NPCs gifting items

While reading through discussions I feel deep into a childhood memory. In a game called VMK (Virtual Magic Kingdom : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Magic_Kingdom), there was a restaurant area with an npc waiter walking around. If you sat at a table and said in chat a Key Phrase he would walk over to you and give food. The phrase would change every week or so.

I imagine something like that would be clever and unique in-game. Something like:

*Walks past Helga*
Player: "Nice Eye"
Helga: "Thanks Honey!"
*Gives Honey*

The VMK system was set up so you could only say the phrase once per day but it brought a special surprise to the game. Sometimes the Devs would post a puzzle or hint about that week's phrase and when you visited the restaurant you could see people trying to work it out. Very fun.

Thoughts?
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Comments

  • Honestly this sounds like an amazing idea! Like the KFC with the chickens except much more compelling honestly : )
  • I really like this idea as well...
  • It's great! Sounds like it would be a lot of fun!
  • wow i love this idea
  • This is great! You could also tie this to upcoming holidays and invent a suitable holiday greeting for all of them!
  • edited January 2015
    Lots of potential and utility with this idea. We have seen that chatting commands in game can work so why not make great use of it.

    Heck, at that rate.. it's not hard to imagine things like password-activated doors to your home. Imagine giving your friends the password to your house instead of just a key. Little more special :)
  • @nAFETS Really cool idea! If there's already some sort of utility to make things react to local chat words that would be really cool! Have a little setting in your butler menu that's just set password and then you can be like "OpEn SeSaMe" and it could be case sensitive or not or all sorts of other little tweaks : P

    I really like that thought : ) I think it'd be extra neat if there was a way to like, get a one use iMG card that let you type 'MEAT' into local and cause all the piggies to drop meat. With corresponding cards for Trees and Chickens and Butterflies etc. They'd come with having Gardening V or Animal Kinship VII or whatever the dev's deemed to be balanced.
  • edited January 2015
    Glitchmas surprise. Do a quick quest and then whenever you type "Let it Snow" a little snow cloud appears above you and snows on you. Gosh, so many ideas!!!
  • Ooooooh that would be lovely : )
  • I am down for puzzles and guessing games and secret phrases.
  • @berylcrest I'm sort of imagining now a game or puzzle where you're rewarded with a letter and a number every time you have success in the game/solve a clue/iteration of the puzzle.

    For example say there's a little crossword we can solve. You complete 4 Down and you're rewarded with a note that says 4T. That means the secret word has at least four letters and the fourth one is T. As you complete clues you get more papers like 1B, 2U, 3T, 5E, 6R etc. and eventually you get BUTTERFLY or some other glitchy word : D

    Then if you go up to Helga or whoever and say BUTTERFLY in local chat (It would have to be obscured to other users I suppose so they can't grab the reward without solving the puzzle) and get five awesome stews! Or whatever the prize is.
  • I'll just assume you're talking to me and say thaaaaaanks ; )
  • @"Liza Throttlebottom" I like the crossword/puzzle idea. Maybe if Helga or whoever had some kind of interaction option along the lines of 'Guess Secret Word' which popped up with a text field to type your answer in, that might solve the need to obscure things elsewhere?
  • Sounds good Diddily : )
  • Loving the idea of the key phrase to NPCs!

    Hesitant on the idea of password-accessible homes rather than keys... This is the sweetest community I've ever known, yes, but stuff does happen and people do sometimes misrepresent themselves, and passwords can be shared with people you didn't originally intend to give them to. I'd just be concerned about security. I like the key system, personally -- makes it a little more real! Like giving an IRL friend an actual key to your house. :)
  • edited February 2015
    Id much rather stick with keys as well, plus its self explantory that if you give a person keys to your house it = access, and you wont forget the pass
  • Not to mention passwords can be guessed - you'd never imagine just how many people will choose "open sesame"! (Or "password" for that matter.) Passwords are well-known to be really poor security, they're just the least-worst option if you have no other way to ascertain the identity of the other person, and your users aren't tech wizards who know the secrets of RSA...
  • edited February 2015
    And that too they are often easily guessed and they could be given out too, and the keys are tied to the account you gave them to
  • I agree that keys should still be used for homes.
    I love the idea of secret words or phrases, and puzzles in general. How fun!
  • If we really like the idea of secret words, maybe it could be tied into some kind of 'freebie box' or 'randomizer' furniture item that we could stick in our towers and fill with an assortment of things? Speak the magic word, and poof! Some random item from within is yours! (Maybe, like the decorative Gnomes, the item could 'speak' and we could give it a riddle for others to solve?)

    I mean, freebie piles are awesome, don't get me wrong, but if you wanted to give away a higher class of items and wanted to make sure that they disappeared one by one...

    (Still not convinced this is entirely a good idea for an item, but whatever... I'm throwing caution to the winds and tossing out ideas, because who knows what part of them people might find useful!)
  • Oh man, @DiddilyPuff, a freebie dispenser has been a huge ask since the old old days! I have seen people ask for one in many forms, but I do like the picnic basket version the best. One thing about the idea generally is that I like the option to put one anywhere in Ur, for impromptu parties, but I think it should disappear when it is emptied, and you have to make a new one and fill it. I also like the idea that anyone can add to an existing dispenser.
  • @"Scarlett Bearsdale" Ooh, I could see the picnic basket working nicely for food and snackish items, but if you want to toss in a bunch of bags, or some random tools, would it still be appropriate? I like the idea of a basket, though. Woven from some amount of grain and lovingly decorated/covered with some general fabric, perhaps? (If made from grain, then when the item is empty the basket can just poof back into a little puddle of grain and thus be unmade.)
  • OH MY GIANTS new skill idea: Underwater Basket Weaving, can only be performed in Jal and other underwater areas. Level one lets you use a tool to weave a picnic basket out of grain, as @DiddilyPuff described above. Level two gives other themes of decorative baskets, suitable for non food purposes.
  • Underwater Basket Weaving sounds absolutely perfect, @"Scarlett Bearsdale" ! Very Glitchy indeed. Maybe an option or two for straw-style hattery at level two for some player-made wearables?
  • Love the underwater basket weaving idea...would be a great skill set to learn! And very cool to have it linked to a place in the game too!
  • Underwater basket weaving - bahahahaha!!! I love it!
  • How about a reverse donation bin - of sorts. so a community free pile, in various spots around Ur random riddles arent a bad idea to open it but would want to limit what you could put in it so maybe it only gives out / put in collectibles? Or could skip the riddle part and have it be for random stuff
  • @Scarelett Bearsdale: I love that idea! That would be amazing - to be able to make and give baskets. Like the bags/pouches, but maybe it only holds one or two items.

    @Liza Throttlebottom Yes! Something like that! Or maybe there's a treasure hunt, and everyone is given a clue to decipher a location and passcode... when you say the passcode at the location, you get the next clue and so on till you get a prize (maybe, like, it's a temporary portal to an amazing mini-world?)
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