[POLL] OTHER TRAVELERS

Having other people doing stuff in the world your game takes place in is always refreshing even if all they're doing is travelling. That's a pretty good way to make a character with pretty little development interesting to the player. And for me, it's all about the characters!

Like a massively single-player offline RPG?

Hmm.

I used this idea.

Of course, all of them had a chronic case of "foot in mouth" disorder, and managed to say exactly the wrong thing to their counterparts in the party. They got beat up or worse.

Uh, you've never played any other game that has NPCs that move from one town to another?

I'm sure I can name hundreds. Like, shit, almost every game with characters does that. Am I missing something here?

author=LockeZ
Uh, you've never played any other game that has NPCs that move from one town to another?

I'm sure I can name hundreds. Like, shit, almost every game with characters does that. Am I missing something here?

Off the top of my head, I can't name any. Then again, there's a lot of RPG's I've never played. Or maybe I'm forgetting that part of the ones I did play.

The way I imagine this mechanic working, I've never seen any game that does it. Like he said, not just some NPC who happens to be in more than one town.

In Final Fantasy 7, most of the Shinra characters would definitely qualify.

No. Your confusing this idea with plain old plot. The Shinra guys are in set places and remain there until you come across them and you need to come across them in order to advance the plot. Once you do whatever, the plot moves forward and they go somewhere else. You don't walk into the Chocobo Ranch one time and OH SHIT, it's the Shinra guys renting a choco! What should we do? Or you're strolling through some random dungeon and OH MY GOD Sephiroth is here!

Although, looking at the OP again, I can see how you arrived at that view. If he's just talking about a character from the plotline being in more than one place, interacting with you again somewhere else. That's not really new xD That's pretty much required to make a coherent story. Unless your playing something like Harvest Moon. I assumed he didn't mean that, because it's so obviously not something worthy of discussion.

The way I imagine this idea is to have NPCs that roam the world like you, the player. They are always moving and, in one offshoot of the idea, they do stuff like level up and raid dungeons. You running into them would be random and therefore wouldn't be part of the main plot. Unless there was a way to track them, and the game said "Go find this guy" and you had to find him to continue the plot.

You can remove the plot from these guys and it wouldn't be a bad thing. There would still be a plot, but there would be an element of the game working against you. Instead of time standing still until you arrive, it's a dynamic world that changes every time you play. It would be huge for replayability and give you a sense of urgency. Maybe you find out an NPC is on his way to a nearby cave that is known to have treasure, but you also need to save someone for a quest. What do you do? What DO you DO?

Plus running into these guys could trigger side quests, or even evolve the current main quest. So you were trying to retrieve a treasure from a bandit, and by random chance, one of the roaming NPCs is looking for it too. You cross paths and you have a choice to team up with him or you could be rivals. Maybe he is the one who retrieves the item and brings it to the person for the reward. The quest is finished, and you go back and move the plot forward without the reward. The next time you play, he wouldn't be there and the game still progresses the same way but maybe you get the quest reward.

It wouldn't be hard to think of ways to make good use of this idea, imo.

OH, I just remembered a game where this does happen! How could I forget Wizardry 7. There are a handful of NPC's that show up in random encounters. I think they are only there for minor interactions: talk, trade, steal, fight. They roam around and you have some kind of spell to locate their general direction or something. I dunno, I never bothered with them. Man, I gotta pick that game up again.

Link_2112: We think alike. You totally spilled the beans about my concept :P

This idea still means that these traveler NPCs' behavior is scripted, just with a LOT of instances. To take the idea one step further I was thinking of adding a random chance for these guys to decide whether they do something at any given time or not. Maybe they did hear about this newly discovered treasure-filled dungeon but their Healer is badly injured and so they'll pass this time.

A more ambitious idea would be to also account for NPC to NPC relationship and interactions when you determine their next move, but that would be a hellish nightmare to code and keep track off, and this amount of possibilities probably wouldn't be worth it anyway: the additional content these events would lead to would eventually become redundant.

In my opinion a better idea would be to feature a minimal amount of these NPCs yet greatly expand the possibilities related to them.
Focus on quality, not quantity.
Imagine if you could run into Gary randomly, anywhere in the world, and have more options than to simply fight him and his scripted Pokemon team. You could trade tips or Pokemons with him, lead each other into a trap, team up with him in order to tackle a big evil organization or hell, you could even date the guy.
Instead of trying to simulate the numerous yet shallow interactions of a MMORPG, you'd be offering the player a more personal, meaningful relationship and game experience with a "virtual player" who can relate to them.