Sounds so familiar!
Of course, they only failed because they lacked vision... oh, and didn't have people throwing money at them.
In other news, take a look at this.
Now, it looks quite nice. Vibes of the shop keepers in GTA.
However, i think its worth thinking how this will look and work in SC. If it was for SQ42, yeah, nice. Now, how is that NPC going to work when the game goes live and he might have to deal with multiple people all wanting stuff? Its a bit similar to the mission givers. Its really cool how they interact with a person... a person, one person.
Do others have to wait while he goes through the whole poses and dialogues? What happens if the person talking just goes AFK or deliberately locks the NPC? Or can he interact with multiple at once? Or does he only interact with one in terms of animations but dialogues can be held with many?
I wonder if CIG even have considered how they will work in a multiplayer environment, or whether they are so focused on the "fidelity" they forget about silly things like multiplayer in a multiplayer game?
If i were to hazard a guess, the NPC will only interact with one person at a time, so be prepared for conga lines at the merchants.