This is a question that's I've been pondering in the back of my mind for a while, since aspects of my game design depend on it. What would you say is the typical population of an RPG world? I'm only considering the NPCs and PCs here, not the zillions of monsters, bandits, stormtroopers and other miscellaneous misanthropes that you get in random encounters or battle sequences. If I think about it, a typical RPG village or town only has a couple of dozen inhabitants. A large city might have about 100. Given that there's only usually about two large cities and a handful of villages in an RPG world, I'd think that most of them have a population of under 500 people. What do you think? Is my estimate of a population of 500 people accurate?

Above poster was me... hadn't posted in ages and forgot my account details until I just recovered them.

Well, the thinking is that the NPCs are representative of the population, but not the literal population. See, during the day time, the people you find in town are just the unemployed. Everyone else is out working the fields. Or just in another house, and they're all deliberately trying to avoid the adventurers who will take their stuff and ask about quests.

On a more serious note, 100 NPCs in an RPG world sounds like the perfect number, but its important to remember that each NPC should be part of a story. Not neccesarily THE story, as a whole of the game, but part of a smaller story that goes with the region. The player is as much learning about the world as he is THE story that goes with the game, and it'd be handy to have plenty of NPCs that can give him that feel of the world.

What's the scope of your world in the overall design?

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Original post by Beige What's the scope of your world in the overall design?

It's a bit off-topic, since I'm considering RPG worlds in general (and the last time I mentioned my game the whole thread got derailed), but the answer to this question determines the scope of my world in the overall design. I'm trying to build an RPG sim game, and I'm wondering whether it's feasible from an AI and CPU perspective to model the entire world population, or whether I should stick to one village. I think I could design the AI to model up to a few hundred characters given from what I've seen in other games, possibly more if I use a few CPU saving tricks, but I was wondering if a few hundred were "enough" to correctly model a world. I'm thinking yes, but I was wondering what everyone else was thinking.

The simulated-people thought has been thunk before. However, the end result is usually the realization that the game is supposed to be fun for the player, not for the computer. The added texture created by creating a real simulated world just isn't enough, compared to those same resources spent on improving the scripted town, or adding more quests.

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Original post by hplus0603 The simulated-people thought has been thunk before. However, the end result is usually the realization that the game is supposed to be fun for the player, not for the computer. The added texture created by creating a real simulated world just isn't enough, compared to those same resources spent on improving the scripted town, or adding more quests.

If you are thinking about the sort of simulation that I think you are thinking of, then I agree. This project started out as an idea for an A.I. demo that I'm now turning into a game to make it more interesting. However, it's not really a people simulator at all, it's a testbed for my interactive storytelling research. I'm going to try and make it as fun as possible, but also use it to develop ideas for research.

And I've been drawn completely off-topic, which is: in order to determine the scope of the simulation, I need to decide on how many people live in an RPG world.

once again, you had the answre at the beginning of the thread. It should be around a dozen or two in a small village, and maybe around 5 times that in a bigger city. Which means it COMPLETELY depends on how large your game is going to be. If you lpan to have it in a single village, eighteen people is quite a good number. If you expect to include a dozen village, two cities and a capital, then, maybe 250 is a bit on the lower side...

YOU are the one trying to make it sound logical. Then use your brain to conect two and two...

This is just an estimation I made off the top of my head. I play a lot of RPGs.

Village -- only 5-15 people. These people are often caught working because in such a small place, there is plenty of work for everyone to do.

Town -- roughly 20-40 people. Children are allowed to play, while some adults must work hard all day at inns and shops.

City -- usually at least 50 people. There are plenty of small businesses and outside stands, and people are often busy during the day.

Metropolis -- a gigantic city with 200 people or more. There are often festivals here, and the young people have time to chat with you as their parents work at businesses.

Btw, you guys are confusing villages with towns. A town is defined as a "large village." When somebody says village, they usually mean those small places with only a few people. A town, on the other hand, can be almost as large as a small city. Towns ase run by mayors, while villages are usually run by the inn-keeper or a group of elders.

[Edited by - mecha on September 29, 2005 5:03:41 AM]

I'm not sure how RPG-like your game really is, but you should try to avoid making your player talk to worthless characters to determine if they are indeed worthless. There's nothing more annoying to me than having to talk to 30 people in a town to find the two that actually talk back. Considering your game is an RPG / simulation, I'm not sure you'll have this situation.

Fallout handled this by making clone characters look the same. In different areas, clones may change. And in one town, an important NPC may look like the clones in another town. But most usually, the clones in one area are easy to avoid after you figure out what's going on. In Morrowind, all NPCs were pretty much clones. The exceptions might be guild leaders and shop keepers.

You could do pretty much anything to set them apart.
- Make important characters stand still, while clones wander (difficult to talk to someone who's moving around).
- Make clone characters look slightly less detailed.
- Give all important characters unique mesh/texture/sprite resources.
- Have name pop-ups on mouseovers or player distance, and give the clones generic names (lady, gentleman, kid).

It could even be something discreet, like clones never turning their neck + head to look around. Just anything that gives the player a clue.

Again, sorry if irrelevant. I can't really help much with the question. Never counted.