Every once in a while I hear players say that we should try to contact this or that NPC. Clearly, NPC can’t be interacted with on anything greater than a very basic level. Even with very good scripting NPCs are locked into a challenge-response that can fake conversation enough to set up and complete quests. Unless an admin takes over an NPC then this remains true.
So when players are discussing contacting various NPCs, is that a hint to the game admins that the players wish for an admin to control an NPC in this way? Also, how often do the admins actually play along?
So, the only really reliable way to get an NPC response is to spam at them when there’s a live event going, such as the Yulai-Luminaire YC120 time thing.
There are also Empire contacts as listed in this old thread, but my guess is work-load has since put those on the back burner.
So, to a certain degree, players have to sort of fib interaction with their own faction, which runs into issues arising from potential powergaming, disagreements over what seems reasonable or logical for a given faction, and so forth. So, as always, we have to play carefully to maintain the consensus RP world.
Not scripts. During Live Events, the NPCs are played by CCP staff. If you see a character talking with yellow text, that’s a staff-controlled NPC (usually called an ‘actor’).
See above.
They also occasionally answer mails (for specific “character” NPCs like the contacts listed in Makoto’s link, not for in-game NPCs like agents). Keyword is ‘occasionally’.
Devs do control NPCs to some degree, like assigning targets and spawning them for RP purposes, for example the pre-Incursion Live Events, but yeah you can’t actually converse with NPC’s unless it is an “Actor” character like you said, like Aux Auliette on the forums who you can actually ping with the @ command (but now that you know this, try not to abuse it.)
Yes you can send evemail to certain characters run by GM’s, or express such a wish to the GM. I mean, they are gamemasters, it’s what they are supposed to do. No one else can do it.
Usually I only contact them if it’s something I really cannot figure out on my own. I contacted them twice in the past 3 years for lore related items.
I had to ask, Ministry of War or Imperial Navy? For reasons I’d rather not mention here since some people put meta before RP (the prols)
Someone was abusing game mechanics to insult one of the factions in their own space and I asked the GM’s if they could formulate more appropriate IC response than what I was limited to. They did say they would cook up a suitable IC punishment.
They are GM’s. I suspect this sort of stuff is a lot more fun than what they usually have to deal with. If it’s important to you and your enjoyment of the game it’s important enough for a ticket. It’s no less interesting or part of a game than lost mobile depots during downtime…
Most experienced roleplayers don’t need GM’s. But there are certain times during a game where one does need the assistance of other players, and certainly GM’s have a place in all of that. Usually that place is at the head of the story, managing the stage on which we play, but if it’s an immediate need for a character you care about a lot and you’re stuck on their story or something, and no loremaster knows, then you shouldn’t just sit there in silence. Roleplaying is more important than anything else going on in the game, despite what these other humorless bastards try to convince us it might otherwise be…if it wasn’t a roleplaying game at its core, and if that didn’t matter, they’d all be playing with Excel instead of a game made up of digital model spaceships and cultural flavors.
With some effort NPCs can be ommited when someone wants RP content. The RP corporation officials have a lot of power in the game and are more accessible and can provide content too.
personal experience : tried to contact my faction contacts linked by Makoto and never had any answer.
My guess is : not valid list anymore or they never wanted to answer me because my research/request wasn’t valid enough or not correctly made enough (without any answer can’t say what was wrong) or maybe also i wasn’t part of a group. To my eyes, NPCs have a huge tendency to answer only to big groups or reknowned characters and mostly not through the NPC channels listed… Only active exception is CONCORD representative. Maybe I should contact him next time even if he isn’t concerned by my research.
Only my own experience probably not representing the general reality.
To bad npc’s didn’t have the AI of Microsoft’s Tay, this way the AI for npc will interact with the person, but to make it public is too much, people drove the Tay bot insane with their irrationality, but on a one on one setting it would reflect it’s user, I don’t think Tay was a failure it was only reflecting what it saw.
For sure, which is why it would have to be an AI that only interacts with a single user, then the algorithm will only be as crazy as it’s user, a personal AI chat bot…to bad advertisers didn’t make personal AI chat bots, they would get so much more bang for their bot.
The issue I could see with NPC contact is that it’s often held up as canon. A chat bot that could be guided to say things would probably see some misuse and abuse by the very community that it’d be relevant to.
