I really wanted to enjoy Sacred (http://www.sacred-game.com/) the RPG from Ascaron – all those big swords, chain-mail bikinis and Orcs smelling of sweat. Sadly after many hours of play I realised that the game design wasn’t going to let me. Specifically the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) which rendered the game’s non-player characters (NPCs) more artificial than intelligent. Imagine if you will the scene….
My brave Wood Elf is wandering the countryside in search of the sort of treasures one always finds in shrubs or behind small boulders, when I see a woman standing around by some rocks. I wander closer, checking the nearby shrubbery for gold or jewels (as you do). The woman does nothing. I check to see if I am wearing my cloak of invisibility – I’m not – and then wander a bit closer “Hmmmm another bag of gold just laying behind a rock”. The woman does nothing. I’m sure that her view isn’t obscured (the shrubs and rocks are all very small) and she doesn’t appear to be reading the latest Swords r Us catalogue, so wander closer still. She does nothing. Finally I wander within just a few pixels of her and she suddenly bursts into “life”, pleading with me to save her child who has been kidnapped and taking into a nearby cave.
It wasn’t the first example of an unrealistic NPC in the game but it was the worst so far. To think that a distraught mother would stand around idly, while a nearby hero (clearly visible to her) rummages in the undergrowth isn’t even close to believable and it destroyed any suspension of disbelief I had. That’s no mean feat by the way. Having played games since the ZX Spectrum era, a flickering, badly animated blob is an acceptable representation of a human being for me. Maybe it is phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley), with better and better looking characters seeming to be even less realistic as a result of their poor AI. Whatever the reason I can’t see many non-gamers being converted to playing games when they have such utterly unbelievable characters.
Is this really so uncommon? I’m surprised that such an oft-employed RPG convention (the “quest dispenser” NPC) would impact on your ability to enjoy the game so much. Compare this to Fable 2, where NPCs will follow and chase after you like sheep, annoying the hell out of you and even blocking you inside doorways – implementing more dynamic NPCs is not without its drawbacks and difficulties.
All games employ some kind of abstraction here and there and we have to accept this – the NPC exists only to facilitate other gameplay. Sure, little details such as this can improve a game, but I really see this as polish rather than the “meat”.
I can forgive this in a game, especially when it occurs in practically all other games of the same genre.
In fact, I believe the uncanny valley problem might apply even more to an NPC who walks around and chases after you – I think it applies to semi-realistic behaviour as well as appearance. I can accept an NPC who stays rooted to the same spot, but once they start walking around I will begin to notice the quirks of their AI as they get stuck, walk into me or do other inane things.