Untalkable Copied and Pasted NPCs?

[Cecillia 652]

I have made about 25 custom NPCs for a town in my game and a majority of them actually do talk and say useful things.

I wanted to know what you thought about copied and pasted sprites.

 

For what I mean is like, let's say you're in 1 area and you can talk to this NPC etc, but then you walk to the next area but then you can't talk to them but their sprite is there.

 

Are you okay with their sprites like being in two areas at once, or would you prefer a new batch of NPCs in every area.

A majority of them are walking in a certain direction of the city, so I make it look like they walked over there to do whatever they wanted instead of walking aimlessly for eternity.

 

If I need to elaborate more, I can >_< I just wanted to know opinions.

 

 

[+ Sughayyer 163]

It's ok to have "generic" npcs. A suggestion would be creating an array of "default" texts, make the npcs placement random and assign them these texts.

[SpookyMothman 361]

I had this same thought a couple times, since recolors are all too easy to do.

 

Unless you specifically go out of your way to make lots of unique sprites and recolors, this is going to be pretty much unavoidable. Besides, I think NPCs are supposed to be generic; it makes the main characters stand out more, as they should.

[Cecillia 652]

I actually went all out and gave all the NPCs portraits and sprites >_<

[AJNR 156]

Having all unique NPCs isn't needed, but it sure is (highly) appreciated. There's nothing wrong with uniform, especially when the NPC is back-background. It's just weird if you have copy and paste secondary characters (ie. Antagonists, Main-Plot Points, etc.) It's just that NPCs that are only there to make a space occupied will be quickly overlooked - but you can work it to your advantage with some sleuth quests / side-quests - if that's a thing your project is able to do.

Edited April 21, 2014 by AJNR

[NorXTream 1]

if you make them look special then yes, its weird. But if you,lets say, make a young boy look like a young boy with a hat on his head, you can re use that sprite a couple of times.

[Cecillia 652]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I appreciate it and I was scared people were going to be like OMG THAT NPC SPRITE IS COPIED AND PASTEDDDD, but good thing it'll be overlooked XD

I'll start actually editing some like adding a hat or so! 

[SpookyMothman 361]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I appreciate it and I was scared people were going to be like OMG THAT NPC SPRITE IS COPIED AND PASTEDDDD, but good thing it'll be overlooked XD

I'll start actually editing some like adding a hat or so! 

Every other RPG ever does it, so I don't think you'd get any complaints. But hey, taking that extra step is always cool.

[+ Retired 274]

I'll play devils advocate.

 

Any particular reason why every NPC can't be unique apart from the obvious time issue. You can obviously sprite / tileset / bust so the artistic / resource barrier which impacts most creators isn't really a burden for you.

 

Also your project isn't a traditional rpg maker game - it's a visual novel in terms of closest genre from what I can tell. As such smaller things like the same sprite but different hat or clothing whih are overlooked in other titles are going to be more noticeable.

[TheoAllen 830]

NPCs are just representation of folks town. If you walks on the street, you don't really care about what other people appearance details, don't you? The only thing you care is every town guards or polices are wearing their uniform. Maid also wear their uniform. They looks identical. So do the game NPCs. Having different sprite in every area isn't so necessary. As long as they're representative, that is not a big deal.

 

If you insist to have different sprites each area, recoloring sprite is more than enough in my opinion

[richter_h 67]

 

Are you okay with their sprites like being in two areas at once, or would you prefer a new batch of NPCs in every area.

A majority of them are walking in a certain direction of the city, so I make it look like they walked over there to do whatever they wanted instead of walking aimlessly for eternity.

 

Looking at this question, it's fine to have a "generic" NPCs, as others said before. Of course, I wouldn't mind to meet the "same persons" over the town many times, as long as the NPCs represent the situation of the place in-game.

 

 

Unless you're in your way making a list of NPCs which is unique each other and have their own trait and responses, letting the same sprites in some areas is okay and acceptable. Just make sure the NPCs don't block the roads, and the move route setting plan is a nice mark. 

 

I'll start actually editing some like adding a hat or so! 

 

That's a given. Putting a unique marking on each of NPCs? Yes, please. 

If that's a female NPC and you decided to give her some glasses, I'll appreciate it. TRULY appreciate it.

Edited April 21, 2014 by richter_h

[TheoAllen 830]

Don't forget to put the glass on them. Especially for female NPCs

My friend, richter_h will give you seal of approval 

 

*jetpack*

[Cecillia 652]

I actually do already have megane NPCs in my game So that part is a + for you two!

[Blindga 144]

As far as dialogue goes, it'd be fine to not be able to talk to someone, but I feel gameplay wise it could be a little confusing.

Think like this. In this rpg, you find you can search a barrel for items with the action button. The ideal would be to allow the player to assume, through their experience, that barrels can then be searched.

 

But if only some instances of the barrel are actually searchable (disregarding whether or not anything can be found in them), it becomes confusing as to which can be searched and which can't. It gives bad feedback to the player to have them constantly push buttons at barrels and to get no response whatsoever. A consistent 'nothing found' message would be more satisfying and it would better establish that the player has the right idea in looking at the scenery for items.

Now, the exception for this is if these items were meant to be secret or hard to find. That works just fine.

 

But if you apply this idea to people, where only some npcs can be talked to and some can't it becomes much much more confusing in my mind. I think it would take away the idea of npcs having anything to say if some of them do nothing when interacted with.

 

At least how I see it...

 

Anyways, I don't think it would be any harm to have some quick exit dialogue for npcs. "I can't talk right now." "Excuse me." "What do you want?" "I'm sorry, I'm busy." One liners for the unimportant ones. Just something to let the player know that they CAN talk to all the people, but that particular person isn't very interesting.

 

I think that would be ideal to not being able to say anything to them at all.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Blindga

[+ Sughayyer 163]

Adding to blindga, these unimportant NPCs can work as a relief, force dialogue between characters or promote any other feature that albeit unimportant provide either an eacape or still more immersion into the game's atmosphere.

[Bunni89 85]

I agree with Blindga, I feel like being able to talk to NPCs even if they have nothing to say is such an ingrained concept that if I was playing and I couldn't select an NPC I'd wonder if it was a glitch. And probably spend ten minutes running around and mashing X from every possible angle, lol!

You should find some way to make the untalkables distinct from the talkables, or else just shove em full of filler text. RPGs don't tend to follow real life rules- where obviously people exist in the street who don't want to talk to you and serve no purpose XD

An idea that comes to mind is.. maybe something like have the random crowd members greyed out and the talkable npcs are in colour? And perhaps have these pointless flavor NPcs just walk around the map doing some visually interesting stuff, so they don't seem unnecessary. Maybe a crowd of guys wanders round in a circle, or they look like they're talking to each other instead of you, or someone's hanging up some washing or chasing a cat or practising dance moves by spinning in a circle, or whatever. That way they're still charming and add flavor to the world. They become memorable. Even if all they do is jog around the town in a simple low-effort fixed pattern.

You can even make them interesting-yet-useless without even moving them! Make one random NPC stand behind a pot and say "I'm invisible". Make someone stand on a roof. Have someone staring at the wall forever. Have a grownup surrounded by a gang of evil toddlers, or menaced by a small mouse. Maybe one guy has a flipped sprite so he's standing on his head. Fun, adds flavor to the world, but completely useless! And it requires absolutely no more effort than just sticking them down in a more ordinary pattern.

[+ Retired 274]

Possible idea would be gab text or for them NPC's to just leave the map to get away from you. Also agreed on how RPG's deviated from real life scenarios because generally they can be interacted with in comparison to say a tree or a rock.

 

Generally I find unimportant characters having no busts is also an indication their role in the game is minor or just their for flavour which is fine.