Populated Cities or Ghost Towns

[Kiva]

How many times have we not seen the typical MMORPG where we have the always faithful Blacksmith, General shop and whatever few amounts of NPCs. These are always present and never even bother looking in a diffrent direction. Now I ask, isn\'t that a bit boring if you look at it? A ghost town. The only population there are the players, and if they are out, we have a few popcycle guys who look like dolls standing there, doing nothing and the city is just dead. No fun...

No, what I\'m suggesting is that we have something like the Baldurs Gate series, towns full of useless NPCs that don\'t talk a lot, but they\'re still there. They add spirit to the town. Now, in PS there could be hoards of NPCs, young as well as old ones walking around in the town, stopping at some of the stalls simply for looking and then moving on. What would be more fun than to see little Enki kids running around playing, and as the night comes, the streets slowly get emptied. This, in my honest oppinion, would add loads of spirit to the game and make it feel more alive.

As I said before, the NPCs shouldn\'t be part of any special quests or anything. That\'s what we have special NPCs for. They should just be able to make a general chit-chat about the weather or whatever, and that\'s it, so coding wouldn\'t be a problem. It\'s just about coding one, and then duplicating it simply with a diffrent skin and path to walk.

Anyway, feel free to leave your oppinions.

[AendarCallenlasse]

Well I thought I\'d post this:

I believe we will have lots of NPCs in the cities eventually
Think GTA3 level

I think this is an excellent idea.  Having a crowded city of NPCs would do wonders for the feel of the game and make it much more realistic.

[elscouta]

i completely agree (no need to post why, there was already enough reasons pointed out).

About path to walk, this can be fun if this is done randomly, but this is the choice of the coders i think.

But, even if a lot of town should be really crowded, some ghost town can add to the flavour of the game:no blacksmith, a poor meerchant trying to sell a few goods, a few old NPCs ... like in real life in some deserted towns.

[Asraniel]

in the cvs changelog i saw something about paths and random chosen paths to wander.. i think its already implemented, the only question is how many NPC will wander around, but the code should be there (i think)

[SaintNuclear]

I was just about to say this:

Originally posted by AendarCallenlasse
Think GTA3 level

Yeah pedestrians would be awesome, no doubt about it.
Each will have it\'s own daily path that it goes through every day, and it\'ll add alot of atmosphere.
E.g.
Ped1:
8:00 - Outside the house.
8:20 - Groceries merchant. Talking with merchant.
8:40 - Garden. Sitting on bench.
etc.

[Wormtail_]

Interesting idea... I\'ve seen a few Age of Kings(an RTS game) scenarios with wandering pedistrians, and those cities were quite interesting, really. Wandering people were more interesting than empty streets. If there were no people in an area, that would signify that something was wrong...

Oh, and I assume the shopkeepers would leave shop (and lock it) when night falls, like every other NPC.

Should NPCs know of recent news, if it\'s possible, for players to get news from?

Of course. That way, those NPCs can actually benefit people in one way, as well as adding flavor.

[SaintNuclear]

Hmm, I\'m not sure about shopkeepers leaving their shop. It sounds reasonable, but it could be kinda annoying.
How about a night shift? Each shop will have two shopkeepers, one at day and one at night.
They\'ll be a bit diffrent from each other, say other things, treat diffrent races in diffrent ways. It would be cool if you could have a grudge with one of them because something you said, and he won\'t sell stuff to you, or do it overpriced, while the other one is fine with you.


I think that all the peds should tell pretty much the same thing (maybe slight variations, but not each ped a diffrent thing).
Some of them will also be rude, some won\'t talk much because they\'re late all the time, etc.

[Wormtail_]

A night shift sounds reasonable. And racial prejudice could be feasible, too, but irritating... Though because of that, an NPC could be fired or another competitor could be friendly towards you. Located in another part of the city for convenience, I suppose.

Speaking of racial prejudice, should regular NPCs have such feelings towards other races, or should everyone be, erm, part of a friendly city? If it were implemented, it would cause a great deal of irritation and certain players would complain to the point of death. So it might not be enjoyable, just realistic, in my opinion.

[SaintNuclear]

Racial prejudice goes in two ways... You might have to pay high prices to that certain NPC that hates your race, but enjoy low prices from that other one that is of your race.

It\'ll also be town-dependant. Hydlaa shouldn\'t have racial prejudice at all. But maybe other towns, that have high precentages of a certain race will dislike other races.

Also, according to the History, Enkis and Ylians shouldn\'t like each other much. Maybe Lemurs and Krans too (diffrent gods, wich one of them happens to be evil...).

I know that personally, my Kran char will have racial prejudices, and if there will be towns that are pro-Kran he\'ll probebly live there.

[DepthBlade]

I think this so called crowd of NPCS should go into riot mode when a GM tells them to, kind of like a clear the city of cursed towns people event :]

[SaintNuclear]

They should also have very basic skills of combat. So if a monster slays the guards and gets inside, everyone will attack it with brooms and sticks and stuff

Besides those with the basic skills, there will be some with a bit higher skills that are a part of an only-NPCs militia. Their skills are higher than those of the regular peds, and they carry daggers or rusty swords etc.
While small monsters will be attacked by everyone, in case a big monster comes in, everyone will run into their houses except for the militiamen wich will attack the monster.

[Wormtail_]

And of course, players can pitch in some help. Perhaps the more \'refined\' civilians might help out in repelling invaders, as in certain alchemists or trainers. NPC healers could also come out and heal those of whom they had no prejudices against.

If there are criminals of any sort, perhaps Wanted posters could inform NPC pedestrians so that if they spot the criminal, they could alert the guard/mlitia. That\'s only an if, as criminals may not be in PS for reasons of causing grief.

[Icefalcon]

Very good idea Grono, though maybe they shouldn\'t be useless. You could talk to them and maybe buy/sell/trade with a few of them. And of course you could have quests hidden in the crowd of wandering people  I would also like to see the shopkeeper/blacksmith etc. NPCs walk around and not just stand behind a counter. In a tavern, the NPC could walk around cleaning tables, sweeping the floor, serving drinks, washing dishes etc.

[Shariom]

Well some of them should have combat skills certainly. But put in some variation. Say some monster gets into town - the kids are told by the adults to get inside and lock the doors, followed by a proportion of the adults depending on their Cool / Bravery whatever.... The NPC\'s roles would affect bravery a fair bit.... a blacksmith is much more likely to pick up a sword hes been working on and attack an invading monster than a librarian (though the librarian could be a mage and start fireballing it). I have this mental image of the local fat brearaucrat running and hiding in an alley

I don\'t really like the idea of hidden quests amongst the crowd.... would encorage people to spend AGES talking to npc after npc looking for a quest which isn\'t realistic at all. Perhaps if the character has a certain reputation they will be approached by NPCs with quests.... say you have a positive reputation from saving the town from a monster, then NPCs might approach you and ask you to save their farm from another monster. If you have a negative reputation for some reason (better left unsaid between civilised peoples ), less... shall we say moral... NPCs might approach them and ask them to steal something or kill someone etc.

The prejudice thing sounds good.... would encourage each races to congregate around a certain town, take on more race involved roles. Hydlaa would have to be neutral of course, and other towns would be tolerant of most people, but not of those who follow an evil god etc

[Tyriel]

About the npc stuff..
if anyone has played Gothic then u know how should a game look like..

anyway heres something devs to think about

http://www.piranha-bytes.com/gothic2/content_english/makingof_filler.php