Talk:Non-player character

I think it would make more sense if this page was entitled NPC instead of Non-player character. That way, on the "slang & terminology" page you'd see the potentially confusing word NPC instead of the relatively self-explanatory phrase. I know that there is some way to set up a redirect to do this, but I'm a new user and I haven't figured out how. Anyone point me to the relevant info? I'd like to do this for Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game as well.

I don't want to duplicate the existing pages, just so that they can sit in the directory as abbreviations. --Squeg 13:05, 6 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * The problem is if you have "NPC" and "Non-player character" then only one can be in the category since you can't categorize redirects. Since someone decided the abbreviation should be the redirect, that's how it's gone.  We didn't really decide on it.  Maybe an abbreviations article in S&T would work instead?  --Fyren 11:19, 6 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * That's an interesting idea. Maybe I'll start an "other abbreviations" page.  Or I suppose we could do all abbreviations in a single place and duplicate references. --Squeg 13:05, 6 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * Acronyms you mean? Abbreviations are mostly slang (like res for resurrect), but a list of Acronyms would be useful. We can even put a link to it in the article part of the Slang & Term category so everyone will check it out if they can't find their term. --Karlos 17:10, 6 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * Acronyms is exactly what I meant. Thank you.  I've begun work on a page here, Acronyms, but I'm having some trouble coming up with a good way to format this list.  I'd appreciate any helpful suggestions. --Squeg 04:29, 8 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * Ok, that was crazy. By the time I got to this talk page I had already deleted that acronym page. I don't like spreading an Acronym redirect into a one line article that says it is an aconym for something else. Redirects are made for this. This is also hw Wikipedia does it (not binding, I know). I much prefer an acronym list. --Karlos 15:07, 8 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * I disagree in cases where the Acronym is in much more common usage than the full term. For instance, NPC.  If you're going to use the slang category to list words people might not know, then the acronyms should be categorized.  If the general agreement of the administrative body is that one line articles for this purpose are bad, then there needs to be an agreed upon style for handling the titles of acronym related articles.  This could be one page of all acronyms and never listing articles by their acronym names.  Or it could be that things that are more commonly referred to as acronyms are listed as acronyms in the slang category instead of as full terms.


 * For reference, if you check your standard english language dictionary, you'll see that such look up entries are used all the time. Its the single method that allows users to easily find the words their looking for without duplicating a lot of information.  Perhaps elsewhere in the site it would not be appropriate, but by linking to "slang & terminology" from the front page and using the category system to do the organization, you're basically establishing that this page is a kind of dictionary.  You'll note that i did not make entries for every possible acronym/full spelling combination.  I only made entries for acronyms that are very common and potentially confusing to users new to the genre. It really only boils down to a handful of entries. --Squeg 04:01, 12 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * I tried to make the redirect page (NPC) list in the Category or make the main entry (Non-player char) list under the Acronym in the Category and failed. For now, this is a good reason to have those one liners, but I hate those one-lines nonetheless. --Karlos 12:10, 12 Oct 2005 (EST)

Something does not (or no longer) make sense
For hostil NPCs see Bestiary? The Bestiary is supposed to contain every single creature, including none-hostiles.

Not that I have a good idea to solve the problem. The only thing I can think of is to create Category:Mobs, using the word in the restrictive sense that only include hostiles. That'd be a massive category, and there would be no natural way to sub-category it (By species? there are non-hostil centures/humans/dwarvs.  By political faction?  there are non-hostil white mantles). -PanSola 16:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Or we make NPCs not part of the Bestiary, which means Prince Ruric won't be in Category Humans, and Ventari won't be on Category Centures... -PanSola 17:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Check out that edit and see if it works for you. Oh and it's Centaurs for Ventari.  :P  --Rainith 19:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It "works" in the sense that it makes sense now, but the issue of "Hostile mobs don't belong in a super category" is still there. But maybe it's just not important enough to care. d-: -PanSola 03:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * What about something like Category:Ally? As a subcategory for Bestiary. I honestly don't see the term NPC get used much in Guild Wars chat at all (maybe I just miss it); if that's the case, I don't think we should be organising things based on it. --Nunix 03:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Eh, in-game I use "NPC" more than "Ally", considering in Thunderhead Keep, the King is an ally, but the dwarven soldiers are not. Then there are NPCs who just won't fight whatsoever (they won't get hit even standing in enemy fire storm), so they don't technically count as allies.
 * However, since Edge of Extinction does characterize friendly NPCs as different types (plus some hostils...), there is merit in your idea, just need a different wording d-: -PanSola 04:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I fail to even see the need. If a creature is in Bestiary but not NPCs then it is a monster. Category:NPC is more solid in definition and easier to apply than Category:Ally. Example: Vizier Khilbron in Sanctum Cay is an ally, but not in Abaddon's Mouth. "Mob" is a misnomer as friendly NPCs can also be "mobile objects." --Karlos 06:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I won't try to argue the need, just pointing out various articles have referred to teh Bestiary as a catelogue of hostiles only, which isn't true etc etc. Mob is no more of a misnomer as "NPCs" in the context of ":Category:NPCs".  In the broad sense they are pretty much equivalent (though I'm not sure if players can be counted as Mobs or not).  But in the context of Category:NPCs, we use NPCs in the restrictive convention, so there could, *if* there is a need, to create Category:Mobs and only apply the restrictive convention of hostiles.  The Vizor is both an NPC and a Mob, just like Devona is both a non-henchman NPC AND a henchman.  Never simultaneously, but at one point or another roles can change and it wouldn't cause problems with the categories.
 * And no, I dont' think there's really a need either. to have a list of all hostiles in the game. -PanSola 09:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

NPC, the verb
I know several people, me & my friends included who use NPC as a verb, basically it means "to use the towns services (clearing out junk, use storage, but new items from the merchants". eg:
 * Me: Everyone ready to go?
 * Party member: No.. I have to NPC first.

or in another context:
 * Me: We finally did those Dwarf quests...
 * Party member: "NPC?"

Is this worth adding? --Jamie  09:48, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Not sure, I personally might butcher "merchant" into a verb but I never do that to "NPC" or heard ppl use it. - 09:51, 12 July 2006 (CDT)