NPC Chatting About NPCs

[_Gold_]

For groups I think it would be interesting if there could be a coup d'etat. So say everyone liked you in your group, and not everyone liked the leader of a group you could get you and your supporters to kill the leader and take power.

 

Oh my god get this guy the member title 'Possibly Carrot?' or something....

[migulao]

 

For groups I think it would be interesting if there could be a coup d'etat. So say everyone liked you in your group, and not everyone liked the leader of a group you could get you and your supporters to kill the leader and take power.

 

Oh my god get this guy the member title 'Possibly Carrot?' or something....

 

I say ''Part-Time Carrot''

[_Gold_]

 

 

For groups I think it would be interesting if there could be a coup d'etat. So say everyone liked you in your group, and not everyone liked the leader of a group you could get you and your supporters to kill the leader and take power.

 

Oh my god get this guy the member title 'Possibly Carrot?' or something....

 

I say ''Part-Time Carrot''

 

 

I think mine is better, since blatantly means very obvious.

[abominare]

 

I have mixed feelings about npcs since I can remember when they were in the game. I know they're getting improved but zomboid really rewards ultra safe game play, It'll be hard for me to not just kill on sight. I remember plenty of

 

oh hey a survivor! Lets go make friends!

 

Survivor: Fuck you

 

Well whats not polite

 

Survivor shot guns you in the face ending your playthrough

 

Or you know waking up and noticing all the barricades are gone from all the windows and now theres blood stains on your floor you meticulous worked to ensure didnt happen when removing the zombies from the premise.

 

I've been proving that I don't need them since their removal, I don't plan on changing that aspect unless there is some jesus feature that I'm sure wont get iterated on for years.

 

Call me negative nancy but I think while the tech will be impressive, I don't think they're going to add quite as much favorable gameplay at their launch as people are hyping up for.

The NPCs aren't supposed to help you, in fact, they are supposed to make the game more realistic and hard, you genuenly have to be carefull about how you speak with other survivors.

 

The thread is full of people amusingly talking about forming groups with npcs and making their own army. I think there is going to be some disappointment when they're largely just another enemy in the game. The risk of shotgun to the face on greeting is really going to curb any desire to talk to any of them. Interesting game mechanics tend to offer risk vs reward scenarios, however with perma death and high fragility it really means that you want to avoid risks.

[harakka]

 I think there is going to be some disappointment when they're largely just another enemy in the game. 

 

This is unlikely to be the case. If the devs wanted them to be "just another enemy," they probably wouldn't have spent as much time working on all the extensive social aspects such as personalities, interactions and group mechanics, all involving possible player characters as well.

[migulao]

The thread is full of people amusingly talking about forming groups with npcs and making their own army. I think there is going to be some disappointment when they're largely just another enemy in the game. The risk of shotgun to the face on greeting is really going to curb any desire to talk to any of them. Interesting game mechanics tend to offer risk vs reward scenarios, however with perma death and high fragility it really means that you want to avoid risks.

 

I'm pretty sure they won't just kill on sight, they would atleast give out a warning, saying to back off, or mugging you.

On the rare occasion that you become allies with someone, they might flank the enemy and save you.

Which is AWESOME.

[Jatta Pake]

NPCs:

 

From what I've read, NPCs will be able to re-write their internal decision tree based upon experiences.  For example, if you are nice to a surly NPC, that NPC might become more friendly towards you over time.  If you are rude, that NPC might become even less friendly, maybe even hostile.  Fairly straight forward Player-AI behavior.

 

To me, what will make this system fascinating or not is the success of the resulting emergent behavior.  What happens when two NPCs meet?  Maybe an NPC started out nice, but became surly after encountering some mean NPCs. Will this carry over into interactions with a player?  What if you befriend an NPC, then separately befriend another NPC.  When all three of you finally get together, what happens if both NPCs hate each other?

 

I don't know if this is in the cards, but I hope NPCs have hidden "flavors" baked in.  Some being more prone to violence and theft, while others being more prone to cooperation and altruism.  It will be less interesting if every NPC is a tabula rasa.

 

Lastly, I hope we will be able to make mods and tinker with individual NPCs.  It would be a blast making a mod containing an individual NPC with its own custom dialogue and behavioral dispositions.  Even better if we can pre-set relationship preferences with other modded individual NPCs.  

 

For example: The Johnson Family Pack Mod contains Tyrone Johnson (father), Regina Johnson (mother), Tamera Johnson (daughter), and Junior Johnson (son).  They all randomly spawn separately from each other but are pre-set to love each other and want to find each other.  If a player comes across any of these NPCs and develops a relationship, they will tell you about their missing family members.  They may need some convincing to fortify a safehouse and not keep roaming around the map looking for their family.  Maybe Junior is flavored to be more pliant, while Tyrone is more bossy.  If you cross paths with Tyrone, you may need to decide if you will join him on his quest to find his family or wish him good travels.  Also included in this Mod Pack, several pre-made antagonists.  Boris Tents is a hardened criminal with a grudge against Tyrone.  You see, Tyrone was once a District Attorney who put Boris behind bars for life - until he escaped during the zombie apocalypse.  If you meet Boris, though, he won't tell you any of that.  He will tell you that he was once a simple school teacher at one time who was brutally victimized by a vicious outlaw named Tyrone Johnson.  "Don't trust anything Tyrone says.  He might say he is looking for his family, but he's only really just looking for the rest of his murderous outlaw crew."

[Kuikka]

This game needs a Legacy mode just like Dwarf fortress, when npcs are ready... would love to read about Urist- I mean, Bob the survivor who made it this far, carving his way into the unwritten history of nameless heroes and villains...

[Some Clever Username]

Lastly, I hope we will be able to make mods and tinker with individual NPCs.  It would be a blast making a mod containing an individual NPC with its own custom dialogue and behavioral dispositions.  Even better if we can pre-set relationship preferences with other modded individual NPCs.  

 

For example: The Johnson Family Pack Mod contains Tyrone Johnson (father), Regina Johnson (mother), Tamera Johnson (daughter), and Junior Johnson (son).  They all randomly spawn separately from each other but are pre-set to love each other and want to find each other.  If a player comes across any of these NPCs and develops a relationship, they will tell you about their missing family members.  They may need some convincing to fortify a safehouse and not keep roaming around the map looking for their family.  Maybe Junior is flavored to be more pliant, while Tyrone is more bossy.  If you cross paths with Tyrone, you may need to decide if you will join him on his quest to find his family or wish him good travels.  Also included in this Mod Pack, several pre-made antagonists.  Boris Tents is a hardened criminal with a grudge against Tyrone.  You see, Tyrone was once a District Attorney who put Boris behind bars for life - until he escaped during the zombie apocalypse.  If you meet Boris, though, he won't tell you any of that.  He will tell you that he was once a simple school teacher at one time who was brutally victimized by a vicious outlaw named Tyrone Johnson.  "Don't trust anything Tyrone says.  He might say he is looking for his family, but he's only really just looking for the rest of his murderous outlaw crew."

This would be awesome! I hope people make something like this. Just a nice little side quest to go along with the survivors.

Imagine helping Tyrone find his family but you find them dead and he goes full Kenny from the Walking Dead and flips out. (I love Kenny)

 

Also, I would add myself and my friends into the game as NPC's, that would be AMAZING!

[InMyRestlessDreamsISee]

 

I'm extremely pumped for NPCs. 

 

I mean, while I love the game as it is, it does get a little stale just trying to stay alive by yourself after awhile. NPCs are gonna be a game changer. Just thinking about the new dynamics it will bring just makes me giddy!

 

It's going to make playing the game long term much more interesting. Now having to worry about others than just you makes things more difficult and unpredictable. It will help deviate from the routine of "Scavenge, farm, scavenge, farm" that people tend to settle in to long term. It admittedly can become monotonous after a while and NPCs should add some spontaneous as well as focus to the game. 

 

Also it's going make watching the game and reading stories very fun now that there'll be a cast of character with there own unique personalities and dynamic plotlines. Now everything will feel less "I Am Legend" and more "The Waling Dead". I'm a wannabee writer with an obsession with stories, characters, character development and etc. so I love any game with a good story let alone with dynamic ingame stories.

 

I'm excited to see how characters of different personalities react and how they change over times and how the groups is affect, what jobs people take on, what kind of internal politics go on and so on. It will just make the game so much richer and fun to play. The replay value will just burst sky high.

 

NPCs really are what's going to make or break Project Zomboid. If they pull this off, they will become the definitive Zombie Survival game. No game has attempted something like this to my knowledge but it makes so much sense too. The Zombie genre isn't about killing zombies or even just surviving. It's about how people as individuals react and how society changes. The interactions between eachother and how the apocolypse changes them is always the focus of any good Zombie work and it's never been properly made a part of gameplay as dynamically as this game is attempting.

 

And like Jatta Pake, I really want to see custom NPCs. That will only add to the replay-ability and make the game even more fun. Also I kind of really want the inevitable "The Walking Dead" and "The Last of Us" NPC mods.

[Daman453]

Even at mounths away, my hype meter is off the walls, if The Indie Stone does not pull offf NPC's i will cry.

[Dryke]

I think if people want to get a flavor for what NPCs could/should be like, they should play on a PVP enabled server.  Some of the people you meet are the nicest folks you can ever imagine and would give you their last fish if you were hungry, or race across an infested zone to help you if you were in trouble.  Others will kill you for a bag of chips, or maybe because they are just bored.  Some will group up with other survivors and take direction from a player that takes charge; others prefer to either work in a loose group or even go it alone.  Sometimes even two nice people have personalities that don't mesh and they end up being quite unfriendly with each other.  Ideally, NPC's should be as close to 'real people' as it is possible (and practical) to code them.

 

Read any apocalypse story, watch any apocalypse movie - the theme is constant:  Often times the event that caused the apocalypse takes a back seat to the story of how people interact with each other when there is no authority to which they can be held accountable.  This isn't just based upon our sci-fi fantasies, either; human history is replete with stories of how humanity behaves when they think no one is watching.

[Some Clever Username]

 

I'm extremely pumped for NPCs. 

 

I mean, while I love the game as it is, it does get a little stale just trying to stay alive by yourself after awhile. NPCs are gonna be a game changer. Just thinking about the new dynamics it will bring just makes me giddy!

 

It's going to make playing the game long term much more interesting. Now having to worry about others than just you makes things more difficult and unpredictable. It will help deviate from the routine of "Scavenge, farm, scavenge, farm" that people tend to settle in to long term. It admittedly can become monotonous after a while and NPCs should add some spontaneous as well as focus to the game. 

 

Also it's going make watching the game and reading stories very fun now that there'll be a cast of character with there own unique personalities and dynamic plotlines. Now everything will feel less "I Am Legend" and more "The Waling Dead". I'm a wannabee writer with an obsession with stories, characters, character development and etc. so I love any game with a good story let alone with dynamic ingame stories.

 

I'm excited to see how characters of different personalities react and how they change over times and how the groups is affect, what jobs people take on, what kind of internal politics go on and so on. It will just make the game so much richer and fun to play. The replay value will just burst sky high.

 

NPCs really are what's going to make or break Project Zomboid. If they pull this off, they will become the definitive Zombie Survival game. No game has attempted something like this to my knowledge but it makes so much sense too. The Zombie genre isn't about killing zombies or even just surviving. It's about how people as individuals react and how society changes. The interactions between eachother and how the apocolypse changes them is always the focus of any good Zombie work and it's never been properly made a part of gameplay as dynamically as this game is attempting.

 

And like Jatta Pake, I really want to see custom NPCs. That will only add to the replay-ability and make the game even more fun. Also I kind of really want the inevitable "The Walking Dead" and "The Last of Us" NPC mods.

I agree with you! Also that top picture just made me piss my pants in excitement!

[Kirrus]

Guys, just a general 'patience', and "this is going to take a while" reminder

[Daman453]

Guys, just a general 'patience', and "this is going to take a while" reminder javascript:void('Smiley')

(testing that code out) Should we not be able to talk about it? Just watch the hype go up and up.

Wait no way! NO WAY! I LOVE MY TITLE JUST NEED SOME CAPS! OMG GIVE ME WATER

[Daman453]

Well hype over... Nice one Mods and Admins

[Albie]

I know no ETA but a quick question, but will the npc names be the same as the random names we can use when making a character or will there be a new set of names? Would be good to run across a survivor with a name from the forums.

[Daman453]

One question, am i now stuck with this? If i am i want to be a lurker... This is why we can't have great things

[EnigmaGrey]

One question, am i now stuck with this? If i am i want to be a lurker... This is why we can't have great things

Not sure how continuing to talk about it in several threads, in PM, and in your signature is going to lead to positive things, friend.

Let the mysteries of the forum work themselves out.

[Daman453]

 

One question, am i now stuck with this? If i am i want to be a lurker... This is why we can't have great things

Not sure how continuing to talk about it in several threads, in PM, and in your signature is going to lead to positive things, friend.

Let the mysteries of the forum work themselves out.

 

First thing, it is late at night here, i come to the internet so i can 'Free myself from going into a mad crazy state" So please keep up. 2nd thing, need more Jell-O.

[Connall]

 

 

One question, am i now stuck with this? If i am i want to be a lurker... This is why we can't have great things

Not sure how continuing to talk about it in several threads, in PM, and in your signature is going to lead to positive things, friend.

Let the mysteries of the forum work themselves out.

 

First thing, it is late at night here, i come to the internet so i can 'Free myself from going into a mad crazy state" So please keep up. 2nd thing, need more Jell-O.

 

 

You're not being endearing right now, I would consider rethinking your line of discussion.

[Jabberi]

As someone interested in AI I find it exciting that they are aiming high with the NPCs and am also gratefull for every insight into the process of creating them. Btw, here is an idea for mondoid, if TiS ever needs one: It would be interesting to hear about some weird bugs that have caused the NPCs to behave strangely before they were fixed. I'm bet there have been some along the way and those kind of updates are fun and interesting to read, for me atleast.  

[Decay]

hope there will be raider npc who will hold up my friend in the darkness while i sneak up with my deadly weapon of choice the spoon and i hope the player can team up with theses npcs that would be awesome i know indie stone has the potential to do so  

[Daman453]

 

 

 

One question, am i now stuck with this? If i am i want to be a lurker... This is why we can't have great things

Not sure how continuing to talk about it in several threads, in PM, and in your signature is going to lead to positive things, friend.

Let the mysteries of the forum work themselves out.

 

First thing, it is late at night here, i come to the internet so i can 'Free myself from going into a mad crazy state" So please keep up. 2nd thing, need more Jell-O.

 

 

You're not being endearing right now, I would consider rethinking your line of discussion.

 

Sorry for last night really. I was so sleepy and posting on here at night is nerver good for me. Sorry

[mads232]

As someone interested in AI I find it exciting that they are aiming high with the NPCs and am also gratefull for every insight into the process of creating them. Btw, here is an idea for mondoid, if TiS ever needs one: It would be interesting to hear about some weird bugs that have caused the NPCs to behave strangely before they were fixed. I'm bet there have been some along the way and those kind of updates are fun and interesting to read, for me atleast.

Yes! This could be a nice little Mondoid post! One like for you my friend.