Yeah, ya'll are a dying breed, except when it's something that affects YOU.
Ah, too true.
I do remember vigorously opposing "free" shards.
Also, the way that EA account management works has drawn quite a vocal and negative response from me.
As has the mystifying (to me at least) reasoning behind the way the Origin Store handles UO.
***
On your topic though....
I was thinking about the hiring NPC's idea.
If we could hire Spellweaving NPC's, wouldn't we want them in one place (say an Arcanist's Guild) instead of having to find them?
(Going with Spellweaving over Magery NPC's here, just for thematic purposes...)
If so, once we hired them, wouldn't some people just leave with them? What would the respawn rate be?
If the NPC's are blue, can't I just kill them so you can't get them? If they are yellow, can I use them as a meat wall in the dungeon?
What happens if people brought back their NPC's and dropped them off? Some just go poof?
What if I hire a bunch and then just sit there? Do new ones spawn so you can use them?
How many NPC's will spawn in a room? What if I have a guild with 20 people and we all just hire 5 NPC's?
How many NPC's can you fit in a room before the server crashes?
Clearly, there has to be some limit on how many NPC's are there? But how do you limit it, and yet still provide NPC's for everyone playing to be able to use?
We could put a time limit on the NPC's and say you have 1 min to get into the circle and make the focus, then they leave your employ. What happens if I just start rehiring after that to grief you and prevent you from getting the 5 you need?
If we time employment and limit the NPC's movement to just the building (so that they are always available), do they all have to follow us to the circle?
Wouldn't it be easier just to have 5 Arcanists standing in a circle and pay a guildmaster for the focus?
Do we even need the NPC's to go through the animations or should we just buy the focus from the guildmaster?
Nargh. Such a simple concept and yet so many questions and variations. And this is just off the top of my head. Imagine having to actually design this out.
You know, we could just make a book that lets you power up and get a level 3 focus. That way with only 2 powered-up players you could get a level 6 focus.