>>The people fussing about the NPMs are attributing the problems with the game to them, when it's completely the other way around. As LoveGun stated above, more active players = More attraction. Sure, down the line they may get disappointed, but by that time they're hooked


In fairness, if the site did have as many users as the NPM's have bolstered us to, we probably wouldn't have them. From what I interpreted, NPM's were brought in to help crewleaders who either had next to zero members or had difficulty with funding - a helping hand. These days, it can account for more than half of the income a crewleader makes. Are you seriously suggesting that that's a good thing?

I join Crawford and LoveGun when they say that if they discovered half of the userbase were actually just moneygrubbing computers - I would be fairly disappointed. My distaste for NPM's is a topic for a different discussion - As, quite frankly, I think they have no place here. My original suggestion would just have an option for us players who don't wish to see an entire half (or more, depending on when you pop on) of the site filled with them on the 60 second list. RIA's and MIA's don't appear on the 60 second list. (aside from the five minutes when the RIA is spawned) They don't bother anyone. The idea that it makes the game seem more active is incredibly disingenuous - and I doubt they'd have much problem bumping into genuine "activity", considering that the average new user likely has at least half a dozen thinly-veiled recruitment mails shoved down their throat within the first few minutes of playing.


This suggestion is for the users who actually want to see true activity on their 60 second list - nothing more, nothing less.

NPMs, according to an admin/coder, were designed to decrease the gap between a new CL and an established CL. It does not do that. It does that opposite. It makes it harder for newly authed CLs to approach the level of those already established. And they bring in millions and millions of dollars that go towards bodyguards, making change less likely. Pretty simple, really.

I'm not saying that removing NPMs would be a cure-all. Anyone who said that would be foolish. But they exacerbate the stagnation and problems already present and continue to guide the game in that direction.

To be honest, after almost a year away i returned to find robots all over the 60 second list, I am not going to grace them with the name NPM because there not non player members, they are not the same as us, lets look at it another way. 

Real player A comes along, finds a crew and works there asses off,  and do there best for the crew, they have interacted with there crewleader and other members of the crew and they continue working hard, then they become made. lets face it this should be the one thing that a new player is aiming for, made man is the rank we all want to accheive, it distinguishes you between an associate and a member of the inner circle, I dont need to explain the importance of being made. 

then player B.. comes along, makes money for the crewleader, catches witness statments and thats it, ohh but they get made no problem.. 

so are we really saying that rank isnt important anymore? are we saying these robots are better than us so we are going to give them a rank like made man. 

the thing is, as i have said before, this isnt a democracy,if admin want the robots here they will be here and there is only one way to change the use of these robots within your own crew, that is to not use them, however this then brings its own issues, because for some reason within the game, we have become so reliant on members that are not even real people that we now need them, crewleaders need the income from the robots. its unfortunate and a real shame because as robots become increasingly more nessasary, real people become less so, thus people will leave. 

i actually feel that people should think about why people left, and try to do somethnig about that instead of relying on some lines of code, wich is essentailly what these things are, to fool perple into thinking the game is busy, afterall if you was the only real peron here and the game had robots in place of each and every person that had left, would you stay arround? 

if i wanted to play against a computer i would be playing farmtown or mafia wars on facebook, I want to play with, for and against real people thats why i came back.

Panda, as far as your argument goes, I'm just not quite connecting the dots on how to apply it to a "toggle" option. Even if I concede the point that NPMs generally help bring in new users and help the site, what exactly is the problem with setting "display NPMs" as default option? It seems that this would solve for both issues: new players see the big active online player list, but anyone else who views NPMs on the online list as a distraction can filter it out.

Though I can name a few issues I have with NPMs in general, this isn't the place for most of it. One issue that is relevant is the detrimental effect of making shifts in real player composition of the online list harder to notice. I don't recall exactly how many wars I've predicted -- and predicted far enough ahead of time to have my shot held at war-start -- simply by comparing the obits page to the online list, but it's not a small number. When three out of four people on the online list are NPMs, this is more time consuming to do. Notice I didn't say "harder" to do - I said "more time consuming." The same goes for "omg I just got stealth-missed/bg wacked, better check the online list against my locals." More time consuming, not harder. I don't view a needless time sink like that as a positive.

Robots give six extra seconds of cooperation.

Good job, robots.

I'm not sure I understand the logic behind not allowing a toggle option for this.

What harm would it cause to anyone else if I decide that I actually want to just see active people? Similarly, what harm would it cause me if you want to see everyone including the NPMs? It is no difference to allowing a choice between using the WYSIWYG or ajax wack.

I can see the logic behind having it default to being 'on', as my first reaction upon rejoining was, "Wow, this is popular again". I therefore believe that a new player would be more encouraged to remain if they believed the popularity as well. The fact that isn't the case is an argument for another time.

From what I understand, the number of 'people' on line determines how big the Durden spawn is. I might be totally off base, but that is what Ive heard from others.

The Durdens are freebees as it is.  This wouldn't remove them from the online list per se - they would be filtered out for certain users.

What I'm saying is: If there is only 60 people online, the Durden spawn would be cut in half compared to an online list of 120 members and a much larger Durden spawn.

And what I'm saying, is that it won't affect the final count of the Durden spawn.  The suggestion would only filter NPM's out of the online list.  That implies that they're still on the online list - but selectively ignored.  The Durden spawn would take into account the entire online list - unfiltered.

When they were removed from the listing a few weeks ago, the complaint was that it would affect a TylerDurden spawn.

At the risk of sounding like a total n00b, can somebody tell me how NPMs on the 60 sec list would effect Durden spawns?

Please disregard my question. It has been answered. Thanks

I believe Falcon's response slightly above your own, states how it is believed the 60 second list influences the Durden spawn, Don Beast.

I believe my response to my own response, slightly above YOUR response, renders your snide response to my response irrelevant.

That's right.

Snide response? You wound me. I, as faithful temporary LHM, only wanted to elevate my esteemed Don. I believe I have achieved this.

I cant wait until they filter this because everyone i click is a freaking NPM your all being replaced with NPMS!  nooooooo!!!! lol please filter them its starting to get annoying like spam if you can filter them at least change there names to always be say orange in obits the 60sec and locals etc

I have to agree, it's annoying to look in the locals section and see it filled with NPMs.  A toggle would benefit everyone; those who don't want to see NPMs in the 60-second list wouldn't have to, whats the harm in that?

I got to agree 100% with Crawford, didn't get what's the propose of NPMs on the first place tbh.

You pay a certain amount of credits/IG money, then you got Robots working for you and free shot when they reach Capo?

"Its to help newly auth vs well establish auth" well we got a thing that called Hard work, the newly auth can work their reputation etc.

I don't like the NPMs, and when they show up on 60sec list, I hate to click and start conversation with some cool name only turn out its NPM.

makes me less interactive tbh, its for me personally thought, dunno about others.

so +1 to filter the NPMs, get those robots out of 60s or atleast please provide an option whether we want to view them in 60s or not.

simply on the merits/lack thereof behind filtering the NPMs, i'd like to answer one specific complaint. people have suggested that the NPM filter will affect durdan spawns. if this is the case, i suggest that when the filter is put in place, what you see is the list of names only contains real players, but the number of members online includes NPMs. thus, allowing you to keep an eye on durdan spawns etc.

I was going to suggest this feature as well before I saw this thread. I'm not sure why someone would even be against it, like so many have said already.. it's just another option, anyone who has just signed up to the game, or in the case of the Durden spawns which some people mentioned - The game itself would still be going by the entire online list regardless, the option to just see real players who are active is of great convenience to those who want to have that choice, like me.

The reason to why *I* wanted to suggest this, was the biggest of all, with the amount of stealthy "hitters" out there, finding an assailant for a shooting has just become a lot harder when you have to go through the online list just to find that majority of them are NPMs, it's quite annoying and time consuming, especially for people who can't see shit in their locals and have to rely solely on the online list to find their suspect before they send their WS'.

By giving us the option to see real players only, you'd just be giving us the option to see things the way we used to, and to play the game the way we used to, before NPMs were added to the game. I don't think that's too much to ask.


-VX