Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I actually thought about returning to SW-TOR, and I thought about something. What if Eve Online had companions just like Star Wars: The Old Republic? That would probably stop (or maybe not) the use of needing an alt account for most occasions. I know it would probably be something hard to add in for Eve, but if the next expansion will be more war driven, it would be nice to know that we can have the option to never be alone.

You can have a choice to either, hire a temporary mercenary with certain skills they already have for a fee. For example, hiring a merc NPC pilot who has great webbing skills and flys a huginn would probably cost a lot more than a merc NPC who has okay webbing skills and fly a normal frigate. You pay a fee for a certain amount of time of his service(an hour up to an day) for him to fly with you and engage in combat if you do. Just like drones, easy to be control.

Or-

You can hire a full-time employee with little skills and you can train up as your own as if they were new to Eve Online. This way you'll have more control over what you'd like your companion to do to assist you. They will have their own skill sheet and morale list. The difference between a mercenary and full-time pilot. Mercenaries demand money on the spot. The pilot, you will need to pay weekly from your own funds. The pilot will have a morale sheet as well. If you're not paying him enough or treating him badly, the morale goes down and you may find out he'll quit, hack into your account and steal your Isk. ... ... or maybe that's a bit much. The option with pilots, you can send them on their own duties. Mining, salvaging, missioning, and they return to you with a portion of what they found while gone.


Well, you know where I am going with this. Not to say I dislike alts, I love the things you can do with them.

Ok, this is not a useless idea, but it does need some adjusting.

How about we have an option to auto-control an ALT, (one we are paying for on another account).

Botting? No, as you would be controlling them with smart commands from another account actively online.

It requires you to control them, but you can use non repeating macros that use basic true / false triggers in order to make them practical.

For example: Drones have similar controls, but these are obviously more complex.
Attack: Ship attempts to either orbit or maintain at distance optimal to weapons. Secondary effect, a tanking reaction detects when shields are low, and engages booster, etc.

Guard: Ship reacts to hostile actions against you, and either attacks or begins a logistic routine to support you.

Follow: Ship mimics your movements as if you had given fleet commands. Will follow you through gates unless blocked somehow.

No mining. You can have an NPC ALT guard you, but automating this is not something I would suggest, for obvious reasons.

The idea is that you take a character you paid for, on a second account, and control them through NPC style controls.

This nullifies the objection to having NPC's replace characters in conflicts, as that would mean less money to CCP.

Many people do this already, but by directly controlling multiple accounts on computer rigs able to run several clients at the same time.
This would give more people a reason to have a second paid account too, as they would not need the more expensive computer rig to run side by side clients, and could possibly then afford to use it this way.

Where did that come from?

Outside of the second account character trying to remain on grid by default, it is not copying anything outside of travel details.

If you were in a hulk, and you had a second account with a decent PvP alt on it, that alt would not be mining with you. It could be guarding you, but it would do no mining. It would not even be useful hauling, unless the devs decided they wanted that added.

This is a combat only effect, and simply replaces the need to run a second client. Many people cannot afford systems capable of doing this, but CCP would still like them to buy second accounts. This would make a second account more practical for them.

It would behave more like a drone, but using the skills and ships you had on this alt instead.

SOLD!!

For this, I would be all over the second account idea.

Mining, with a real guard ship who will always be online when I am, always willing to play the boring detail of Hulk defense....

I can see it would be little to no help hauling, but it might be interesting if it could be remote controlled more.

(Have it set to be able to fly to bookmarked locations, and fight back if attacked! It's like an instant scout!)

And since it's a full account just like the first, noone to complain!

(Remote control is NOT botting, any more than a puppet is comparable to artificial intelligence)

Win!

Basis rejected.

It IS an account I am directly controlling. I am simply using an interface located in a different account to do so.

Macro controls are accepted as a part of eve. Fleet commands are a direct example of this.

Automated and pre-scripted routines that are not requiring micromanagement is the applicable meaning of botting here.

This distinctly requires micromanagement, and only functions with an account being controlled in the traditional manner.

Kinda like how "botting" actually is a descriptor of a combination of macros that are chained together to perform multiple actions in order. controlling a secondary account through a in game interface or out of game interface doesn't make much difference in the fact that you are not directly controlling the account. if you were to possibly macro a macro command you have just created a bot, ie. follow then attack its not the interface thats so important as the actions that you are having the non-player account do. arguing that it is in fact a player account that just also happens to be slaved to the commands of another account doesn't make it in itself a player . just a follow bot. paying for it doesn't mane it less of a bot account




Attack: Ship attempts to either orbit or maintain at distance optimal to weapons. Secondary effect, a tanking reaction detects when shields are low, and engages booster, etc

Guard: Ship reacts to hostile actions against you, and either attacks or begins a logistic routine to support you

Follow: Ship mimics your movements as if you had given fleet commands. Will follow you through gates unless blocked somehow
[/quote]
how much micromanagement are you talking about exactly? it would seem that it is one or two clicks, the same amount that i would hazard it would take to set a bot going. Ive never used mining bots, but if they were difficult to start up then i would guess fewer people would have used them in the past.

i cant imagine all the fleets of freighters that would move after this went through, one person setting four or five freighters to follow and then going to jita having to only control one rather then ten accounts would be interesting to see. although i would guess it would be tanked orcas instead.
and the gank fleets, that followed an attack command ..

I think that my system can handle more then four open clients at a time, ive never tried that many as i dont have that many accounts, but i know people with lesser systems and more accounts open.


and fifth edit : It is starting to scare me how often i am agreeing with Mxzyf and the fact that he likes one of my posts is scarier still,
why cant we go back to good ideas he doesnt like? (as opposed to these bad ideas no one likes)

"Hey guys I have zero social skills. I know this is an mmo, and I'm encouraged to play with other people, but can I has an npc companion anyway?"

Some people are just not likable.

Reason 1: Not everyone has a PC capable of running multiple clients without issues comparable to lag in effect. The fact they would be willing to is not relevant here, since they do not have the capability.

Reason 2: Swapping between screens, assuming you do not have multiple PCs setup to see all at once, results too often in confusion and frustration.

Note for bot-fearing panic-mongers: Bot users are already organized, and able to effectively do tasks automatically. This does not address removing them, but neither does it aid them specifically any more than the rest of players.

My suggestion does nothing more than give the same controls already available on drones to a second account you are paying for, and therefore have a right to play by the games EULA.
By giving more people the ability to play a second account, more people will purchase one. Winner CCP.

As to socialization, if people are worried so much about that, then they can make the effort to group up with players who are solo at the time. Fix it yourself.