Well, the SoI RPI Engine creates the dynamic short and long descriptions while the full description remains the same for the most part. Now, unless someone RPs with the NPC and staff animates it, they won't learn the name anyway (since names are not known just by looking at someone) so generation of a specific name isn't necessarily needed (though a staff-written note denoting a combination and name used during an animation is always a good idea). As most of the time, PCs deal with the specific NPCs, not the generic ones, this is rarely a problem. And even when they do interact with the generic ones, it's been my experience that most times they're not doing so in a context where they a) need or ask for personal information, b) are likely to interact with them again even if they did.
Yep, priorities are probably necessary. The reason it's probably been experimented with in RPIs is the lack of emphasis on "skilling up" via NPC use, ie. killing them. Even still, most such generic NPCs are meant as crowd filler. Look at a busy street and you see dozens or more people walking on the sidewalks. Depending where you are, stand there for an hour and you'll see hundreds if not thousands pass. You don't interact with any of them. For all intents and purposes, they're generic entities just going by you. And in most cases, that's all they're there for as far as your life is concerned. Same thing with MUDs. The specific NPCs most people interact with, shopkeepers and the like, all have names and individual descriptions and personalities. The people passing by the shop while you're in there talking or by the pub while you're in hanging with friends are just the window dressing.
That said, when I imm'd I prefered any instance where I was likely to interact with a PC while animating to occur with a specific NPC. Had one instance where I used an auto-create and noticed that a player or two didn't react quite the same way I think they would had they not realized it was an auto-create (ie, they knew it was a staff animation and not another PC). So for that reason, if I choose to animate an NPC for the purpose of interaction, I like having a closet full of generic specific NPCs for use (generic in that they serve multiple minor uses with little or no modification necessary, specific in that they have a complete short, long, and full description which is not of auto-create origin).
<Snip - Xerihae>
Actually, depending on how you intend to use such NPCs, this would be a bad idea. If you feature elves, dwarves, and orcs in a game and orcs are known to be violent toward the other two, a random race generation might result in the local guard auto-create in the elf king's castle to generate as an orc. A better option is to create a template for a variety of different forms.
That said, the SoI RPI Engine does just that. Only descriptions are subject to the randomized auto-create code. Elements like enforcer flags, gender, clanning are built into the auto-create allowing for various types of such NPCs to carry out different functions.
Yep.
Again, if females in a culture wear dresses and males do not, having an auto-create randomly assign gender would be a bit embarassing for the poor NPCs turned into public cross-dressers.
Some MUD codes, an example already noted, do this already.
Entirely possible though I'm not sure if it's been attempted yet. Emphasis on yet.
Agreed!