NPC-itus

    Hello all im pretty much a new face around here. Forgive me if this is in the wrong section. I've never really used a forum aside from gathering information but i think I'd like to make a home here so if you wouldn't mine leveling me up that'd be great 

 

Introductions aside there has been something plaguing my mind for a while now very much as the title says...

 

NPC-itus:

Npc-itus is a term me and my bro coined to describe static npc's. their whole life in the game is to sit there and say: "oh lovely weather today", or "Don't forget to save Maria", or "Don't worry we'll take care of the village" or my favorite

 ".  .  ."   over and over and over and over again...

 

I like to at some point in a game go back to where it all began if possible and see if anything has changed or if there was something i missed. and very rarely have i been rewarded for doing so 

the same npc's the same things going on ...one time i went back and the village was still on fire...and according to the game about 2 years had passed.  "GG" is all i can say 

 

What i would like to know is ...

• have you ever been curious enough to go back and explore around areas that you've already been but perhaps were rushed along by story plot?

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• when you're developing your own rpg are you particularly worried about how the player might view the npc's that shape your world

• Would Dynamically evolving npc's Enhance overall gameplay / enjoyment ?​

 

Thoughts? , Opinions ? 

 

 

Personally, when I play a story focused RPG, I do what I need to advance the story.  I don't really backtrack much at all, so having more dynamic NPCs would be a lot of work for the developer for no gain.  Now, if there are sidequests and so forth, it's important to have the relevant NPCs in those areas be dynamic "enough" to lead the player in the right direction.

For example:  The King's Guard gives you a sword in the beginning, but if you go back to them after the King has left for war, they mention how the Thieves' Guild needs to be quieted down and hire you to do it --- hence a sidequest.

So in that style of game, I don't think players will hugely notice if minor NPCs say only 2 or 3 things, since they probably aren't going back over the entire game to check --- unless the story requires backtracking.  If the story itself requires backtracking, the NPCs need to be more dynamic to fit the changed story state when the PCs get back.

Now, if you're making a more open-world style RPG like a 2D Skyrim, there I think dynamic NPCs are crucial.  Why?  There is no one right (or multiple right) paths, so the entire point of such a game is to have series of activities and interactions, more than a specific storyline.  If this type of game had simple NPCs, it would be a glaring omission.

So there's no one answer for NPC-itus.  It depends on what type of game you're writing.

I tend to give all my NPCs a couple of different things to say just in the ordinary course of events.

However, if the player is likely to go back through an area after something has happened, then I change all the dialogue.  I find it ridiculous that since your last visit a volcano has erupted, a dragon has burned down half the village and the duke has been assassinated, but everyone is still talking about the price of fish!

I think this is relevant to the topic at hand, at least I wanted to write it when I read the original post.

It depends on how you progress the story and how previously visited areas are affected by new events, but I take care to make NPC's not waste your time. And when I do have NPC's that are there just to "flesh out" the world but without anything important to say, I do a few things to make sure there's a logical structure in place. In The Vendor, for example, talking to NPC's is central to progress because you learn important hints and details from them. I follow a few rules I set for myself in the game to make speaking to NPC's more subconsciously logical:

1. An NPC that is there just for ambience, which say non-important things, I never make them say anything important later on. I do update their dialogue to reflect current events and changes if it's necessary -- to maintain a sense of "life". The reason for this is that I don't want a situation where a player talks to an NPC that just says "Beautiful weather today, isn't it?" and then later have something crucial to say. That's a logic pitfall, of sorts. I could break this rule by having someone else refer to this character directly: then it would be ok. But that's an exception.
2. An NPC that does say important things should either continue saying important things when events cause updates to their dialogue/placement, or can later on stop saying important things. In the latter case, if this character suddenly has something important to say again further down the line after going non-important, you have to get a hint to go talk to them, otherwise you get the same logic pitfall as above.

I follow this logic all through the relatively short game, but having looked at playthrough videos and listened to feedback, I've noticed that players "got it", but they haven't seem consciously aware of it. And that's perfect in my opinion. I noticed, for example, that some players talked to an unimportant NPC twice, once initially and once after a big event, and when they noticed the only update was an updated humorous line, they ignored the NPC thereafter. They seemed safe in the knowledge that this NPC could be skipped, and they were right, because that was a conscious designed element. In this instance I could easily cause great frustration by having the same NPC, with no other clues given, say something crucially important the third time around. I've seen this happen in AAA games, and I know how frustrating it can be.

this all makes sense i cans say that 

@whitesphere

If Sidequests were a thing would it be safe to Base the general populace of npc's around that side quest for instance,Someone mentions a Dragon and advises you to talk to so and so, So and So says - ("Oh theres a dragon thats been terrorizing the vill for the last 3 weeks. you look capable do something about it.") after the quest has been initiated everyone should say something relevant to the situation no?

@ksjp17

i can only imagine that the price of fish has gone up drastically since the eruption xD 

@Galenmereth 

i see your point on this and ill definitely keep that in mind the way i've been designing my game is based on real life iterations.... meaning yea that guy who was in the armor shop in the first village he's not going to still be in the armor shop half way through the game if u so choose to come back, as you stated  a sense of "life". is very important to me ...its the little things in a game that make me ooh and ahh for example in my game i have a system that randomizes when npcs are displayed where they are and what they say and if they exist at all - based on time/plot or what's going on., agreed having npc's with important things to say but having to play inspector can create frustration but can you ease that "frustration" so to say by rewarding the player for being inquisitive/interested in npc's?  perhaps having an interaction level or something of the sorts 

I agree with you, however...

I think that you have to also take into account how that sort of information would spread. I would certainly expect places affected by some kind of tragedy to talk about it right away. But I wouldn't expect some remote village in the middle of nowhere to know about it right away - or maybe even at all.

And as with real life, I'd also expect variation. Some NPCs would be talking/gossiping about current events, others would be more involved with their personal problems. So, I can totally see an NPC still talking about the price of fish after the dragon attack if it's going to affect his livelihood - though I'd expect the text itself to slightly change, at the very least.

I mean, if you were going for "true" realism the dialogue with all NPCs would go something like this:

"Who are you? Why are you talking to me?"

"WHY are you still here?"

"Are you stalking me? I'm calling the town guards!"

"STOP TALKING TO ME!!!"

With RPGs, players expect some deviation from realism in order to move the story along. It's the same with other art forms. I think I read in a how to write book once that authors need to cut out everything that does not advance the story. Just like you wouldn't really want to read about how Hero is now brushing his teeth. Hero is now taking out the trash. Hero is now doing his laundry before he goes out to rescue his kidnapped sister from the deranged mutant hoodlums from Mars.

But yeah, I sometimes put in some randomized dialogue for variety. But not a lot of it. Cause it really is a lot of work. You can spend time better on other parts of the  game.

that's completely true for instance people in a city would be more keen to whats going on with its internal politics then say people out in a rural area major contents vs outlying countries unless they have some magical interwebz  

i can see how this can apply to reading / writing a book but i don't really think it applies too much to making a game imo, simply because its a choice to talk to said npc and flavor text also helps paint your world more vividly than your visuals alone for instance you could have one of those chop yer head off thingies in the middle of the town based on sight alone you would think hmm they must execute people here but if the text says something like "yea we just got a new giant pumpkin chopper and set it up in the middle of town that immediately changes you whole feeling about it"  though i can understand if  the story was padded out like the heros personal twitter feed xD 

Personally i like to think of a game as being alive, so im challenging myself to make my npc's as lifelike as i can, npc's that actually grow as the story progresses even if the player does not choose to explore or rather notice that the npc's are indeed growing and progressing through their own lives as you go on with the story. but for those who do naturally will be rewarded  

Tis the little things 

An RPG without flavor text feels sterile and dry: not every person you meet should only say things that are of importance. But that's a great way to add optional comedy, drama or informative filler text: when a player seeks this info out themselves, it's usually much more pleasant than it being force fed through unskippable or crucial dialogue sequences.

NPC dialogue is one of my favorite parts of game making.  I like to save it for last, because adding creative NPC dialogue and easter eggs are a nice way to take a load off and relax from the harder work (scripting, eventing, mapping, etc...).

Maybe not read about it, but that sounds like an interesting game. A hero that's basically a normal person, impending world apocalypse notwithstanding.

Truer words have never been spoken, i supposse that we all have different points of view depending of or major inspirations or background (writers, artists, students, etc) for what i have seen speaking exclusively of the rpg genre, i have seen that jrpgs that are by far the favorites of the rpg maker community have very plain and simple npcs, they arent characters, they arent persons they are more like "artifacts" they are there just to fullfill their function and nothing more while western rpgs (skyrim, fallout, etc) aim to créate living worlds with npcs that are suppossed to act as persons and in my opinion they give more life to the game, to the world and make it more fun, a game turns boring very fast when you are the only one who has something to say or to do.

I guess it depends on the player profile too. Some don't care of the background and just want their party to be badass, others (like me) will try to find details, will enjoy reading that book that offers absolutely nothing gameplay-wise but gives interesting informations on the origins of that weird race you encountered before or follow that npc who is travelling and you find him back in different places with stories to tell etc. 

I guess it depends mainly on which player profile you're targetting and what kind of rpg you're planning to do. There is no miracle recipe anyway. 

Personally, I really enjoy talking to NPCs... when they are shown to be interesting. If the first NPCs I get in a game are all "hello, nice weather, yeah?" and "I have a fish." then I'm gonna assume you didn't bother filling in their personalities. I mean, I'll still talk to each one I see because I am compelled to do so, but I'm less likely to check up on them later on.

When I build a game I like to give the town a history and give the NPCs their own little lives and relations. For example, in one game the daughter of the blacksmith in a town got married (you got her some flowers for her bouquet) and you go to the wedding and if you talked to the NPCs you might have noticed a certain character in another town down the track who was there (her uncle). I have them reference things in the world they live in - fellow adventurers giving tips about monsters and items and spells, Fishermen referencing fish monsters and where to find them (Stay away from the SummonerSouth bank! There's a horde of x that moved in there last week and they've depopulated the fish population around there.), scribes that mention books you can find in shelves later, books that talk about histories of other places, NPCs that refer to towns you'll see farther down the track - mention family members that, if you remember when you go there, you can meet... all kinds of things to keep them connected to the world around them.

And yes, changes. Even if the little town in podunkville didn't hear about the Baron who got assassinated, things in the area have changed since you last visited. Maybe someone died or got married. Maybe a new family moved in or out of the town, they caught the thief that was stealing crops, a travelling circus rolled into town/visited while you were gone, the discontented teen you met last time finally ran away from home (and you can meet them again in another town) or a house burned down because the lazy bum who lived in it fell asleep... little things can happen.

Lastly, I like to give players a reason to return to those places. Small side-quests are a great tool - not only do you get the reward from the quest itself but you feel like you've gotten more by seeing the town evolve... and it piques your curiosity about other towns. Did they also change while you were gone? Maybe you should go check...