An Idea for Follower Explorers

An Idea for Follower Explorers:

Mostly Followers seem to be homebodies who would be suffering from terminal cabin fever if they actually had brains. They rarely come out of their abodes especially in Weyworld. Sometimes I feel as if my domain is a vast ghost town.

But it doesn't have to be like that. FuriousMoo has mentioned that the idea of Followers digging up treasure chests has been on his back burner for some time now. So here is my thought: why not create a kind of Follower called a Follower Explorer. Every once in a while, perhaps every ten hours of playtime, one Follower out of twenty thousand (pick your figure) will decide to become an Explorer and a window will pop up asking, "John Doe wants to go exploring, would you like to provide him with a pup tent, pick axe and other gear?". If you say yes then John Doe sets off with a little back pack on to explore.

You already have the code written for digging with a pick axe, putting up an abode ( just make it a pup tent that John puts up at night), climbing hills (the Astari already do this and John can do it because he has climbing gear), etc.. The coding parameters for where John goes shouldn't be that difficult; he would head toward the less developed or more remote areas wherever they are in a given players realm. When inevitably, eventually John finds something you could have an exclamation point above him waiting for the player to click on it. When the player clicks on it John begins digging and a minute or two later a treasure chest appears.

This one simple idea would turn the current "ghost town" feeling of our realms into a much more lively, living, breathing world. It would give the distinct illusion that some kind of real artificial intelligence is at work. Feedback is appreciated.