Hiring mercenaries for Wilderness

[dargonhuman]

A crazy idea I just thought of (it's probably been suggested before, though I couldn't find anything similar) while posting in a Wilderness thread; what if we could hire NPC mercenaries to protect us in the Wilderness?

 

The idea is still nascent, but how it could possibly work is this: You talk to one of the Mercenary NPCs (who tend to gather north of Edgeville and Varrock), and after a brief dialogue sequence, you give them some gp and they follow you around until they die or you cancel their contract (by talking to them a second time). While they're following you, they will attack any hostile NPC within, say, five paces or any other player who attacks you first. If you attack another player, they will protect you from other hostile players (if in multi-way) or just go after hostile NPCs (if in non-multi-way).

 

 

 

Restrictions could include:

 

You can't hire a mercenery whose level is higher than yours. i.e. a lvl 3 power miner can't have an army of lvl 99 mercenaries to help him mine Rune.

 

You can't hire more than three mercs at a time, for obvious reasons.

 

You can't attack the same player as a merc, even in multi-way. This would prevent weaker players from abusing mercs to gang up on stronger or higher-leveled players unfairly.

 

Only one Merc can attack a player or NPC at a time, for the same reason as above.

 

Your mercs can attack other people's mercs, but are still bound to the last two rules.

 

Mercs cannot be used outside of the Wilderness, for any reason.

 

Wilderness level restrictions apply to Mercs the same way as players; i.e., a lvl 78 Merc can't attack a lvl 46 player in the lvl 20 Wild.

 

If you die, tele or otherwise leave the Wild, all Merc contracts are automatically cancelled, and no refunds are allowed. In other words, if you hire three Mercs, get to Lvl 2 Wilderness, then realize you forgot something at the bank and leave the Wild to get whatever you forgot, you will have to re-hire the Mercs.

 

 

 

The available Mercs would include all three combat types - Mage, Melee, Range - and would be available at a variety of levels (to make things easier, there could be specific level ranges available, such as 10, 20, 30, etc.). This would be available for f2p and p2p.

 

Another anti-abuse feature would be every Merc would start with a base equipment set (say, steel or iron for melee, basic mage spells or longbows and iron/steel arrows), but could be outfitted with better gear by the player by Using the equipment on a hired Merc. If the Merc dies, they would drop whatever extras you give them (granting you an opportunity to get your stuff back), but if they die with just they're standard gear, they only drop Bones and a small pile of gp. Additionally, if you die while your Mercs have custom gear, you do not get it back.

 

 

 

Like I said at the beginning, this is still a half-formed idea, so there are likely problems with it, but if done correctly, it could add a whole new layer of strategy to the Wilderness.

 

 

 

--Darg--

[Kiro]

Like Diablo, me likey. :D

 

 

 

As for your last comment, about strategy, I doubt that. Since you cannot control the spells your mercs cast/when they use their specials, etc, different players' Mercrenaries would merely cancel each other out, thus a waste of money, until the point where no one used them anymore, at which point players would realise that if they hired mercs, since no one else was using them, they could have an advantage, more would follow, and the use of mercrenaries would fluctuate nonstop, becoming a neuscence.

 

 

 

Whoa, run on sentence there. :D

[dargonhuman]

Thanks, Kiro, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe to prevent that kind of fluctuation, you'd be able to have some control or give orders to your mercs, maybe similar to cats? (you do have some limited control over what cats do, right? I'm not a member, so I'm not sure about that...)

 

Another restriction I forgot about, too, would be mercs can't attack aggressive Random Events, ever. If you get a Shade or an Evil Chicken, you're on your own.

[Jeffro108]

also i think that they should just attack others who attack you. Your training prayer or gathering runes and some idiot comes up and attacks you then the merc would attack the person that attacked you. He's basicly like a gaurd.

[Dalcyte]

i disagree. The wilderness is meant to be player killing player not player + npc killing player. Its very unique in that sense that its the only place where people lose their stuff because another player killed them. Adding npcs for help is losing that.

[Toxicologist]

The problem with this idea is that quickly, it would become impossible to PK without mercenaries, or you will be forced to PK in large groups. Which then, still does not cancel the need.

 

 

 

It will become a necessity, and for people who likes to PK alone, that is a great disadvantage.

[dargonhuman]

It will become a necessity, and for people who likes to PK alone, that is a great disadvantage.

 

It's been my experience while mining that it's already a disadvantage; team killers make up about 80% of the PKers that attack me, which is part of the genesis of this idea (for the record, about 15% are trainers who feel like I'm "stealing" their kills and the rest are solo PKers). My experience could be skewed, though, as I'm not a PKer and about the only reason I go to the Wild is to mine.

 

The concerns that were brought up about escalation are something I hadn't considered, and are probably an idea killer. There are probably ways to work around the problem, but they'd most likely be too complicated and unfeasable to implement without making major changes to the nature of the Wild.

 

Oh well, it was a nice idea while it lasted. Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'd give out cookies, but I just ate the last one...

 

 

 

--Darg--

[ironmaiden666]

I thnik the way that you can give them your equipment to wear, could be extremly advantageuos, to rich players, as the could kit out there mercs with barrows stuff, and wup you, or you could do that to orhter players

[Toxicologist]

It will become a must for going to the Wilderness, so no.