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Anatomy of an NPC
stayontarget
Member RarePosts: 6,519
http://www.tera-online.com/node/424
Anatomy of an NPC
11/9/2010 11:24am by David Noonan
One of the things we writers do is breathe life into NPCs. TERA literally has a cast of thousands. So how do we make them all different?
It’s a balancing act. We want to introduce enough differentiation to ensure that you don’t get a feeling of sameness when you interact with NPCs in TERA. But we also don’t want to hijack the game with longwinded characters and unduly elaborate backstories. (There’s nothing wrong with elaborate backstories—when they drive gameplay and motivate characters. Fundamentally, we want you to play the game, though.)
Here are some techniques we use when we’re sitting around the whiteboard at the office. I wouldn’t develop characters for a novel this way, but these exercises give us a good depth for an MMO: not too shallow, not too deep. When we need a character with even more depth, the following exercises are still a good starting point.
Voicing: One of the first things we did when we started working on TERA was come up with a distinctive "voice" for each race. In TERA, poporis talk a certain way, high elves speak a different way, and neither sounds much like a castanic. The differences are often subtle; the racial dialects shouldn’t be so heavy that reading becomes a chore. After a few hours playing TERA, you should get an instinctive sense of how a baraka sounds, though—and you’ll probably be able to say "that guy’s a baraka" from the voice alone.
Diamonds: We often come up with lists of traits for a character. Perhaps we say that Centurion Karlerren is thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. We write those four traits up on the whiteboard in a diamond pattern, and that cluster of personality traits becomes his "diamond."
Whenever Karlerren speaks, his dialogue emphasizes one or more of the traits in his diamond. Incorporating all four into just a few lines of dialogue can seem forced, but one or two is a straightforward task for our writers.
When we brainstorm new characters, we come up with personality traits from thin air. But we don’t come up with traits only from thin air. We also have diamonds for different races and common occupations. If we’re developing a popori, for example, we’ll take two or three of the traits from the popori diamond (mischievous, otherworldly, shameless, and opportunistic, in case you were curious). Because we mix it up and steal different traits from the popori diamond each time, you get a sense that "this guy acts like a popori" rather than "this guy acts like every popori."
FLBWs: This acronym stands for "fear, limitation, block, or wound." But it’s more fun if you pronounce it "fluh-BYEW." When we’re constructing a character arc for one of our NPCs, we ask ourselves "What's the FLBW?" Once we have an answer to that question, we can see the trajectory of the character arc. If we know that an NPC—maybe one stationed atop a high ledge—has a fear of heights, then we see how the character arc will start. We still need to figure out how the player gets involved, of course, and how it all ends. Maybe the player helps the NPC overcome the fear of heights. Perhaps the player has to rescue the NPC from a precipice somewhere. Maybe the arc ends tragically with the NPC falling off a cliff.
Come to think of it, the latter choice is about the most literal end to a "character arc" I can think of: Splat!
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Comments
Do people even read NPC dialogue anymore?
Standard player to NPC interaction goes something like this:
Talk to NPC with quest icon
click. click, click, click, click
Ok he wants me to kill 10 living trees for their vines
*Kills 10 mobs and runs back to NPC
click click click click click
Ok quest helper says talk to some other nearby NPC
*runs to that NPC
click click click click
*Goes back to other NPC
click click click click
Quest complete *gains XP
The average player couldn't care less about the storeline whether or not they helped the NPC get over some fear or ended up killing them. I think quanitity over quality is what the genre is all about these days.
Novusod, you and most others may not read anymore. I however like to read the NPC dialog. I also like it when key clue to the current (or future) puzzle is in that dialog. I will be honest, sometimes it is fun to respond to some ADD aflicteds noobs question of, "What (How) do I do this quest?" with, "Did you read the quest text?" At about that point they go into a meltdown and spew large volume of their fury into chat. All of which I usually find very funny and then I ignore them for about an hour.
I believe that many other also like the histories, stories and back story that the RPG portion of the game brings to that game. These make the games different, bring imagination into play and are entertaining.
If all I wanted out of an MMO was to kill things I would not play an MMORPG, I would find a good MMOFPS and kill (or be killed) to my hearts content. Yes, there are several very good FPSs out there and yes, I have died in many of them.
The last and most important point; If these story-line elements are in the game we can both play and enjoy the game. It truely comes down to this, "If you don't want to read the quest text, don't do it! Click past them and continue on your merry way." With them in game the devs/publishers get two different groups to play, and possible pay them for their game.
NPC dialogue is important for roleplayers and most importantly does not HARM those who don't read it. And yes there are people who read NPC dialogues. NPC dialogues can't be a bad thing but you certainly are trying too much to make it one. Why is there always one person like him in all god damn threads?
This is win. If you are paying money to play a MMO and you don't read the dialogue then you just wasted your money. I really doubt the average gamer playing Tera will skip over txt ulwess this is his second play thru. The quest make up a majority of what you are doing why skip over them?
It all comes down to how good the writers are......
....I just found this story on massively : http://www.massively.com/2010/11/11/massivelys-exclusive-tera-lore-brothers/
Quote:
As the war against the argons grinds on, more and more young amani who were employed in support positions are being asked to commit to active military service. As the great foundry labors to turn out weapons and armor for a growing force, hastily-assembled training yards are not an uncommon sight in the shadow of the amani capital city of Kaiator. Neither are scenes like the one played out below between a new recruit and his veteran instructor.
When I saw the light of Balder's Eye glinting off the battle-scarred centurion's iron tusks, I was pretty sure my first day as a lancer might also be my last. He shook his head as I approached. "The last time I saw you, Nariiz," he drawled, "your face did not bear the tattoos of an eldest son."
The rest of the story can be found @ link above.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...