Should Mobs / NPCs Act Smarter?

By asking if mobs / NPCs should be smarter I am asking a few questions all at once.  Asking for mobs to be smarter is not just one simple thing.  We could ask them to be smarter when interacting with them, passing by them, in battle with them.  There is a lot that can be done to make the mobs / NPCs around us better, in my opinion.

Vendors:

Anyone that has a storehouse this expansion has experienced this if they had not before in other places.  I remember the repair vendor in hellfire peninsula, he is the first one I can recall that really started to infuriate me with his actions.  If you do not know what I am talking about it is really simple.  I call it WMS or wandering merchant syndrome.

There is nothing more annoying then getting back to town after a long day of adventuring and gathering useless crap off the mobs you have slaughtered in the glorious name of truth, justice and the azerothian way to start vendoring off all those wonderful useless goodies and the merchant start to wander off closing the window.  "Dude, I was in the middle of doing business with you, get your butt back here."

There are a few vendors, such as the one I mentioned in hellfire, that are very energetic.  It seems he starts to move almost instantly after you click him.  Then when you scurry to the other side of the room to get to him as soon as you click on him again he moves once more.  Where is my crazy glue because I am going to glue this guy to one spot.

I must admit I get quite a giggle when I read all those people using the transmog vendor in their storehouse and as they are working on picking all the right pieces he starts to walk away and you lose all the work you had done trying to choose which pieces you want to wear.  I am not laughing at you however, I am laughing with you because I feel your pain.

Either way, I am sure that every single one of us at one point or another has been the victim of an NPC that suffers from WMS.  Sure, you can buy the transmog mount and settle your mogging and vendor issues all in one, but why should we need to.  When we are conducting business with someone that someone should stand put until our business has concluded.

Being in warcraft mobs, NPCs and players are not solid objects there would be no downfall to an NPC standing in that one place as long as someone has a window with them open.  I could understand why they would continue to move if them stopping could interfere with the game play of others but as they are not solid objects it should not matter.  Even if someone were to open a window with them and leave it open and go AFK what would it hurt anyone for the mob to stay in one place?

So I would love to see blizzard remove WMS from the game.  Make those merchants stand still or I will be forced to bust out the nail gun and do it myself and that will get really messy really fast.

Aggro:

I am sure every single one of us, more so this expansion than in recent years, has had to stop and fight some low level mob we can kill in 2 seconds because he dismounted us or slowed us, or otherwise forced us into battle when we did not want to fight and the mob was of no real threat to us.

I'd like for the games mobs to look at us as we look at them.  Any mob over 10 levels lower than us should never attack us unless we pass directly through it.  Lets face it, even a healer can most likely one shot a mob over 10 levels lower than it.  Does blizzard really this getting attacked by a level 89 on your 100 is fun?  It is just an inconvenience.  Admittedly an inconvenience that only takes one or two seconds out of our lives, but an inconvenience none the less.

It would be nice if those mobs did not aggro on us unless provoked, and at that difference in level passing directly through it should be the only way to actually provoke it.  Perhaps go even further, mobs that we are 20 levels higher than us never attack us, even if we move right through it.  They should fear us, they should not be attacking us.  A level 17 goblin should not really be picking a fight with a level 100 should he?  No, he should be cowering in fear hoping we do not attack him.

For those mobs within our 10 level wheelhouse I believe some adjustments need to be made.  A level 90 is not really all that different from a level 89, but we can not treat it as we do an 89 because it is a current level block mob.  Still, at lower levels of our current level block they should still know their place in the pecking order. 

Mobs 5 or more levels lower than us should not be capable of dismounting us.  Plain and simple.  On the ground they would follow all current aggro rules but while mounted no one likes to be dismounted to kill a useless mob and waste their time.  This is probably the number one reason people like flight.  Not to avoid mobs but to avoid the annoyance of them.

It would be nice if mobs interacted with us as they should.  The mobs that know we can kill them easily would pick and choose their fights and only when we are directly on them and the mobs we greatly out level would cower as they should.  It would be nice for them to act smarter because a level 17 attacking a level 100 is just stupid and should never happen.

Responses:

You can call this nitpicking and it probably is but that dwarf chick in my dwarven bunker that says "Nice ta meet ya" every day is starting to get on my nerves.  She has worked for me for months, I talk to her every single day, I am the commander in chief of all forces on Draenor, she is here specially for me.  Does she have short term memory loss and can not remember from day to day?  Because the next time she says "nice ta meet ya" I am going to slap her straight to next Tuesday.

I understand there are only a limited number of responses in the game and I understand the need to randomize them but there are some responses that should just never happen for certain characters.  I can see the dwarf vendor in ironforge saying "nice ta meet ya" even if I talk to her often because it is a major city and she must see millions of people and I am just another nobody to her, but the one that works for me and has worked for me for months should not talk to me as if she did not know who I was.  Who do you think signs your paycheck short stuff?

I guess it would cost blizzard money to get a few more lines said from some actors and I do not expect that to ever happen, but hearing a few more things added to the random comments NPCs make would be nice.  More importantly, fix some of the comments that just do not make sense.  I guess the blood elf saying "remember the sunwell" to me on the isle of thunder could make some sense, but for someone that works with me to be happy to meet me every single day doesn't.

Honestly, how much do you think it would cost blizzard to hire a bunch of people to record some lines and add them to the rotation?  Not much I would guess. 

How about blizzard does some sort of promotion or contest and the winner / (s) get to record some lines in the voice of their choosing that are added to the rotation.  They would not even need to pay anyone to record them, they can get them recorded for free and have some fun building a community event at the same time.

I would gladly do some lines for them to use for the generic grumpy elf that they can use and I would do it for free.  I think I have some experience with being a grumpy elf.   I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands of players out there that would offer their voices up for free and not even care if they were credited for it.

This would be a great way to add more flavor to the NPCs that speak to us, mix up what they say a great deal, and get some awesome publicity at the same time.  You know it is a great idea blizzard, admit it.

Personally I like the idea of having some smarter NPCs.  Ones that realize they are in the middle of a transaction and do not walk away from you, mobs that realize they are 90 levels below you and you can squish them like a bug and NPCs that work for you and aren't meeting you for the first time every single day.  What do you think?