Old NPC beggers that used to follow you around town?

[Solarmaid]

Hello everyone,

Can anyone remember what the old NPC beggars used to say to you when they begged? This was before they changed them and they followed you around town begging for gold and food or such. They where sooo irritating but funny to in a I wanna take you out of town and kill you kinda way.


Anything you remember would be great.

Thanks

Solar

 

[Fogsbane]

Canst thou spare a few coins?

I have children to feed.

I haven't eaten in days.


I used to get quite a chuckle from people being followed by these.
Often people would show up at the bank with one of these following, and as soon as the person spoke - the beggar sayings would be overhead too. Many times a persons plea of 'please help me how do i get rid of this thing' would be unseen. That and the fact that the beggars would stick onto you like a leech made for quite humorous (to me) scenarios of people running around and being helpless to rid themselves of the beggars nuisance. I think all it took was a single coin or piece of food and the beggar would be 'reset' and ready to go after another target.

 

[Jermosh]

Man that was back when you had to actually walk places.

 

[Viper09]

And back in the day when you could actually talk to NPC's. Remember talking to thieves about Lord British, asking where the shops were, etc.

 

[Lord Drakelord]

And back in the day when you could actually talk to NPC's. Remember talking to thieves about Lord British, asking where the shops were, etc.

ya I remember asking for shop information. And also getting the time of day.

 

[AshMoney]

Canst thou spare a few coins?

I have children to feed.

I haven't eaten in days.


I used to get quite a chuckle from people being followed by these.
Often people would show up at the bank with one of these following, and as soon as the person spoke - the beggar sayings would be overhead too. Many times a persons plea of 'please help me how do i get rid of this thing' would be unseen. That and the fact that the beggars would stick onto you like a leech made for quite humorous (to me) scenarios of people running around and being helpless to rid themselves of the beggars nuisance. I think all it took was a single coin or piece of food and the beggar would be 'reset' and ready to go after another target.

This was quite comical..and very annoying when it would happen to me. Im glad you remembered wat theyd say cuz it was driving me nuts trying to remember.

 

[Braden_of_LS]

Talking to the NPC's was alot of fun.

 

[northwoodschopper]

didn't npcs have ghosts too? i kinda remember npc begger ghosts still following players, and i remember that it was one of the uses of spiritspeak at the time, you could ask ghost npcs the same things as lving ones.

 

[Viper09]

What happened to the talking NPC's anyways? Did a little change of the coding suddenly remove it?

I think they should bring it back

 

[Xenobia]

What happened to the talking NPC's anyways? Did a little change of the coding suddenly remove it?

I think they should bring it back

I agree! I actually felt bad for the little raggamuffins. That was a really cool part of the game.

 

[Dolphoenix]

I agree! NPC's were always part of Ultima and .. originally UO. Beggers as I recall, just needed to be toned down, not removed completely.

Personally, I've always felt the devs should go back to publish #1. Review each patch and see what was removed and why. And bring things back if possible!

Things I miss -

Gaining skill while watching another player using that skill. (taken out because of all the complaints about walking past someone and getting your skills messed up. Not an issue now that we can lock skills)

Dismembering a corpse and turning the head in for a bounty. (no idea why it was taken out but the guards response was great!)

Blacksmiths hammer hitting more than just one time. (taken out because of the complaints of sitting there listening to 7-10 hammer hits and the time wasted.... should never have been dropped to 1 hit. 2-5 hits would have been an acceptable median)

Sounds of footsteps on different surfaces. (no idea why removed but anyone else remember walking along the bridges in Vesper and it sounding like you were walking on wood or going to humility island and hearing the snow crunching under your feet?)

The list goes on and on and on. Most of these changes were brought on either by technology limits of the time (remember trying to play using dial up?), or more frequently because people complained without thinking. And too often than not the answer was always just removing it from the game instead of finding a real solution.

 

[Viper09]

I think the dismembering corpses was taken out to turn change the rating from Mature to Teen. Guessing to try bring in more players.

 

[Fink]

What happened to the talking NPC's anyways? Did a little change of the coding suddenly remove it?

I think they should bring it back

Localisation of text, they made the game easier to translate into non-english languages. I think that's the same reason we lost those flowery item descriptions such as "an exceedingly accurate mace of force" and "an exceptional shirt sewn by Tailor". I think it was something like 16,000 lines of speech they would have had to translate so they said "screw it" and made everything "Item: Quantity".

 

[Uvtha]

ya I remember asking for shop information. And also getting the time of day.

They still tell you the time. Don't know about directions.

 

[Dolphoenix]

What happened to the talking NPC's anyways? Did a little change of the coding suddenly remove it?

I think they should bring it back

Localisation of text, they made the game easier to translate into non-english languages. I think that's the same reason we lost those flowery item descriptions such as "an exceedingly accurate mace of force" and "an exceptional shirt sewn by Tailor". I think it was something like 16,000 lines of speech they would have had to translate so they said "screw it" and made everything "Item: Quantity".

That's what I'm sayin about things just being removed because of either technical issues of the time or public opinion! Translation is easy now thanks to new and improved 'babel fish'!

 

[Viper09]

Localisation of text, they made the game easier to translate into non-english languages. I think that's the same reason we lost those flowery item descriptions such as "an exceedingly accurate mace of force" and "an exceptional shirt sewn by Tailor". I think it was something like 16,000 lines of speech they would have had to translate so they said "screw it" and made everything "Item: Quantity".

Figured it had to be something like that.

Hope they can bring it back somehow, made this game a lot more fun when the NPCs actually did something more than just wandering around keeping to themselves.

 

[Llwyd]

Once upon a time, I found them so annoying. Today, I sincerely wish they were back.