I was thinking of something just now. I am actually curious if it is implemented, and if it isn't mabe it would save the staff some time with building. What if all players after they are killed their character data is stored for "npc generation purposes". From this database some of the older long dead characters could be used to populate areas. Perhaps changing "the" to "a" or "an" in the sdesc and reusing it in an area as needed to populate. The stats, skill levels, class info, could be saved and reused. Mabe this is already in place I have no idea. Just a thought.
What would happen if the NPC was seen by someone who lived back whent he PC was alive, and knew about their death? Slim chance, I know, but still.
Honestly how many features can a person have described? Add a scar or take away one. Change the eyes. I don't know.
If the wait time was 2 years or some ungodly amount of time, I think any PC that person knew would be dead. Has anyone had a single PC last longer than two years?
Quote from: "MorganChaos"Has anyone had a single PC last longer than two years?
Not many, but a pretty decent-sized handful.
How about retired PCs, then? Many people retire PCs. Who knows what happens after the PCs are retired? It's no longer in the player's hands. This is something I think bears merit for thought.
It is not uncommon for us to use retired PCs as NPCs, sometimes without people even realizing it is now staff playing them. We are sneaky that way.
As to the earlier question, yes - there are now and have been in the past PCs that have lasted more then two real life years.
Excellent.
So what if someone knowing "the chubby, three eyed man" died sees "a chubby, three eyed man."? All s/he can say is: "I knew someone looking so close to you in past. He even wore the same cloak you did. Are you, by chance, Xqwtys's relative?"
I have a feeling that they would prefer retired PCs as NPCs than dead...just to avoid the "Hey, you'e so and so!" ...and then needing animation to tell you only that you're talking to the wrong guy? I mean, some characters live long enough that using sdescs and backgrounds is cool, I would think...but I wouldn't use the same name.
I'm pretty sure the staff have said that they will do so (at their discretion) for extremely old characters (so old that NO PC is around, AT ALL since they died/retired) if the players really, really want to.
An example could be using the main desc for a character from 5 years ago (no characters in-game from around then, right?) for an NPC they want to make (such as Bakha's Tuluki project at the moment). Although you should check before doing so (as I could be remembering incorrectly, or they might have changed their mind) and warn staff when doing it.
I had an experience once, where a long lived PC of mine ran into a PC bard early in her life. Fifteen years down the line, she ran into the same bard as an NPC, and the bard had not aged a bit. This was quite jarring for my poor PC.
The point? I love NPCs as much as the next person, but the fact that they don't age is sometimes creepy.
Yeah, I can imagine the work of creating new NPCs for the different houses as the old ones age and die? Oh, I would bestow great favor upon those that were to enact such a thing...keeping NPCs ages up to date and having them die of old age, newer young NPCs stepping up...I mean, wow. This is workable, though. I've known a couple IMMs to have NPCs die off to slowly cycle through into new ones through plots. That's cool.
My thoughts are to actually make more PCs from those Houses into NPCs to replace old NPCs...and then eventually replace those former PC NPCs with new former PC NPCs.