NPC's must have personality

[Demonidze]

and by saying this I mean:

- each NPC's we group up with have some background, mental and psyhical characteristics unique to them only.

- NPC's may react in good/bad way to other NPC's, have argument with each other, etc.

- NPC's may have an opinion over specific locations, cities, items, actions.

I think it was mentioned by the devs somewhere, but I want real emphasize on this, if I to have some emotional connection with the NPC's since they funny, bad, good, sexy or what ever it will make me certainly to like play the game more.

[Gabriel77Dan]

Not just companions/party members, everyone else should have a personality too.
New Vegas did a terrific job on making nearly every NPC it's own NPC.
If there is something I cannot stand it's an NPC having generic dialogue with no soul to it whatsoever.
So I think every NPC should have "something" to them to make them stand out and be memorable and not just "random generic although named NPC #542"

[Hyaon]

It's the little suprising touches an npc also needs, such as Tycho in Fallout 2. I remember spurting beer when I gave him some drug called Jet for a laugh. I didnt expect him to have a heart attack and die

[Vryheid]

Not just companions/party members, everyone else should have a personality too.
New Vegas did a terrific job on making nearly every NPC it's own NPC.
If there is something I cannot stand it's an NPC having generic dialogue with no soul to it whatsoever.

I guess. I liked that New Vegas NPCs were fairly active, but most of them still fell into basic, predictable routines (sleep, stand in front of shop for 8 hours, clean up a bit, eat) and had pretty limited dialogue options. It was better than most RPGs but I would like to see NPCs move around a lot more. Also, I'd like to see some complex dialogue options like you had in the original TES games, where every NPC had a list of standard questions that could be asked about the local community.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

and by saying this I mean:

- each NPC's we group up with have some background, mental and psyhical characteristics unique to them only.

- NPC's may react in good/bad way to other NPC's, have argument with each other, etc.

- NPC's may have an opinion over specific locations, cities, items, actions.

I think it was mentioned by the devs somewhere, but I want real emphasize on this, if I to have some emotional connection with the NPC's since they funny, bad, good, sexy or what ever it will make me certainly to like play the game more.

Yes! I think current RPGs have barely scratched the surface on this. I've suggested this before and gotten derisive comments that compare it to The Sims. We are all too used to thinking of an RPG as one thing (mainly combat) and a Sim as another thing (mainly household/romance). But all computer games are simulations, it just depends on how you want to spend your time. Wasteland characters should have enough depth of character and ties to the game world that they do individual and believable things, including sex and relationships too. A group of characters who do human things together is more fun to play exploring the desert killing mutants and robots than a cookie-cutter HALO squad of macho rednecks.

[Demonidze]

and by saying this I mean:

- each NPC's we group up with have some background, mental and psyhical characteristics unique to them only.

- NPC's may react in good/bad way to other NPC's, have argument with each other, etc.

- NPC's may have an opinion over specific locations, cities, items, actions.

I think it was mentioned by the devs somewhere, but I want real emphasize on this, if I to have some emotional connection with the NPC's since they funny, bad, good, sexy or what ever it will make me certainly to like play the game more.

Yes! I think current RPGs have barely scratched the surface on this. I've suggested this before and gotten derisive comments that compare it to The Sims. We are all too used to thinking of an RPG as one thing (mainly combat) and a Sim as another thing (mainly household/romance). But all computer games are simulations, it just depends on how you want to spend your time. Wasteland characters should have enough depth of character and ties to the game world that they do individual and believable things, including sex and relationships too. A group of characters who do human things together is more fun to play exploring the desert killing mutants and robots than a cookie-cutter HALO squad of macho rednecks.

Imho what you asking for to be realised is human relationship stimulator. thats why it sounds like what you really asking for is Sims game and not wasteland.

[Celtic927]

Yes NPC should have a certain Life like quality to them... I thought the ACE DISOBEYS YOU or DOESN'T WANT TO TRADE thing in the original was stupid. All it every did was make you tediously type the same command twice and they would eventually do it. Very seldom did it actually matter unless Dr Mike Scott refused to heal a COM char in battle and then they died. How often did that happen? WL2 really needs to UP the bar on how they make NPC seems alive. Maybe certain NPCs won't follow you on certain mission or defy you in ways that matter. Its a mechanic that needs a more indepth exploration to it

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Imho what you asking for to be realised is human relationship stimulator. thats why it sounds like what you really asking for is Sims game and not wasteland.

Wasteland *was* a relationship simulator (among other things), albeit a crude one. Your characters had personality. The game gave you the illusion that you were interacting with them. If they refused to work, you had to do something else, so that represented personal interaction.

Wasteland 2 can do better! If your characters have certain skills in common they can have a dialog or a scene. Something that signifies friendship.

We get a screen for battle and a screen for inventory. We get a screen for character too, like Fallout had for certain characters and you can see what your characters look like and what they say to each other. Something like that. It can be tied to gaining experience, by testing your skills and raising morale if your characters work well together. It doesn't have to be The Sims. Besides who didn't want to see the Sims exploded into unrecognizable gore?

[Demonidze]

Imho what you asking for to be realised is human relationship stimulator. thats why it sounds like what you really asking for is Sims game and not wasteland.

Wasteland *was* a relationship simulator (among other things), albeit a crude one. Your characters had personality. The game gave you the illusion that you were interacting with them. If they refused to work, you had to do something else, so that represented personal interaction.

Wasteland 2 can do better! If your characters have certain skills in common they can have a dialog or a scene. Something that signifies friendship.

We get a screen for battle and a screen for inventory. We get a screen for character too, like Fallout had for certain characters and you can see what your characters look like and what they say to each other. Something like that. It can be tied to gaining experience, by testing your skills and raising morale if your characters work well together. It doesn't have to be The Sims. Besides who didn't want to see the Sims exploded into unrecognizable gore?

Ok, first of all wasteland WASNT a relationship simulator, it was tactical team based rpg(or sort of rpg, back in its days).

You saying you want characters in game to be able to marry each other, have sex, and do all the believable things.. this is tactical team based rpg. sorry, it just isnt right, it doesnt fit. Iam ok micro managing my team, do tactical assignments or find good chemistry with wide variety of npc's i got access to .. but send them to dates, marry them, make them do sex and all the rest of the stuff no, its just does not fit into this game. sorry.

[Vryheid]

Wasteland characters should have enough depth of character and ties to the game world that they do individual and believable things, including sex and relationships too.

I can imagine it now - "Your attempt to spy on two NPCs having sex was successful! Your Voyeurism skill has increased by 1!"

[Stray]

While I wouldn't call WL a relationship simulator - far from it, in fact - I also think that it's a stretch to call it tactical and team-based. In that case you'd be talking about something like the X-COM or Jagged Alliance games. WL was an RPG much like the Bard's Tale, Magic Candle, and Might & Magic games. There's some degree of tactical play in those games, but nothing near the degree of X-COM/JA.

As an aside, I think it's worth mentioning that the Jagged Alliance games were actual squad-based tactical games, but in some ways they had more RPG elements than the original WL. When dealing with NPCs, you had a certain degree of control over how you interacted with them. It wasn't complicated, but it was more than yes/no choices. All the mercs had their own personalities, and some of them would simply refuse to join you if you already hired someone that they didn't like. They would have certain comments depending on what happened with other teammates that they felt one way or the other about. It obviously wouldn't work the same way with a party of player-created PCs, but I see no reason why some sort of similar mechanic couldn't be explored. For example, when a character is rolled, there could be a random, hidden value assigned. Comparing the values of the characters to each other would determine like, dislike, or indifference, and you could have certain behaviors linked to those states.

The behaviors could be anything from simple, random comments to actual actions taken/prohibited. For me, the point isn't to make it a life simulator - it's to add to the illusion that the characters are actual people, and not just mindless automatons that the player uses to shoot things and collect loot with.

Just something to consider.

[Sarkahn]

Ok, first of all wasteland WASNT a relationship simulator, it was tactical team based rpg(or sort of rpg, back in its days).

You saying you want characters in game to be able to marry each other, have sex, and do all the believable things.. this is tactical team based rpg. sorry, it just isnt right, it doesnt fit. Iam ok micro managing my team, do tactical assignments or find good chemistry with wide variety of npc's i got access to .. but send them to dates, marry them, make them do sex and all the rest of the stuff no, its just does not fit into this game. sorry.

Not sure about the relationship/sex stuff, could take it or leave it. But I'd love to see some NPCs with actual personalities. In Wasteland I didn't even think twice about dumping Ace for Vex, even though I had Ace the ENTIRE GAME. I had absolutely no attachment to him as a character, he was just a dude who was kind of okay with assault rifles.

I still remember Sulik fondly to this day. And not just because he was was real good at blowing dudes apart with SMGs. I cared about his story, his sister (even though that ended up never going anywhere), and his silly conversations with Grampy Bone.

For me the cool NPCs were a huge part of why I loved Fallout 2 so much.

[Arkki-Iljetys]

I never found having NPC routines adding anything to the game except the annoyance of finding them. Like how in the Witcher, when it starts to rain, the merchants run away just GET BACK HERE I HAVE A BUNCH OF CRAP TO SELL! HEY!
Trying to complete the quest, the most difficult part of which is finding the NPC because you can't suggest a place to meet or anything... Argh. Goes for every CRPG I can think of.

Anyway, one great thing about the Fallout games was the inability to talk with everyone. That means, even while you have a bunch of filler people who are there just to make the places seem alive, you don't need to go into conversation mode with everyone to find out if they're useful to you. They just spurt some line, and you pickpocket or kill them (heh) and continue the game.

[Demonidze]

Not sure about the relationship/sex stuff, could take it or leave it. But I'd love to see some NPCs with actual personalities. In Wasteland I didn't even think twice about dumping Ace for Vex, even though I had Ace the ENTIRE GAME. I had absolutely no attachment to him as a character, he was just a dude who was kind of okay with assault rifles.

I still remember Sulik fondly to this day. And not just because he was was real good at blowing dudes apart with SMGs. I cared about his story, his sister (even though that ended up never going anywhere), and his silly conversations with Grampy Bone.

For me the cool NPCs were a huge part of why I loved Fallout 2 so much.

oh yea, I want all this stuff, just keep up with the spirit of the game, no need to derail

[Drool]

Not sure about the relationship/sex stuff, could take it or leave it. But I'd love to see some NPCs with actual personalities. In Wasteland I didn't even think twice about dumping Ace for Vex, even though I had Ace the ENTIRE GAME. I had absolutely no attachment to him as a character, he was just a dude who was kind of okay with assault rifles.

To be fair, Vax was pretty freaking insane with his stats and skills. I've had characters who have gone through the game a dozen times who still don't have the attribute suite he did. If Cochise wasn't such a meat grinder, he'd be completely over powered.

That being said, Mort was the man.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

We get a screen for battle and a screen for inventory. We get a screen for character too, like Fallout had for certain characters and you can see what your characters look like and what they say to each other. Something like that. It can be tied to gaining experience, by testing your skills and raising morale if your characters work well together. It doesn't have to be The Sims. Besides who didn't want to see the Sims exploded into unrecognizable gore?

Ok, first of all wasteland WASNT a relationship simulator, it was tactical team based rpg(or sort of rpg, back in its days).

You saying you want characters in game to be able to marry each other, have sex, and do all the believable things.. this is tactical team based rpg. sorry, it just isnt right, it doesnt fit. Iam ok micro managing my team, do tactical assignments or find good chemistry with wide variety of npc's i got access to .. but send them to dates, marry them, make them do sex and all the rest of the stuff no, its just does not fit into this game. sorry.

Well, not like that. I'm imagining that the game doesn't go into that much detail because you're right it isn't about them doing specific things like that. When you socialize with your party members it would be conveyed as doing jobs together, playing games together, or having conversations that are summarized and not much dialogue. That's where your imagination comes into play. When Character 1 and Character 2 talk and play games a lot, they gain bonds and stats and morale (if they are successful). It's like playing the combat of Wasteland but with a different kind of opponent and some pictures and text captions that aren't just reducing enemies into undertaker's nightmares, though you'll have those too.

Wasteland isn't terrribly tactical. You can split your party up and you can run around the map in combat, which is especially useful if you play hand to hand characters which I usually do. It has a dozen or so combat skills, but the vast majority of skills and content of the game does not pertain to combat. The characters climb, swim, gamble, play on stage, use bathrooms, and they have bad attitudes. The way you arrange them can determine the success of a die roll, representing teamwork and leadership. All of this provides the illusion that they have lives of their own and you, the player, supply the rest of the details.

The character and party banter, individual story lines, conflicts between NPCs and so forth that give more specifics than that can be directly story related, and also affected by their social skill levels and party morale details which give you lots of variations.

Some kind of emotional ties to characters is one thing I expect in a role playing game, especially a squad or party-based game. People with relationships that have effects on the game. Wasteland 2 can give you more of that than Wasteland did, without much extra cost.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Wasteland characters should have enough depth of character and ties to the game world that they do individual and believable things, including sex and relationships too.

I can imagine it now - "Your attempt to spy on two NPCs having sex was successful! Your Voyeurism skill has increased by 1!"

Now you're thinking.

A Voyeurism skill. Awesome.