More NPC stuff…
This week I’ve been working on getting a wider variety of NPCs into the game world. The main type players will come across are “generic” NPCs (shown in the last post). Those are the ones that can offer general information/help/etc.
Other types will be hostile NPCs, NPCs who only want to trade (and who will carry special goods), depressed NPCs, crazy NPCs, etc.
Here’s an example of an encounter with a depressed NPC:
Oh man! Hahaha that suicide caught me off guard. While it’s a little edgy, the blocky death wasn’t bloody enough for it to really be something that would warrant a higher age rating (17+, 11+ etc). I really like how smooth the conversation dialogs slide in and out – they are functional but don’t take up more time than they should. This game is really looking good!
Looks awesome Tyson! As much as I love the idea of NPC’s committing suicide I wonder if it will be an issue with apple to have that included in the game. I’m just guessing more than anything.
Thanks guys!
I thought about the approval thing, as others have mentioned it as well.
I’m not too worried, although after this update I modified the dialog tree so that the player no longer actively coaxes the NPC into suicide…so it’s more of an act of pure hopelessness, rather than the result of malicious bullying.
Regardless, the suicide-event can be disabled extremely easily, so if it becomes a problem for Apple I can remove it without a hitch.
I’ve played Lazarus, but like every other RPG lalety, I couldn’t finish it. It really was great being back in an Ultima though, and barring some annoying (and one major) bugs, it was very well done.However, I’m too much of a control freak to appreciate personality in my CRPG party. I want them to develop as I see fit and to behave as I request, not according to programmer whims or the vagaries of the story. The story should be external to my party thanks. However, the characters in Baldur’s Gate were pretty well done Minsc was very memorable and also the worst Ranger in history. That’s why I ended up playing through the entire thing twice once with the NPCs and once with my own group. Bioware managed to overcome my distaste for characters in the party enough to play it their way once. But, in general, I’m not in favor of it.The Ultima games were a little different. Maybe it was because the classes (eventually) didn’t have a lot of differences. I do remember ditching Shamino or Iolo in the play through of one game don’t remember which and it just felt odd, which is a testament to their iconic status in the series I guess. I don’t mind growing a group through a game where you start out alone or with 1 or 2 friends. But instead of thrusting something on me, why can’t developers simply bring up a character creation screen? 🙂 If a game can tell the story in/with the environment, setting, and NPCs AND get me (and by extension my party) to care about it, but still leave me to create that party as I wish, it’ll be close to my ideal game. I’d probably even FINISH it heck I might REPLAY it ok, now I’m probably talking crazy, so I’ll stop. 🙂
So when is the predicted release date for this epic game