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Emergent AI (Perpetual Change)

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JayBezz
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Emergent AI (Perpetual Change)

Before detailing my desired suggestion, if you have not heard about Emergent (sometimes called perpetual) AI I want to post this video(s) from another game explaining this breakthrough tech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1EtESFC34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWRcr1GeDcY

The devs have displayed desire for OUR characters to have perpetual decisions such as alignment and three morality sliders. But players are only one portion of the world. NPCs will be a very large part of the game population. From friendly heroes and police roaming the streets to villains. In a game with varying classes of NPC for heroes and villains to game alongside the idea of Emergent AI for the various factions becomes MUCH more attractive.

Maybe there are gangs who prefer run down high crime areas (like the trolls of the video posted) and will enter a neighborhood zone and try to take it over after a BIG boss is defeated and creates a power vacuum. The idea of NPC motive is so much in line with the genre of modern superheroes. SHIELD may be on your side today (the 198) and creating future sentinels to kill you the next (Marvel NOW). Their motivations have not changed but the circumstances of the environment DO change.

While I know that map change is very costly in terms of server resources, I do think the Perpetual AI is a great design goal for City of Titans. It specifically creates a passive system of perpetual change. Sure Ironside is full of this gang now but it used to be THAT group. Of course some things would always be static staples to your story telling (Strongholds for certain enemies) but the idea of doing away with static spawns and allowing the game to change FOR us creates an events system and Endgame that players like myself can REALLY get behind.

I know it's a ways away before you populate the world, much less build it. But I think design goals like this, when put in mind early, really help the game stay fresh for its full lifespan.

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I'll preface this by saying

I'll preface this by saying that I'd rather see something like this in the game than not have it, although I believe my response will make it clear that my level of enthusiasm for it is held in check.

I watched that first video until they decided to show their standard game play bit, so I may have missed something. Barring that, what I got from the presentation is that:

Based on player action enemy spawn points will migrate from Point A to Point B to Point C, or
Based on player action enemy spawn points will spawn Enemy A, Enemy B, or Enemy C.

One big limiting factor is that such a system can't affect mission areas. This means that the game world will have to be large enough (with enough open/free areas) to allow for such NPC movement* or the emergent AI will have to be complex enough to take into account ripple effects and inter-NPC action. Failing that, the only real option is for that group to start spawning tougher and tougher enemies. Unless permanent change is conjectured, this will provide change until a new status quo is reached or it is reset (either through lack of player effort in maintaining the new status quo or a shiny red button built into the program).

Care would also have to be taken with how street sweeping would impact such a system, as well as the reverse.

Last but not least, the ever-present question of whether players can find to game such a system?**

* Levels would also need to be taken into account. I would view it as odd, in the extreme, to see a group of NPCs displaced from a level 20 area reappear in a level 30 area.
** Answer: probably.

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/em polite cough

/em polite cough

Control Points would be one way to effect this on the World PvE scale.


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I saw both videos and was

I saw both videos and was very excited by this. The idea of organic NPCs is very cool. I know we can't do an entirely destructable world but being able to smash up an instanced mission would be cool.

I like the idea of Control Points but not the notion of fighting over them constantly. What about if a Control Point were generated after a certain amount of time or something? Say 100 Trolls get together in an empty lot and nobody sweeps them for two hours. Then the Control Point spawns as they 'take over' the area.

The idea that content would be different every time I play through would keep me around for a LONG time.

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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

I like the idea of Control Points but not the notion of fighting over them constantly. What about if a Control Point were generated after a certain amount of time or something? Say 100 Trolls get together in an empty lot and nobody sweeps them for two hours. Then the Control Point spawns as they 'take over' the area.

Oh, neat. I liked the CPs in TR (and would have loved to see something like that tried with the Shadow Shard in CoX), but wasn't really seeing a great fit for it in what we know of CoT so far. Treating a takeover of some randomish area as a sort of spontaneous CP battle is an interesting variation that could be a flexible fit.

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Comicsluvr ... one of the

Comicsluvr ... one of the things that made Control Points so much fun in Tabula Rasa is that they were freestanding, PERSISTENT world features that didn't go away or "appear" on a set schedule (like the Praetorian Events did: link, link, link). That meant that a Control Point could be contested AT ANY TIME by anyone who happened to be passing by, regardless of whether or not they'd gone there for that particular purpose. This then lead to spontaneous World PvE groupings of Players to take and defend Control Points in the zone, and they'd happen for the same reason that Costume Contests would happen under Atlas ... because somebody started it and passers-by would join in.

So the infrastructure of a Control Point is something that you want to be persistent and permanent, making it essentially a terrain feature. However ... that said ... in a game world with multiple factions of NPCs (and multiple factions of PCs), there's no reason why it wouldn't be possible to set things up such that different Foe NPCs Groups would over time "organize" their forces to make a bid to take control of a Control Point, creating a sort of rolling dynamic of Control Points being "seized" by various factions over time, and the Players could be merely ONE of the *many* available factions so that you aren't dealing with an US vs THEM sort of zero sum game. The Skulls hate the Hellions who hate the Trolls who hate the Clockworks who hate the Circle of Thorns, and they ALL hate the "meddling kids" that are the Players. So start thinking more in terms of multi-player RISK gameplay, rather than in terms of Reversi (also called Othello in some countries), in which the Players are merely one faction among many. Indeed, it would be entirely consistent to set up Control Points in such a fashion that when Players have control of a Control Point that THAT condition essentially constitutes a Power Vacuum, since none of the NPC Factions holds the Control Point.

Additionally, it would also be quite possible to key assault actions on Control Points by NPC Factions to other events happening inside the game ... similar to how completion of the Lady Grey Task Force would then trigger a Rikti Invasion in a random zone. In the case of Control Points, you could key it such that completion of particular Story Arcs would trigger an assault by the defeated NPC Faction on a random Control Point location, creating a means and method of generating the necessary "churn" of control in Control Points as a result of Cause And Effect due to the actions and experiences of the Players playing through the game's content. It would even be possible to set up Giant Monster Event triggers such that if the Players held a Control Point for {X} number of minutes against all adversaries then a Giant Monster would spawn somewhere in the city. In other words, you'd be able to make it possible to weave a web of relationships between what amount to "turf battles" for control of various neighborhoods throughout the city and other larger events that could occur ... such as the Deadly Apocalypse or the Clockwork Paladin or the Troll Rave ... or whatever.

Personally, I like the idea of the Ghosts of Croatoa taking over a Control Point (or few) at night, and that then being the trigger for spawning The Ghost Ship event ... only to see all the Ghosts get "banished" by sunlight at dawn, leaving the Control Point(s) unclaimed, undefended, and ripe for the picking by any opportunistic faction that happens to be patrolling the area at the time after dawn.

Which is kind of a long winded way of saying that having a LOT of Control Points scattered around the city in various neighborhoods would be a GOOD THING™, methinks, since it means the NPCs will fight each other in addition to fighting the Players.


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I understand the intent but

I understand the intent but for me, a persistent feature like that would be immersion-breaking. Say we have a CP near a magical lay-line South of the city. All manner of magical creatures are drawn to it. The different factions fight over it all the time. Why? IC the point 'makes you stronger', OOC it adds a 5% damage buff to you for an hour.

If it's so important then why doesn't one of the several (I'm assuming) magical collections of people take it over and then dispel it? It's far too dangerous to leave where it is. In any sane world nobody would go NEAR such a thing and the property values in the area would tumble. Remember Volcano? Yeah...I'll bet land was cheaper in L.A. after a LIVE VOLCANO cropped up and spewed fire over half the city!

Why do they have to be persistent? Why not have a minimum setting where at least 2-3 were spawned at any one time for a variety of reasons? Just have them more organic rather than some sort of hard-point that NPCs and Players fight over.

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The server structure is a

The server structure is a major factor in how this work (for those who want to exist in the same world when they log back in anyhow) but overall, I think the "Control Points" feature is a great idea to enact Emergent AI. The only change I would make would be to make the player faction more nuanced and in line with their alignment. If you're a friend of IFRIT then they'll treat you friendly. I dont know what action you'd have to take to change your relationship with IFRIT but it makes sense to me that control points could work well.

Comicsluvr wrote:

The idea that content would be different every time I play through would keep me around for a LONG time.

Same here.

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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

I understand the intent but for me, a persistent feature like that would be immersion-breaking.

HOW?
How would it be immersion breaking? Because Foe NPCs fight each other for a reason?

I'm saying that the Control Point's FEATURES would be persistent, like terrain is persistent, or buildings are persistent. What would change is who has "ownership" of the Control Point ... who "holds" it, and therefore is the dominant force in the neighborhood area. Whichever faction "owns" the Control Point at any one time determines which faction "rules" that particular neighborhood.

I'm hard pressed to find a way in which that would be immersion breaking ... except by DOING IT WRONG™ at the Development level.

Comicsluvr wrote:

Say we have a CP near a magical lay-line South of the city. All manner of magical creatures are drawn to it. The different factions fight over it all the time. Why? IC the point 'makes you stronger', OOC it adds a 5% damage buff to you for an hour.

It doesn't even have to be that. It could simply be that when a faction holds the Control Point, more of their forces spawn in the local area/neighborhood, making them the dominant force controlling/ruling that part of the city. So when the Circle of Thorns holds the Control Point, there's a lot more Circle of Thorns groups out on the streets (or conducting rituals on the rooftops) or whatever. Ownership of the Control Point doesn't have to grant any kind of game mechanical buff at all to individuals, because it's all about Territory and having a Base Of Operations to hold onto that Territory.

So then the Family come along and make a big push and manage to take over the Control Point. Now there's a lot less Circle of Thorns spawning in that neighborhood, and a lot more gangsters in pinstripe suits with Tommy Guns guarding "their" turf. The whole neighborhood feels less like a giant dark ritual and more like it's being run by the gangs of Chicago.

Then the Cabal come along, make a big push, defeat the Family, and now you've got Witches flying around on broomsticks patrolling the neighborhood, throwing lightning at their enemies on the ground that they encounter.

Then a bunch of "heroes" come along and knock off the Cabal and take the Control Point ... and now you've got Longbow patrolling the streets, and kids playing in the park, and the whole "feel" of the neighborhood changes yet again.

The thing that remains constant is the PRESENCE of the Control Point, because it's always there, like a terrain feature or an indestructible building. The faction that is in control of it, however, can shift and change and be up for grabs and the subject of a "push" to take it over at any time. Such assaults on, and defenses of, the Control Point would not be happening constantly however. There would be "lulls" after a successful assault or a successful defense before the next NPC faction makes a bid to try and take the place over. But while a particular faction "owns" the Control Point, the mere fact that they have control of it makes them the dominant force/faction in the local area ... until an enemy faction tries to make a power grab for the Control Point and then you get a street battle around it and a "push" to take it over.

So you tell me if factions battling it out for territorial control in the City of Titans is ... immersion breaking.

Comicsluvr wrote:

Why do they have to be persistent? Why not have a minimum setting where at least 2-3 were spawned at any one time for a variety of reasons? Just have them more organic rather than some sort of hard-point that NPCs and Players fight over.

Because if they're not persistent then you take away a lot of the PvE World dynamics that make them work. You basically set up a "be back in 20 minutes" sort of dynamic that encourages Players to ignore them simply because they aren't always there. One of the things that made Control Points so successful in Tabula Rasa was the fact that they were permanent installations ... meaning that they were always there for Players to be able to "do" whether or not anyone joined them in the effort. And because they were persistent and permanent features of the terrain, and often placed at relatively strategic choke points (like a castle) the amount of Player "traffic" around them was often sufficient to divert a critical mass of Players into working together to capture or defend the place BECAUSE IT WAS FUN. The "reward" for playing in and around a Control Point was the sheer enjoyment of Scrapperlock in a target rich environment (thereby providing a lot of Loot Drops as a byproduct). Even when taking over a Control Point was "strategically meaningless" it still filled you with a sense of pride and accomplishment to have managed to succeed at it ... much like taking down the End Boss of a Task Force could feel like an accomplishment, even if you'd done it before and didn't need the Merit rewards.


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"The thing that remains

"The thing that remains constant is the PRESENCE of the Control Point, because it's always there, like a terrain feature or an indestructible building. The faction that is in control of it, however, can shift and change and be up for grabs and the subject of a "push" to take it over at any time. Such assaults on, and defenses of, the Control Point would not be happening constantly however. There would be "lulls" after a successful assault or a successful defense before the next NPC faction makes a bid to try and take the place over. But while a particular faction "owns" the Control Point, the mere fact that they have control of it makes them the dominant force/faction in the local area ... until an enemy faction tries to make a power grab for the Control Point and then you get a street battle around it and a "push" to take it over."

This part I did not understand. Allowing for this clarification, I'd at least support looking at the idea.

I was under the impression that battle for the CP would be a constant thing. Sorry

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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

I was under the impression that battle for the CP would be a constant thing. Sorry

To clarify: If the bad guys had control of the control point, players could just go up and attack it whenever they wanted.

If the good guys had control of the control point, the bad guys would eventually mount an attack lasting several waves, 10-15 minutes maybe ... but these attacks would only come every half hour or so.

It wasn't a constant thing. That would fray everyone's nerves.

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If we did do something like

If we did do something like this, we might want to consider an ETA (estimated time of attack) to be posted (in your HUD while in the area, or by clicking on the control point marker, or something like that) for when the next attack would come. We might also want this ETA to become more accurate as it gets closer.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

If we did do something like this, we might want to consider an ETA (estimated time of attack) to be posted (in your HUD while in the area, or by clicking on the control point marker, or something like that) for when the next attack would come. We might also want this ETA to become more accurate as it gets closer.

Do you one better: Going near the CP or listening on the Police Band would give you general ETA, questioning 'suspects' near the area would give you a better time frame. Discovering (through Clues) a mini-mission and completing (like the little 5 minute things in the Mayhems from CoH) it would give you a pretty accurate ETA.

As with all things, totally optional but those that wanted to invest a few minutes can learn more.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

If we did do something like this, we might want to consider an ETA (estimated time of attack) to be posted (in your HUD while in the area, or by clicking on the control point marker, or something like that) for when the next attack would come. We might also want this ETA to become more accurate as it gets closer.

You really only need to have some sort of countdown timer if the battles to seize the Control Point are relatively infrequent. Anything on a 1 hour timer (like the Nova Praetoria Events) is effectively "too infrequent" to be reliably encountered and thus in need of a countdown timer (when in the vicinity) so that Players can "plan" to attend the event. Set them up as being every half hour or so, or even every 20 minutes or so (or even 1d10+20 minutes) and they'll be occurring "often enough" that resorting to use of a timer becomes unnecessary (especially if there's a "raid siren" that goes off in the vicinity, which could be as wide as the entire neighborhood). Once you have enough Control Points sprinkled throughout a zone (most Tabula Rasa maps had at least 3 per zone), it then just becomes a matter of picking one to go have fun at, rather than sitting around, waiting for the countdown timer to expire. Furthermore, I'd fully expect Global Chat to carry some level of announcements that a Control Point battle is taking place in {insert neighborhood} so as to crank up the World PvE angles.

In other words, set it up right and a countdown timer becomes superfluous and unnecessary because the Control Point battles happen "often enough" that they can become a part of the routine (even though every battle will play out differently as a unique experience).


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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

Foradain wrote:
If we did do something like this, we might want to consider an ETA (estimated time of attack) to be posted (in your HUD while in the area, or by clicking on the control point marker, or something like that) for when the next attack would come. We might also want this ETA to become more accurate as it gets closer.

Do you one better: Going near the CP or listening on the Police Band would give you general ETA, questioning 'suspects' near the area would give you a better time frame. Discovering (through Clues) a mini-mission and completing (like the little 5 minute things in the Mayhems from CoH) it would give you a pretty accurate ETA.

Going one better: have an overlay on the city map where "warning levels" are shown as color tints. No tint means there's nothing happening there in the next hour; yellow tint means something's going down in the next 30 minutes; orange tint means the next ten; red means three minutes or less; purple means shit goin' down right now so get the homies over there yo!

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I don't know anything about

I don't know anything about the Tabula Rasa system but I prefer random "pop up" times.. what usually happens when people can predict the AI of events like this is everyone shows to the same one or flys from map to map looking for them and everyone's framerate suffers (Not to mention that those who, for RP reasons, don't like to hop from map to map end up missing the events.

If there's a video out there explaining control points system I'd appreciate it. But again, the goal here is to have the AI react to the players actions. Aka.. if alot of heroes begin to congregate in an area but ignore another map.. then villain factions grow in number and possibly even difficulty so that 10 years down the line, what used to be "5 dragons territory" is now, because of PLAYER actions, a Black rose stronghold that players must take on (possibly with the help of the NPCs.

The less predictable the changes the better imho. Something he explained in the EQN video is that you choose your action, but you don't always know the effect and reaction it will have. As it is in real life.

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One thing I considered a

One thing I considered a feature of the TR CP's was that it could interfere with your plans... contacts and stores and fast travel access that were located there might not be available (though you could work around it if is there was another instance where control was in your favor). Would you be expecting to see anything like that as part of a CoT CP, or would it just be some piece of territory you wouldn't have much reason to go into anyway?

If it would impact availability of anything, would it make a difference which faction was in control? Like if faction A controls an area long enough to establish order, would it be a subset of the normal contacts/services that were available, with maybe some available that aren't there normally? Faction B might have some overlap in what is offered, along with some differences, etc. Would prices (of services that had prices) be modified based on who is in control?

If you can help a faction with which you are in good graces take a CP, does that mean you could assist particular villain groups? I would assume you couldn't attack other players if it wasn't a PvP instance, but you could fight the NPCs, anyway.

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

I don't know anything about the Tabula Rasa system but I prefer random "pop up" times.. what usually happens when people can predict the AI of events like this is everyone shows to the same one or flys from map to map looking for them and everyone's framerate suffers (Not to mention that those who, for RP reasons, don't like to hop from map to map end up missing the events.
If there's a video out there explaining control points system I'd appreciate it. But again, the goal here is to have the AI react to the players actions. Aka.. if alot of heroes begin to congregate in an area but ignore another map.. then villain factions grow in number and possibly even difficulty so that 10 years down the line, what used to be "5 dragons territory" is now, because of PLAYER actions, a Black rose stronghold that players must take on (possibly with the help of the NPCs.
The less predictable the changes the better imho. Something he explained in the EQN video is that you choose your action, but you don't always know the effect and reaction it will have. As it is in real life.

They were not 100% predictable, although you could almost guarantee that at some point they would "screw you up". The control points in TR had facilities that could be utilised by the players (quick travel points, quest givers, vendors, repair/crafting facilities).

TR only had one "enemy faction" to contend with, so you couldn't have a different opposing faction own it. It was AFS (player side) or Bane (Enemy).

Additionally, you couldn't really predict as to *when* they would come... Infact, it could go like this:

1) Players capture a Bane controlled outpost
2) Bane *immediately* start trying to take it back...

or

1) Players capture a bane controlled outpost
2) 2 hour wait
3) Bane assault the base.

I know that the number of players in the area, and defenders of an outpost would actually influence the *size* of the bane attack, but there wasn't anything (at least that I am aware of) that could *kick one off*. Although constantly repelling attacks, *could* make them appear on a slightly faster time scale.

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Wanders wrote:
Wanders wrote:

One thing I considered a feature of the TR CP's was that it could interfere with your plans... contacts and stores and fast travel access that were located there might not be available (though you could work around it if is there was another instance where control was in your favor). Would you be expecting to see anything like that as part of a CoT CP, or would it just be some piece of territory you wouldn't have much reason to go into anyway?
If it would impact availability of anything, would it make a difference which faction was in control? Like if faction A controls an area long enough to establish order, would it be a subset of the normal contacts/services that were available, with maybe some available that aren't there normally? Faction B might have some overlap in what is offered, along with some differences, etc. Would prices (of services that had prices) be modified based on who is in control?
If you can help a faction with which you are in good graces take a CP, does that mean you could assist particular villain groups? I would assume you couldn't attack other players if it wasn't a PvP instance, but you could fight the NPCs, anyway.

Cross-link

Redlynne wrote:

Here's another option for tying Control Points into Content and Story for various regions of a the city.

I'm sure that a lot of us remember how Trials tended to have things like "go to this neighborhood and Defeat 100 Rikti" or whatever. Basically it was glorified street sweeping to make you "pay your dues" before moving you on to the next stage of the Trial. Well ... what if the requirement was instead "Go and capture a Control Point that is currently held by another faction" and it gave you a list of Control Points to choose from and you just had to go and "get one" from that list. Something like, "take a Control Point in either The Hive, Peregrine Island or the Rikti War Zone" as your objective. That way, certain Trials would require Teams to go out and force a change of sides in a Control Point somewhere, leading to turnover and "churn" around these Control Points.

Alternatively, if the Content Creators wanted to be "mean" they could put the contact for a Task Force IN a Control Point, and so in order to interact with that Contact, the Control Point needs to be held by "friendlies" and allies of the Team. If the Control Point falls into "enemy" hands, the Contact either flies off, leaps out of sight, teleports out or runs away or whatever, and doesn't come back until the Control Point is retaken. Again, this would introduce a certain level of "churn" for certain Control Points making them more dynamic than static, even if they only "rarely" fall into "enemy" hands, meaning that the Contact will *usually* be there (even if they're not *always* there). The idea is to introduce a small level of uncertainty, leading to opportunistic street sweeping For A Purpose, rather than creating a hassle and annoyance just to act as a speed bump.

My point being that in many cases there needs to be a "reason" to bother with assaulting (or even caring about) a Control Point and who has control of it. That's because if there isn't any kind of a content reason given, people will just tend to not go there. A lot of people skipped over Faultline, simply because there was no "need" to go there for anything for the longest time. With nothing directing traffic into the Zone, it just turned into a big empty "wasted" catastrophe Zone that people avoided because there was no reason to "go" there. Same with Boomtown. Pretty much the only reason to go to Boomtown was because there was a Mission Door there, or people were Badge Hunting. The rest of the time ... no need or reason to go to Boomtown at all, so the Zone was just left empty of traffic.

So Control Points could potentially be used as "drivers" of traffic to various regions of the city, and used as objectives for either Mission Completion or as Contact locations, and it could be done in a way that drives Player "interest" in those areas.

Let's take this notion just a little bit further, since in City of Titans we wouldn't necessarily be dealing with Heroes vs Bad Guy NPCs (Paragon City) or with Villains vs The Competition (Rogue Isles) exclusively. So lets say that one of the "services" that a Control Point can provide is Mission Contact NPCs for anything from repeatable "Newspaper" type Missions (that don't any story-ish consequences) all the way up to being a Task Force Contact NPC (which, granted, would be rather annoying!). BUT(!) ... exactly which SET of Mission Contact NPCs spawn in depends on who has control of the Control Point at any given time.

This then brings up two additional factors that can be baked into the "services" available at any given Control Point ... Alignment of the PCs ... and Reputation levels with various Foe NPC Factions. So let's say that there's a "villainous" type of Mission Contact who only appears if the Control Point was captured by a Player who has a Low Law score (meaning that the "villainous" Mission Contact will spawn in) ... or ... the Mission Contact is "friendly" with a variety of Foe NPC Factions and if one of those factions holds the Control Point then the "villainous" Mission Contact will spawn in then too ... allowing for a variety of conditions to be met in order for the Mission Contact to be present. If one of the PCs has a "good enough" Reputation level with the Foe NPC Faction holding the Control Point, then all of the defenders in the Control Point will be "Yellow" to that PC (will only aggro if attacked) and that PC can just walk right into the Control Point unopposed and interact with the "villainous" Mission Contact.

This use of Reputation could potentially be an opportunity for use of Secret Identities to be able to slip past patrols and guards around the Control Point in order to meet with the Mission Contact without being harassed. Note that trying to seize a Control Point Obelisk (or whatever the "zowie" to do that is) would immediately draw aggro from all nearby Foe NPC Defenders and make those NPCs hostile to you (think huge radius PBAoE Taunt).

But yes ... it ought to be POSSIBLE to make the Mission Contacts (if any) that spawn into a Control Point be keyed to either the Alignment(s) of the PC(s) that captured it ... or being on "friendly" terms with the Foe NPCs that are holding it ... creating competitive pressures for "ownership" of a specific Control Point. However, just because such things CAN be done doesn't mean they would HAVE TO be done.


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.