Weather and NPCs

I was requested by AoC YouTube comment to add this suggestion:

NPCs behaviour and animation are different depending on the season.

For example, a farmhand standing outside their shack may shiver in the rain or snow, or wipe their brow in the heat. They may also be scripted to seek shelter such as sit under a tree , huddle by a fire or stand under something like a patio

Further to this discussion, I personally think that weather should be a lot slower to change (monthly) instead of one week. This is to fully enjoy the diversity of each weather pattern, and the solstice in Winter and Summer offering unique holiday celebrations and events.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Dygz

Definitely this would be nice!
I wish we could see them change into Seasonal outfits as well.

(breakfast, lunch and dinner might be too much programming, but...)

Azherae

This usually depends on how 'necessary' it is for 'convenience' to be able to find NPCs when you need them for something. In an MMO, people generally get frustrated when NPCs move around or become unavailable at certain times of day, right?

Realism is nice and all, and I can't say I wouldn't appreciate it, but this also isn't Minecraft. You can't just 'set the server to skip to morning whenever one player sleeps so that they can interact with whatever villagers they like.

Burnzey

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

Azherae

Burnzey wrote: »

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

I don't think it's hard to program. Games have had this sort of thing for a long time, and while I haven't personally implemented any realtime equivalents, that would just be a mask on top of any other system. It's usually a decision made because someone doesn't WANT it to be that way because of the complaints they get. On the upside, that means that if Intrepid is willing to do it and not worry about that too much, or even just 'have NPCs move and change shifts', you might get to see it.

The issue is almost always 'synchronization' or NPC persistence in some way, I'd be really surprised if the code was hard, especially because it's one of those 'interesting' things where when it spawns a bug, that acts as its own weird, slightly annoying, immersion.

Maybe the blacksmith got sick.

Burnzey

Azherae wrote: »

Maybe the blacksmith got sick.

Maybe blacksmith went for a swim before winter hit and got trapped under the ice. We might not have weapons, armour and horse shoes for a while, but he can watch in envy as we skate above him across the frozen lake.

Ice fishing, anyone?

Noaani

Burnzey wrote: »

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

The reason this works in Elder Scrolls games is because if the shop keeper you need to sell all the gear you have that has you over encumbered happens to be in bed when you get to town, you can literally just press a few buttons to wait 10 hours for him to be back at work.

The only way I can see a system like this working in an MMORPG is if NPC's all operate on shifts. At this point though, I don't see any real appeal to it.

I could see dialogue options and animations that are weather based.

AidanKD

I think I like the general idea of some changing behaviours! Not necessarily for everything and I don't agree with all of your base comment, but my agreements:

- It would be nice to have certain animals seeking more shelter in the winter, though given we have animals changing in the seasons, i'd like to think that means they are also adapting to the season, so it might not be as necessary.
- I think that while immersion-wise little micro-animation changes are cool to add, it would definitely be something that should be patched in much later over more essential changes.

I think a month is too long, just because of the 3 month wait to go back to that season - that's a long time! I am pretty set on 2 weeks now but we will see how it plays out and they will 100% be doing testing on durations.

Burnzey

Noaani wrote: »

Burnzey wrote: »

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

The only way I can see a system like this working in an MMORPG is if NPC's all operate on shifts. At this point though, I don't see any real appeal to it.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be NPCs with any real purpose, just random.

But then if you have certain NPCs acting about their life while others don't, then that would break immersion anyway.

Noaani

Burnzey wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Burnzey wrote: »

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

The only way I can see a system like this working in an MMORPG is if NPC's all operate on shifts. At this point though, I don't see any real appeal to it.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be NPCs with any real purpose, just random.

But then if you have certain NPCs acting about their life while others don't, then that would break immersion anyway.

The downside to this is that as the game launches, Verra is essentially unpopulated.

Why would these people even be there?

Caww

NPCs should be wearing different sets of clothing depending on the season or the weather (raining), not wearing extra warm clothing in the middle of winter will look just as silly as being fully dressed on the middle of summer. Static outfits will not add to the general impression of the weather actually being something that matters and not just a cosmetic, atmospheric effect.

Burnzey

Noaani wrote: »

Burnzey wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Burnzey wrote: »

Yes, true. To me I was more thinking of TES behaviours that add immersion, but it probably costs an arm and a leg to program.

Tbh I think just changing animations to reflect the weather would be a nice touch on its own.

The only way I can see a system like this working in an MMORPG is if NPC's all operate on shifts. At this point though, I don't see any real appeal to it.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be NPCs with any real purpose, just random.

But then if you have certain NPCs acting about their life while others don't, then that would break immersion anyway.

The downside to this is that as the game launches, Verra is essentially unpopulated.

Why would these people even be there?

I'm confused by this.. Why would they be gone altogether?

Dygz

When the game launches, there is a first wave of NPC adventurers from Sanctus with camps set up near the Divine Gateways.
But, I think the OP request is mostly for NPCs after they do appear (due to Node progression).

neuroguy

I think a longer (e.g. 1 month) season cycle is fine. It sounds like some resources may only be available (or only not available) in a biome/region of the world during some seasons but globally, everything is always available. This means that the longer you have to wait for your seasonal resource to return to your part of the world, the stronger the economic incentive to have trade routes and caravans. The length of the seasons will directly and strongly impact the importance of caravans for local economies, so if IS wants caravans to be important and a big PvP hub, this is one very impactful way to do it.

Now that being said, I hope beyond just seasons, continents will have different endemic resources to make pirating and naval caravans very important and impactful too. Having important/key coastal nodes with well defended routes is crucial, and the wind/ice would play important roles here too.

Child Item