NPC Hirelings Coming To D&D Online

This weekend's GenCon saw Turbine release some new information about the upcoming Module 8 release for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Massively has a story with many of the new changes, which are focused on making the game more accessible to new and solo players. A big part of that will be the introduction of NPC hirelings, which will supplement individuals or smaller groups who want to play without waiting for a full party of player characters. Reader nicholsonb points out more coverage at Destructoid. "... you're able to hire an NPC character that's your level or below, and they come in Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, kind of a variety. Sorceror as well. ...So they take a place on your HUD. You can heal them, they can heal you. You can help them. They'll break boxes, they'll kill monsters without any instructions from you. But they won't zerg through the dungeon, they won't open gates. You can ask them, 'yeah, go ahead and open that gate, dude,' but you're able to control all their behavior, so they're working for you. And of course they cost money, right? So they actually are working for you in the fiction of the game."

Comments

Old idea, but a good one.

[AnonChef]

GuildWars had this from the start.
In Diablo 2 you could at least hire one (perhaps 2 my memory is hazy).

It made the earlier-middle parts in GuildWars soloable. It's something more mmos should have.

Re:Sign of a dying game

[antirelic]

I'm not sure why the parent is modded down. I've played DDO for about a 1/2 year and I have to agree that the game has quiet a few problems that really dont keep players interested for very long.

The focus on grouping I think is one of the major problems of the game. Its pretty impossible to do anything without a group. Solo adventurers have shitty XP and even shittier loot. While its understandable to make some instances for groups only, by a large amount the content sucks for solo.

My second problem is the setting. I'm just not crazy about the world of "Eberon". I dont know why they cant use Forgotten Realms (like Zhentil Keep, or Shadow Dale, even Water Deep would have been nice). The "Punk Fantasy" look is pretty shitty IMHO and is certainly not the D&D that 80% of us old bastards started with and want to participate in today. Its sad too, because a large segment of DDO population are older people.

The logical layout of the landscape is also problematic. While having a majority of content confined to certain "areas" there is no feeling of connectedness between any part of the game world (exception of the Dockside and the Bazzare). Even the attached "houses" seem pretty out of place. I know people from WoW and EQ tend to complain about the "filler" space that connects "useful" regions, but DDO is a MMO without "filler" space and it just feels absolutely wrong... with no other way to explain it.

These problems are not immediately noticable and you can sink a lot of time into the game before these problems become an annoyance. After the graphics wear off and your left with just the game play, waiting for groups, popping in and out of "safe bubbles" and completing quests without having to really go anywhere becomes really boring.

I highly doubt that adding an NPC is going to really improve anything. Because we all know for every + feature there are two more more - tweaks to accompany it.