Sandboxing NPCs

Just going to throw this one out there..

I know this would be a LOT of work.. but as a player it would be SO worth it..

NPCs need to do more than stand in one place and bark all day. They need to interact with their environment. Cooking merchants should cook.. smiths should smith... etc

Give NPCs things to interact with during the day. whether it's a workstation or a spot to lean against a wall.

I would start.. by modifying NPC buildings by placing invisible markers that NPCs would go to and play appropriate animations.. such as a spot on a wall for them to lean on.. or a counter they can wipe down. So you have a mass update of all those buildings throughout the game.

There's more stuff for them to do than some might think. Tech is more or less there already. They close doors and turn off lights. This really is no different.

Giving them more to do would make them seem much more alive and interesting. Where as now they are not. They just stand there for hours not really moving. It's dull. (And also one of the main reasons I have no interest in interacting with them). Let's liven them up!

Even NPCs in Ultimas did this. How cool was it to walk into Britain to the baker and see them going about the shop.. baking? In Sota they may as well be life-less statues.

 

yep. and that's gotten worse: it used to be the pot merchants would at least sit if you gave them a bench.

 

Yeah I remember my merchants used to at least sit in nearby chairs. Not even that now.

 

Probably happened when they did the vendors sit to indicate disuse, which was a mistake IMO. Player vendors names should gray out as they currently do, but only sit if we tell them to, so we can have someone behind a desk and always have them sit, etc.

 

I believe they do have a basic rudimentary “NPC Schedule” System for NPC’s. Like when they head to bed, or certain guards patrol certain paths at specific times etc.

They just seem to have not expanded upon it further?

 

no, those overlapped for a while.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/pot-vendors-not-sitting.133835/

 

Depending on implementation this could be a little different. You could schedule a certain activity for every NPC.. that'd be a lot of work. What I'm suggesting can be a bit different. A small AI package would run while they're otherwise not doing anything that looks for objects close by to interact with. Such as a work station. So instead of say.. cooking merchants are scheduled to use this object from x to y.. all they'd need to do is send an NPC to an area with a cooking station and let them 'sandbox'.. or randomly look for things to do.

Let's say there's 5 objects nearby they can interact with, a counter, a wall to lean on, a craft station, a fireplace and a chair. They randomly pick one to interact with.. then every so often randomly pick something else to do until they're scheduled to go somewhere else.

So instead of messing with the AI and schedule for individual NPCs.. you make it so all NPCs can interact with the same things and give them all the same AI package to run while their schedule has them waiting around.

 

That’s literally the schedule system that was in Ultima 7. The NPC’s would find various items around them and then interact with them. It’s one of the most brilliant things you will ever see in any game, because no one does it anymore. It really adds a feeling of being in a living world.