Vapourware RPGs where NPCs do their own thing.

[rusty_shackleford]

Like Radiant AI except not shit.
It could be NPCs that are managed by the player and go off and do their own thing, NPCs interacting with each other, or just NPCs living their life. I want you to list games where NPCs don't stand around and wait for the player to interact with them.

• Kenshi
• Mount and Blade

 

[normie]

the you testament

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Gothic 2
Ultima 7

 

[AdolfSatan]

Dwarf Fortress adventure mode

 

[sullynathan]

Red Dead Redemption 2

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Jenkem]

real life

 

[Tavernking]

my dreams

 

[Dorateen]

Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, of course.

It doesn't get better than independent acting NPCs roaming around the game world with their own agendas, fighting each other, and competing with the player's party to obtain fragmented map pieces.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Realms of Arkania HD

 

[Kruno]

Ultima 7 is still the best, by far, at having a living world. When the Banes kill everyone and seeing an empty world was really something.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Like Radiant AI except not shit.

I dunno. I kind of liked Radiant AI and how I'd lure a massive troll into a town of peaceful citizens doing their own Radiant thing, and enjoying the view of all the corpses littering the ground after the troll did his Radiant thing. There really wasn't anything quite like it in the RPGs I'd played up until then

 

[Swigen]

My vote goes to Olivier from Trails in the Sky. He was surrounded by people telling him “ya can’t do this or don’t do that” but he never let it get him down and his indomitable spirit always shined through enabling him to continue “doing his own thing”.

 

[Wunderbar]

Mount and Blade

 

[Commissar Draco]

Oblivion in which you were NPC send out to do quest for real protagonist and player character Martin Septim. Seriously the game was Hilarius; every-time some poor beggar stolen apple the guards would go berserk, execute him and half of time start to fight other guards and slaughter the population. Those I call the iron moral code and superior moral strength:



There's strong, and then there's ' Legion soldier ' strong.... So strong our punny NPC was not allowed to join.

 

[Murk]

Depths of Peril had NPCs doing quests and competing with you, basically.

(STALKER fits here too I guess but not really an RPG).

 

[Ismaul]

All of Piranha Bytes' games have a living world with NPCs having an extensive schedule (Gothics especially). Animals and hunters hunt, merchants travel, people go to work and come back, guards defend the camp / village, etc. But I don't think there are times where the world state changes on its own, or that timed events happen if you don't do anything (maybe in G3, I haven't played it).

One game does it though: Space Rangers. The world goes on independently of your actions. NPCs do their thing, trade, respond to economic crises, attack the invading enemies, gain levels, gear up, make and break alliances, etc. Enemies advance, take over planets and solar systems, get pushed back, etc. Technology levels in the universe increase in contact with the more technologically advanced enemy, and you can participate to accelerate the research.

 

[DalekFlay]

I'm currently playing Risen 3 and when I showed up to a ruin there was a mage there fighting the enemies already. After they were all dead he resumed his path to a certain point on the map, where he asked me to help him with an experiment. I thought that was a good example of "radiant AI," as I assume if I arrived later he would have been at his destination already, and I would have had to fight those enemies alone.

 

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

Aside from Piranha Bytes Games and Oblivion and Skryim...dont know that many.
Or maybe i just never really noticed it.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Oblivion was quite innovative to me with things I'd never seen before in RPGs (though they did exist previously... I just hadn't played those games). Imagine my surprise when I'd go into a dungeon and find all the treasure chests plundered by another adventuring party that was still in the dungeon and that you had a choice to either fight or say FUCK YOU! to and walk away. I remember encountering a party of half-orcs like this and rather than being annoyed that my booty was commandeered I would smile because, love it or hate it (Radiant AI), it was an example of NPCs "doing their own thing" and made the world feel alive and not just a bunch of "static NPCs" literally standing around 24/7 in the same spot waiting for their dialogue scripts to be triggered (which is one of the single most immersion-breaking things in RPGs that almost all the classic ones are guilty of). Later in the game, a female half-orc (voiced by Lynda Carter) says something snide to me then slowly walks off onto a path out of the area, and if you followed her, it led to a huge free-for-all battle. It was all very new to me and very charming.

 

[CryptRat]

Quest for glory series, Heroine's quest, possible other QfG clones but I have not played them.

 

[deama]

Kingdom cumderance

Starsector

Witcher games

 

[cherry blossom]

Oblivion was quite innovative to me with things I'd never seen before in RPGs (though they did exist previously... I just hadn't played those games). Imagine my surprise when I'd go into a dungeon and find all the treasure chests plundered by another adventuring party that was still in the dungeon and that you had a choice to either fight or say FUCK YOU! to and walk away. I remember encountering a party of half-orcs like this and rather than being annoyed that my booty was commandeered I would smile because, love it or hate it (Radiant AI), it was an example of NPCs "doing their own thing" and made the world feel alive and not just a bunch of "static NPCs" literally standing around 24/7 in the same spot waiting for their dialogue scripts to be triggered (which is one of the single most immersion-breaking things in RPGs that almost all the classic ones are guilty of). Later in the game, a female half-orc (voiced by Lynda Carter) says something snide to me then slowly walks off onto a path out of the area, and if you followed her, it led to a huge free-for-all battle. It was all very new to me and very charming.

I am pretty sure that was either a one-off scripted event or two, if not a mod straight. Oblivion had no such free-roaming AI feature.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Oblivion was quite innovative to me with things I'd never seen before in RPGs (though they did exist previously... I just hadn't played those games). Imagine my surprise when I'd go into a dungeon and find all the treasure chests plundered by another adventuring party that was still in the dungeon and that you had a choice to either fight or say FUCK YOU! to and walk away. I remember encountering a party of half-orcs like this and rather than being annoyed that my booty was commandeered I would smile because, love it or hate it (Radiant AI), it was an example of NPCs "doing their own thing" and made the world feel alive and not just a bunch of "static NPCs" literally standing around 24/7 in the same spot waiting for their dialogue scripts to be triggered (which is one of the single most immersion-breaking things in RPGs that almost all the classic ones are guilty of). Later in the game, a female half-orc (voiced by Lynda Carter) says something snide to me then slowly walks off onto a path out of the area, and if you followed her, it led to a huge free-for-all battle. It was all very new to me and very charming.

I am pretty sure that was either a one-off scripted event or two, of not a mod straight. Oblivion had no such free-roaming AI feature.

It might very well have been (at least the female half orc part) but I distinctly remember encountering looted treasure chests long before I met those other adventurers in the dungeons.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Space Rangers 2.