Talk:Village/@comment-9531161-20131203035756

Hey, does anybody have any ideas about what the NPCs could be used for? These are my ideas so far, and I don't know if I want them to do one of these things, multiple things, or whatever. Anyway, I think NPCs should do one (or maybe more) of the following:
 * Give special decorative items that can only be obtained through them
 * Give tools to help you start out (but maybe only one?)
 * Give farming equipment that can only be obtained through them
 * Give farming equipment which could be bought, but by helping them, you get them for free (as a way to make the beginning of the game more exciting)
 * Provide special work options like "persuading the shop owner to restock for free" or something.
 * Unlock items in the catalog (won't really be helpful unless I put more items in the game)

If they gave special decorative items OR farming equipment which could not be obtained elsewhere, it would give you an incentive to help them all the time, but it would get really tedious if you're trying to get a lot of a particular item (particularly for farming). If they gave you tools, the beginning of the game would get easier, but you wouldn't really have an incentive to help them after you got all the tools, and tools wouldn't really need to be sold in the shop. If they gave you farming equipment that could also be obtained with money, you could technically continue to get the equipment from them, but after the beginning of the game, I'm pretty sure you'd rather go the quicker route and buy the equipment. Again, the NPCs become useless in this scenario. If they provided special work options, you would have an incentive to continue using them, but it sort of undermines the "pay for work" system that's in place with the shop owner. Plus, these special services (like watering the flowers for free or something) wouldn't need to be used all that often, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing considering the NPCs will probably have a limited amount of things to say. I really don't know which one(s) I should pick. If you have any extra ideas for the uses of NPCs, or good reasons for choosing one or more of the above options, I'd love to hear about them!