[MUD-Dev] AI not worth doing in our games?

[Damion Schubert]

From: David H. Loeser Jr.
 
> (Overlooking the fundamental reasons of a shop keep being in a
> shop 24/7.) If a player enters a shop at 10:AM (game time) and
> again at 10:PM (game time) and the shop keeper has not moved - we
> remove the players "belief" that the NPC is any thing other than
> an interface to trade/purchase.  Simply having a second (or third)
> NPC come in to the shop and allowing the first to leave is easy
> enough to implement and is a perfect example creating a more
> believable NPC.

I've been on several muds with shops that closed.  Ultima Online had
shop owners that could move.  The players hated it, in both cases.

Players have no problem taking a break from slaughtering rats to go
sell stuff, but dammit, they sure better be able to do that on
_their_ schedule.

In EverQuest, human shopkeepers wouldn't sell to dark elves based
upon their race, and human guards would attack them on sight.  That
was also one of the more despised features of the game, as huge
parts of the game became nigh-unreachable for low level dark elves.

And I don't buy that simply changing out the visual appearance of a
shopkeeper will make players say 'hey!  this is new, fresh and
interesting!'
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