"Why is it so bad to have to run around looking for an NPC?"

Well, I think it would get "irritating".

Imagine returning from Bob''s quest: Take my map here, and find the hidden treasure. bring back the picture of my old goat which is in it.
And when you get back to his house to tell him, he''s not there. So you go to his job. He got fired yesterday. You go to the bar. Someone there says "I heard him say something about going to the woods for I-don''t-know how long.

Sometimes you just need to reask someone "where exactly did you say I could find that treasure chest?" because you forgot. You don''t wanna spend 10 minutes finding someone just for something simple and dumb like that.

Maybe you could have a list of "not dangerous" NPCs, and whenever you checked your map you''d see where they were. Or you''d get a simple arrow on the main "run in town"-screen pointing to the NPC.

I DO want NPCs walking around - but only if there''s a good, easy and fast way to find them.

The information flow/dissemination aspect of this has been discussed a lot in the AI forum (I think a few people even posted simple implementations). Search that forum for keywords gossip or rumor.

Its no fun having to track down an NPC espically when they all look a like and you only have vague directions. I remeber several times whle playing arcanum when I was suppose to talk to someone and being unable to find them, so I just gave up and moved on.

A player shouldn't be forced to do an extra "quest" after each quest just to find the person who has their reward.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on July 29, 2003 6:47:16 PM]

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
A player should be forced to do an extra "quest" after each quest just to find the person who has their reward.

I assume you meant to say "shouldn''t"?

So why not have a scrying spell you can use to find what town they''re in or near? Or a mystical tower you can use to scry them, or maybe you can pay a gypsy or something to do it for you. Inindo has hundreds of npc''s, and if I remember correctly there''s a way to find out where they are.

I don''t want it dependent on magic, because I might use it in a game with no magic. I really don''t see a problem with needing to look for someone. In almost all RPGs to date, each town is a small collection of buildings with very few NPCs to keep track of. While this system would likely need more than that, I don''t see it being a lot more.

Why not just limit where NPCs can go to logical places? The blacksmith will either be in his shop, at his house, or at a bar, but you''re not likely to find him hanging around the king''s throne room.

it depends on how many NPC''s you have for instance if there 10 in the whole village it is not so bad but if there are 50+ in every village and they can move from village to village. Then its going to be a major chore to find them. The best thing to do would be to have key places that they go. For instance they can always found in their homes at night or at work during the day.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

i''m attempting something very similar in terms of two-way communications and interpretation of behaviors. the NPCs all share a common vocabulary and information pool, and their specific stats determine how well they use their vocabulary and what specific information they should posses.

90% of the NPCs in the game will be generated randomly and split up into four main groups; strangers, acquaintences, allies & enemies. the player is unknown to strangers and must make an impression in order to be remembered. once a player has made a significant enough impression on a stranger NPC he becomes an acquaintence and is saved in memory. The more acquaintences that a player has the less privacy he is afforded, and the more likely that information pertaining to the player will be spread.

All NPCs react to the events around them in different ways, according to their attributes. Some people will stay and fight, some people will run and hide. The number of NPCs to witness any given event (like a murder) and some type of abstract severity level of that event determines how quickly this information spreads.

One thing that I have been struggling with are secrecy levels of information. I want alot of different cultures and societies, and in some places you simply don''t talk about certain things. In a modern example, you don''t want to be seen walking down the streets of karachi carrying a bible and preaching. you''ll likely get arrested, or maybe shot. if the player breaks a local custom, while not in the presence of allies, then there will likely be some sort of consequences. but secrecy levels are not universal. what is taboo in topeka, kansas is not necessarily taboo in las vegas.

Exactly what I''m talking about. I don''t think it''d be a big deal finding npc''s, if the number of them is similar to most old RPG''s I''ve played.

What I think would be neat is if each npc had some sort of schedule, however this schedule wouldn''t necessarily be static. For instance, while walking to work one day, the blacksmith may witness a murder and then have to testify in court or something. Or maybe the wandering merchant gets waylaid by bandits in between towns and ends up wandering lost and naked in the woods, heh. I''d love it if plot events happen not just to the heroes, but to everyone else too, and some events wouldn''t be scripted but just arise out of who happened to be in proximity to who and what their motives at the time were. That''s a game that could truly be different every time you play it.