AI Characters / NPCs?

[Mad_House]

Considering a buy, but I need NPCs for offline play (not much favor for the whole solo experience with no NPCs). Does this game include NPCs?

[📈Business Woof📈]

no but animals :D i need someone to play with...someone who plays this game for a long time

[KDR264]

No it doesn't. I wish it did. I was able to beat it solo (phrasing boom), but it gets really tedious without extra hands.

[Jessy2299]

Game with great potential but without AI the game is just unplayable... What you see in screenshot and video realy make you feel like their is plenty of npc, but nope only player. The problem is you will never find any server that go until what you see in the screen shot... Miner don't sell their ore, farmer don't sell their crop, charpeter dont build house for people, etc. Every body just build is stuff in a corner and that it. Their is no cooperation between player, no "goal", community, etc. You just can't use many feature this game has because of that. All this could be solve with the addition of NPC that could be assigne a job. But the dev make it clear that they don't want/plan to add them. By the time I realise all that and understand better how the game work I had pass 3-4 hours reading. The game is also tag as "single player" and "co-op" wish lead me to believe they was AI in the game... just said it a multiplayer game at that point. And since I got 6 hours of playing. I can't get refund because of that so call "Good" (unfair) return policie of Steam. So I just waste 36$... Quite dissapoint

[SLG-Dennis]

Eh, there is plenty of servers that go until what you see in the screenshots. In fact, those screenshots were made on servers, mostly our officials. I can recommend White-Tiger, starting this friday. Plenty of people. The same applies to the cooperation you are missing - plenty of that on all servers I visit and host.

In regards to NPCs we've already been very clear that this is out of the scope of Eco, as the experience of Eco is based at the very foundation on playing with other human people.

And Singleplayer / Coop / Multiplayer is the endless debate. Steam suggests adding those things when you can play like this. You definately can play singleplayer on your PC and co-op with a few friends, hence it's tagged. The tags do not represent a singleplayer campaign or similar.

[ApeToe]

This game is designed to be played with other people not NPC's, hence 99% of the features. If you just wanna build theres plenty of other games out there that look similar and can scratch that itch. Clearly in 6 hours you couldn't have played enough to find any value in the game, nor could you have had time to play even 1 server long enough to get to the stage of the game when the screenshots were likely taken. Lots of servers get to this point, and if youre looking for somewhere to play that requires everyone to work together play on a high collaboration server. People NEED to sell their things to other people to progress at a decent rate, nobody hides in the corner unless they just dont wanna be involved in society or they're learning the game still. NPC's will not solve a single issue you mentioned

[Praeceptor]

I really enjoy this game. I love playing on servers and seeing things develop. However, I rarely have enough time these days to play on a server with enough commitment to make it worth while. I can essentially only play one day a week. This is why I would love NPC workers for single player so I could actually play a save every so often without having to try to coordinate people or be left in the stone age when I come back once a week to a server. I get that the devs don't care to add them, but it would be nice if it was possible to mod them in somehow.

[ShUhFP]

Right? As an adult who has to balance a job and personal, REAL LIFE, responsibilities, it's weird to see a game with such fleshed-out systems, yet absolutely no support for AI to be there for those of us who DON'T have unlimited time. I loved this game when I first started playing, but seriously, when I realized that I would just be building a big, empty city, I couldn't keep up with it. Here's hoping the devs change their mind!

[Benizakura]

Originally posted by ApeToe:

This game is designed to be played with other people not NPC's, hence 99% of the features. If you just wanna build theres plenty of other games out there that look similar and can scratch that itch. Clearly in 6 hours you couldn't have played enough to find any value in the game, nor could you have had time to play even 1 server long enough to get to the stage of the game when the screenshots were likely taken. Lots of servers get to this point, and if youre looking for somewhere to play that requires everyone to work together play on a high collaboration server. People NEED to sell their things to other people to progress at a decent rate, nobody hides in the corner unless they just dont wanna be involved in society or they're learning the game still. NPC's will not solve a single issue you mentioned

"This game is designed to be played with other people not NPC's," even if the store page says singleplayer?

[Monday13]

I think they should add NPCs so people can play it on slowly depopulating servers too

[Implied Facepalm Deadmeat]

Originally posted by Monday13:

I think they should add NPCs so people can play it on slowly depopulating servers too

It would be nice but it looks like they have absolutely no intention of ever doing this, so alternatives need to be considered. Like ways to run small servers better, with more fun and less hassle.

[SeniLiX]

A 6 year old necro. Well done.

[SLG-Dennis]

While we do not currently have an intention to add such mechanics to Eco for reasons that have all already been stated (most notably the fact that Eco is developed to be a multiplayer game specifically revolving around real human interaction with NPC's being the opposite and possibly actively detrimental to that) a player already made a suggestion on our feedback tracker for NPC's on singleplayer that can be voted on: https://feedback.play.eco/feature-suggestions/p/single-player-npcs

We plan to introduce most of the highest voted suggestions to the game sooner or later, depending on their suitability for the game and required development time compared to the resulting improvement.