While it’s exciting to imagine better-performing servers, and thralls that are more capable in combat, the fact remains that many times players like to deploy thralls for RP reasons (yes, even on Official servers). Such thralls might have been captured just because they were eye-pleasing rather than having any expectation of ever getting deployed into combat. Instead, they’re meant to be eye-candy to round out the crowd at your tavern, grace the feast table at the heart of your castle, or await your return to the bedroom.
Unfortunately, the base game has never supported such City Life features particularly well. We can’t clusters thralls around a table as if eating or conversing, we can’t assign a dancer to a harp to provide music, and pets will remain at attention when it might be more fitting for them to relax by our thrones.
Doubly unfortunate is the fact that in a world with thrall limits, larger clans and even solo players who enjoy building more than the bare minimum won’t be able to engage in this sort of thing on the Official servers anymore. Every lowbie dancer with a nice figure, every sub-optimal combatant becomes one fewer combat resource to defend against purges, raids, or errant world bosses.
What we need is a way to have decorative / RP thralls who lack AI, but can still have client-side animations to bring that spark of life to our bases.
In some sense, the code for this already exists: we can still have as many crafting thralls as we like, and those thralls animate without the need for the server to devote AI resources to them. What I’m suggesting is turning some of the decorative pieces in the game into City Life workstations.
For example:
- Musical instruments could have a thrall slotting into them to play a simple tune (ike what we hear in Conan’s tavern).
- The new Dancer’s Stage from the Derketo DLC could allow us to slot 1 or 2 thralls into it to perform dances.
- The new Bar placeable could have a slot where we can place a thrall to stand there and look at customers or polish a tankard with a rag.
- Beds could have a slot where we can place a thrall to either be taking a nap or beaconing suggestively, etc.
- Chairs could have a decorative thrall added, and if there are a few in close proximity, they could interact [quietly] amongst themselves. Same for the new King’s Board.
Naturally, these stations would also need to have 5 slots for the 5 different clothing slots (so our barmaids, dancers, etc. aren’t all dressed in rags). In addition, this functionality could also be added to altars, blacksmith benches, stoves, etc. so we could finally dress (or undress) our loyal servants as we see fit.
Implementing a system like this would not only make the intended thralls limits pill easier to swallow, but it would ease the AI burden even on servers without limits since the decorative thralls’ animations would only need to be processed client-side. There could even be a quality/LOD setting under Visuals or Gameplay to render decorative thralls only once everything else has loaded so as to avoid someone exploiting by filling an area with dummy thralls. I’m thinking a slider we can set to render only the 10 nearest up to 100 nearest dummy thralls (kind of like how Low-End Laptop Mode only renders trees, rocks, etc. that are very close to the player).
Under a system like this, even tier 1 thralls from Noob River might still be worthwhile to capture rather than fodder we slaughter in the hopes a T4 will spawn in their place. Additionally, if no AI behavior will be applied to a thrall while it is slotted into a City Life station, then we could put any thrall into one rather than having to worry over what class it is. Want that top-heavy Hyperborean taskmaster 3 as your bartender? Sure! Want to see that well-endowed Darfari fighter do the meat spin up on stage? Go for it!
If at some point, the player decides they want to swap out performers or bartenders, it should be exactly the same as removing that thrall from a chest. If I just lost my last Dalinsia fighting a dragon, I should be able to head back to base, remove Slave Leia Dalinsia from the dancer’s stage, and then place her as a combat thrall. (Mind you, if players still want to reap entertainer buffs, I’m inclined to think they should still need to use real entertainers, not stand-ins.)
Anyway, thoughts or additions? Official Server City Lives Matter! 
