My feedback (surprisingly positive)

My goal right now is for EVERY NPC in game to have unique dialogue by the time I'm done. I just finished 90+ NPCs for Aerie and I'm wrapping up Xenos right now.

So far the only NPCs I'm skipping currently are:

• Town Criers - Many of these don't even have a name
• Public Vendors - I know these are controversial. Many don't have names and I'm not sure if these are sticking arund.
• Advanced/Master Trainers - I expect many or most of these to move as more cities come online.

I've basically provided unique dialogue for every NPC in Owl's Head (just did a second pass there), Ardoris, Kingsport, Solania, Aerie and Xenos. I do think it is feasible to have unique dialogue for everyone.

 

You're crazy.. But if you get your goal i really appreciate it.

 

Trying to come up with a unique concept and personality for hundreds of NPCs becomes challenging but so far I haven't hit a wall. My concern now is that I'm in crunch mode to try and hit all the cities between now and December. I'd like to be done by the normal release date.

Quality - Quantity - Speed. Pick two, except I really want all three.

Whether or not I'm successful is up to your judgement, but I'm always up for feedback. Go talk to NPCs in Ardoris, Kingsport and Solania right now. Tell me what you think. What works? What doesn't? What should I improve?

I'm hoping the second pass of Owl's Head and Aerie will be in the next release. But @Lum is a busy man and I'm a jerk always pestering him with questions and submissions.

 

I've spoken with a good deal of the Ardoris NPCs and generally liked it. Though there is that one traveler near Sequanna square that shuns the traveler that I always think there is more dialogue that I need to do something to unlock. Not at home or I'd grab his name.

 

Is that the hunter, Sheng Lau? If so, I didn't write him. He is part of a quest.

With a lot of the NPCs, I try to expose topics so you can just discover the new keywords organically. Sometimes they are less obvious. For for each NPC I want them to respond to certain standby topics:

Bark - Something they say as you pass by before you initiate conversation
Hello
Bye
Name
Job
Help
Rumors
Health
Where are you from

On top of that, I'll make a list of topics I want to be common for a given scene and generally every NPC in that scene will respond to all of them. For Ardoris the list was something like:


Avatar/Outlander
Banting
Chantik
Confirmatory
Damai
Harmony
Kardan
Khasi
Min Liang Tan
Necropolis
Palace of the Mountain
Palace of the Winds
Pintar
Prophecy
Sequanna
Siranto
Spirit Talker
Undead

Now we're at almost 30 topics every NPC in Ardoris will respond to before I get to their unique topics. I think most NPCs in Ardoris have 40 or so responses. I was told to actually scale back a bit from that. In newer cities I'm doing 30 or so responses per NPC.

Another topic is that if guards are stationed together, or merchants are working closely together you'll find they often have opinions on each other.

If you know Shogun Siranto is an important character in a town, I'm hoping players will pick up on the fact that every NPC will have an opinion on Shogun Siranto, whether I expose that topic or not (though I do more often than not in Ardoris). Coming up with 90+ unique rumors based on the plot of Ardoris and the area, or 90+ different responses to Shogun Siranto can be challenging. It is far easier doing the truly unique topics for each NPC that branch off naturally such as coppersmith wanting to talk about the advantages of working with copper.

In Aerie, there are a few topics every NPC responds to that I hardly ever expose at all. I'm not trying to be a jerk or hide dialogue. The NPCs just don't want to bring those subjects up, but a few expose them. Once you realize the topics exist, hopefully the players will pick up the fact that they can try to ask other NPCs about them as well. I'll give you a hint on one of them. Hardly anyone wants to bring up Free Man's pamphlets with racist tirades, but people obviously have opinions on them.

I also do a few things where NPC X has a rumor that Y is secretly in love with Z. Y never exposes that topic, but when you learn about it from X, you can circle back to Y to ask them about it.

I want the dialogue to be more than just clicking on keywords hoping to pick up quests.

 

That sounds really cool. And I'm probably thinking of the hunter, guess I'm missing a quest.

 

With the caveat that there is someone with the time, energy and creativity to actually do all of that.

 

Talk about a needle in the haystack looking for such people....

 

I found one bout halfway up this thread O.O

 

now point me towards the stack of other games with a similar person =P

 

*points at earth* over there, maybe

Edit: ..maybe..