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An interesting editorial entitled "Leveling Up the CRPG has been published at AVault today. It deals with how the genre has evolved during the last few years, and the author has some suggestions how to further improve it. Here's something he has to say about NPC behaviour:
One shortcoming of nearly every major RPG of the last few years is the behavior of its computer-controlled characters. The goal of most role-playing titles is to simulate a believable world. This isn't possible if other characters don't behave in realistic ways. So far, developers have adopted two independent solutions. The first method is to create scripts for every character to follow, as in Gothic. This results in very realistic NPC behavior at first glance, such as characters that gather around campfires or hammer boards into houses. The problem is scripts don't allow for randomness, resulting in the exact same action occurring over and over again. The other method of NPC behavior development favors general routines that provide some randomness. Morrowind is a good example of this. Morrowind's NPCs wander around their towns, take out torches at night, and react to events such as attacks and nearby monsters. But they don't lock up their shops and go to bed at night. A good mix of general routines allowing for randomness with loose scripting routines that give NPCs schedules and priorities is needed. An NPC could have an AI program that tells him to roam around for five hours, then select a random scripted event to perform, then wander again until dark. Advanced AI routines could yield characters that react more realistically toward players. This is a recommended read, although some of the conclusions there certainly are the ground for discussions :-) |
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CRPG Editorial at AVault
