Tony Zurovec · Director of the Persistent Universe

Well, it really depends on what type of NPC you're talking about. If you're talking about crew members, then in general, we're going to be more straightforward in the implementation. They're there as really an extension of you, your ship, your capabilities, etc. If you're talking about the NPCs you deal with that are external, the ones in the world that offer you a mission, then absolutely, some of those guys will not be so on the up and up. You may be offered a screamingly good deal, where there's supposedly a really lucrative set of asteroids just waiting for you to mine it, and you show up and basically it's a pirate trap. So there will be a lot of that type of stuff where, just like in the real world, just because something looks one way doesn't necessarily mean that it really is. But we're not going to be so arbitrary about it. We're going to put a lot of time and thought into figuring out what mechanisms we provide to the players such that they can make informed and intelligent choices, as opposed to: you roll the dice and you went left and you wind up getting slapped because we decided to set things up this way. That to me is not a very fun aspect of a game, when you've got those types of just boolean outcomes and there's no way for you to process the data beforehand so that you can make an informed decision.