DARKEN'S PROFILE

I like how I wouldn't be surprised if you meant "gomen nasai" seriously.

Like you can't have a character crack a joke while another character is getting tortured in front of him (or you can, if you're Mister Big T).

Always cracks a smile on my face. Also: That's really good segment on "themes" there's some stuff in there I haven't even considered.

I thought this would be an article about NPCs and their overall impact on RPGs and going into the basics like what they're for, then going into how to make them more interesting. But it turns out to be more like "How to make your NPC realistic!!" idk if I were writing the article id mention shit like:

One thing I know for sure about NPCs is that if their dialogue is not even 1 of these things:

A. Information about the story
B. Game mechanic tips
C. Humorous/entertaining (and i dont mean uttering random lines that make no sense)

Then they should just be cut out completely. Good NPCs can sometimes combine 2 of those options or all 3. But this:

The NPC is important to RPGs because they are all around.

Isn't good enough to describe the purpose of NPCs. WHY are they all around? What are the general evolutions of NPCs? etc.

Anyway ultra AI realism is nice but sometimes I think of NPC realism as their culture, does this town have enough houses to fit all the residents? What are these residents likely to wear depending on the backstory and setting? There's only so much you can do with KILLER CUSTOM PATTERN!!! Because games like Oblivion have their NPCs in a very realistic schedule where they wander around town, talk to their neighbors, go to sleep, etc. but when you talk to them they're so fucking bland and contribute nothing at all unless they're some shopkeeper/questdude or something, it gets to the point where even simple dragon quest NPCs are more useful despite their repeatable dialogue and predictable placements. You do not have to chase after typical JRPG npcs you do not have to guess what time they'll be up or where they'll be at a specific place, they simply fill their role.

I am just rambling but those are generally my thoughts on what you missed in the article.

Just... stop.

comment=34324
psy, I was meaning it could be the perfect RPG template. That doesn't make Zelda 2 a RPG. Kind of like if I said Super Mario Bros could be the perfect RPG template.

This makes no sense.