Hirelings: Fair or Foul in MMORPGs?
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1754
Hirelings allow players who cannot gather a full party to still play DDO and experience the many adventures and dungeons. Everybody has had the frustration of spending a great deal of time getting together a pick-up group (PUG). Once you've started the adventure, you might realize that the PUG you're in is home to some really bad players or first class jerks. How many times have you spent an hour or more in a dungeon getting close to the climax when some doofus quits on you, leaving you with the decision to either spend time calling out for another player or try to press on one player short?Anybody who plays DDO knows that a hireling will never be as useful as a real, player-controlled character when you're tackling an adventure (or a raid, if you dare). They're there for convenience and to make it viable for a couple of friends to successfully complete some of the tougher modules. And in those cases, they're a near-perfect solution.
Hirelings allow players to avoid those hassles. While some gamers can spend endless hours every week playing online, other people don't have that luxury. My friend Mattlow and I are a perfect example. Between day jobs and families, there isn't a ton of free time to waste trying to get groups together. When we're running dungeons we have only a few hours to spare. We'll spend five to ten minutes trying to get a group together through PUGs or guild members, but if nobody is biting, then we'll just hire some hirelings and away we go!
