No NPCs (actual suggestion)

[Fressfisch]

Greetings fellow zom....boiders (?) and zom...boidevs (?!).
I've been following this project from its early days and for me, NPCs always seemed like the thing that would transform this game from 'great' to 'one of the best games ever made', if done right. Even after MP was integrated this didn't change, as playing with real people to me feels ... surprisingly UNreal.

But with all the stuff that has been added over the years and with the way the devs go about implementing new stuff - wether you call it feature creep or 
perfectionism - it would take forever to get them right.

Neither us nor the devs would be happy with half-assed NPCs that - for instance - are able to loot what you tell them to but are unable to defend and maintain your safe house while you're out trying not get the rest of them killed because they got stuck on path finding.

So if driving and maintaining a car has to be as complex as doing so in real life, here's a probably incomplete list of what NPCs would have to be capable of in order to live up to the high quality standards set by the game (don't trip over this it goes down really far!):

 

Spoiler

- knowing intuitively how to behave around zombies, other friendly or hostile NPCs, the player/players
- knowing how, when, what to loot; when, how, where to store which item and when, how to use, consume which item
- be able to make a cheese sandwich
- be able to make a salad
- be able to choose specific salad ingrediants depending on what they, other NPCs and the player prefer, including long term planning
- be able to heal and be healed
- know what to eat and when
- have a mood and be able to communicate it + take actions based on this
- have a set of characteristics that influence their behavior in every possible situation such as being attacked by zombies or helping the player or other NPCs
- have their own daily routine
- drive and fix cars
- use skills such as carpentry + know when and how to use it
- form NPC-only groups, clearing a safe house, barricade it, scavange, attack other groups
- avoid obstacles when driving or on foot and decide what to do when something goes wrong
- understand what an obstacle is
- understand that something went wrong
- play the correct animation, additional idle and routine animations
- have a dialogue system, talk to the the players and NPCs, react to dialogue
- get better at stuff, have a character that slowly adapts/ changes due to the zombie apocalypse being quite different to normal life (for most people anyway)
- react to temperature, rain
- react to events like helis and gunshots
- have a personal agenda, be aware of the groups agenda and balance the two
- be able to use melee weapons and guns, follow tactics depending on character, number of friendly and hostile characters and their relative position
- react to all moodles, but have priotities and know when not to deal with certain things (don't read a book while in a fight)
- knowing when and how to take a dump (not yet implemented)

 

So basically it means developing the most complex AI ever, so complex in fact in might become self-aware, who knows...

 

Since this is pretty much impossible it might be time to consider scrapping it all together, as any amount of work put into this would in the end be wasted and might be better spent elsewhere.

 

(Sry if all this reads a bit weird, but english is not my first language)

[tommysticks]

9 hours ago, Fressfisch said:

>stuff<

So basically it means developing the most complex AI ever, so complex in fact in might become self-aware, who knows...

 

Since this is pretty much impossible it might be time to consider scrapping it all together, as any amount of work put into this would in the end be wasted and might be better spent elsewhere.

 

(Sry if all this reads a bit weird, but english is not my first language)

TL;DR

 

I skimmed this, but have you seen the video of their NPC running around collecting shit? If you don't know it's an NPC, you'd think it's just some player. Pretty neat.

But, allegedly, these NPC's are going to be the best NPC's of any game. Ever.

 

On 12/4/2017 at 1:42 PM, RobertJohnson said:

Sacrebleu! Our NPC system is going to be the best NPC system. Ever. *

 

Also, I don't think they are going to implement pooping.

 

*RobertJohnson didn't actually say this

[Millitron]

About scrapping it so you can work on other things.

What other things?  Once cars are in, there's really not much left to add besides NPC's as far as major features go.  Basically just bugfixing and balance tweaking.

[trombonaught]

49 minutes ago, Millitron said:

About scrapping it so you can work on other things.

What other things?  Once cars are in, there's really not much left to add besides NPC's as far as major features go.  Basically just bugfixing and balance tweaking.

There's also the animation system. Amd hunting (with wildlife) I believe.

 

That being said, even rudimentary NPCs fundamentally alter the game. To build this world for them and then to leave them out... it would almost feel like buying a new boxed game, only to realize there was no game in the box.

 

If you're not sure what I mean, try the survivors mod and then try again without. The game is too empty without them.

 

PS for OP- the English was fine!

[Fenris_Wolf]

11 hours ago, Fressfisch said:

- be able to make a cheese sandwich

No survivor gets in my group unless they know this basic fundamental skill...if they can't even do that, its probably not safe to trust them with your life, or protect your safehouse. 

[Fressfisch]

On 6.12.2017 at 11:19 PM, trombonaught said:

That being said, even rudimentary NPCs fundamentally alter the game. To build this world for them and then to leave them out... it would almost feel like buying a new boxed game, only to realize there was no game in the box.

I bought this partly because i was looking forward to having NPCs integrated by 1.0. Yet even without them this game is already so much better than i could have ever hoped, so i guess my point would be: Even if they decide not to do them i won't regret this investment.

 

Also, with NPCs being absent from the game for so long, it made me appreciate this scenario of being this omega man character, the last one standing. The atmosphere that this creates is something i have never seen in other games. Had they been included from the beginning, i probably would not have even considered playing without them, and therefore missed out on this experience.

Even if it's boring somethimes, it's also a million times better than dying because of buggy NPC behavior, multiplied by another million coz permadeath, yo.