for the Torchlight MMO game. Further, it's a very complex system for new players to work into. Looking into EVE online, much of the player demographic is built of people with serious intentions on making an impact in the game. In fact, the game is so player-based that I've known some to feel overwhelmed by the complexities within the game. Your system reminds me of this because of EVE's offline-leveling system, and the majority of things that can have taken place before you log back in.

Very nice write-up, Jerich. I wonder though, how would you "see" the actions of your NPC character without logging back in?

[Jerich]

Hi Jerich. I don't have a reply nearly as exhaustive as your plan, but there are a few thoughts I had:

Thanks for taking the time to read this prestige.=P You raise some really good points.

Why would moonlighting necessarily be tied to mircotransactions? I'm not claiming that the two don't fit; I'm just asking why they do. I like your idea of moonlighting, enough that it could be a core game mechanic instead of just an MT thing.

I think you are right in that for moonlighting to work it should be available to non-paying characters. That being said, I think there are several reasons that it caters to paying players.

The first is fairness. We all feel that players who play more deserve to have a more advanced character. But what about people who pay money for the game? In a sense, they are subsidizing the game for non-playing members. I think they deserve to have a separate path to status available to them that is different from the power gamer's path. They should also be able to provide services to other players so they are a needed and valued part of the community. In a sense, they are like sponsors for a pro sports team. The team gets one type of glory, but the sponsor gets a different type.

The second is limiting. If players can get real and meaningful rewards for moonlighting, there must be a way to limit it. Otherwise, players in a free online game would just make countless accounts and moonlight them all then collect the rewards. Moonlighting must not be something players can unlock then do without having to continually pay for or it breaks down. It could be tied to in-game achievements, but then it is giving the power gaming players more of a bonus. I think it is most fair to split status up between different members of a gaming community.

Finally rare jobs should be rare. Otherwise everyone would be moonlighting a high level job. I think charging different amounts for different jobs helps this happen.

I also don't feel the need to have achievement in the moonlighting system lead to becoming a permanent NPC or statue. I'd rather see the permanent parts of the game world remain uncluttered, tightly-designed and made by Runic. I feel moonlighting players should remain transient, spawning only when needed (which is what you describe in most cases anyway.)

I agree with you. Even retiring moonlighters would be only spawned when needed. The few cases where someone would become a permanent NPC or statue were limited to the highest auction bidder. I.E. Like 10 people per expansion and those people would pay thousands of dollars worth of noble's points for the privilege. In a sense, they are like someone who buys a Rockstar's guitar for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Also, I like the idea of moonlighting as an enemy. I'm not usually into normal PvP, but I'm intrigued by asynchronous PvP.

This is a fun idea. I think it should be tied to pvp ranking, however instead of bought gold.

Thanks,
Jerich

[Jerich]

Thanks for taking the time to reply XchokeholdX.=P

Even though the idea is cool, I do not think that players will PAY for being OFFLINE....

as a free option, or paying with ingame currency, it could work..

I agree with you that not everyone will pay for being offline. But you would be surprised what people will pay for status. I think this is probably an 80% 20% thing, like 20% of the players will pay 80% of the games cost. It may even be something more like Taxes in the US where 1% of the people pay 90% of the cost.

One way to make it in game currency is to link the two currencies, but with a heavy transfer tax. I am not sure, however, what I think about this idea. If this happens, basically, all you are doing by charging one type of currency is to make it slightly cheaper for one subset to moonlight.

How a bout a totally different look on Micro Transaction:

Macro Transactions:

Have the dev team suggest some BIG IMPACT game changes (new class, new spells, dungeons, towns, etc..) and have players PAY a share price for it. as soon as the "buy it" price has been reached, it will be implemented into the game.

It would be awesome to know that YOU contributed to that new class that was introduced.. or not?

Interesting idea.=P I think it would definitely reach some players. The only problem I see is that most people are motivated by small rewards that have a reward at the end. You could tie this idea into moonlighting to provide the small rewards but keep the big picture goal.

- Jerich

[Jerich]

Thank you for taking the time to read this Rithe. Your points made me think a lot and I will try to address them.=P

Now, would you have to pay for each character to do this, or purchase it once, and all descendants or characters on the account can do this.

Unfortunately, you would have to charge for a set amount of moonlighting credit (although it could be very cheap). Otherwise people would just buy multiple accounts, pay a one time fee and moonlight on those accounts. That being said, you could charge a one time fee and then link the moonlighting time to something in game.

Very interesting idea though. I do agree that it could be argued for a game feature, not a purchased addon. But, it wouldn't change the core game, it would be a secondary benefit.

Yeah, you are right. This could be modified to be a free feature, but you are right in the sense that not changing core mechanics is huge. Any micro-transaction scheme that allows players to directly advance in the core game undermines the player motivation of competition. This is one reason why moonlighting lends itself to being tied to micro transactions.

The one issue I do see is how to balance the later levels of NPC-hood. So, you can gain the ability to become a shopkeeper in the city. How long would that last? What about everyone else who has that ability as well? Would it be a random pick of who can become an NPC? Or, would you become an NPC, and then not have a chance to be an NPC for X amount of time? Would you be an NPC the whole time you are logged out? A portion of the time? How long?

This is more about balancing it I guess though.

I tried to address this in section 5 of my post, but must not have been clear enough. Basically, there are multiple ways to do this. One of the most interesting is the idea of Phasing. You could do it by lottery, time, round robin, etc. As long as you had multiple mechanisms in place, it could be balanced easily.

Another thought, would this let the people who got this become "richer" (rich become richer, poor become poorer idea) too easily? I won't argue that if you work hard, you shouldn't get more out of the game. Why should I (who plays it for an hr each night in theory) be on completely equal footing as someone who is able to spend 4 each night. But at the same time, you don't want them to have an unfair advantage. (some of this probably gets into the endgame idea as well)

Section 5 also tries to explain this. I think the following items address this issue. First, everyone can only moonlight one or maybe two characters at a time. Second, non-paying players are getting benefit from the moonlighters philanthropy. It is not that bad if someone is getting ahead, as long as they are helping you out along the way. Third, the frequency with which retired characters actively moonlight falls of rapidly thanks to the progression curve explained in section 5. Someone might be able to get ahead, but they will always have to keep working at it.

Overall, it's a great idea. Can't wait to see your later parts.

Thanks.=P I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

- Jerich

[Jerich]

I think this is such a big comprehensive idea that developers would almost be inclined to make it a main selling point for a game and a feature. None-the-less, managing a world where "Sxybaldgi" is your NPC shopkeeper would be a massive undertaking if the game got incredibly popular.

My section on player name vetting tries to answer why you would not see Legolas43 as a shopkeeper. Unfortunately, I thought the post was too long for people to read in one sitting so I split it up into multiple parts. To summarize, I propose using a method like a cross between yahoo answers and hotornot.com to let the community police names with limited gm involvement. It would not be foolproof, but it would help with some of the name managing load. If you want to read it ahead of time, you can go to the blog.=P

Some of the merchant ideas you're toying with remind me of the player-shops in many Korean MMOs except in an automated form. The entirety of your ideas actually caters really well to a more player-driven persistent-world than the Torchlight MMO will likely be. Balancing all of this would be a tremendous feat, not that it would be impossible.

Yeah I agree. Balancing all this would be a nightmare if anyone tried to tackle it all at once. The complete writeup was more of a thought experiment into how far I could take this idea, but I think it would be a lot of fun even if a few of the ideas were implemented. Torchlight already has merchants that spawn in dungeons. Why not let them be replaced by the occasional character? To that you could add expedition sponsoring which is very similar to selling dungeon maps, but just on a larger scale. These two ideas, I believe, would be a ton of fun and would not take much development of balancing time at all. After they did that, they could see if they made money off of this system. If so, they could add layer upon layer of complexity.

It's a very interesting perspective, and I'm sure most people would read your work and say, "this can't possibly be achieved or work", but I think it very well could be a way to curve in paying user-ship. I'm just not sure about it for the Torchlight MMO game. Further, it's a very complex system for new players to work into. Looking into EVE online, much of the player demographic is built of people with serious intentions on making an impact in the game. In fact, the game is so player-based that I've known some to feel overwhelmed by the complexities within the game. Your system reminds me of this because of EVE's offline-leveling system, and the majority of things that can have taken place before you log back in.

I agree that it adds a layer of complexity on the game. I think you would want to implement it in such a way that player jobs are hidden from the player at first until they unlock them. That way, the game introduces moonlighting slowly. I think one of the biggest problem with EVE is that it is FFA PvP. I think having to directly compete against others makes people think that they have to understand all the rules from the get go.

Very nice write-up, Jerich. I wonder though, how would you "see" the actions of your NPC character without logging back in?

Thanks Xander. I am glad you liked it.=P Thank you for taking the time to read it.

The main ability to see the actions of your NPC char when you logged in and read the mail. I guess you could always log onto a second char like the Auctioneer does in the cartoon. I think some other fun options would be a phone app where you can track your offline progress, and perhaps a way to buy the option to moonlight two characters at once so that you can run into your other char while playing.

Thanks,
Jerich

[Needlehawk]

Jerich, I read this last night and wanted to think about it a bit overnight.

First, I think that this is one of the most original ideas that I've heard about in a game in a long time. Kudos!

That being said, there are two things that concern me about this idea - choke points and diminishing returns.

Choke points - There seem to be a number of choke points in your hierarchy as it stands, mostly related to taking over NPC's in town. Those positions would be severely limited as you note. It seems like you are saying that there may be lotteries for some of these positions, or phasing or such. I can see problems occurring with that. For example, if I get a quest from NPC 1, then PC 1 takes his place, how do I know who to return to for the quest reward?

However, the real problem that I can foresee with the choke points is failure to advance. A player could get (and probably would get) very frustrated and feel cheated if they were paying, but could not advance. This would happen in situations where a limited number of NPC slots were available, and needed to be lottoried.

I would recommend instead that a lot of those positions take place elsewhere, and not involve replacing a specific NPC. For example, take becoming a banker. Rather than replacing a banker in town, how about branch banks in the myriad little towns in the MMO? For example, imagine if all the little towns in WoW like Lakeshire had "branch banks" that were normally closed, but would open when a moonlighter became available. Eventually, as more moonlighters got to the level where they could become bankers, more and more "branches" would open up, which would be much more convenient for everyone. Eventually, phasing might have to be used, but it should take a while, especially if they put 2 to 3 Moonlighters at each branch.

Diminishing returns - I think that it's a problem scenario to have some of the retirements end up with the moonlighter pretty much "fading away". I'm not sure that players would really go for retiring a character they had put so much time in, only to have it spawn less and less. It looks like only those on the "merchant path" would be subject to this (if I've read this right), so how about something else like:

From the inception of the game, there is a "merchant city" that sends out caravans once an hour that take a number of hours to wind through the world. As long as the caravan is an NPC caravan, the goods are only standard. However, if you retire, you permanently take over one of the caravans and have much better stuff to sell. Your caravan would leave the city, take several hours to wind through the world, then go back to the city. After an appropriate time to "reload" (maybe even several days to a week), your caravan would go out again. If you only went out once a week, that would leave a lot of slots for retirees. If there were an overflow eventually, then maybe phasing could be used.

Another possibility would be periodic purges of retiring characters if no one has played on that account for X amount of time (say, 6 months). That would remove retiring characters connected with people who no longer play the game.

All in all though, this is a really novel idea. I think that this idea could potentially add a lot to a game.

[Webbstre]

That is a really long and interesting post. I don't think I would mind my character being an NPC so long as it was restricted somehow. Like there could be certain "player towns" (maybe a zone on the outskirts of a bigger city) and people can buy a shop/house/whatever in one area of one instance of that zone, and it just stays there. It could make for some interesting economies to be produced, and a really thorough trader could scavenge through each zone trying to find good deals on things. Heck, even guilds could save up and basically buy an entire instance - that would be REALLY something interesting to see.

I wouldn't want any characters showing up in regular areas though, since I wouldn't want them to become too crowded, and would rather see the towns runic has built.

[Jerich]

Jerich, I read this last night and wanted to think about it a bit overnight.

First, I think that this is one of the most original ideas that I've heard about in a game in a long time. Kudos!

Thank you for reading it and thinking about it Needlehawk. It means a lot to me to have someone as articulate as you like my idea.

That being said, there are two things that concern me about this idea - choke points and diminishing returns.

Choke points - There seem to be a number of choke points in your hierarchy as it stands, mostly related to taking over NPC's in town. Those positions would be severely limited as you note. It seems like you are saying that there may be lotteries for some of these positions, or phasing or such. I can see problems occurring with that. For example, if I get a quest from NPC 1, then PC 1 takes his place, how do I know who to return to for the quest reward?

However, the real problem that I can foresee with the choke points is failure to advance. A player could get (and probably would get) very frustrated and feel cheated if they were paying, but could not advance. This would happen in situations where a limited number of NPC slots were available, and needed to be lottoried.

I would recommend instead that a lot of those positions take place elsewhere, and not involve replacing a specific NPC. For example, take becoming a banker. Rather than replacing a banker in town, how about branch banks in the myriad little towns in the MMO? For example, imagine if all the little towns in WoW like Lakeshire had "branch banks" that were normally closed, but would open when a moonlighter became available. Eventually, as more moonlighters got to the level where they could become bankers, more and more "branches" would open up, which would be much more convenient for everyone. Eventually, phasing might have to be used, but it should take a while, especially if they put 2 to 3 Moonlighters at each branch.

Yeah, I can see choke points becoming an issue and like your idea about the village branches. It makes more sense to have players filling a role rather than taking over someones slot from a world standpoint also. Perhaps it would be best to have these empty places in villages that moonlighters can fill and then supplement the villages with Moonlighters spawning in dungeons as merchants / quest givers, etc.

Diminishing returns - I think that it's a problem scenario to have some of the retirements end up with the moonlighter pretty much "fading away". I'm not sure that players would really go for retiring a character they had put so much time in, only to have it spawn less and less. It looks like only those on the "merchant path" would be subject to this (if I've read this right), so how about something else like:

From the inception of the game, there is a "merchant city" that sends out caravans once an hour that take a number of hours to wind through the world. As long as the caravan is an NPC caravan, the goods are only standard. However, if you retire, you permanently take over one of the caravans and have much better stuff to sell. Your caravan would leave the city, take several hours to wind through the world, then go back to the city. After an appropriate time to "reload" (maybe even several days to a week), your caravan would go out again. If you only went out once a week, that would leave a lot of slots for retirees. If there were an overflow eventually, then maybe phasing could be used.

Another possibility would be periodic purges of retiring characters if no one has played on that account for X amount of time (say, 6 months). That would remove retiring characters connected with people who no longer play the game.

I agree that diminishing returns is probably anti-climatic. The idea about caravans seems fun. You could kind of make the player NPC event kind of like the Darkmoon faire in Wow. The idea of purges is a fantastic idea. I can see it really helping with moonlighting in a free to play MMO.

How do you like this idea for diminishing returns? When you retire a character, you get a certain portion of moonlighting time for that character... let's call it 100%. When you retire another character you do not get 200%... instead both characters now share 175%. Once you retire the third they both share 235%, etc. You could keep increasing the amount retired characters contribute, but the amount each new retiree added would have diminishing returns. That way, no one could ever get so much of an advantage, that new players were out of luck.

[Jerich]

That is a really long and interesting post. I don't think I would mind my character being an NPC so long as it was restricted somehow. Like there could be certain "player towns" (maybe a zone on the outskirts of a bigger city) and people can buy a shop/house/whatever in one area of one instance of that zone, and it just stays there. It could make for some interesting economies to be produced, and a really thorough trader could scavenge through each zone trying to find good deals on things. Heck, even guilds could save up and basically buy an entire instance - that would be REALLY something interesting to see.

I wouldn't want any characters showing up in regular areas though, since I wouldn't want them to become too crowded, and would rather see the towns runic has built.

Thanks for the reply Webbstre. After reading people's responses, I agree that maybe it is not best to replace characters in cities. Instead having moonlighting confined to dungeons and world areas specifically set aside from it. I agree, guild sponsored instances would be incredibly interesting. Perhaps every time someone goes into the guild's instance, the guild gains in its guild advancement tab..

- Jerich

[Needlehawk]

How do you like this idea for diminishing returns? When you retire a character, you get a certain portion of moonlighting time for that character... let's call it 100%. When you retire another character you do not get 200%... instead both characters now share 175%. Once you retire the third they both share 235%, etc. You could keep increasing the amount retired characters contribute, but the amount each new retiree added would have diminishing returns. That way, no one could ever get so much of an advantage, that new players were out of luck.

Jerich, I think that this is a great idea. It would keep the power gamers from completely monopolizing the slots before the casuals can get that far.

[bTomfoolery]

Before I begin my actual reply, I just want to say how enjoyable it was to read your whole post. Torchlight has really brought together some outstanding individuals, and this thread is a diamond among gold. You're all so amazing, and if we're this awesome this early in the community's life cycle, imagine what we'll be like as time goes on! I have high hopes for this community and I know you can all fulfill my expectations.

I enjoyed every paragraph of your essay, it's very accurate, your talent of observing MMO communities is unmatched in my eyes, keep up the awesome work.

Ok, I swear, I'm done orgasming over your post.

As much as I agree with your labeling of the different player-types of MMORPGs, I don't think that Moonlighting, as you see it, would work, at least not effectively. I am going to say now, that I may repeat ideas mentioned in other posts (I've know my opinions overlap with Needlehawk at least once) but for the sake of completion, and expressing myself, I'll leave them in, regardless of redundancy. I also was so endeared by your comic panels and their absolutely astonishing ability to make a point without outright stating it, like one has to when writing a post, so I'm going to completely rip you off and use panels of my own to help illustrate (haha, pun) my point.

1.) One of the main reasons I don't think that Player Characters acting as the vendors of the game is a good idea is recognizeability. It's not a matter of the Vendor always looking the same, in fact, it'd be interesting to see a vendor change appearances from time to time...as long as it's the same character. This seems like a petty point, but hear me out. Often times, in MMOs, I have to find out who sells a specific item, so I either look up a guide or just ask around. It is very helpful if a vendor keeps the same name indefinitely. Rather than being pointed to "The Moonlighting PC who's like, sorta behind the Inn, to the western side, by the barrels" it'd be easier just to be told "Look for Steve, the Blacksmith" sure, it's been (rarely) difficult to find an NPC even when I have their name, but it helps to know exactly what I'm looking for. Guild Wars example. Karl, the Elite Armor Crafter in Marnhan's Grotto is always Karl, when you go there for armor, you go to Karl. If his name changed daily (if not more often) things would get excessively confusing, as well as breaking immersion. It stops becoming a matter of 'ease of use' when your players are broken out of their suspended disbelief when they realize that the role of shopkeeper is really just a placeholder, it's not really a character, it's just a sort of random element in their game.


2.) Now that I've brought up immersion, this second point is more of a personal one. I like NPCs. That is to say, I like NPCs with unique, endearing personalities. I like it when an NPC says something funny, has a humorous personality in general, or just is in possession of unique personality traits. I feel that these bring you into the game. It starts feeling more like a world, and less like a system. I just don't feel that PCs taking the role of the NPCs is a good way to keep this feeling.

Although, now that I think about it, you didn't seem to specify in your post whether or not Moonlighting PCs would replace NPCs or just act alongside them. A lot of my feelings are based on them being replaced, so this post will probably seem very uninformed.

Other than those two (one and a half, really) points, the rules for what jobs one gets and what rewards one gets from them seems a bit complex. Who gets to have a job at any given time seems simple enough, lotto based on how many moonlighting hours a player has, no problem with that beyond the problems previously stated. A player may feel ripped off if they aren't chosen to moonlight for quite some time (I imagine that, with a sufficient number of players, the queue to get in would be tremendously long.)

I do like a lot of your ideas for abilities that would be given to Moonlighting players, but I just don't think the idea of the actual Moonlighting is particularly efficient. For example I like the idea of the /salute buff for the Noble, but perhaps this could be a job a player could fill as, perhaps, a high ranked guild official. If lower members of the guild saluted them at any time, they'd get a buff, or SOMETHING like that, I don't know, that's just what I thought when I read it.

I'm sure I forgot to add some things in this post (in fact, I know I did, I just can't remember what) so I'll probably bring up a few more good/bad points tomorrow, in the mean time, keep this up, I love seeing fresh ideas on these forums. Everyone is so creative.

[Webbstre]

I am loving the comics in this post.

[Bissrok]

Yeah, I think I'm with the others in thinking that something like this might not turn out as you intended. Like they said, there's a very limited number of towns in the game (Mythos was going to ship with three, or maybe four). Most of those NPCs gave out quests or advice, too.

And I'm really not into the idea of rewarding people for not playing the game. It's what I hate most about playing EVE. Also, there's the thing about character names, and having them screened by the community... Doable, sure, but it's not something developers usually bother with because, at some point, they will have to step in and make the final call there. And if you're paying money, or you've spent dozens of hours in a path, and then you suddenly have the community modify your name... I'd be a little pissed. Then what happens if you log into the game? It's a persistent world, so there's never any time they can subtlety slip you out and replace you with another player.

It would be neat to see players turned into NPCs in some capacity, but I was thinking more about guild forts in PvP (or something to that effect), where being able to protect the place is its own reward. But, even then, I think the system might be a lot more trouble than it's worth.

[Jerich]

Thank you for taking the time to read this post (and the blog too it looks like=P) bTomfoolery. You have raised some excellent points. I don't think they kill, the idea of Moonlighting, but I do think they require it to be modified slightly.

1.) One of the main reasons I don't think that Player Characters acting as the vendors of the game is a good idea is recognizeability. It's not a matter of the Vendor always looking the same, in fact, it'd be interesting to see a vendor change appearances from time to time...as long as it's the same character. This seems like a petty point, but hear me out. Often times, in MMOs, I have to find out who sells a specific item, so I either look up a guide or just ask around. It is very helpful if a vendor keeps the same name indefinitely. Rather than being pointed to "The Moonlighting PC who's like, sorta behind the Inn, to the western side, by the barrels" it'd be easier just to be told "Look for Steve, the Blacksmith" sure, it's been (rarely) difficult to find an NPC even when I have their name, but it helps to know exactly what I'm looking for. Guild Wars example. Karl, the Elite Armor Crafter in Marnhan's Grotto is always Karl, when you go there for armor, you go to Karl. If his name changed daily (if not more often) things would get excessively confusing, as well as breaking immersion. It stops becoming a matter of 'ease of use' when your players are broken out of their suspended disbelief when they realize that the role of shopkeeper is really just a placeholder, it's not really a character, it's just a sort of random element in their game.

I went to Karl a few times myself. I have also had to do a /tar insert_Vendor_Name_Here .. often to try to find a specific individual in games. I think that replacing NPCs now seems like a bad idea for this and the immersion reason alone. I believe, however, that there are a ton of spots in randomly generated dungeons to add Moonlighting content. Torchlight already has Wandering Merchants that spawn inside a dungeon. I don't think it would be a problem to replace them. I also don't think it would break immersion to have someone come and help you harvest a node, giving you a boost, or retiring your characters to permanent positions in your guild.

2.) Now that I've brought up immersion, this second point is more of a personal one. I like NPCs. That is to say, I like NPCs with unique, endearing personalities. I like it when an NPC says something funny, has a humorous personality in general, or just is in possession of unique personality traits. I feel that these bring you into the game. It starts feeling more like a world, and less like a system. I just don't feel that PCs taking the role of the NPCs is a good way to keep this feeling.

Although, now that I think about it, you didn't seem to specify in your post whether or not Moonlighting PCs would replace NPCs or just act alongside them. A lot of my feelings are based on them being replaced, so this post will probably seem very uninformed.

I think I was thinking of both possibilities. I thought of Moonlighting once I started thinking about how makes ways for paying players to directly help non-paying members of the community. This was primarily to allow them a means to gain community renown without generating any of the hostility that normally comes with people spending money on games.

The process was kind of like this... The Devs already said they might do things like allow people to buy maps to elite dungeons. How can this be modified to affect the community? Players buying quests for others to enter elite dungeons. Torchlight has random dungeon merchants? Change them so that they are moonlighters that give people a significant advantage. The rest of the idea followed naturally from those two ideas and I did a thought experiment on what would happen if the system expanded into all areas of the MMO. I would not expect any company to copy it idea for idea.

I do think, however, that a lot of the moonlighting jobs would be a lot of fun to see in a real game and would not have any negative impacts on the gaming community (i.e. dungeon savior). In order to keep the game NPC centric, perhaps players could act as boosters for existing NPCs. I.E. When a player is assisting a specific NPC they sell some rare item.

Other than those two (one and a half, really) points, the rules for what jobs one gets and what rewards one gets from them seems a bit complex. Who gets to have a job at any given time seems simple enough, lotto based on how many moonlighting hours a player has, no problem with that beyond the problems previously stated. A player may feel ripped off if they aren't chosen to moonlight for quite some time (I imagine that, with a sufficient number of players, the queue to get in would be tremendously long.)

I agree with this. Moonlighting would need to be limited in such a way (either priced expensively, or tied to in game achievements), such that the number of people needing a service (i.e. wandering merchant), did not exceed demand. I think one way to do this is to tie Moonlighting to things that people do often, gather, run a dungeon, die, etc. Anything that does not tie to something that people do often, should be difficult to moonlight.


Thanks again for your great critique.

- Jerich

[Jerich]

I am loving the comics in this post.

Thanks Webbstre! They were fun to make. I just kind of made them for this post on a whim.=P

Feel free to steal them for a fan art on your site if you want to. Not sure if you had thought of adding one yet. If you do, just link back to the blog or this post.

- Jerich

[Jerich]

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and critique it Bissrok.

Yeah, I think I'm with the others in thinking that something like this might not turn out as you intended. Like they said, there's a very limited number of towns in the game (Mythos was going to ship with three, or maybe four). Most of those NPCs gave out quests or advice, too.

Nods... with a 3 or 4 quest giver town hub, Moonlighters should probably be limited to random spawns in dungeons.

And I'm really not into the idea of rewarding people for not playing the game. It's what I hate most about playing EVE.

I have never played EVE. I didn't know you could play offline at all. Do the offline people in EVE provide services to other members? I think allowing people to make progress in the main game arc just for themselves is too much like botting. This is different, in that they are making progress in an alternate sphere and helping other people directly.

Also, there's the thing about character names, and having them screened by the community... Doable, sure, but it's not something developers usually bother with because, at some point, they will have to step in and make the final call there. And if you're paying money, or you've spent dozens of hours in a path, and then you suddenly have the community modify your name... I'd be a little pissed.

You can always Moonlight under a Pseudonym or buy a high quality name from the name vendor. If you read the blog it gives some ideas about that. Sounds like you have probably already read ahead though. I think these two things solve this issue.

Then what happens if you log into the game? It's a persistent world, so there's never any time they can subtlety slip you out and replace you with another player.

EQ had a Bazaar and people would log in. It worked. If you spawned a moonlighter in a dungeon instance this would not be that big a deal. You could have two instances of the player or simply run a script to swap them with their NPC.

Thanks,
Jerich