70 réponses à ce sujet

[Eternal Phoenix]

Why did I mention Oblivion now?

Okay then, take Risen (another game I hated lol) which had a perfect 24 hour schedule for NPCs. I don't remember NPCs staring at the wall in that game. Only a few odd rare NPCs (mostly important characters) only ever stood in one place but they were either reading, writing or eating. Sandbox games aren't the only games that need NPCs with 24 hour schedules. Any game trying to engross you into its world should have such a system for NPCs so that you feel part of a believable world.

Now let's look at Dragon's Dogma which isn't a a sandbox RPG but it has a day and night system and the cities in the game have NPCs going about their daily business. Yeah, sure you won't speak to half of them but it adds believability to the game just as a seamless transition between day and night do the same.

Monica21 said I shouldn't notice that one NPC leaning against the wall if I'm engrossed in the game but if I am engrossed in the game, it's these type of things that take me out of the experience. You have these lifelike companions with you and then you encounter Lowtez Draken who you can walk through???

I can deal with the static NPCs in Origins because there are a few who move about but in Awakening, the city has everyone standing in the same place, there's no noise whatsoever either. It totally detaches you from the experience, even cities/villages in NWN had more life. Kirkwall however just killed everything. Copied and pasted Lowtez Draken characters ruined the immersion as did the static characters.

I mean if you only care about gameplay, characters and story, why even have static NPCs at all eh? Just delete EVERY single static NPC in the next Dragon Age and only keep the quest givers. Maybe there will never be 24 hour schedules for NPCs in a Bioware game but making NPCs do more than just stand there is something Bioware should try to do regardless. They can have random scripts so NPCs perform certain duties in random ways so you never see it as the same old loop. I noticed that some NPCs even spoke to other NPCs in Dragon Age 2 - but these were often short conversations - having more of this from NPCs who meet up and discuss the recent events would be even better.

Kirkwall was meant to be a place where you saw mages being persecuted. Seeing random events of Templars chasing after apostate mages (that happened every now and again randomly) would have made everything more believable and truly immersed you with the plot. Seeing rival gangs fight each other in the Docks would have been good and see drunks getting into fights with each other in the only tavern in Kirkwall would have been good too.

[The_11thDoctor]

Wait... I wasnt the only one who cared about this issue?! I wrote about this topic several times and no one seemed to care about RPGs around here! Bioware's NPCs standing in the same spot bugged the crap out of me! Im looking at the non season changing, no weather, no people doing random task and moving out of the same spot, no change in clothes etc NPCs and I just felt the game felt very flat. It was one of the emersion breaking parts of the game. Then the city had almost no one in it! At night there was like 2 guards for the entire city? I just couldnt figure out what they did with all the development time? I love and hate the game with a passion, so I wont rant about the recycled areas or choices not mattering, but I feel if they add NPCs that did something and a ton more of them, it would benefit the atmosphere of the game. I also wrote about how no new NPCs came over 10 years or left. There are no crowds, no one up to shennanigans, no one getting their face's smashed by a guard for breaking the law, nothing! I wrote on this subject like back when DA 2 came out. Why no one would care? Im guessing they hate or dont like RPGs and only play DA 2 for the action and not for the emersion, story, etc. Just my guess.



kind of what I felt like when I noticed none of the NPCs moving from there spots ingame....

Modifié par aang001, 30 août 2011 - 01:56 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

The Ultima games were the first RPGs (Ultima V I think) to feature NPCs/AIs with schedules and "life".

We are talking about games that came out two decades ago, so there's really no excuse.

Along with physics and environmental interaction, AI is one big area where there's been little to no meaningful progress but which could add a lot to gameplay.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 30 août 2011 - 03:07 .

[SirLysander]

mrcrusty wrote...

The Ultima games were the first RPGs (Ultima V I think) to feature NPCs/AIs with schedules and "life".

We are talking about games that came out two decades ago, so there's really no excuse.

Along with physics and environmental interaction, AI is one big area where there's been little to no meaningful progress but which could add a lot to gameplay.

Where I see the issue is time and development dollars (to pay for the time). I haven't played many of the games mentioned (I have played TES4:Oblivion), and it struck me that the more "interactive" and pseudorandomized a location is, the more development is required for that location in order to effect the randomization.

I'm running into this myself for a tabletop game   - sure, within a city or a village is something that can be done in seconds, but npcs travelling trade-routes or appearing in multiple cities?  I have several pages filled with such schedules and timetables, for about a dozen NPCs.  I, at least, have the luxury of adding such moble NPCs after the game's begun whereas a digital development studio needs to do it all before shipping.

I agree though - the technology exists.  Where the problem is is convincing a dev studio to pay for story and for an entry-level programmer to sit and create AI schedules for all their NPCs.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

simfamSP wrote...

mrcrusty wrote...

The Ultima games were the first RPGs (Ultima V I think) to feature NPCs/AIs with schedules and "life".

We are talking about games that came out two decades ago, so there's really no excuse.

Along with physics and environmental interaction, AI is one big area where there's been little to no meaningful progress but which could add a lot to gameplay.

See! A good example :-) good to see another Ultima fan... not that I am. But if us BG players think they're vets of the genre, you guys must sure laugh at us

Not exactly. I'm not that old and I was too young when they first came out. While I've played them recently (got them on Abandonia), I can't really say I've played enough to judge them fairly.

I came into the genre with Fallout, so I'm roughly the same as the "BG vets".

The oldest cRPG I've played a lot and really enjoyed is Darklands (1992) though, so maybe that counts for old-school cred?

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Elton John is dead wrote...

Having NPCs with schedules in Dragon Age 3 shouldn't be hard for Bioware - a rich company with talented developers - to implement and it will add so much more immersion to towns and cities. Who else agrees? Do you want to see NPCs with schedules (or at least see them moving about more)?

I can tell you now, having worked in a game that used NPC schedules, this is no simple feature to add. Schedules are not the same as patrol points, where the NPC walks in a set circuit.

1. They would have to be individual to each NPC.
2. Bioware's new cinematic-dialogue requirement would mean you couldn't talk to an NPC in transit, only at set locations. Yes it would make the city more alive, but it would mean you have to wait for NPCs to reach their destinations before you can talk to them (unless you want to endure a 'jump' to the location, which could be anywhere and be incredibly jarring). Dialogue will have to reflect where an NPC is, or at least NOT reflect where an NPC ISN'T.
3. Schedules should serve a purpose in dialogue/gameplay (eg. 'Meet me here at 3am.' 'You can find him at the Pearl in the early evening, but he leaves before midnight!'), not just so we can see people wandering.
4. Not everyone can deal with merchants taking lunch breaks.
5. Bioware games would need a clock, not just a day/night cycle. There would also have to be a way for the PC to know what the time is.
6. Quest markers (!) would have to follow the roaming NPCs.

I love NPC schedules. I've adored them ever since Ultima and think all games should have them. But Bioware games just aren't built for them. At most you can hope for NPCs occasionally teleporting between locations (Thrask appearing at the Blooming Rose), or characters wandering in very small circles so that the positioning of their dialogue camera isn't too far away.

[devSin]

This engine doesn't have a day/night cycle. I don't think it tracks passage of game time at all (but everything in your list could probably already be scripted, except in how it relates to game time).

But it's incorrect to say that "BioWare games" aren't built for them. Everything on your list is trivially easy in Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

If it weren't for the static lighting system, I imagine they'd probably have implemented live passage of game time.

And that should be the first and only item on your list. Without the ability to change lighting (for the passage from day to night and back), time will never pass. So unless they change how they do lighting, there's not going to be any scheduling (at least as it relates to active game time).

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

While I agree it could be scripted, I think point 2 would be a big issue where schedules are concerned if we still walk to be able to talk to NPCs while in transit (and while we're on the subject of BG, I may be remembering incorrectly but I do not recall dialogued NPCs or merchants physically walking around town to get to work, go to lunch, go home. They vanished at night but there was no transit, and transit is part of what I'm discussing here. Not that it can't be done, but it was an entirely different dialogue system, which brings me to the next part below...).

Remember that Dragon Age, unike Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, has cinematic dialogue. And since DA2, Bioware has made a very big deal about how on-the-fly dialogue won't happen anymore (not *can't* happen, *won't* happen) because they want to keep NPCs in a specific environment to make quality cinematics with angles, lighting, animation etc--stuff they can't do with talking heads.

Take a dialogued NPC out of their specific environment, ie. in transit on their schedule, or at another location, and what would they have to do? Revert to talking heads (which they have stated they don't want to do for quality reasons), script multiple dialogue cinematics for multiple locations, OR make it so that NPCs refuse to talk / you just get a 'Talk to me later' bark when they're not in their home territory.

Could they do it? Yes, probably. I was wrong to say Bioware games aren't 'built' for it. What I should have said was this: the way things are going, especially with how Bioware wants their cinematic dialogue system at the moment, it looks like a proper scheduling system is something they are not aiming towards and can't do without changing how they've said they want to do things going forward.

Edit: re 'trivially easy', I think you might have misunderstood some of those points. 4, for instance, has nothing to do with it being possible to script, and everything to do with gamers getting annoyed at having to wait (or sleep, or meditate) for merchants to get off their lunch break so they can sell their ph4t l00t. It's a cool RPG element, but one that annoys some people enough that they don't want it because it becomes an invoncenience (not me though!). Bioware seems to be more interested in removing elements that appear inconvenient or bothersome than adding them.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 30 août 2011 - 07:58 .

[Yuqi]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...


Edit: re 'trivially easy', I think you might have misunderstood some of those points. 4, for instance, has nothing to do with it being possible to script, and everything to do with gamers getting annoyed at having to wait (or sleep, or meditate) for merchants to get off their lunch break so they can sell their ph4t l00t. It's a cool RPG element, but one that annoys some people enough that they don't want it because it becomes an invoncenience (not me though!). Bioware seems to be more interested in removing elements that appear inconvenient or bothersome than adding them.

I'm one of those people that hates AI schedules.

Those shedules annoyed  the crap out of me in fable. I do enough chasing after people in RL, I dont want to do it in a Video Game.

[devSin]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

While I agree it could be scripted, I think point 2 would be a big issue where schedules are concerned if we still walk to be able to talk to NPCs while in transit (and while we're on the subject of BG, I may be remembering incorrectly but I do not recall dialogued NPCs or merchants physically walking around town to get to work, go to lunch, go home. They vanished at night but there was no transit, and transit is part of what I'm discussing here. Not that it can't be done, but it was an entirely different dialogue system, which brings me to the next part below...).

I don't believe that BioWare would ever go this direction. If an NPC has dialogue, they will be where you expect. They've not shown any interest in emulating life to the point that you have to check your calendar to see if the shopkeep is coming into work today.

As for Baldur's Gate, all the necessary tools are there. They simply chose not to have it behave that way (the scripting system is sort of kludgy, so it wouldn't be perfect in terms of natural movement and such, but it's beyond simple to do).

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Could they do it? Yes, probably. I was wrong to say Bioware games aren't 'built' for it. What I should have said was this: the way things are going, especially with how Bioware wants their cinematic dialogue system at the moment, it looks like a proper scheduling system is something they are not aiming towards and can't do without changing how they've said they want to do things going forward.

This is not something they've ever even hinted at wanting to do. Ambient life, sure, but something you actually interact with is going to be in a relatively static state.

This has been true of all their games.

[SirLysander]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

2. Bioware's new cinematic-dialogue requirement would mean you couldn't talk to an NPC in transit, only at set locations. Yes it would make the city more alive, but it would mean you have to wait for NPCs to reach their destinations before you can talk to them (unless you want to endure a 'jump' to the location, which could be anywhere and be incredibly jarring). Dialogue will have to reflect where an NPC is, or at least NOT reflect where an NPC ISN'T.

The easiest way to implement this is to not use the game engine to render the dialog, but simply run movie files.  Trying to make it dynamic (e.g. a digital equivalent of blue-screening) means they'd have to update the game engine almost to the point where it could handle the dialog independent of "static location" movie files.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Yuqi wrote...
I'm one of those people that hates AI schedules.

Those shedules annoyed  the crap out of me in fable. I do enough chasing after people in RL, I dont want to do it in a Video Game.

And there's nothing wrong with not liking AI schedules either. *nod*

devSin wrote...

This is not something they've ever even hinted at wanting to do. Ambient life, sure, but something you actually interact with is going to be in a relatively static state.

This has been true of all their games.

So far, yes.

Ambient life is on a different level to proper NPC scheduling though.

SirLysander wrote...

The easiest way to implement this is to not use the game engine to render the dialog, but simply run movie files.  Trying to make it dynamic (e.g. a digital equivalent of blue-screening) means they'd have to update the game engine almost to the point where it could handle the dialog independent of "static location" movie files.

I'm going to have to take your word for it that that's the easiest way. XD It sounds like it would require a different dialogue system?

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 30 août 2011 - 11:45 .

[Wulfram]

One thing I really do dislike is Day/Night cycles with the inevitable ridiculous time compression that this comes with.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Elton John is dead wrote...

Having NPCs with schedules in Dragon Age 3 shouldn't be hard for Bioware - a rich company with talented developers - to implement and it will add so much more immersion to towns and cities. Who else agrees? Do you want to see NPCs with schedules (or at least see them moving about more)?

I can tell you now, having worked in a game that used NPC schedules, this is no simple feature to add. Schedules are not the same as patrol points, where the NPC walks in a set circuit.

1. They would have to be individual to each NPC.
2. Bioware's new cinematic-dialogue requirement would mean you couldn't talk to an NPC in transit, only at set locations. Yes it would make the city more alive, but it would mean you have to wait for NPCs to reach their destinations before you can talk to them (unless you want to endure a 'jump' to the location, which could be anywhere and be incredibly jarring). Dialogue will have to reflect where an NPC is, or at least NOT reflect where an NPC ISN'T.
3. Schedules should serve a purpose in dialogue/gameplay (eg. 'Meet me here at 3am.' 'You can find him at the Pearl in the early evening, but he leaves before midnight!'), not just so we can see people wandering.
4. Not everyone can deal with merchants taking lunch breaks.
5. Bioware games would need a clock, not just a day/night cycle. There would also have to be a way for the PC to know what the time is.
6. Quest markers (!) would have to follow the roaming NPCs.

I love NPC schedules. I've adored them ever since Ultima and think all games should have them. But Bioware games just aren't built for them. At most you can hope for NPCs occasionally teleporting between locations (Thrask appearing at the Blooming Rose), or characters wandering in very small circles so that the positioning of their dialogue camera isn't too far away.

If the Aurora engine can do it, then so can these new engines Bioware are creating and they can ditch the cinemactic dialogue if it means having more lifelike NPCs. If people have problems with merchants taking lunch breaks or going to sleep, then there easily could be a feature implemented where you can rest yourself for a number of hours to progress the time quicker. It's not hard to implement for a team of professional developers. If one man can implement it into a module for NWN, then an entire team of professional - and well paid - developers should be able to do the same. I think for half of the development of DA2, the ENTIRE team were just eating pizza and throwing balls at the wall because one man could easily have given Kirkwall more life or made the areas unique in look but it seems they didn't bother or care about trying to immerse the player with the city and give them the feeling that they were exploring a lifelike city.

There is no excuse for NPCs lacking life anymore. Saying "it's a Bioware game" doesn't justify the lifeless NPCs. There are many games set in a linear world - with free exploration - where NPCs have a schedule or do more than just stand there. I look at Divinity 2 here (a game developed by a small company) and I see guards patrolling, people talking and NPCs walking about. There's no schedules in Divinity 2 like there was in Divine Divinity - for some NPCs - but towns still feel more alive than any towns in a Bioware game. 

I mean, even just having four guards patrolling EVERYWHERE in a town in a Bioware game would have given them more life. Having one guard walk up and down a few metres in a loop while the others - along with townsfolk - just stood still didn't add any feeling of life to Kirkwall.

And as I said before. A few random events like Templars chasing an escaped mage would have added even more life to the game. Hell, if I saw that, not only would it have immersed me more with the Templar Vs mage plot but it would also have added the detail everyone wished for.

There doesn't necessary have to be a 24 hour schedule for NPCs but more scripts and scipted - and random - events wouldn't hurt Bioware if they implemented them.

Modifié par Elton John is dead, 30 août 2011 - 02:49 .

[SirLysander]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
I'm going to have to take your word for it that that's the easiest way. XD It sounds like it would require a different dialogue system?

It depends, if the engine could support the close ups, etc.  When I said "easiest," that's in the context of the presently-supported "static locaton" dialog.  They can render and produce video of the entire dialog sequence outside of the game engine, record it as mp4, flv, or some other movie file type, and simply have the game engine play the appropriate clip at the appropriate time.  It's also easier in that, as it's outside the game engine, characters can do things that would be 'outside parameters' for the game engine to allow.  Though, there still is a time and a place for these kinds of cut-scenes, even where in-game-engine rendering is done for dialog.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I'm thinking that with a fully functioning day/night or time system, you could make gameplay more interesting. You could setup a variety of bonuses and penalties associated with day/night cycles for your skills and abilities, like a bonus modifier for stealth or backstab in the evening, for example.

Then, you could have a system where you can quantify whether your character has been wasting time doing side missions/bonking LIs instead of doing the quest that "HAS TO BE DONE NAO OR SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS EXCEPT NOTHING BAD ACTUALLY HAPPENS IF YOU'RE LATE!"

More complex AI schedules (as in, actual AI schedules period) or more complex AI could develop some really interesting situations. Aside from the "oh Mr. Merchant is not available right now" stuff, you could have rivals, or other adventurers who are trying to complete quests or live lives like you.

So, many of the ancillary side quests could have an element of randomisation, where helping desperate NPCs means that they hired other people to do the work too, depending on how strong the NPCs and monsters are, they could be dead (and lootable), in the middle of fighting off hordes of mobs, or actually on their way back to the NPC to receive their promised gold. You could also tether that to the time mechanics so that it won't happen immediately or anythng.

You could add in an economic system too. Link various NPCs with animations ala Witcher/Gothic/Risen/ElderScrolls/Fallout games with jobs and occupations which scale in size, number of NPCs and stalls with player interaction. For example, there are 6 merchants - two weapons, two armor and two mage/trinket merchants. The ones you spend money at grow in size, maybe 1-2 more NPCs come along as helpers, the stall gets a little bigger, maybe they move indoors into an actual store. Whereas the ones you sell stuff at (or don't use) stay poor with one guy doing nothing. The richer and more successful stores net you discounts and special items whereas the poorer ones net you specific quests (usually dishonest ones with smuggling or bribery).

If you can somehow tie that to the world at large, like say, through a faction/guild system with repuations and then allow those reputations to open up new quests and options in resolving situations like using money, influence, blackmail, etc. Then good.

I know that's not necessarily NPC schedules, but it touches on how to introduce elements of a living world while also making them more than cosmetic elements.

Hell, you could make it part of the storytelling too (night ambush on a city or your party actually means something since it changes how effective your skills/abilities are)

On a personal note, Living World (with things like I described above) >>>> Cinematic lighting and camera positioning.

However, there is nothing to indicate that BioWare feels the same way and evidence all but points to BioWare employees thinking that Cinematic elements like lighting and camera work are indeed more important than a living world. It's somewhat telling that unlike the re-used maps, companion equipment and even choice/consequence, creating more convincing NPCs and a living world is not even an issue for them as far as I've seen.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 30 août 2011 - 03:32 .

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

I agree that all those points would help a future title MrCrusty. They could even enhance the feel of the game by giving NPCs preferences with armor or items, but still allowing you to equip them with things they don't like because they are an upgrade. It would be funny to have the occaisional bickering from a NPC because they don't want to use a heavier sword or armor. It could just be a one-liner that plays or a short dialogue after the third occurance with equiping the character with something they do not have a preference for.

Sure it's work, but it would add atmosphere, personality and heck...it would give characters far more depth than simply limiting armor to a particular singular outfit that can be upgraded a couple of times. Plus, it would still give the player build options, something that roleplaying games usually have had but also something that seems to be fading from several titles due to streamlining and rushing a product to market. It feels like a few titles lately are the equivalent of the fast food of the video game world, being a less expensive thrill and quick fix, service without a smile type of experience.

[craigdolphin]

This issue was one of the few issues with DAO. I do think Bioware needs to consider either licensing a new engine, or building a new one that can actually handle all of the things required for a modern CRPG. Their existing engine is obviously far too limited graphically (which is my guess for the real reason behind the choice of a minimalist art style), and can't handle scheduling and day/night cycles etc. I'd love to see Bioware break away from the linear levels heritage and make more semi-open world games. I'm tired of their endless loading screens. I'm tired of the static and lifeless environments. Where are destructible environments? Why can't we jump over a puddle? Swim across a slow moving river? Climb up to a ledge?

That said, DA2 had other issues that were significantly more important to me than these.