Population size

[Kjaamor]

That's not quite true that it wasn't based on tactics.  You did have the choice to pick perks that made searching more fruitful at the expense of other perks.  I was not a huge fan of Fallout 3, but found it an adequate dungeon crawler.

 

I think it might be something of a stretch to consider choosing one to two perks over the course of the game as "based on tactics".

 

I would say it was a good game mechanic considering the theme of the gameplay. They wanted the player to feel desperate and convey a sense of struggle to be overcome with work. This appeals to mans desire to feel competent, in a survivor man kind of way. If having ammo didn't require tedious work; the player would feel too powerful, like they didn't earn their resources.

 

Tedious is the word here. Is it good gameplay design, regardless of stylistic theme, so make large sections of your gameplay tedious? Is there a sense of earning or achievement to be gained from repetitively engaging in a task so unskilled that you can become no better at it than when you first start playing?

 

I'd argue that it isn't.

[PrimeJunta]

I agree with Kjaamor here. In NV they made ammo crafting a thing at least.

 

My personal favorite in this respect though is Arcanum. There's only one type of bullets, to be sure, but if you're a gunslinger you pretty much have to make your own or go bankrupt. Digging around in rubbish bins like a hobo actually makes sense in that game, and it's the only game I've played where that's the case. "Oh goody, some charcoal, a rag, a railroad spike and a spring!"

[teknoman2]

I agree with Kjaamor here. In NV they made ammo crafting a thing at least.

 

My personal favorite in this respect though is Arcanum. There's only one type of bullets, to be sure, but if you're a gunslinger you pretty much have to make your own or go bankrupt. Digging around in rubbish bins like a hobo actually makes sense in that game, and it's the only game I've played where that's the case. "Oh goody, some charcoal, a rag, a railroad spike and a spring!"

now i just need saltpeter to make bullets, a bottle to make a molotov and i can make a spike trap

[Gromnir]

urban population density is, we s'pose, nice. am just not too worked up 'bout it. anytime we looks at a feature, we considers that poe has limited development resources. so what is we willing to give up to get ________ ? things such as random name generators and more urban density is the stuff we want in game after all the things we think is important is included and optimized.

 

as between adding a couple extra npcs that is meaningful and having attached quest lines  

 

Vs

 

taking same resources to make sure a city is populated with many moving bodies 

 

am not sure what is an equivalent development cost for urban population density, but am suspecting there is more than a few things we would rather have in the game than a few dozen chatable Wendy the Baker npcs who will ask us 'bout how keen it is to be an adventurer and how terrible the situation is in Hazbleakastan... or whatever.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 9, 2014 by Gromnir

[Mor]

I find that a lot of crpgs don't have enough people in their cities. I hope that in PoE the cities actually have a reasonable number of people per city. I think at least 300 npc's per city is reasonable. Does anyone know if PoE will satisfy my need for big cities?

To keep things in perspective, both fallout 1&2 games had together about 650 NPCs, FO:NV had some 550, but its an open world game..

 

Having crowds of people wonder around for flavor is nice. Having them speak generic greetings or background chatter is nicer. Having all of them be discrete individuals with hand-written dialog is a silly waste of resources.

 

I.e. if it was me, I might add procedurally-generated crowds where appropriate. Mix and match heads, hairdos, and attire, give them random lines of chatter, and a generic label so you don't confuse them with characters who matter. Just not so dense crowds that it makes getting from place to place a chore.

Indeed, if we count all the the random "nameless" guard/urchins/passers/etc iterations then it can go up to that. Btw, they need not to be nameless, someone previously suggested a PC name generator, based on the cultural rules JS put in place, it would be a nice touch for the procedurally-generated crowds.

 

Also since stealing is not a skill like in FO/BG, we need not worry about getting over board with our OCD

 

 

 

How hard would it be, I wonder, to have NPCs with relatively small collision - but still some - that are constantly moving and milling about that you can't click on/interact with. There's no way cities would actually work as envisioned in Baldur's Gate (2), but you can't have the streets completely unnavigable and impossible to sort through for actually useful NPCs, too.

I think this is something that's easier to accomplish in (non-sandbox) 3D, since you can more easily imply that you're ever only seeing small portion of the city, the rest of which can be seen stretching far into the landscape -- Mass Effect did this very well, especially in the Citadel, where there was always tons of bustle in the background. Of course, same can be accomplished in 2D, but it kind of doesn't have the same impact when you're just told it's a vast, busy city without being able to actually see it.

 

Our loading screens can help with this. Edited June 9, 2014 by Mor

[Lephys]

I will add that, while nice, I don't really think we need the feel of a fully populated city with people who will all interact with you. I think at the very least, though, it's just nice to have that ambient effect.

 

I'm wondering if this wouldn't, in theory, be a good job for procedural generation? That bazaar's supposed to be really busy? Maybe you let a character-creation-style system roll up a person with randomized head features, clothing, and body type, at the edge of a "zone," then have them walk through, carrying some stuff or whatnot, maybe stop at a stall or something, or stop and have a fake little quick conversation with someone else (that you can't hear because it's just part of the bazaar din), then eventually just walk on out of the zone.

 

That's just an example (you'd see a lot of people bustling about in a bazaar and such, but would you really ever stop to talk to all of them, or would they really even give you the time of day? They're busy enough as it is, and dealing with the same crowd you are.). This same approach could be used on some place where different things are supposed to be going on throughout the day. Say, a harbour/ "the docks." Here, you'd have roughly the same crew in a given day, working all day (maybe you could re-randomize a crew of workers on given days? *shrug*), but you could just change one thing in the scene. Maybe there's a different ship, being unloaded in a different spot, or some carts parked there being loaded on-TO a ship, etc. It wouldn't even have to be that many things. Sure, if you stop to focus on it and think about it, you'd realize the repeating different instances of dock-state. However, in just playing, the ambience would instantly convey a living, changing city.

 

This is where I think games like Skyrim do it "wrong." The biggest value in daily-life AI isn't so much that each individual person actually does everything they're supposed to all day long in a believable manner. It's just that the people around you seem to be doing what people around you would be doing. It doesn't really matter if they're the same people or not, more often than not. Intently stalking one NPC throughout their daily life isn't much of a benefit in an RPG, anyway. If their daily life is relevant to anything, you could always code in behavior for the part of it that's relevant (i.e. they're being shady as of late, so you follow them at night to the church, where they seem to just go in and pray, but it turns out they leave messages under the pews, or they switch with a look-a-like on the way or something...).

 

While nifty from a technical standpoint, it doesn't do me much good to be able to actually watch someone go use the privy, then go tend to some fields for 2 hours, then go visit their brother and have a conversation about how it's Wednesday, then go buy groceries, then head home and eat them, etc. It's enough that I sometimes see that person out buying groceries, and I sometimes see that person at their brother's house, and sometimes in the field doing their job, etc.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Lephys

[Mor]

I think that all will agree with your sentiments, the idea of living breathing world, where little details such as your dock workers would bring it alive, has been long time dream..

 

However, with that said we should be realistic, i doubt that Obsidian would have the resources to pull that off in PoE, when so many before tried and failed. Longer version:

 

 

I assume that Skyrim's daily-life AI that you referred to is used for the same reason that obsidian tries to reuse animations as much as possible - time and money. It is easier to set areas of activity, that hundreds of npc's would follow, reusing few basic animations, than making unique animations\activities for each... Bottom line making it into a real life sim is not the dev top priority, its about giving the impression that something is changing at the background for the undiscerning eye.

 

I assume that in PoE any changes beyond the day/night cycle, such as different ship that you suggested, will require changing background tiles, which I doubt we will see. Same goes for specific animations for dock workers, as oppose to adding another creatures for wilderness verity or something that everyone can se.

 

 

Still there are other ways to keep the city alive as @Sabotin mentioned. Personally, I thought that it worked well in IE games, which maintained a fine balance with NPC placement ( sure you could add more, but not many before it would become overcrowded).

[Lephys]

@Mor, you seem to be (the key word being "seem"; please be aware that I realize I might be mistaken) against the opposite of what I was vying for.

 

However it ended up, the whole idea behind Skyrim's NPC system (I think it started with Oblivion? I can't remember what they called it... they have a proper name for it) was basically "ZOMG! You can actually follow someone around from dawn 'til dusk (and beyond, really), and it'll be as if they're a REAL person living in that town, complete with 24 hours of activities!", instead of just "whenever you see this person, they don't seem to just stand around and never change for months and months."

 

I was pointing out that the emphasis on each individual person actually behaving like a complete, existing-for-24-hours individual with needs and a personality and whatnot should really be less of a priority than simply making sure the existence and behavior of that person in a given interaction/scene makes the town/city feel like an actual, populated place, with people who live there.

 

I believe the ambiance is more important (and easier to achieve, I bet) than the fully-fleshed-out individuals-with-entire-lives thing is.

 

I'd much rather the writing behind the NPCs make me feel like they're real people, than worry with their 24-hour cycle of behavior, should I happen to follow them around the entire day[/i] doing that job.

 

Also, I realize that, especially because of the nature of their environments (baked 2D images), some of the stuff in my example may not be feasible to do. It was only meant as an example of the type of approach that I think is more valuable. Not as a definitive, specific suggestion.

 

It's like a play or movie, with a bunch of extras. They don't have backstories and night jobs and whatnot. But, in the scene, they make a movie set feel like a real place. You intuitively think "Ahh, all these people are going about their business," even though they're not actually going about any business at all. Nor are they returning to any specific homes at night. Nor are any of them getting sick or moving, etc. And, they basically just hire people who are competent enough to throw a costume on and behave like a person in the setting in which they're placed.

[Sad Panda]

This is where I think games like Skyrim do it "wrong." The biggest value in daily-life AI isn't so much that each individual person actually does everything they're supposed to all day long in a believable manner. It's just that the people around you seem to be doing what people around you would be doing. It doesn't really matter if they're the same people or not, more often than not. Intently stalking one NPC throughout their daily life isn't much of a benefit in an RPG, anyway. If their daily life is relevant to anything, you could always code in behavior for the part of it that's relevant (i.e. they're being shady as of late, so you follow them at night to the church, where they seem to just go in and pray, but it turns out they leave messages under the pews, or they switch with a look-a-like on the way or something...).

 

While nifty from a technical standpoint, it doesn't do me much good to be able to actually watch someone go use the privy, then go tend to some fields for 2 hours, then go visit their brother and have a conversation about how it's Wednesday, then go buy groceries, then head home and eat them, etc. It's enough that I sometimes see that person out buying groceries, and I sometimes see that person at their brother's house, and sometimes in the field doing their job, etc.

I don't think Bethesda's games really make for a good point of comparison here, since they're built around a sandbox environment where the player can go everywhere the NPCs can. As the gameworld exists at all times whether the player is there to observe it or not (AI-handling-limitations nonwithstanding), having the NPCs simply appear in different locations doing different things for the player to observe would actually be much, much more difficult to implement than simply giving them a full daily schedule to follow. Of course, this is only true if the schedule is well-designed, a point which Fallout: New Vegas, while otherwise an excellent game, highlighted aptly: Because of poor AI management, if you happened to stray upon the NPCs at the wrong time, you'd find them engaged in all sorts of senseless behaviour, such as standing together in a tight bunch throughout the night because they had been assigned to sleep in a house without enough beds for them all. >_>

 

As has been discussed in this thread, though, it's unlikely that PoE will take this approach, but will rather follow the tried-and-true scheme of the player being restricted to only small portion of the game world (a map) at any given time. As such, it only makes sense you'd only see a given NPC in a given situation, before they head off somewhere where you can't follow. Your suggestion of a stable but to a degree randomised NPC population who perform given tasks at a given area strikes me as a good one. To make things even simpler, I'd further make it so that time passes no faster ingame as in the real world. The NPCs would then only really need to be shifted around when the game clock "jumps forward" while resting, travelling, etc., reducing the intricacies of their AI management.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Sad Panda

[Mor]

@Lephys, I wasn't against anything, on the contrariety I loved your idea, suggesting that at one point or another it is something that every person who got immersed in game world wanted. However, I also tried to impress what I think is behind your examples for bad AI design as being resources constraint\priorities. Implying that in PoE, with its budget, being the first title in the series and our 2d maps (which are both marvels and limits) Obsidian should feel that resources constraint\priorities very keenly.

 

So while I would love to be pleasantly surprised by something like that, as already have been with several other features, despite Obsidian best effort/intentions I don't think that you should get your hopes very high in that department, certainly not for the first game. Edit: expanding on that:

 

 

Say, a harbour/ "the docks." Here, you'd have roughly the same crew in a given day, working all day (maybe you could re-randomize a crew of workers on given days? *shrug*), but you could just change one thing in the scene. Maybe there's a different ship, being unloaded in a different spot, or some carts parked there being loaded on-TO a ship, etc. It wouldn't even have to be that many things. Sure, if you stop to focus on it and think about it, you'd realize the repeating different instances of dock-state. However, in just playing, the ambience would instantly convey a living, changing city.

As I noted you can't just put a ship object in different location, things like that would require to store several variants for dock tiles(all layers) for each situation. While dock workers unloading would mean pick\carry\put animation and specific scripting.

 

Again, all of that sound amazing, but keep in mind that such things take a lot of effort, and the fact that even most AAA games are coming short on that front suggest where the development priorities lay (i.e. giving the impression that something is changing at the background for the undiscerning eye) which is why I mention the background sounds, since there are many creative ways you can achieve a similar effects within our limits.

 

 

 

p.s. indeed, Skyrim AI is likely an iteration of Oblivion radiant AI, which was poorly received and familiar by moth on those topics. In my last post the "living breathing world" was a setup for it, but alas my train of though was caught short by work, and I forgot where I was going with it until now..

Edited June 10, 2014 by Mor

[J.E. Sawyer]

We use "townsfolk" for reactivity and general chatter.  In all communities there are a fair number of townsfolk going about their background activities (not like Ultima "scheduled" behavior, but idles like warming their hands by a fire, smoking a pipe, talking with someone, sitting in a chair and drinking, etc.).  Also, every town/city map has a bunch of individual named NPCs, usually with quests, who are out and about as well.  They aren't Assassin's Creed crowds but they're on par with (maybe a little higher than) the IE games.

[Lephys]

@Mor:

 

Yeah, I realize it's not as easy as "just put a different ship object there." I just honestly am aware just how much I don't know about what would and would not be feasible. I don't know how many objects will actually extend into 3D space, other than the players and character/entity models. I recall seeing some vertical collidable objects, like columns, actually being 3D objects "atop" the 2D background art, but still only possessing a single, 2D "texture" just on the front face of them (since the camera angle's never going to change in-game, anyway). I don't know if that's me imagining things, or if that's actually going to be used in the final game or was just something they were toying with or what.

 

Anywho, I'm only evaluating the sheer concept. If there were any feasible way to do that, I value the approach of it.

 

The city environments are ones you're going to see probably a lot more often than, say, a given forest area or cave or something. You're not going to revisit that same forest area 23 times throughout your travels, to stock up on things and talk to people, etc. So, it makes sense, to me, however you do it, to put a bit more TLC into those. Just a bit. IF resources allow, again. So, if having a couple of variations were feasible at all, I'd say a few subtle changes (like a different ship docked in a different place on the harbour, or a wagon cart in a different place, etc.) would go a LONG way.

 

Look at the stronghold. There's going to be renovated forms of almost everything in there. That's directly tied to mechanics and player choices, but, still. Obviously that can be done. And, as I said, I don't know that it would have to be done that way or nothing at all. Maybe there will be a few actual 3D (even fi they're just 2D faces in 3D space) props that could be overlayed into the scene (like a goods cart parked beside a shop, etc.)? I don't personally know, in my mind, that that isn't possible, which is I why I still posit the suggestion instead of saying "Oh well, you're right, I'll just forget about that."

 

I'm not trying to suggest what should be done. I'm only suggesting end-results that, if achievable, feasibly would be pretty cool, methinks.

 

But, yeah... long story short, I think a lot of games tend to go "we don't just want a static world with NPCs standing around... let's make things dynamic!", and go a bit further with that than they really need to. Having a "scene" of a bustling city is a lot more important than having a bunch of Sims in that city, if that makes any sense, as you're never really going to notice that those people never do anything but create a bustling scene. With that bustling scene in place, you could even just have all the relevant/interactable NPCs be rather static, and it would hardly be noticeable or stand out at all. Why? Because the gestalt of the city are "things are constantly happening and changing here, throughout the day," and that hits your brain much more powerfully and intuitively than "Hey, why doesn't that shopkeeper's daughter ever wander off into town and run errands?"

 

Good point about Skyrim/Fallout being a persistent world. It does make more sense, within that context, to focus more on having full schedules/behavior routines for the NPCs. Also, yes! RADIANT AI. I knew it had a name. Thanks. That was bugging me,

[rjshae]

A bulky barbarian warrior, new to the city and armed to the teeth, walks up and starts asking the PC the same sort of questions you normally get to ask a random local....

 

What happens next?