Hmm, I thought their main focus was realism.
Honestly I donât know why we even see their name by hovering over them. If theyâre not a quest NPC it doesnât even matter what theyâre named? And Warhorse as always, please make it optional ^^
I was wondering about something:
Why donât we have generic descriptions at first before we get to know the person a bit better? First youâll get descriptions like man, woman, boy, girl and the like. Once you observe a person you might get a better idea of who they are like peasant, blacksmith, trader and so on. If not sure what the person does for living, you simply ask them. They might or might not respond to you or they might even lie to you.
Now this would be a simple system, yet I would like to go further: If I see someone obviously stealing, can I call him out on thievery and have him marked as thief? What if I think that some person is a woman but is actually a man (happens specifically with old people with long hair)? Also wouldnât the clothing system make me think that some person is for example a noble but then I see the face and know, that itâs just some beggar, who stole the clothes of someone else without anyone taking notice of that? Or maybe vice versa: someone wearing dirty clothes might actually be a noble who tries to hide from someone or wants to follow, maybe kill someone?
While this would be nice to have for the player, the NPCs should have the same recognition system. That means if people see the playable character from distance they judge him or her by the clothes. Still face recognition might be a unique indicator so you basically canât fool the people so easily. I would love to have such system, as it would make sneaking into castles or certain social groups kind of difficult if the playable character is known by these people. Also lying to people could make up some interesting situations. Anyone remember the following scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzgtEV30Ec8&t=3h40m54s
Would be nice to take it a step further.
2 Likes
why would you need descriptions like man, woman, boy, shouldnât be readily apparent just by looking at them? i donât think there were any transgendered people in the middle ages.
A diary you saying ⌠peasant who can write and read, mmmkay, seems legit âŚ
I would say you shouldnât see any names hovering above characters in the game.
Like some of you already suggested the best idea (imo)
would be to first ask a NPC their name,
then let it appear in the corner of the screen or wherever your talkoptions will be placed.
The problem in a RPG always is:
what are my skills as the player and what are my characters skills.
Should i be able to recognize NPC as a player or is my character good enough in remembering persons.
Thats why i say the first time ->no name at all (neither my char nor I do know the NPC)
and from then on -> the name will be shown (because my char can remember names)
Hmm, but as some have said, you must know the people that live in the same village as you.
Also, as for remembering peoples names, their is a line between realism and a simulation in this game, I donât think the line is that close to simulationâŚ
Yeah, youâre right.
The char should know some names already, like his villages inhabitants and the kings name.
And the more i think about it he doesnât even need to get to know any of the names.
Because if he recieves a quest from a person, this person sure has a profession.
Why should i remember the persons name but just call him by his profession.
I bet people will call you ingame like " Hey Blacksmith! I need you over here!"
So i think itâs completely okay if all the guards are simply "guard of xxx"
and most quest givers are âwaiterâ âshoemakerâ âtraderâ until you ask them for their name or they give it to you on their own.
2 Likes
Well, the player character Henry is from the area, so I guess he could know some of the people. But all of them? It could still be fun trying to figure out which of the two blacksmiths in town is Peter, and which is Peter. 
By the way: Who says that guards need to be infinitely generated? Bethesda Softworks? Or Lionhead Studios? In the German Gothic and Gothic II games done by Piranha Bytes (in 2001 and 2002 respectively), once you killed a guard, it remained that way. No other guard would appear to replace him. From where all the manpower?
Mercenary? Recruitment? If it is a stranger, he may have interesting information from its previous location âŚAn envious neighbor who suddenly has power âŚ?
If you recruit from the villagers, then there should be less villagers.
True, but there are in every town tramp or people with whom you can do nothing - as a guard there will be enough 
Itâs a design decision driven by logic and necessity.
Gothic was a closed system. The gameworld was a prison colony with a magical barrier all around no one could leave and only some could enter under very limiting conditions (convicts). Also the world was very static and the guards were all situated in large hubs separated from the âdangerous wildernessâ in between and from one another. The only danger to the world was the player. So it was logical that it behaved that way. Gothic 2 was the same. It was a tiny island with no contact with the mainland⌠at the time.
BTW this is something Piranha Bytes struggled with during development of Gothic 3. They wanted to create a dynamic world where NPC travel the roads and animals and NPC hunt one another. However it lead to situations where they were unable to control the system and it very often ended up with villages tidied up by wandering monsters. They scrapped the whole system and got back to the static world with limited or not existent respawn (I am not sure about this one). The very idea of dynamic world opposed their goal of maximal if not total persistence. They chose the latter.
The map of KC: D is a tiny but not separated part a of a big kingdom. The borders we create are non-existent in the real world counterpart and the in-game world behaves as such. You canât leave but there are very vital contacts to the âoutter worldâ including visitors, travellers, caravans⌠even armies of a sort. As such the gameworld should behave as a normal part of civilized world - it should be able slowly recover from any harm. On the other hand it should not react to one-time and enduring threats the same way (here I point to our crime system). Additionally our world is highly dynamic and as such there are many threats not only to the player but also to all the NPC. I admit that there is no perfect and 100% accurate solution to this and our solution might feel a bit artificial. But I believe that multi-state dynamic recoverable systems are much better in the case of our game than finite resources static systems considering the whole context.
6 Likes
That sounds wonderful. So youâre saying is something happens to the town baker, he will be replaced by a new baker at some point⌠This is good, but would the new one have the same lines as the old? I doubt you could prepare a tone of altered lines in case of an NPC replacement, even so, itâs better then the world going without a baker forever, like some games⌠(skyrim!) ಠ_ŕ˛
I wonât say anything more 
2 Likes
Okay then⌠(಼ďšŕ˛Ľ)
ââGothicâ was a closed system. The game world was a prison colonyâŚâ
Hmm, yes, I was expecting an answer along those lines, that the game world was a prison colony/an isolated island â thus with limited resources and manpower.
âAlso the world was very staticâŚâ
Also true. But it had Chapters. At least in the first two games.
ââŚand the guards were all situated in large hubs separated from the âdangerous wildernessââŚâ
Yes. But there were no loading screens / transitions in-between!
âHowever it led to situations where they were unable to control the system and it very often ended up with villages tidied up by wandering monsters.â
Or just by a couple of wild boars. (Insider joke.)
âThe map of âKC: Dâ is a tiny but not separated part of a big kingdom. [âŚ] As such the game world should behave as a normal part of a civilized world â it should be able to slowly recover from any harm.â
Keyword: slowly â âto slowly recover from any harm.â (Maybe the neighboring cities cannot spare any fighting men at the momentâŚ?)
Anyway, thanks for the clarification!
I really hope you can pull this of. This is the game world people wished to have for a long time.
From what I seen about your AI you have really good start and you have people who are capable of creating recovering system. Although to create such system in believable way is still a challenge.
I am looking forward to emergent gameplay that will certainly be a result of such system.
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âI admit that there is no perfect and 100% accurate solution to this and our solution might feel a bit artificial.â
"New media are new languages, their grammar and syntax yet unknown." âMarshall McLuhan (1911â1980)