Temporary NPC Appearance

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Description

"Temporary NPC Appearance" is not an official game term, but for the sake of simplicity we use it to describe a feature in Lotro.

Later in Lotro's Epic story-line, characters will begin to notice that NPCs suddenly will appear at a location, only to vanish as the story continues (those NPCs are either summoned, or they are known from prior locations and have travelled to this new location; and they either disappear or continue travelling). An example of this is that members of the Grey Company can be found at Elrond's Stables in Rivendell, only to disappear and be found again in Eregion, and they are finally found mostly permanently in Enedwaith, but in Dunland they are found temporarily again. In Tâl Methedras there are also some temporarily found mobs in addition to NPCs. This is per player character and depends on its level and which quests are available and/or accepted and/or completed. In other words, a particular player character will find that a particular NPC will appear and remain at a location for the period of certain quests, but when those quests are completed that NPC vanishes from that location, and maybe it will appear elsewhere.

Recent years, many games have adopted a notion of temporary NPC appearances; player characters of certain levels, with certain quests, of certain factions, etc., are able to see those NPCs but other characters in the same area cannot (sometimes those others may see characters performing emotes with something invisible but some games hide even those artifacts). There are of course many many variations of those "new ideas" which are not detailed here; the summary is that temporary NPCs will appear and/or vanish as the player character advances.

Historically, "permanent NPCs appearances" has been the normal behaviour; all NPCs have been permanently located at a certain place, maybe roaming about a small area but no more. Some NPCs have been appearing at two or more different locations, and a player character have had to assume some sensible reason for that. Also, some NPCs have appeared at certain phases of the game and have remained visible from then on. Those are examples of "permanent NPCs appearances".


It should be noted that "Temporary NPC Appearance" is not about instances, but about common game-play.