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| What would you rather have in the next The Elder Scrolls (4) game? |
| A beautiful world, with highly developed graphics. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| A world filled with 'living' Non Player Characters that do almost everything and anything. |
|
100% |
[ 1 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 1 |
FlipMoeJack
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 23 Jun 2002
Posts: 176
Location: New York |
| Living Dead NPCs of Morrowind & The future w/ Argonia |
|
I wanted to make this thread to discuss the NPCs of Morrowind, the importance of NPCs which included the immersion level NPCs should bring to a videogame and future of NPCs in the Elder Scrolls series.
Now, I've heard a lot about The Elder Scrolls 4: Argonia (supposedly). Actually no, I didn't hear much at all, except what cfmdobbie revealed to us in the 'new morrowind' topic. Allow me to quote:
quote:
Originally Posted by cfmdobbie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ~NOBODY~
0-Argonia, and something written beneath the name. in the daedric font, try to uncode it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, I'm a sucker for a mystery... so I dug it out, and after several false starts (already had a daedric font or two installed and the lot were conflicting!) I got it to work. And yep, there it is, "Argonia" in place of character 0. And I've decoded the text too...
Very tricky - the font is very low res, so you just have to just work out a set of possible matches for each character and modify things as you go, basically by frequency analysis, until you get English out. The text reads:
AND A HERO FROM HAEROT WILL SAVE THEM
If you throw the word "haerot" into Google you get back... one match. A page at RPG Planet that mentions the word as having been referred to by Doug Goodall back in mid-2001. The text reads:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haerot is the Mead Hall where all the fashionable monsters go. I am sorely tempted to put Daedric signs everywhere that say "drink your ovaltine." Stop me before it is too late.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This appears to have been a light-hearted comment on one possible addition to Morrowind, that obviously wasn't created. It's most likely an inside joke among the dev team. The fact that the character isn't right after Morrowind in the font makes me think that it's an idea that is/was being played about with, rather than a certainty. But it's an interesting one, to be sure...
Thats all I know so far.
But when considering the future of NPCs in The Elder Scrolls series, I think the next game has to go far beyond the NPCs of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and the two accompanying expansion packs: Tribunal and Bloodmoon.
I understand the reason why Morrowind NPCs had to be 'dead'. If they had a schedule like they did in Daggerfall, Morrowind would have been unplayable. I mean, 10 FPS? If you were lucky.
The vast amount of NPCs in Morrowind, and the huge geography of Morrowind would not allow the game engine to support scheduled 'living' NPCs. For example, lets look at another brilliant CRPG: Gothic 1 & Gothic 2. I'm with the majority of you, that Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls is much better than Gothic, simply because of The Elder Scrolls lore and beautifully complex world.
BUT the NPCs of Gothic 2 are all far better than all of the NPCs in Morrowind. They were alive, they would report you for a crime, they would attack you for stealing from them, or harming them, they would warn you if you pulled out your weapons, they slept, they ate, they taught, they conversed, they hunted, they were hunted, they lived.
The NPCs of Gothic were extremely complex, and made immersion into the world of Gothic and its harbor city of Khorinis extremely easy. You felt like you were part of living, moving world. Your actions did have consequences. NPCs did notice changes, and did react to these changes.
But with such complexity comes a price.
Morrowind's beautifully complex environment paid for it through FPS drops, through a world that had to make compromises to the beauty that it let exist. The compromises were unscheduled dead NPCs, and very few event driven scenarios.
Gothic 2 also paid a price. Gothic 2's cleverly created living NPCs, all of the named ones, unique in their own way. And the unimportant/unnamed/generic NPCs were still very alive. Sadly though, Gothic 2 paid the same price Morrowind did, specifically in NPC rich area likes the harbor city of Khorinis, or any other NPC rich settlement. When coming into view of Khorinis, FPS drop immediatly occured. No way to bypass this except by killing off a few of the unimportant, generic NPCs. Also the world is in no way as pleasing to the eye as Morrowind is.
But this is, of course all because of our own computers lack of power to keep up with these two games. But times are always changing in the computer world. We now have 64 bit processors, newer videocards, Direct X 9, better RAM, processors twice as fast as the ones that were standard in the days of Morrowind's release and we also have cleaner, more innovative game engines coming out to teach us a thing or two about what reality really is (Half-life 2).
I think the next The Elder Scroll game will be able to combine the beauty of Morrowind with the complex NPCs of Gothic 2 because of the recent and continual advances in technology.
The reason why, I think, that NPCs are so important to immersion is because we, humans, are social creatures. Part of this reality is to see others like us. Others who experience the world, just like we do.
-
Now I'd like to hear some ideas.
Obviously we would like schedule driven NPCs. Citizens who go to bed, merchants who close up shop, etc.
Some stuff I was thinking about were things happening out of view of the main character that may involve the main character if he/she happens to be in the right place at the right time.
Say a burglarly, or some criminal NPC stealing something from a merchant NPC who alarms the Law Enforcing NPC to stop the criminal NPC.
Maybe something far more larger in scale, like a battle, or series of battles. Daedra NPC armies sacking villages and taking in 'prisoners of war'.
These Daedra don't just have to be monsters, they could have their own schedules, like the Orcs and Lizardmen of Gothic. Obviously this doesn't have to be limited to Daedra alone.
I dunno, throw out some ideas.
Last edited by FlipMoeJack on Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:59 pm |
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~NOBODY~
The One And Only
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 1824
Location: Vivec, Jobasha's Rare Books |
| Re: The Living Dead NPCs of Morrowind & The future with |
|
quote:
Originally posted by FlipMoeJack
I wanted to make this thread to discuss the NPCs of Morrowind, the importance of NPCs which included the immersion level NPCs should bring to a videogame and future of NPCs in the Elder Scrolls series.
Now, I've heard a lot about The Elder Scrolls 4: Argonia (supposedly). Actually no, I didn't hear much at all, except what cfmdobbie revealed to us in the 'new morrowind' topic. Allow me to quote:
quote:
Originally Posted by cfmdobbie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ~NOBODY~
0-Argonia, and something written beneath the name. in the daedric font, try to uncode it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, I'm a sucker for a mystery... so I dug it out, and after several false starts (already had a daedric font or two installed and the lot were conflicting!) I got it to work. And yep, there it is, "Argonia" in place of character 0. And I've decoded the text too...
Very tricky - the font is very low res, so you just have to just work out a set of possible matches for each character and modify things as you go, basically by frequency analysis, until you get English out. The text reads:
AND A HERO FROM HAEROT WILL SAVE THEM
If you throw the word "haerot" into Google you get back... one match. A page at RPG Planet that mentions the word as having been referred to by Doug Goodall back in mid-2001. The text reads:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haerot is the Mead Hall where all the fashionable monsters go. I am sorely tempted to put Daedric signs everywhere that say "drink your ovaltine." Stop me before it is too late.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This appears to have been a light-hearted comment on one possible addition to Morrowind, that obviously wasn't created. It's most likely an inside joke among the dev team. The fact that the character isn't right after Morrowind in the font makes me think that it's an idea that is/was being played about with, rather than a certainty. But it's an interesting one, to be sure...
Thats all I know so far.
But when considering the future of NPCs in The Elder Scrolls series, I think the next game has to go far beyond the NPCs of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and the two accompanying expansion packs: Tribunal and Bloodmoon.
I understand the reason why Morrowind NPCs had to be 'dead'. If they had a schedule like they did in Daggerfall, Morrowind would have been unplayable. I mean, 10 FPS? If you were lucky.
FPS is very important, but I think that changing some things in the environment, could enhance the FPS rate & allow more NPC life.
quote:
BUT the NPCs of Gothic 2 are all far better than all of the NPCs in Morrowind. They were alive, they would report you for a crime, they would attack you from stealing from them, or harming them, they would warn you if you pulled out your weapons, they slept, they ate, they taught, they conversed, they hunted, they were hunted, they lived.
NPCs in Morrowind still do some of these things. Like when you steal, they talk to you, or if they are agressive, they attack you. Sheduling NPCs will just be unneeded if the PC isn't too close, so it will lower the FPS rate & do nothing important. However, I think of somethink like this: The NPC goes to his home from let's say 10 o'clock till 8 at the Morning, then he would go to the shop, talk etc, and the actions will be randomly chosen. well that'll need a multi-page script for each NPC, and if they do the same shedule for every NPC, people will once again say that they're dead...
quote:
Say a burglarly, or some criminal NPC stealing something from a merchant NPC who alarms the Law Enforcing NPC to stop the criminal NPC.
That's what I'm currently working on.
quote:
Maybe something far more larger in scale, like a battle, or series of battles. Daedra NPC armies sacking villages and taking in 'prisoners of war'.
These Daedra don't just have to be monsters, they could have their own schedules, like the Orcs and Lizardmen of Gothic. Obviously this doesn't have to be limited to Daedra alone.
I dunno, throw out some ideas.
I don't agree with you here, as making someone attack, will lower the FPS gradually, and will not be interesting. It's not very interesting when NPCs are killed, especially if they don't recover\get resurrected... |
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Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:16 pm |
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FlipMoeJack
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 23 Jun 2002
Posts: 176
Location: New York |
| Variety is key when it comes to NPCs. |
|
quote:
Originally posted by ~NOBODY~
NPCs in Morrowind still do some of these things. Like when you steal, they talk to you, or if they are agressive, they attack you. Sheduling NPCs will just be unneeded if the PC isn't too close, so it will lower the FPS rate & do nothing important. However, I think of somethink like this: The NPC goes to his home from let's say 10 o'clock till 8 at the Morning, then he would go to the shop, talk etc, and the actions will be randomly chosen. well that'll need a multi-page script for each NPC, and if they do the same shedule for every NPC, people will once again say that they're dead...
You are absolutely right. It was just a crappy thrown out idea.
That multi-page script idea, thats good. But obviously you don't give them same multipage scripts to the NPCs. So every NPCs won't have the same options and won't perform the same tasks.
A Weapons Merchant would have a choice of doing certain things in the day, like grab something to eat, get a drink at the bar, converse with someone and go to sleep, but ONLY after his unchangeable working hours from 10am-6pm. So maybe all Weapons Merchants would do this, with varying times.
Then a Books Merchant would have options to converse with someone *in the shop*, read a book *in the shop* , write letters *in the shop*, and the Book Merchant would never have an option to go to the bar when his work hours are over, instead he would go home to continue reading, and then to go to sleep.
Variety is key of course. This will differentiate the NPCs enough to call them unique. This is of course ignoring the performance drops these multipage scripts would cause for every single NPC in the game.
_________________
(-[ApoK Forever]-) |
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Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:30 pm |
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~NOBODY~
The One And Only
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 1824
Location: Vivec, Jobasha's Rare Books |
| Re: Variety is key when it comes to NPCs. |
|
quote:
Originally posted by FlipMoeJack
quote:
Originally posted by ~NOBODY~
NPCs in Morrowind still do some of these things. Like when you steal, they talk to you, or if they are agressive, they attack you. Sheduling NPCs will just be unneeded if the PC isn't too close, so it will lower the FPS rate & do nothing important. However, I think of somethink like this: The NPC goes to his home from let's say 10 o'clock till 8 at the Morning, then he would go to the shop, talk etc, and the actions will be randomly chosen. well that'll need a multi-page script for each NPC, and if they do the same shedule for every NPC, people will once again say that they're dead...
You are absolutely right. It was just a crappy thrown out idea.
That multi-page script idea, thats good. But obviously you don't give them same multipage scripts to the NPCs. So every NPCs won't have the same options and won't perform the same tasks.
A Weapons Merchant would have a choice of doing certain things in the day, like grab something to eat, get a drink at the bar, converse with someone and go to sleep, but ONLY after his unchangeable working hours from 10am-6pm. So maybe all Weapons Merchants would do this, with varying times.
Then a Books Merchant would have options to converse with someone *in the shop*, read a book *in the shop* , write letters *in the shop*, and the Book Merchant would never have an option to go to the bar when his work hours are over, instead he would go home to continue reading, and then to go to sleep.
Variety is key of course. This will differentiate the NPCs enough to call them unique. This is of course ignoring the performance drops these multipage scripts would cause for every single NPC in the game.
Yes, that would be definitely cool, but that would need new animation, not just scripting. So only Bethy can make that perfectly. Or someone who has as much exp as Bethy...
BTW: I like to talk about things, that I, or anyone like me, can make. I hate to talk about what the Devs will do!  |
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Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:51 pm |
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nightspore
Village Dweller
Joined: 19 Sep 2003
Posts: 10
Location: nyc |
There is a beta version plugin that gives NPCs in MW schedules. About half of the major cities are done in the release version, incl. Balmora, Ald-ruhn, Gnisis, most of Vivec, Sadrith Mora, and a few others. I checked it out in the editor, and it doesn't seem to rely on scripts (at least none that I could find). I have yet to figure out how the schedules are being implemented, as NPCs don't always do the same things after-hours.
It makes for some extremely amusing moments, as the people that did the mod seem to have a rather twisted sense of humor. Best was opening a bedroom door in Ald-ruhn Mages Guild, having Edwinna Elbert bolt out of the room, and the Altmer alchemist (forgot his name) standing by the bed looking sheepish.  |
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Sat Nov 29, 2003 6:30 am |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
There were several big mistakes in Morrowind in regard to NPCs and biggest mistake was to let them to do everything whole days and nights. People chating in pub everytime you go there, no matter if it is in two oclock or six oclock in the morning.
I suppose it will not take too much work to remake this. Also stupid sentences everytime again and again and so on. |
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Sat Nov 29, 2003 11:47 am |
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