Being an NPC in an MMO can be a pretty dull life. There's a lot of standing around waiting for some random adventurer who'll go and run an errand for you, or alternately sell you a sackload of bits of random animals.
The standing around part of the job is particularly incongruous when the NPC is standing outside and it's cold, or raining, or the middle of the night, or all of the above. It's only rarely that an MMO will actually acknowledge this. In Neverwinter the inhabitants of Bryn Shander stand shivering around the fires in the town square and it's one of the things that helps to convey the bleak atmosphere of that zone.
It's cold in Iron Pine Peak in RIFT, but the locals stand around as usual, indifferent to the weather. Possibly they're just too bored to feel the cold because there's not a lot to do in Iron Pine Peak. You can't even go for a walk outside your town or camp without being murdered.
That happens a lot in this zone. Something like three or four times the character is asked to go and find someone and every time the person they're looking for is lying dead in the snow. The first time it's a surprise - a subversion of the typical go-find-this-person-and-bring-them-back escort quest - and the second time it's a bit grim, though it's made less so by the bland reaction of the questgiver when you return with the bad news. When it happens yet again later on it's just unintentionally funny.
I suppose it does at least explain why the NPCs don't go wandering off.
Comments
Post a Comment