quote:Original post by f8k8
Just wondering if anyone''s got ideas for this. In films, the viewer can feel attached to someone who isn''t the main character, say, the main character''s girlfriend. To do this, you still need to see a lot of them in the film.

This isn''t always the case. The girlfriend could be in a position to know or to have something important to the main character which is exposited (shown, said or done) early in the film. This is what used to be called the MacGuffin (the gun shown going into the drawer early in the film is later accessed to shoot the bad guy). In fact, the more hidden and unrevealed the important exposition is, the more anticipation the audience will feel trying to guess when they will see it a second time. So, the condition of seeing them a lot is not the case. People will remember. If you feel they need to see it a lot, either you have assumed a short attention span audience or, what you have chosen to underrepresent the importance of the item or relationship to the viewer in in scene demonstration in character in action.

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The thing is, in games, I don''t think it''s very practical to keep having to go see someone or keep meeting them, so the player will never feel much for them. Any ideas on how you could make the player more attached to NPCs in a game?

It''s a matter of technique. You can use a flashback: Mel Gibson in Braveheart sees his dead wife a few times at key moments in development of plot points or act switches or turnarounds as they are generically called.

The same technique was used just as effectively with the scarf that tied Mel and his dead wife together at her wedding, which Mel finds at her death site, has in his hand as he is tortured near the end, is in the possession of Robert the Bruce as he changes his mind and leads the scots to victory. This is an instance of object of possession representing all the data relative to the person it originates from. You remeber everything about the dead wife when mel handles the cloth, subconsciously or not, and Robert the Bruce remembers everthing Braveheart was as he handles it later.

There are ways. Tricks of the trade you have to watch for in use. I read an article on a sid meier interview some years back where he said something like, ''the really important things in games are the things you miss until the things the designer wanted you to see become less noticable through repetition, and the real design subtleties come out as more revealed." This is why, even as an accomplished writer, I still watch my favorite movies dozens of times, and game designers probably play games dozens of times also, to find things they did not see executed before.

Addy

who needs voice acting to convey mourning? When shadow died in ff3 (us) i cried. He was my favourite character. (i was young at the time give me a break). Though when i found out i could save him i was overjoyed!
Have you ever seen the videogames directors cut animation for Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom? When mario dies there is a beautifully done cut scene that requires no fancy pre rendering, no voice overs, or anything fancy besides some nifty flash effects and celine dion midi''d over top of it. That scene brings a tear to my eye every time I see it.
You don''t need voices, facial expressions, music or anything really to convey any kind of emotion. Body language and cinamatography is good enough to convey just about anything. One of pixar animation''s earlier short film, with the baby lamp, the mama lamp, and the little ball, prooves this point effectively. You can tell that the little lamp is sad that its ball is gone. You can tell that it is happy when the ball comes back. There is no way to know this other than how the lamp moves. Its a great short film to study. Its part of their legacy as well, you''ll see the lamp and ball in their logo in every movie they do now a days. Emotional reactions can be triggered with minimal resources as long as you know what you''re doing, quite easily.

All this talk of emotions in NPC reminds me of an Ikea commercial. Basiclly it starts off with a girl taking an old lamp out of her house and leaving it on curb, then putting a new lamp in its place. The Commercial then continues showing the lamp out in the cold it starts raining and the girl turns on the new lamp. I honestly felt sad for the little lamp. Then this swedish guy appears and says "You feel sorry for this lamp? It is just a lamp the new one is much better." It was a very effective commercial.

Now as far as dog meat the dog from fallout goes. It doesn''t matter that he was next to useless by mid game. I still kept him with me, he was my favorite companion. In fact I reloaded almost everytime he died.

Back to the topic at hand.

I think the key to making people care about NPCs is not with a system of bonuses. But rather by fleshing them out make the npcs real. Give them past and personalites that are evident througout the game. What about if every time you entered a town your party would split up and do there own thing? You could meet them in town and interact with them. This would allow the player to interact with the NPC on a more involved level and could be used to add subplots to the game.

For instance one of your NPCs could have be a drug addict, however you don''t know this at first. You only discover this after series of optional town interactions. There could be the option to help this npc and get them off drugs or if you don''t then there could be a moment later in the game where the NPC is forced to betray the player.

Like wise it would also be possible to include a bonus system with that system I just mentioned. With the addition of bonuses for bonding with NPCs.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document