(NOTE: Thanks a bunch, dwarfsoft ) Introduction For those of you who have been on the boards for a while now, you may remember Dwarfsoft''s "NPCs are people too!" campaign (or you could call it his reign of terror, or whatever ). While working on a game (inspired by The Wedding Singer... basically I fused together RPGs and The Sims), I was thinking how to make the NPCs much more lifelike. And I''m not talking about just the main ones, I''m talking about EVERY character. A whole world (or in this case, town\city), filled with people, who go to their jobs, to church, to their homes, and live their lives. (NOTE: Actually, not the whole town. I don''t think very many people have that much RAM... so I settled for fleshing out just a certain portion of town) Here are my thoughts... ------------- Part 1: Why can''t we all be friends? Many of you have played FF7 (or FF8). Both are excellent games, but have you ever stopped to think about the NPC AI? Sure, you certainly learn a lot about your main characters, and their life story. But the other characters in the game? Yeah right. When you try to talk to them, they usually respond with: "...", "Hey, wanna buy something?", or maybe a few interesting tidbits of information. What about that dude who stood near the tunnel that had that guy who just mumbled stuff? Don''t know who I''m talking about? I''m not surprised. The most I remember him saying is "That guy inside is really weird. Whenever you ask him something, he just goes ''ah...moan...eh''." Shouldn''t we be able to make friends with these people? Learn about them more? We should be able to hang out with them, etc. But half the time, we just pass them by, and ignore them. I could go on, but I only have so much time to on with this, and my head might start to hurt... ------- Part 2: Let me drop everything and work on your problem I''m sure many of you have played an RPG where you had to solve some people''s seemingly petty problems, and in return they probably gave you something. For instance, some farmer has a few dog sized lizards invading the back of his farm. So what? He''s just a farmer. What''s the point of my telling you about my Exile II adventures? I''m not sure either, maybe I need to hit myself in the head a few times. Or maybe Pouya. He deserves it more. (NOTE: Yes, I am lacking sleep, why do you ask?) Seriously though, everybody has problems. You and I have problems (OK, me at least... don''t worry, I don''t require professional help ). So why don''t we ever get into this in RPGs? Why can''t we help those poor people? One time, I thought of what would happen if I didn''t have money to get more weapons. What if I wandered around town doing favors for people so they''d owe me something? Or maybe the blacksmith''s daughter is going to get married to the young baron nearby, who is a lying, cheating scumbag, and the blacksmith doesn''t want that. Maybe I could offer to "kidnap" the daughter for him and take her to a safe place somewhere. The whole point of this is that if we''re to create realistic people, we should give them lives to live as well. Now, an example would my game (still in development, oh yeah, it''s called Connellsville, in honor of Landfish). Let''s say you have Timmy here. He''s a normal kid, but he''s been having a rough time recently. He''d probably end up doing a school shooting or something, but if you met him, you might become good friends and end up keeping him from going postal. Well, this is a big thing in itself, and my head really is starting to hurt, so I''ll stop there. ------- Epilogue: What''s the point of all this, you dang psychopath mage? Uh... well since you put it that way, um... I think it''s that if NPCs are to be more realistic (like what Dwarfsoft envisioned), they need to be given a life to live. Like us. OK, bad example (). - DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software) ++++++++++++++++ "Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown "Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit "Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated) "Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix "You''ve only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs "I''m gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman

LOL! "NPC''s are people too!"

Good work DM

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Thanks. I only slept for 3 hours to overwork my brain and thus make the thread more dramatic (at least I think it is).

- DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software)
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You''ve only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs
"I''m gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman

Uh, listening to Reality Check and running scenes from The Wedding Singer through my mind also helped make it a bit more "interesting".

- DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software)
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You''ve only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs
"I''m gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman

mmhh...
That''s interesting, maybe you want to join us on the IOL project ?

It was formerly NPCAI, we renamed it IOL for Illusion Of Life, since this is more true than telling that it''s a NPC AI, which would mean years of school before getting bad results

Ask dwarfsoft or me to join it, since the new list is protected against lurkers who just want to steal ideas and use the final product not contributing to it a single minute...

(Linux people so... :p )
Linux is good.... for server and to get free software, if you want a real workstation OS, get BeOS (http://free.be.com)

(Don''t ask me why Is said that, I''ve no idea)

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Sorry, no. I have my own evil schemes to take over the world projects.

Besides, I'd probably piss of Dwarf with my "cream cheese" jokes.

- DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software)
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You've only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs
"I'm gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman

Edited by - DarkMage139 on November 24, 2000 5:58:26 PM

Shutup.. Shutup... Shut UP! NO CREAM CHEESE JOKES... They are getting kind of stale (pun intended)

As for IOL, yeah, it is having a restructure. Only selected plebscontributors get into the new list... A bit harsh for opensource, but there you have it. It will be released once we have FINISHED it and not before... that way, people don''t steal our ideas until AFTER we have completed the project

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

DarkMage139, I completely agree with you. Not only would ''living NPCs'' make a game more intesreting, but it would also open up a new door of possibilities. However, if the player is able to interact with NPCs a lot, it would be much harder to write a constant story for the game, and the designers would probably have to implement many diferent possible game endings.

I think that ''The Sims'' is the first step anyone has taken in this direction. The game is structured in a very clever way; when you play in one mode character BOB is an NPC with whom you can fully interact, but in another mode character BOB is the main character controlled by the player. I''d like to see more progress in this field of game design. It should be very interesting.

Thank you,
Alexander McAndrew
mcanda@pcgamesforyou.com
http://www.pcgamesforyou.com

Non-Linear Event Handling really comes in handy when using IOL as a basis for your interactive NPCs. Basically, you can set events to have ''End Game'' and then apply certain triggers for that event. It really becomes VERY useful when writing games where your NPCs may act in unpredictable (though Consistent) ways .

I am currently writing up some code (damn it looks messy) for the NLEH System, so once that is done, expect there to be some LONG discussions and implementations... Especially once IOL has a firm basis. Maybe I will attempt to make an IOL NLEH Hybrid . That could be fun

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

alex: *cough*Morrowind*cough*

dwarfsoft: What''s wrong with cream cheese? It tastes pretty good

- DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software)
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You''ve only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs
"I''m gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman