How Interactive do you like NPC's

[Sarlecc]

So I am wondering how interactive do you like NPC's to be? Do you like them to be able to respond to everything a player does (i.e insane)? Perhaps you like them to interact only to certain things (i.e half and half). Or maybe you just like your NPC's to just kinda be there (i.e dull). What methods do you use to get your desired level of interactiveness as you can out of your NPC's? Do you think players who will play your game prefer the level of interactiveness that you prefer?

Personally I like NPC's that seem very intelligent and respond to nearly everything I do. Currently my attempts at getting an NPC where I want has been rather insufficient (though my current method which is far from finished will get me fairly close I think). My current method of choice is scripting (using algorithms to figure out what the NPC will do based on information given) vs eventing them.

Examples:

Insane NPC: player can converse with it almost as well as talking to another player.

Half and Half NPC: player can expect the NPC to respond to basic to moderate interactions having more complex choice options and text messages then Dull.

Dull NPC's: player can expect only basic interactions such as opening a shop or a basic text message.

 

[Uzuki]

As great as it would be to have the NPC react to EVERYTHING the player doe's, that's way too much to ask for unless it's suppose to be part of the gameplay. It's nice to have a NPC acknowledge that you cleared out the dragon from the mountain or telling you that your doing a good job helping the town. Not so much if he tells me if my breath stinks or I have weird accent.

 

[Sharm]

Depends on the type of game and the quality of writing. Both have their uses depending on what the game is like.


If the game is fast paced or has a plot that doesn't have much to do with interacting with people then having lots of NPC interaction would get in the way. On the other hand if the game is something slower where interacting with people is a major game play element the more interactive the NPC's are the better. So talking with lots of highly interactive people in a platformer would be frustrating but talking to lots of people in a gumshoe mystery would be great.


Writing quality has a lot to do with it too though, I could think of ways a good writer could pull off talkative NPC's in a platformer without throwing off the pacing. But even in a mystery plot, if the writing is bad even one line of dialogue can be painfully too much.

 

[Sarlecc]

@Uzuki While I do like having very interactive NPC's, I have to agree that they are rather pointless to have if they don't tell you useful information. Though every once in awhile giving the NPC a sense of humor to how a player interacted with it can work for the game. Might even be able to give the player useful information during the humorous moment.

@Sharm Very good points. Guess it really depends on the genre and the developers ability's (I've seen bad and good NPC's in pretty much every genre).

 

[Bell Kruz]

I choose half and half. Why? Because it's NPC. I feel like if it's too interactive it will not become NPC but a character who is played by other people. About the method usually I use the choice and using the normal question like what's your name or something like that. I'm thinking that even if it's only half and half player would understand because it's normal for NPC to act like that.

 

[Sketch XII]

It depends on what you mean really, which isn't clear to me.

I want my game to have a pretty high level of interaction with the NPCs, but I'm only using eventing. I don't see how scripting could make it a whole lot better since really, what they say and do is just based on switches and variables which IS the "information given to them". I would say their interactions is around between the level of Majora's Mask and Animal Crossing.

However, nearing the end of your post, you go on to say "Insane NPC: player can converse with it almost as well as talking to another player." which sounds something more reminiscent of a chat-bot, or even the system of how the game "Façade" works. It would definitely be interesting to see more actual games go that far into interactions to where it's like you're actually playing with other people or communicating with someone that actually things, but it also depends on how it would work with the actual gameplay.

I'm going to completely ignore the concept of true AI-level NPCs though, since just what was mentioned above alone being used in games is already a high-level threshold.

As far as my own game, they're meant to work with either;

a- a wide variety of "side quests"

b- finding out random facts about the game's world

c- learning about a "side quest" for some other NPC

d- hinting towards some secret

e- hinting towards what to do

f- (with the game being non-liniar and branching paths without a set right or wrong) convincing the player what choice to make

g- show the general lifestyle of the characters in the area

a lot of times with lasting effects added on as well, such as having a choice you made in regards to how you responded to the NPC later on effect you in some way.

This action will have consequences...

 

[Sarlecc]

@Sketch You are exactly right on the Insane NPC as chat bots and advanced algorithm based AI's are really the only way to pull them off. As for scripting vs eventing well for me it just seems less cluttered so more of a preference there. (Also if something goes wrong I normally can find it in a script whereas events depending on the length can be very hard to find problems).

 

[Sketch XII]

@Sketch You are exactly right on the Insane NPC as chat bots and advanced algorithm based AI's are really the only way to pull them off. As for scripting vs eventing well for me it just seems less cluttered so more of a preference there. (Also if something goes wrong I normally can find it in a script whereas events depending on the length can be very hard to find problems).

If that's the case, I think it's worth mentioning that events have just around as much potential as this if used right.

Not to try to make it seem as though "my way is better than yours" but I feel like I should warn that even the most realistic of "chat-bots" aren't all that realistic, and it's not because of the inherit concept, but rather because they have no true personality or reasoning thought out enough most of the time. Having something that can learn new things based on what you say or have seemingly limitless responses based on what you do isn't exactly all there is to making something feel real. It's more so about also understanding why that character is how they are and giving them little quirks, interests, desires, making them question things, etc. which is a lot harder to do in the direction you bring up, and I say this not so much as a programer (which I know almost nothing about), but actually more so from my knowledge of psychology and sociology. Just be aware, that direction has had countless, although not failures, still somewhat lifeless results. I'm not saying it's impossible to do it right, but just keep in mind the other details since I've known other people who have worked on things like this (although I haven't met anyone trying to do this to put into a game before.) Again though, I do think it could be really neat. It's just also easier to end up getting wrong.

 

[Sarlecc]

Granted to get a NPC that responds in a manner where the player feels like they are conversing with a person is still a matter of the future. I've done research in chat bots and I am aware of the "lifeless results". However I have seen it put in games before. (specifically this one where your on a space ship and your conversing with the ships AI cant remember the name of it though). I have already considered many of your points in the design of my NPC. I agree it would/will be neat if it ever gets to that point.

Anyway the way I am working towards an Insane NPC is more of a personal learning project and this thread is not project specific.

 

[Kes]

As a general rule, I like NPCs to be fairly interactive.  For example  I want them to have different dialogue if major events have happened; I want even an 'ordinary' NPC wandering around the town to have at least a couple of different bits of dialogue, with a response from the player, not just the line of text from the NPC, that sort of thing.  Of course, if the game is more than a few hours long and has many different locations, finding something different and interesting for every single NPC is hard work.  I have also noticed that few people do much to make the 'giving useful hints about the next dungeon' sort of dialogue sound even remotely natural.  The same with background lore.  It's usually just blurted out, and that's it.

What I've seen happen a lot is that a game starts out with very interactive NPCs and that this reduces (quickly or slowly, depending on the perseverance of the developer) over the course of the game until by the end NPCs say very little.

If the writing is poor, I want as little interactivity as possible.  

 

[Miss Nile]

I'll choose half and half. I do like NPCs to be as interactive as possible but making them insanely so will not only require much work, but it is also not that important to gameplay. I mean, NPCs are there to serve a purpose-make a town seem lively, give background information, perhaps clues about the player's goal and how to reach it, but not keep chatting with them. Personally, I wouldn't drive myself away from the plot just to keep chatting with random people in town. XD

But I agree that this must also depend on the quality of the writing and the game type. A story-driven game surely needs a good level of interactivity while one that depends more on mechanics and such wouldn't benefit a lot from such a thing.

 

[Wavelength]

To me this is like saying "If you won money, would you rather it be a lot of money, some money, or no money?"

I therefore find it very surprising that I am not in the majority!!