NPC Guards outside of cities and Outposts...

[Agnastar]

I think they should be able to attack other monsters that run into their vincity.

It doesn't feel very realistic when a new player is getting the living hell slapped out of them by 3 orcs or Quadavs and the NPC guards near city gates and outposts just sit there.

That way, if they were able to attack...people who are in trouble could run to the outpost or city gate and hope to have a little backup, rather than die. And even if you did manage to zone to the city; the mobs would still lumber around. Why don't the gaurds attack? Are they scared? The remaining monsters still pose danger; so the NPCs should attack wandering beastmen ( not animals )

[tdh]

In Everquest Online Adventures, at least during beta, this was possible. If you had some mobs chewing on your head, and you ran past the NPCs standing guard, they would step up and kill it. If you also tried to attack the NPCs, they'd get pissed and put a dent in your skull. lol

Though I'm not so sure that's something we need. I mean we have plenty of interaction with NPCs, and now that we have our NPC Fellow, I don't think we really need this. At the entrances to cities and the like, there are usually higher level people who can come out and show off by "Clearing the Zone." We don't need NPCs to do that for us.

[Pai Pai Master]

That could be easily exploitable. What would keep someone from only fighting nearby mobs and keeping them near guards? If that were done, then outposts and gates would be overpacked "solo camps", and would just cause problems.

[LadyPeorth]

I feel it should be done if it was done at the same was WoW. If a guard touches the mob, you lose all EXP rights to it. I really would like to see more active guards though. Seeing Zovarice run through 5 packs of orcs and not even blow his nose kinda saddens me.

[Macht]

There is kind of problems either way if a guard is set to interact with the mobs and fight them. I could see it being allowed if the player does a "Call for help" on the mob, then the nearby guards join in to kill it. That would make sense because the player has given up EXP rights that way the guard doesn't start attacking something and stealing the EXP rights from the player and same with the reverse that the players won't be able to have the guards assist them if they have not given up EXP rights to it.

Outside of that do remember that FFXI makes the distinction of Adventurer for a reason. The guards will even state that they have little intrest or care in helping an Adventurer, they are on their own for anything that occurs. What an adventurer does and gets into is of his own responsibility and so he must solve it of his own power. The guards to the towns are basically there to make sure no mobs enter the town (since the mobs physically can't enter the zones those guards are basically there for cosmetics).

Outside of wanting to watch a guard help in fighting a monster then I'd suggest going for a Garrison fight. These are different because as an adventurer you are bringing proof to that outpost that they are going to be attacked, so even though they won't help you in your adventurs they will ask of help from you to defend themselves. Just part of the storyline mainly as to why the guards don't assist you.