Just how smart will NPCs be in Vendetta? Not long ago I was trying out the mission system for the first time by heading over to s9 and asking for a mission, just so I can get my very first medal in charinfo. After I accepted the mission I went over to the bot that gave me the mission, killed him, stole his cargo, then proceeded to go to s12 to complete the mission. Upon completing my task I was awarded a red medal. Apparently the NPC didn't mind me killing him and continued on with the deal as if nothing ever happened.

Granted, yes, the mission system is in its infancy right now and what we have now is nowhere near as complete as what's being made with the in-house version of Vendetta. However, it would be interesting to see just how far you can get these NPCs to behave as close to humans as possible using LUA. I'm talking about randomly assigning each NPC a different personality out of many, in a way not unlike how thousands of sectors will be generated in the game. In addition, each NPC can be given some limited memory databank so that if you piss it off you can't just come back in and magically reset the mission or whatever.

I'm also curious to see as to how players will have to interact with the NPCs. Will key phrases be used to trigger certain events? Or will we have various responses to choose from out of a list of things we could say to it? Or will it simply be reduced to yes/no answers as it is now? Whatever the method may be I just hope that the player's actions will have some kind of impact as to how the NPC will be respond at the end (or during) the mission. This includes giving reckless players less prize money for doing stupid things, refusing to pay the prize if the player provokes the NPC, or maybe even releasing NPC guards after him for doing something really bad.

[moved to Suggestions]

Uhh. "Yes". If the 'mission system' you're playing with were say.. considered about as complex as a "bicycle", then what we're developing right now would be on the order of the "space shuttle". Does that put it in perspective? We've spent the last couple of months, and will be spending most of this month, working on nothing other than what you're talking about. So, yes, it's more complex.

I'm not going to really respond to all your questions, you'll have to wait and see :).

Note: the "mission system" in the game right now was never even intended to be released. In large part because I knew we'd have to deal with a lot of people assuming that that was the extent of things.

Yeah, I think it's already been said what's going to happen with bots, and while you may not be complaining about the current mission thing or whatever, it's been said we're not even supposed to have that yet...so....wait:p