Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
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Is NPC interaction that important in a RPG?

Gwendo

Augur
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
989
Certainly, with NPCs directly related to the story and/or main quest.

But I think it's ridiculous someone to aproach every living body, trying to dialogue or whatever.

In a tipical RPG, when you arrive to a town, you just start talking with everyone and checking all doors.

Is that roleplaying?

When you fantasized a story, did that include the task of talking with everyone in sight, kncking/opening all doors and chests? Imagine in real life too!

I loved Ultima VII because there was much interaction with the NPCs... But there were no superfluous NPC: they had something different to say, a role in that world, their own schedule.

Now, see a city full of people, all with the same dialogue with no variation... Is that really necessary?

I prefer Ultima VII's resolution. Or even Omikron's choice: you couldn't interact with most NPCs, they were there just to give you an ilusion of living in a crowded place. So soon we realized we didn't have to do a tedious: talk to everyone! They might have important information or side-quests.
 

Section8

Cipher
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
4,321
Location
Wardenclyffe
I think Fallout's approach is one of the better compromises, though of course it's not unique to Fallout. Give a unique name to anyone who has something to say. Even though it's metagaming, it takes away the trial and error of talking to everyone, and also does a better job of hiding the shallowness of most of the NPCs.

Another idea I kinda like is the idea of dynamically assigning personality scripts, so if the player chooses to befriend Drone #327, then the game applies an unassigned personality script to them and away they go. The only problem is, what happens if the player wants everyone to have personality?
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
The only problem is, what happens if the player wants everyone to have personality?

Well at least putting it to trial in real life shows that not everyone have one, so that might be redeeming for games as such.

While at it, let me say that the process of walking up to every single NPC you see just to try and see if they are useful is such a waste of time and is tiresome. Some little more abstraction could help a lot, using menus like Darklands had or detailed localized maps similar to travel maps or something inbetwen, where you don't have to see everything in polygonal real time. You could still have the whole place handmade to upmost detail, but I just shouldn't have to waste time doing meaningless things like just walking between places for the umpteenth time. If something specific and relevant comes up, you can go into the actual gameworld view, like combat, roguish activities (steal, murder, run away, stalk, etc.); if not, cut me some slack on "immersion". With that, you could abstract talking to random nobodies on the street to receive short and to the point answers without the trouble, and you could be leaded (or misleaded) through wherever you are supposed to find some relevant answers, from where the dynamically assigned personalities could take on.
 

Mayday

Augur
Joined
Feb 14, 2007
Messages
1,000
Location
Poland
Uh... I've already talked about this in a thread specifically on this matter.

Anyway- every NPC can have a randomly generated personality influencing his dialogue.

Part of the difficulty is finding the right people to talk to! (Instead of having a compass pointing in their direction).
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
Location
Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
I'd be happy with a decent reaction system. Something to a degree of 'Fear/Respect'. I know you can't please everyone with 'deep' conversation with every NPC but the following is what I really wanted:

Like, when I walk into a shop, broke a pile of things, the shopkeeper reaction would vary between demanding compensation to outright fear. It all depends to how I build my character, if I'm weak, scrawny looking with low STR etc.

And witness to killing may be bribed/intimidated/killed on the spot. Not just simply '/call guards routine' that is common in RPG. There has to be different scale of 'right and wrong' depending on the NPC background/faction. If I killed a guard in front of a thief, he shouldn't report me. Especially if I tossed 20 gold to his palms.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
The answer is yes. Why? That's where a lot of role-playing takes place in the ineraction of characters. Role-playing games would be much worse without character interaction. L0L
 

Spazmo

Erudite
Joined
Nov 9, 2002
Messages
5,752
Location
Monkey Island
I agree with Section8. I don't think this is a thing that's particularly broken. It's true that it's a little odd for your protagonist PC to talk to everyone in town, even if he's meant to be a gruff and tuff solitary type of guy, but... it works. Ideally, I suppose, you have situations something like Shady Sands in FO1 where you're "forced" to talk to the guard at the entrance of town (or at least Seth talks to you if you're holding a weapon) and then he can point you to questgivers and the other persons of interest in Shady Sands. Even so, having a signpost NPC at the entrance to every town feels iffy, too.

Still, though, sometimes you just have to wander in from the desert and tell a guy about crop rotation.
 

rei1974

Scholar
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
105
I think it should be like darklands... why have the player click on all possible NPC, if 80% of them would just reply "I am busy now" or similar?
I don't think people want to waste time... unless they can provide a unique answer for each single NPC.
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
No. But it's nice to have if you can do it in a worthwhile way as far as making the world feel believable and ALIVE. If you're going to do it the Bethesda way, forget it, as their earlier claims about NPCs going nuts would've been FAR more enjoyable in Oblivious than what they ended up releasing. (AFAIC I'd like to see a hook to enable that old system and see if it really DID behave as they claimed, and see IF it wasn't malleable enough to fix without their fallback to something that behave nomore realistically than a purely scripted system in an open world. i.e. the scripted system would be fine in a more linear/restricted game, but really makes Oblivious look like shit as it currently exists.)
 

bylam

Funcom
Developer
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
707
NPC interaction is important and players should be able to interact with ANY NPC ala Arcanum.
Not all NPC's will want to talk perhaps...but all NPC's should be killable/pickpocketable/charmable e.t.c.

What I'd like to see is more NPC's initiating interaction with the player, i.e. pickpockets working you, people actively seeking the players help, assassins/thieves coming after you because you possess large quantities of gold/you just purchased very good equipment. That is what makes a world realistic; interactions that the player cannot control but which force them to role-play.
 

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