Opinion about using Facesets for NPCs

I am a faceset lover from way back.


So I was a bit taken by surprise to note that people have very strong feelings about using facesets for NPC/unimportant characters' dialog.


Now me, I'd stick a faceset in every slot I possibly could! Everyone in town!


But I guess some people find it distracting; perhaps it makes it difficult to determine who is important and who is not?


Thoughts?

Well, I stuck them everywhere...

My thought is if you do that, then your towns will probably have to be empty or you have to repeat the facesets many times in one town. That's probably why most don't put facesets on every character, just not enough of them to go around without repeats or empty towns.

I give them to major NPCs who you would see emote more and get to know a little more than your normal town's people. So, the shop keepers will have them for example. So still, a reoccurring character. But I've always loved giving some of the NPCs more of a backstory/personality.

is depend myself I was tempted to give face to all my character but ..damn....this require a lot time to do D: ! 

so is only the shopkeepers and important NPC have faceset xD!

I would do it, if I had the facesets for the characters and the time. I am sure, knowing myself that I would skip a number of them just because of the time and a lack of drive around those characters.  I don't think it would be distracting infact I think it would bring more life to the npcs making the game world feel more alive as well.

You should likely only do facesets for people who you talk to quite a bit, important characters, npcs you'd see a lot, but not people, you mostly walk by.

I'm on the all-in faction. I give all of my npc pictures, mostly even busts and not only facesets. But then again I love everyone of my npcs and everyone is important :)

Treat your npc's well! :D

It's mostly about the money really in my case, since I don't use RTP facesets for my current project. Covering the civilians would be expensive and I prefer not to have everyone with a face or bust graphics when they talk anyway.

Well, if you've got infinite resources to work with I'm all for giving everyone a face.  Not always possible, but I do like it.

Yeah, if you have the resources it's better to give everyone a face, I think.

If not, I think it simply needs to be consistent about who does or doesn't get a face.

Yep, I agree with Ralpf. For me, it's lack of resources, since I'm not currently using RTP or generator faces. But either way you go, it just needs to be consistent.

two words: Charecter Generater

three words: scary as hell

I don't think either way bothers me~ If the RTP is exclusively used, then the same sprites will become as redundant as the same faces. So I end up not minding that sort of stuff. In my own games, I do usually keep NPC's faceless, mostly when I find myself using resources that may not come with any. All I look for is consistency; use them, or don't, lol. I dislike 50% of the town having faces and the other half doesn't, with no reasoning behind it. Now that confuses me. @0@

It's all about what YOU like. If you have enough faces to go around for all of your characters without wearing YOURSELF out (which would, in turn, wear your players out) then I'd say GO for it! Just be advised, if you have like, 300 characters (including minor) it could be a bit dire... :D

I like to give facesets to everyone possible.  But, I'm kind of lucky in that "repeats" don't actually distract at all.  In fact, they're a clue and a mystery for the player to solve!

It's always nice when limitations of software actually help flesh out a game.

I think facesets are only distracting when it interferes with the dialogue. For example, you have a guy say a really funny line but you only have the default "serious" face. That kinda ruins the message. Hey, maybe they can make the random generator do expressions next time (it can't now right?).

I use faces for people who are in your party, or who have been in your party. If they haven't joined yet, they only get one after they've joined.


For me, it's giving the player another way to connect with party members, and it's a financial consideration as well - getting faces made (especially if you want multiple expressions) can be expensive, and it's just too costly to do it for everyone. I don't even do it for important NPCs.

As long as it's obvious who's speaking, I do prefer no faces at all.