I don't expect to get an answer to my question/observation from an official source, so what I'm asking for is more here say and rumor. I know it isn't my usual style, but I'm just curious.
Back in the Seer-days of UO, one of my favorite Seer/IGM abilities was in the making of villians (or heroes) which were controlled by the Seer and could interact with or actually battle against the players. One of my favorites was when the Napa Seer spawned as a balron in Hythloth and proceeded to wreak havoc on the players as part of a quest.
In the latest incarnation of the EM program, the only EM controlled characters I've seen have been invulnerable (yellow named) characters.
The question I have is: Why?
Is it not possible, or would it be fun to have an EM controlled villian or army? One of the most heard criticisms of the program is that the EMs have only dropped much of the same monsters, but with more hit points and who hits harder.
Now I understand that the mechanics of Trammel would make an EM controlled fully interactive character would be difficult, but could it still be possible to have a demon overlord sort character (Taking a page out of Kasaven's Catskills event) which can PvP with the rest of them? Rather than a really big NPC, an event could end with fighting a character, surrounded by spawn and with monster ignore on, with nearly infinite mana and somewhat high resists who could proceed to support his AI minions with fields and area effect spells, take out the opponents who are most troublesome, etc.
Care would need to be taken that the EM-monster wouldn't have anything out of the ordinary to loot and wouldn't be too overpowered (i.e. limit the heals, no off-screen or teleporting away, etc), but I think it is a good time to have intelligent enemies as opposed to more of the same but harder hitting.
Back in the Seer-days of UO, one of my favorite Seer/IGM abilities was in the making of villians (or heroes) which were controlled by the Seer and could interact with or actually battle against the players. One of my favorites was when the Napa Seer spawned as a balron in Hythloth and proceeded to wreak havoc on the players as part of a quest.
In the latest incarnation of the EM program, the only EM controlled characters I've seen have been invulnerable (yellow named) characters.
The question I have is: Why?
Is it not possible, or would it be fun to have an EM controlled villian or army? One of the most heard criticisms of the program is that the EMs have only dropped much of the same monsters, but with more hit points and who hits harder.
Now I understand that the mechanics of Trammel would make an EM controlled fully interactive character would be difficult, but could it still be possible to have a demon overlord sort character (Taking a page out of Kasaven's Catskills event) which can PvP with the rest of them? Rather than a really big NPC, an event could end with fighting a character, surrounded by spawn and with monster ignore on, with nearly infinite mana and somewhat high resists who could proceed to support his AI minions with fields and area effect spells, take out the opponents who are most troublesome, etc.
Care would need to be taken that the EM-monster wouldn't have anything out of the ordinary to loot and wouldn't be too overpowered (i.e. limit the heals, no off-screen or teleporting away, etc), but I think it is a good time to have intelligent enemies as opposed to more of the same but harder hitting.
