Why not two? Oh, and if they should fall in battle... you can just resurrect them because they're yours until the end of time. That's be so OP it'd be neigh game breaking. I'm so glad we don't have anything like that in game now... .... wait. Never mind. I'm gonna go over "there" and have a Coke and a smile.
Bump. Also perhaps the amount of mercenaries you can hire has a ratio with the lockdown figure of your house. So a character that owns a castle can have more mercenary slots and be a real noble! Or there would be a new skill called leadership that determines how many mercenary slots you can utilize and when you activate the ability it gives a performance buff to all mercenaries. Multiple mercenaries are harder to navigate with in small spaces and again they are much easier to kill than dragons and are not bonded. Keeping your own mercenary alive as he develops would be a really fun meta that rewards you with increased performance and human companionship while still having the risk of permanent death. Again the mercenary can report on the status of his/her contract, any personal quests he will need help with, and his primary skills. The template would be called captain, and might involve: anatomy, healing, archery or disco music, or magery and leadership
What makes you think this would be a bad thing? Also, just think about being able to hire red human mobs. Could be hilarious.
2 of them. Then the insta spawn killed my hireling cos I had my back turned to celebrate with the group I like the idea of hirelings, however it'd have to be carefully done so we aren't just adding in a humanoid evolution dragon (as much as I'd love something like that to train up and farm with, NO, it's a game ruiner). But it'd be handy to have an npc with you, especially if they can have their armour/weaponry replaced to what you want (esp for the hues) and with that little extra carrying capacity, but I'd vote to keep them level with player stats/skills and not explode them into evo pets. Want something as strong as a dragon? Tame a dragon. Easy done, hit me up on irc if you dont have a tamer and no idea how to make one fast.
Hirelings and the system as it stands right now is a good one. I use them quite often for plans/objectives I set ahead of time. I hire them, I train them (they should get better at tactics/anatomy/weapon the more practice they have), then put it to work. I've experienced an expected outcome for my 100 or so gold investment + a little unattended macroing. However... The suggestions to beef them stated thus far are perhaps better served for an entirely different server.
