In essence, players and NPC's running villages enter the Recruiter through their Land Management Tab > NPC-Recruiter Tab, and are provided with a Draft Menu once they are inside.
In the Draft there are a number of fresh NPCs waiting to be drafted, simple enough. The way the system works is that there are half a percent of the current user population in NPCs in the draft, so at our current 540,000~ player base, there are 2,700~ NPCs randomly generated every week real-time.
Though this pool is reset at the end of each week, so it's essentially a rotating lottery of sorts where you're provided an opportunity to draft or select NPC prospects you are interested in.
You have five real days to make your selections, up to two per slot, starting on Monday and ending on Friday. If no one else had selected those prospects, you could recruit them at the cost of 200 copper coin or two silver coins on Saturday morning.
If someone else selected that prospect as well, then there was a buyout option at 500 copper coins that could be enacted.
If only one person opted into the buyout by the end of the day on Saturday then he or she would win that prospective NPC and it would arrive momentarily. But if two or more people put an initial bid but no one selected the buyout, then on Sunday that prospective NPC would go to the auction.
The auction would start at 300 copper coins and would go on for the entire day, ending at 11:59pm on Sunday night. Whoever won the auction won the NPC and those who lost would only lose 20 copper coins for entering the draft.
This system was all encompassing and also had a sister program specifically for NPC troops, which held the same format.
So once a week on Sunday, users in the future will get worked into a bidding frenzy fighting for the best available combat and non-combat NPCs. Competition would be high for the combat-NPCs, in fact I imagine it will honestly be too high.
It seemed every major and minor guild in the central and southern kingdoms were trying to get a leg up on the competition and one could only expect them to spend all of their coin to gather and amass a suitable NPC troop.
Whether it is for protection or for an invasion, I couldn't say as nothing had happened as of yet, but it was only reasonable that that was what the future held.
I am not so naïve to think that peace would rule the land for long.
War and death are the two staples of human civilization, after all.
They are constants that have always been a part and will most likely always be a part of human life. The plain reality of it all is that people cannot agree.
The other thing to consider when drafting an NPC is that there are a variety of attributes and levels that are generated. NPCs can be generated from anywhere between level 0 and level 30, and although every NPC starts with the same base stats of +10 in each stat at level 0, they each have individual potential in different proficiencies.
The higher the potential, the faster an NPC would grow.
Better potential in a proficiency led to more specialization.
There was a lot of math involved here, to the point that real-life businesses offering consultation and draft advice as if they were sports analytics and stock managers combined into one wasn't such a farfetched idea. Of course the market was incredibly small at the moment and there were no customers to speak of, but in time when others start looking for NPCs to recruit they would certainly be useful.
Thinking about the NPC-Recruiter and monetary value, when considering that a level 0 NPC wouldn't be of much use to me in the present and could take anywhere from a week to two weeks real-time to get to level 10 depending on what their craft was… it was easy to expect that the higher level NPCs would be bought up at a rapid clip. If they were a combat type it might only take a week to get to level 10, but it still required the user's time and care as you wouldn't want to lose that NPC to a wolf and lose everything.
Because of that, I imagine players would seek the highest level NPCs they could get with a balance in consideration to potential as well.
As an example, a level 18 NPC with its highest potential rating a 5.6/10 in Archery, meaning it had a bonus of +56% to experience gained towards the Archery proficiency and in general experience, was better than a level 20 NPC with only a meager potential of 3.2/10 in Archery as its highest rating. If an NPC had a potential rating over 9.0/10 in a proficiency of any sort, it usually didn't matter what level they were as they would be worth the investment over time.
This also meant that Katherine and Selene were absolutely amazing. But, that was for another time. Thinking over what NPCs would be best for me to recruit, it seemed simple.
For me, I had no need for soldiers as of yet, being in the far northern "wastelands" was harmless as far as other players were concerned. Less than one percent of the user population was in the Northwest; though the Northeast held roughly 10% of the population as Elves, and a bit south but still in the Northern region were the Dwarves at 4% in what we called the North-central area.
But even one-percent of 540,000 meant there were 5,400~ or so players running around. Thankfully there were only maybe five players who had ventured this far north and quickly decided to delete and recreate their character a little further south of me.
This was a harsh land for low levels, the 0.5/10 rating the Northern Triangle was given as a starter zone was not a lie, and it kept people away to my benefit. Interestingly enough, .25/10 was awarded for the village having a fire. The other .25/10 was from there being at least a trade post and a few crafters. No points were awarded for anything else.
Yeah, it was time to start building up my kingdom.
The North was mine, now all I had to do was develop it.
I would be utilizing the draft to get my hands on the highest potential non-combat NPCs: the traders, crafters, laborers, builders, farmers, cooks, and so forth. I had every intention of building them up, nurturing them from level 0 if need be. As this village of mine had just evolved from a camp and private residence, it was still relatively fresh.
In addition to all the excess land at my disposal, there was plenty of room for growth when considering the abundance of natural resources. I would soon be turning this place into my own haven.
A place where I would have access to my own master craftsman at a discounted rate, my own farmers that would provide food for the village and would leave me free to explore, my own builders and laborers to develop the infrastructure and fabricate new buildings or armor while I was gone.
Yeah, the goal was to devote some time now while others were busy leveling and fighting for territory south of me, to devote that time into building the sturdiest of foundations for a future mecca. And to my delight, with everyone pouring coin into combat-NPCs, I would be able to get a majority of the non-combat NPCs at their draft price minimum of 200 coins.
Of course when I say everyone, I mean a select few people.
From what I had seen, only a few combat-NPCs were tagged for selection so far and no one at all had tagged the non-combat NPCs.
Unfortunately I was limited in coin though, as a rabbit pelt sells for 2 coins, a fox pelt for 6 coins, and a wolf pelt for 36 coins. If I sell them whole, a rabbit fetches 3 coins, a fox nets 8, and a wolf would get me 48 copper coins. Needless to say, it would take four wolves and a fox to get one NPC.
That could easily take an hour or two or three of hunting depending on scarcity, including the time of travel between my village and the Northern Triangle's northern-most village that was roughly ten miles away.
Though I say I have a limited amount of coin, the truth was that I had already amassed a small fortune from my constant hunting. Even after spending on mandatory essentials such as a wood chopping axe, a drawknife, two hand-picks for climbing, a grappling hook with rope, a large shovel, and a large net for fishing. Not to mention what I traded for clothing as well.