Suggestions

[quote name="ArtDem" date="2024-04-11 04:17:51" ] [quote name="RedWillia" date="2024-04-11 03:34:41" ] So many words, yet none of them answer a question that multiple people by now have asked: what would those NPC accounts do? [/quote] Honestly? All at the devs' choice, really. If they ever actually end up implementing it, that is. I only made a general suggestion. The details aren't up to me. [/quote] So you want a change for the sake of change - absolutely 0 support, that's not how changes should be made at all anywhere.

No support. I agree with a lot of what has already been said, although I don't think having them from the beginning would have helped much, as new NPCs have been added years after the site's opening. No matter what their account IDs would still be far apart.

One thing I haven't seen brought up yet is account names. No two accounts can have the exact same name. There are already players with usernames of most, if not all, of the NPCs. I doubt staff would be so cruel as to forcefully change their usernames just to use them for NPC accounts.

I'm neutral on the idea of mock profiles as Jemadar suggested, but I simply can't get behind full on accounts.

As cute as that would be, unfortunately I don't see a purpose for it. The deity NPC accounts don't get used for anything other than posting their flight's festival announcements, other official NPC accounts would see even less use and just gather dust.

Honestly I think it'd be kinda cute even if they didn't do anything, there's other sites that do that and it's perfectly fine, but Demesne's mention of account names is what makes me hesitate. I don't want to see people forced to rename because the devs decided 11 years in they wanted NPC accounts. I'd love profile pages for them though in the Ecyclopedia or something! That way there's none of the awkwardness of making people rename themselves or having Swipp's ID be in the 700ks. It'd also be a good way to fill in some lore and some extra basic info like pronouns and official colors.

Just don't get your hopes up for AI interactivity. AI content isn't allowed on FR per their own rules.

I think creating accounts for the NPCs would be problematic as other users have mentioned, but I think expanding the encyclopedia to include @/Tserin's suggestions would be cute.

[quote name="ArtDem" date="2024-04-12 22:23:38" ] OK. wanna know something funny, guys? I might get hated to Shade for this but here goes, anyway... To me, NPC accounts, in games where they exist, have always been just NPC accounts. That they're created and technically maintained by devs, I know precisely and don't mind. But for devs to be actively behind those accounts, - that's not always like that, right? Guess that rule against AI prevents the full-on implementation of my idea... As for the Encyclopedia... By that logic, we might as well wipe the Eleven's accounts and limit them to Encyclopedia entries too, given their current relative uselessness. But we ain't gonna do that, now are we? [/quote] The game started with the eleven's accounts, so it is too late to remove them. This is the type of suggestion that would have been better implemented at the beginning of the game, because now we would run into issues with account names and forcing people to change their accounts, were this to be implemented now. Not to mention the precedent this sets for the future, where it either limits the developer's ability to name the NPCs they create, or where users might have to randomly just change their UNs because they happen to have a name that the developers want to use. Fiona and Susie are both relatively common names so I am sure that there were probably people who were using those two names for their accounts. But, I do know that I would be mildly upset if the developers decided they wanted to the name 'Jemadar' and now I had to change my UN to something different. Just looked, and there is an account from 2013 named Fiona, who is friends with an account named Shrek. So, I think it is safe to say that the account was NOT named for the NPC, but rather a character from a movie. Same thing with an account named Susie. It was also created in 2013. So, both those accounts, who seem to have had the same name for almost 11 years, would have to be changed so that the developers could have access to the names of the NPCs they created. That is why I feel the best way to do this would be to simply create mock profile pages that can be commented on, in the encyclopedia. That way there is no worry about people having to change their account names, or worry about having a name that might need to be changed in the future.