Cradle2Grave
Banned
Actually yes player faces would be good.
Was the lack of NPC faces a good idea?
- Thread starter Fnool
- Start date
Difficult question: I don't care about faces as such, and if the missions kept their randomness and other probelms, then I think NPC faces wouldn't make it any better. And it might make things worse since then you'd expect some consistency from the “NPC you know”, only to have them spew completely random things and flip around between trusting you enough to donate medicines or not.
However, if there were persistent NPCs with whom you could establish a “relationship” (in the sense that past missions you've done for them would affect future ones beyond the simplistic faction rep), then that would be nice. I don't think there can be enough “personalities” for these NPCs to replace all missions with them, but perhaps there would be a mix of generic missions from faceless factions and some hand-written NPCs with their own storylines.
However, if there were persistent NPCs with whom you could establish a “relationship” (in the sense that past missions you've done for them would affect future ones beyond the simplistic faction rep), then that would be nice. I don't think there can be enough “personalities” for these NPCs to replace all missions with them, but perhaps there would be a mix of generic missions from faceless factions and some hand-written NPCs with their own storylines.
I'm not going to vote as I think the poll is worded badly!
That said, I would love to have more than just text to represent my galactic interactions.
It would need to be done properly though and it will also require an overhaul of the mission systems (which is being worked on).
To be honest the in ship npcs could be portrayed by a variety of helmets as we are all wearing them apparently!
And if they don't get voices in at the same time - we can just imagine it's the Stigs cousin from the future
That said, I would love to have more than just text to represent my galactic interactions.
It would need to be done properly though and it will also require an overhaul of the mission systems (which is being worked on).
To be honest the in ship npcs could be portrayed by a variety of helmets as we are all wearing them apparently!
And if they don't get voices in at the same time - we can just imagine it's the Stigs cousin from the future
Might have been true in the 80s, but there are many pretty sophisticated character modeling tools with convincing results in nowadays' games:
HardWar was wonderful. And I agree that some animated characters in the windows of the buildings when you dock would be a nice initial touch.
i would murder my mums to get character customization as good as some of those vids.
Would be fun to have comms open up a small face-to-face chat box.
Would be fun to have comms open up a small face-to-face chat box.
I think it was wise to leave it out. From a design point of view what do you go for? Realism and you have a hard task of making it look real, and providing enough variation. Cartoony and it looks out of place (dont even get me started on Anime). Animated or static? A large amount of effort would have to be dedicated to make it fit the rest of the game, and I honestly think there are more important things to work on. Just my opinion of course, but I'd like to see planetary landings at some point in the next 12 months.
Fair points but i mean they already have full pilot models in. How hard would it be to just add a face-generator to that the way every other game creates faces for its NPC's?
Any of those character creation tools I have linked would more than match the visual quality of ED. Those of Eve and Black Desert strike the perfect match between realism and stylish character models, IMHO:
Eve: Online character creator:
[video=youtube;yo9L8d-5x20]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9L8d-5x20[/video]
Black Desert character creator:
[video=youtube;4TP4L1vHfpk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TP4L1vHfpk[/video]
Just imagine, a half-way decent random generator utilizing those character modeling tools, with all their myriads of customization options, each time when randomly creating an NPC model taking into account the kind of NPC (police? criminal? station operator? merchant?) and the type of his whereabouts (black market? bulletin board? pirate base? research station?). That would be absolutely awesome. The appearance and personality of an NPC might even convince you to accept a mission you'd otherwise would reject. That desperate old chap of a governor that needs help with his starving colony? That poor little girl that is wants you to hunt down the assassin of her parents? That shady black market dealer, whose looks alone let you imagine the kind of generous reward he will give you?
Right now don't care at all about any quest mission texts, they are all to generic and lack variety (how many different quest [patterns] do we have anyway? I doubt it's more than a dozen) and I solely do them for their reputation and monetary rewards. That is what feels "gamey". I want to be interested in the missions themselves, not just in the rewards.
At the moment it is not engaging at all, and NPC one could relate with would go a long way to solve this problem.
This is clearly a very personal thing as I honestly can't see how it would have an impact beyond eye candy.
It would be the difference between self-service tills and manned tills at the supermarket - I go shopping because I need to buy stuff, I have to pick it off the shelves, I have to pay for it, and whether a human being asks me for money or a computer asks me for money is entirely irrelevant... the mechanics of the situation*, my motivation for being there is entirely the same, I still give the money to Tesco, and the price is still the same.
Okay, sure, eye candy is nice, but in over three decades of gaming I can count the number of games that have held my attention long term purely because of non-interactive, entirely passive eye candy on the fingers on my knee.
* Excludes purchasing items that happen to be security tagged, you pedants!
I miss the faces so much from Frontier...
It's hard to explain, but it made it feel more "real".
I'm really hoping they do add some character to the interface, as right now it feels more like an excel spreadsheet giving me missions...
It's hard to explain, but it made it feel more "real".
I'm really hoping they do add some character to the interface, as right now it feels more like an excel spreadsheet giving me missions...
Yes, I agree it's a personal thing. But isn't it strange to not encounter anyone at all in the game? Wouldn't it add to the atmosphere and immersion if we knew how people looked in the 34th century? I feel strangely separated from any events in the game, they are not engaging in the slightest without knowing who you interact with at all. The names in the GalNet news aren't real characters for me, they are just names. Having faces for at least important characters in the game would add to its realism, IMHO.
Adding NPCs will surely come together with player avatars down the road. I suppose we could walk around in our spaceships alone in 1st person view to start with, but as soon as boarding and walking around stations becomes available (expansions), we'll need this sort of functionality for multiplayer to work.
To me, this is doable and would be very enhancing And I would like to see it. As far as other faces on NPCs and bodies I would not want this to degrade the visual quality or introduce additional lag. My sense is that extensive character modeling if done in the client with cause more stress on lower to mid range PCs; if done server side, will likely grab bandwidth. I am interested in seeing how this is resolved or if it will be resolved in the "walking around mode."
BF