Dev Blog #2 What is Melee?

[Beauchamp]

family members are NPCs? my brother is lets say an NPC miner so i set him to work in one cave and dig ore for me? he will be there in real time? digging in the day, sleeping in the night in my house?

the best game i've ever played was ultima online on a small rp shard with unique rules and you could "buy npc people" to do stuff for you (at that time only to sell in a shop). But I can imagine they could do many more things (sell, mine, do blacksmithing, alchemy, collect plants, beg, steal, farm, breed horses...) It would be cool and feel alive, those all npcs would be "real" people, they'd belong to somebody and would be making things that are making sense.

and rich people could have more npc, while stupid fighters/soldiers would be alone and horseless.

[Vovka]

family members are NPCs? my brother is lets say an NPC miner so i set him to work in one cave and dig ore for me? he will be there in real time? digging in the day, sleeping in the night in my house?

the best game i've ever played was ultima online on a small rp shard with unique rules and you could "buy npc people" to do stuff for you (at that time only to sell in a shop). But I can imagine they could do many more things (sell, mine, do blacksmithing, alchemy, collect plants, beg, steal, farm, breed horses...) It would be cool and feel alive, those all npcs would be "real" people, they'd belong to somebody and would be making things that are making sense.

and rich people could have more npc, while stupid fighters/soldiers would be alone and horseless.

it was also possible buy npc guards

[Spartacus]

Is there a schedule for releasing Dev Blogs?
And if yes: How does it look like?

[chadz]

kind of like this:

"chadz, sunday tomorrow, devblog?"
"depends on how hungover I am"

[Spartacus]

That sounds fair

[Eskil]

It looks great !!! I look forward to the game!

[karasu]

kind of like this:

"chadz, sunday tomorrow, devblog?"
"depends on how hungover I am"

Depends on how well they're handling this new development technique.

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[Son Of Odin]

Depends on how well they're handling this new development technique.

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chadz got funding for developing alcoholism?

[Kalam]

Who's the artist behind the concept art in the first post?

[Pestdoktor]

Who's the artist behind the concept art in the first post?

http://wraithdt.deviantart.com/

[MacX85]

another question:
is the idea of two distinct kingdoms still a thing? Or will every kind of player groups be created by players only?

also:
since NPCs will play a vital role in wars, is there a way to tell human enemies from NPCs? I guess most people would like to know if the one whose ass they're about to kick is a human being or not.

[Byrdi]

since NPCs will play a vital role in wars, is there a way to tell human enemies from NPCs? I guess most people would like to know if the one whose ass they're about to kick is a human being or not.

What makes you think that AI will be on the battlefield? From what I understood the NPCs/soldier tickets are probably supposed to be controlled by players just as it is in Strategus.

[MacX85]

What makes you think that AI will be on the battlefield? From what I understood the NPCs/soldier tickets are probably supposed to be controlled by players just as it is in Strategus.

Well, then I would need clarification on that part. The way I understood it was that your alts/family members are the inhabitants of a city which the lord of the city can control however he likes.

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Instead of controlling a single character, you will control a "family" of sorts, with multiple Members/Siblings/(Alts). You control one guy at a time, the inactive ones will do the grinding for you. Resource gathering, crafting, farming, conscription to armies - that is what you use your family for.

...

Factions will construct cities in valuable positions, individual players will settle in and around cities, profiting from their protection. In return, the faction can use the alts of players to recruit armies and send them off to besiege other castles.

...

- The plague of indie multiplayer games: many indie mp games suffer from the danger of not having sold enough copies so people are reluctant to buy it because they have no one to play against. A self fulfilling prophecy. With a sandboxy game we can neutralise that a lot because there are always things to do alone, and we can also feature bot fights during late nights if there are not enough players online.

[Richyy]

I dont know if someone already asked it, but, If you die, what happan afterwards?

[Salvius]

Well, then I would need clarification on that part. The way I understood it was that your alts/family members are the inhabitants of a city which the lord of the city can control however he likes.

I doubt that NPCs will be a part of the battles fought. As I understood it, they (might) wander around the city in times of peace to simulate the local population, comparable to the way they did in Warband singleplayer.
They also give an impression of the amount of troops a local lord could potentially field in a war as they are then converted into respawn tickets that can be used by anyone who wants to participate in the battle.
If this is correct, there might however be a problem with huge battles not actually being huge despite enough NPC-tickets being available due to not enough real players participating...