Assembly Hall

Why not, as long as it's

a) limited to a "little things" makeover, not a large project - EVE is primarily player-driven, the NPCs should never be a major focus.
b) kept out of nullsec. We don't need any more lag from irrelevant things happening around fleet fights.

maybe the best idea I'v read so far here.

+1

Because if the pirates find time to kill more NPC for their loot, then there's less time to kill me!

Hell, have the pirate factions regularly fight the Empire NPCs at stations less visited by players. Not to challenge the sovereignty, but to provide immersion and entertainment.

Join the fight if you like, or just watch them duke it out.

I think it is an excellent idea.
It will increase the immersion a lot, also giving many opportunities for gameplay.

I'll put some ideas here:

- haulers going from station to station in high sec. Manymanymany of them. Immersion needs them!
- hauling expeditions in low sec. The size of the expedition will depend on the collateral deposited by the player (large to huge). The player will decide the escort's and the hauler's strategy for the journey. The haulers must have lots of HP so as for the trip to have a chance of success. The payout must be also big. Other possible awards are corporation standings/LP, or escorting rating.
Perhaps a new type of agent for hauling missions? Or rather a hauling office?

- NPC factional fleets fighting battles in the border systems seems a great idea. The battles should last for a very long time, with NPC reinforcements rallying to both sides as to fill the losses, and players taking place should have lots of FW rewards. Also factional police should join in the battle. The final outcome will be decided by which side had the most losses, but after hours - or maybe days - of fighting.
To make it more fun, perhaps a warp scrambling field with a range of a few hundred km should be in effect.

- NPC miners in belts.
- new kind of ships travelling, like ambassadorial flagships or solar sail ships having solar flare races.
- taxi shuttles! and of course, space liners.
- huge space farming/space industry/space recreation etc. ships.

- traffic between planets or moons and stations, with special re-entry vehicles. Also, stratoplanes for planetary traffic.

The players should be able to interact with some of these, with some not.

Whenever NPC ships are destroyed in high sec, the Concord dealing with the attacker will also collect the loot, to make spacelane disrupting non-profitable in high sec. Perhaps also, for many of these NPC in low sec there should be concord response.

In general, the space should be -much- less empty than it is right now. Take a look outside at the street, and imagine that only hitmen, outlaws and police should pass. That would be much less than the traffic you see, is it not?

+1




I think it would be opposite.
Too much competition would drive the NPC's away.. no way to make a buck compared to the Capsulers.
So Jita would be more empty of NPC than any other area... this would also help prevent the lag monster from showing up there.

+1, more immersion is good

+1

More NPC's flying around would be cool too see. Lets hope the Amarr carry good loot

Supported.

On the condition that this idea doesn't take any priority over the many other projects that Eve really needs.

Another bump for the new CSM, tho it seems this thread is doing well on it's own.

+1
The OP could be on to something here.