(warning, RPG comparisons inside) A little NPC reaction test

jefklak · Jan 5, 2007

Hello again! I've post a couple of months ago some info about videos, reviews, guides, ... on my recently made website. This very same website received some good and some negative feedback. I've been working hard to get all the bugs out of it and to streamline the game index e.d.

Lately, I've been playing too much roleplaying games and I've had some thoughts about NPC interaction and what could have been (much) better. I've mashed together a NPC theory about RPG games - read the main article here. Since this board may be against self pimpage I'll not talk about the main article, but just skip to the NPC tests.

Do read the excellent ex-troika member interview on rpgcodex.com where they explain the different bugs in Troika's games. for the lazy:

What the player experiences: You walk into a bar. The bartender greets you with a fine "Hello Stranger! Come and enjoy a pint of ale on the house!" At this point, you shoot an arrow through his neck.... he drops dead, the bar maid and most of the patrons freak out and run for the door... You laugh maniacally until you notice some guy in the corner (who happens to be the bartenders' brother in law enjoying a pint himself) unsheathing his vorpal sword and coming after you with bloody vengeance in his eyes... You kill him too and take his sword. You search the inn and find a key underneath a bottle of whiskey behind the bar. The key opens a lockbox upstairs in his room where you find a map.

What Troika was thinking: Hey, what if I want to shoot the bartender? Yeah, I hate those stereo-typical jolly fat bartender guys. It'll be more trouble, but we'll make sure you can get the map some how. For the people in the room, we'll have them check against your faction and skills, if you attack anyone, they will determine if they are scared, hostile, or unmoved by your actions. If they are scared they'll run, hostile they'll attack, and unmoved they will just sit there drinking a beer while all hell breaks loose. Yeah, we should put at least on guy in the bar who's tough as nails. The tough quiet dude who calmly drinks his beer... The guy you DO NOT want to mess with. Yeah, and if you kill anyone in this inn, the cops in town will attack you on sight. The more neutral shopkeepers will still sell to you, but they will jack the prices up because even they think you are a cold blooded killer.

1. Arcanum
Okay, let's test that, shall we?
I loaded my old gunslinger savegame and captured some stuff (beware: old PC and camtasia don't produce nice FPS results... and youtube screws up all text) so I walk into a bar in Tarant, looking for a brawl. *looks evil*. Throwing a molotov results in splash damage within the bar, every NPC had their own reaction
- the dwarf attacked me (lvl45, dead in a shot with looking glass rifle)
- the dark elf did not care
- the bartender disliked it
- the woman flet but I chased her down
- even my own party members didn't like attacking neutral aligned people
Notice the bartender doesn't completely react the way it should be. At first, he dislikes it I attack his customers and his faction rating drops from 68 to 0 (hatred). If this rating drops below zero he'll attack me or flee. After the massacre, he simply offers me a drink. Ha!

Good, Troika passed. Let's see if Bethesda does.
2. Oblivion (not my vid, too slow pc to capture)
watch some amazing AI in Oblivion. There are more disaster vids at youtube concerning the AI.
During a NPC conference meeting, someone tries to interrupt the piece. Notice the cheering music in the background, which does not change at all while attacking key characters. They even stand up back again - instead of going to sit in the chair or running like mad. This is definatly not the best way NPCs should react.

You fail again Bethesda! Don't f*ck up Fallout 3 or i'll kill you...
3. Wizardry 8
ThÃ© perfect example of NPC interaction. Why? because: (quote from article)

Wizardry VII introduced a nice system which allowed players to literally type in their questions. Typing "rapax" would give you information about the rapax, including the NPCs personal opinion about this race. If you type "where are rapax" the person would give you directions. This even worked beyond these simple questions. For instance, you ask a Trynnie about a forgotten monastery. He tells you it belonged to the Higardi but they left a long time ago. "In fact I ste... eurhm, got most of my stuff from them". Ha, the little bastard! You type in "steal" and he replies "technically it's only stealing when you get caught". (screenshot) Beautiful! Now this is interaction. Even using rude or aggressive words like "bastard" or "kill" would net you a funny reply. Wizardry 8 even took this concept a step higher. You can see some interaction with Rattus and Rapax in the Gameplay video.

(click image for full screenshot)

test footage 1: marten (spoiler warning!). Here, I ask Marten, one of the main plot characters, about the dark savant, the higardi, "die", "f*ck" and some more stuff. I forgot to wear the helmet so all members went insane ha.
test footage 2: He'li's bar in Arnika.
He'Li kicks my butt as I attempt to flame her. Vi teams up, shoving a boot through my rib cage. Amazing stuff, Sir-Tech. I love the voice acting. (Fully voiced, EVERY NPC.)
test footage 3: Trynton's Chief. After chatting with Trynton's Chief, I decide to attack him with Madras (a trynnie) in my party. That was *not* a good idea. Glad to see he reacts properly to my actions in the game.

Sir-Tech more than passes the test.
Right, now I want some videos from you guys!

(All NPC test videos located here)

JarlFrank · Jan 5, 2007

Great idea!
This sounds quite nice, especially the system of Wizardry 7 and 8. I always wanted to play Wiz 7 but I can't get it to work on my PC [no I don't have a CD, I downloaded it as Abandonware], but now you encouraged me to try it out again.

Cthulhugoat · Jan 5, 2007

Good work! I've seen most of your gameplay videos and stuff on YouTube. That's a nice site of yours.

jefklak · Jan 5, 2007

Thanks both of you

JarlFrank, thanks to your post, I reinstalled wizVII to compare it with 8. Jezus christ, Sir-Tech made one hell of an improvement. VII seems almost impossible to go back to after putting more than 200 hours into 8. *shrugs*.
It's a damn shame the first person RPG sort of died together with Sir-Tech. Might & Magic IX was a waste thanks to the publishers who pushed the release. New World Computing is no more... Troika isn't either. And the first one to reply with "play gothic or oblivion" deserves a slap in the face.

Anyway, I've put too much time in wiz8, arcanum and BG2. I never played the "older" first person RPGs like betrayal at kondor and pre-Might & Magic VI, eye of the beholder etc. If anybody would like to add some stuff be my guest.

Cthulhugoat · Jan 5, 2007

jefklak said:
I never played the "older" first person RPGs like betrayal at kondor and pre-Might & Magic VI, eye of the beholder etc. If anybody would like to add some stuff be my guest.

I'd say they were nothing special about NPC reactions, really. Perhaps you'd like to check out the Ultima Series (VII specially).

Norfleet · Jan 5, 2007

The Oblivion AI reactions were hilarious. They reacted to the severe pummelling hilariously. "Greetings. What exactly do you require?"

jefklak said:
Notice the bartender doesn't completely react the way it should be. At first, he dislikes it I attack his customers and his faction rating drops from 68 to 0 (hatred). If this rating drops below zero he'll attack me or flee. After the massacre, he simply offers me a drink. Ha!

That reaction seems reasonable to me. He clearly didn't want to be next. Perhaps he saw what happened to the woman who ran. Gotta stay still, remain calm, don't attract the predators.

FrancoTAU · Jan 5, 2007

Teh awesomeness of Sir Tech. Sniff.

jefklak · Jan 5, 2007

Norfleet said:
That reaction seems reasonable to me. He clearly didn't want to be next. Perhaps he saw what happened to the woman who ran. Gotta stay still, remain calm, don't attract the predators.

Nice view! That could of course be. I think I'll test at Ashbury or some place else where more important (and perhaps overly powerfull) NPCs are - I was quite loaded with overpowered stuff. The dwarf did not stand a chance, he.

FrancoTAU: indeed, Sir-tech produced the best game experiences I've ever enjoyed. Next is Troika, and then Bioware and then new world computing. Wiz8 will always be my #1 (and arcanum #3. Can't deny on my second love, baldur's gate 2 and the lovely mods)

Jim Kata · Jan 6, 2007

Yes, this is why the wizardries were much better than the fallouts or the IE games. Dialog actually involved user thought, and so did quests. Fallout is basically a 'choose your own adventure' where your choices don't matter in the sense that the game takes zero intelligence to progress in the quest. They only matter in who you fight, extra loot, and the ending vignette.

Claw · Jan 6, 2007

I was never so clear to me how unambitious modern RPGs really are, except for graphics maybe.

I need to play this "Wizardy 8" sometime. Once I got through all the other RPGs I never played.

psycojester · Jan 6, 2007

I loved this comment in the Youtube oblivion vid

You dont kill the NPCs... they come back, which is why the guards don't attack you. Why are you making a big deal out of this?

You feel somebody slightly missed the point

AlanC9 · Jan 6, 2007

Jim Kata said:
Yes, this is why the wizardries were much better than the fallouts or the IE games. Dialog actually involved user thought....

Is it really thought? With dialog trees you can't ask a question that the NPC doesn't know anything about, but how is that a big improvement over asking questions and getting a default know-nothing response?

The good thing about Wiz8 is that the NPCs actually have a lot of dialog content on various subjects. I don't see any particular advantage in delivering that content via keyword.

Edit: two exceptions there. If there are a very large number of unrelated subjects, a keyword interface is more manageable than a dialog tree.

And there is the case where a player might be able to deduce something, but might not, so you can't use a dialog tree without deciding for him. Though supporting that can leave the game open to wide-open metagaming.

Gnidrologist · Jan 6, 2007

Yes, Wizardry 8 has more free npc interaction in way that you can ask them about things, that actually don't appear as a topics and might get and answer, if you're lucky. Also, npcs have a lot to say about various topics, but so does the Borrowind ones too. I don't see how that makes RP aspect better than in Fallout, as you don't influence shit with thouse responses/questions, just get additional info.
Maybe I just don't remmeber Wiz well enough, to judge failry, but to me it was just an awesome tactical dungeon crawler, not an rpg that presents you loads of choices/consequences apart from combat ones.
As for ''user thought''. Well, you really don't have to be extremely inteligent to play any kind of computer game, just not be retarded, like lots of gamers these days are.

Atrokkus · Jan 6, 2007

Yes, this is why the wizardries were much better than the fallouts or the IE games. Dialog actually involved user thought, and so did quests. Fallout is basically a 'choose your own adventure' where your choices don't matter in the sense that the game takes zero intelligence to progress in the quest. They only matter in who you fight, extra loot, and the ending vignette.

Dialog alone is not enough -- Fallout 1 did an amazing job in making your actions and INactions affect the world -- think Necropolis here. You could shape the world on your whim. Hell, you could finish the game without killing anyone -- or you could massacre all the cities, the master and his army and and hope to live alone in this quadrant with your fellow vaultdwellers (too bad the overseer had other plans). Dialog is but a tool, and it's a well-crafted tool in FO I must say.

Bradylama · Jan 6, 2007

Wizardry's system doesn't really involve "dialogue," it's just NPC reactions to player inquiries. Oblivion used essentially the same thing, only without the speech input, which eliminates the opportunities for roleplaying.

elander_ · Jan 6, 2007

Re: (warning, RPG comparisons inside) A little NPC reaction

jefklak said:
Hello again! I've post a couple of months ago some info about videos, reviews, guides, ... on my recently made website. This very same website received some good and some negative feedback. I've been working hard to get all the bugs out of it and to streamline the game index e.d.

Lately, I've been playing too much roleplaying games and I've had some thoughts about NPC interaction and what could have been (much) better. I've mashed together a NPC theory about RPG games - read the main article here. Since this board may be against self pimpage I'll not talk about the main article, but just skip to the NPC tests.

Ah someone who truly wants to learn from the classics. You did a good work showing how rpg features work this way. It shows in a much better way the strengths and weak points of modern rpgs. I may have to give Wizardry 8 some day. It's one of the few known rpgs i never played.

If you want to try a faction-based rpg (theres not much else but factions are excellent) check out the old Starflight games. Most of the game is about discovering, trading and tugging info about the past and technlogical knowledge. Who you share your knowledge with will determine the star map configuration of the world. You can even wipe out the home planet of an entire race and win the war for their enemy race or do the opposite in a different way. Depending on what you do and how one of the races will expand their borthers and create new conflicts.

This is the way factions should have been done for rpgs. Amazingly this was what planned for Daggerfall and its douzens of small kingdoms but they never got that far with all the bugs.

There was a clear objective, an evolution path in classic rpgs that had much to do with pnp and simulation mechanics that i don't see anywhere in modern rpgs. The way they do it these days reminds me of some guys i know from univ and how they do their evaluation projects. They don't have a clue about how to program so they just cut-paste pieces of code and then make up an excuse about time in hope they will get away with a 9 in 20. This is how i think Oblivion was made and it works because the mainstream doesn't have a clue about classic role-playing or pnps. Even most of the guys who play pnps only do it for dungeon crawling and ignore the most deep and interesting ways of doing it.

elander_ · Jan 6, 2007

Jim Kata said:
Yes, this is why the wizardries were much better than the fallouts or the IE games. Dialog actually involved user thought, and so did quests.

Thats a point for you, but role-playing can and should be done in more ways than dialog.

Jim Kata said:
Fallout is basically a 'choose your own adventure' where your choices don't matter in the sense that the game takes zero intelligence to progress in the quest. They only matter in who you fight, extra loot, and the ending vignette.

Most games are. Factions deal with dynamic borders (be it territorial, political, idiological, moral or whatever) and what will happen when the borders change.

You have exactly the same problem of limited resources in Wizardry8. No mater how much answers you can type the outcome will allways be limited.

Edit: Anyone knows if AoD will have dynamic borders with new quests that may be activated from borders shifting?

jefklak · Jan 6, 2007

Thanks for the feedback elander

Did anybody play Wizards & Warriors from Bradley?

I really want to play that game but don' tknow if it's any good, I'm hoping for quite a few similarities between that one and M&M, Wizardry

Nael · Jan 6, 2007

That screenshot of Wiz8 makes me sad. I have disc 2 and 3, but I lost disc 1 about 3 years ago in a move

jefklak · Jan 6, 2007

Nael said:
That screenshot of Wiz8 makes me sad. I have disc 2 and 3, but I lost disc 1 about 3 years ago in a move

I'll be more than happy to send you a copy if you want to

FrancoTAU · Jan 6, 2007

I actually own Wizards & Warriors but never got around to playing it yet. It's supposed to be a solid Wizardry clone with a shitty interface IIRC.

aweigh · Jan 6, 2007

Aren't the W&W games a NES franchise? I remember the first one sported a Fabio clone on the cover.

Jim Kata · Jan 6, 2007

AlanC9 said:
Jim Kata said:

Yes, this is why the wizardries were much better than the fallouts or the IE games. Dialog actually involved user thought....

Click to expand...

Is it really thought? With dialog trees you can't ask a question that the NPC doesn't know anything about, but how is that a big improvement over asking questions and getting a default know-nothing response?

The good thing about Wiz8 is that the NPCs actually have a lot of dialog content on various subjects. I don't see any particular advantage in delivering that content via keyword.

Edit: two exceptions there. If there are a very large number of unrelated subjects, a keyword interface is more manageable than a dialog tree.

And there is the case where a player might be able to deduce something, but might not, so you can't use a dialog tree without deciding for him. Though supporting that can leave the game open to wide-open metagaming.

Because you can ask about things based on what you want instead of having the dialog options pop up premade. So, if you are clever you can think of something not obvious to ask. There are several great examples of this in wiz 6 but I am having difficulty remembering.

jefklak · Jan 7, 2007

It's so amazing you can ask someone about their neighbour and they'll start telling you a story about him or her. You can even ask a not so important rpg about the big bad guy and the person will give you his or her opinion about it, without the standard "oh no he will kill us" or "how are you stranger!" answers, including fully personalized voice acting. It works so well.

Jasede · Jan 7, 2007

Jim Kata said:
There are several great examples of this in wiz 6 but I am having difficulty remembering.

"I love you."

(warning, RPG comparisons inside) A little NPC reaction test

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