The Lives of Others: How NPCs Can Increase Player Empathy
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- čas přidán 8. 03. 2018
- In this 2016 GDC talk, Polyhedron Productions' CJ Kershner presents narrative case studies from around the industry, including examples from the speaker's own work on Homefront, Far Cry 4, and the recently released Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and suggests best practices for writers and designers looking to maximize the narrative value of non-playable characters.
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20:30 this man was super nervous and then his fucking powerpoint notes wouldn't work. He wanted to read a quote, but couldn't. Instead, he took a deep breath and attempted to summarize it from memory. And he nailed that shit. I don't even know what the quote was, but props to this dude for riffing it, and succeeding. He not only got the point across, but also did it quite eloquently. I dread these "freezing up" moments of panic when something goes wrong in my presentation as well, and I have never handled anything as smoothly as he did here.
This was a fantastic talk! Thank you for sharing your insight with us!
This is kinda a sad watch considering how they botched all these principles in Far Cry 5... I really want someone to write a book on FC5 one day and tell us what happened there.
A great talk either way :)
And six and 7 lol
I love , absolutely love the idea of world simulation. We have a ton of survival games where systems are really realistic but there are no people other than players, and only animal npc's, but no towns and farms and such where people live and do stuff. A simulated world without quests would be amazing.
Great talk, and a great presentation job for a first timer!
Awesome awesome awesome!!! I love when designers make their NPCS much more fully fleshed out! Undertale does a pretty good job of making you feel guilt and making you empathize or sympathize with your enemies.
"Bleh you mentioned Undertale"
[ ] Comfort him.
[♥] Do not.
>:)
Undertale is amazing! The community may suck, but that shouldn't effect the actual experience
A polar bear indeed. Nice talk!
This talk adapts well to games that allow for various ways to complete a goal gameplay and level design wise. I'm thinking of stealth games mostly ( Hitman, Thief, ..) but should this apply to any FPS, then the game should also provide at least some ways to : traverse the level without being seen, create diversions, hide from the NPC's, put down NPC's without killing them ( gas, knock down, stun,...) or at least dialogue to negotiate passage which would tie well with overheard mono/dialogues you could hear ( like that example of an NPC that would say something about his girlfriend ).
Deux Ex : HR would be a good example to start with as it's flexible gameplay wise (you get your guns, you get your alternate routes, yo get your dialogues and skill checks,...).
I like the irony of how the take outs basically sum up on the importance on "humanize" the NPCS and how the whole talk is ways to reduce work and mass produce NPCS. I think this talk would be more interesting done by a designer with more technical knowledge on the mechanics used and a different title or this guy talking more on the writing part and less on the mechanics.
NPCs or side-characters with fully fleshed-out characters is what's been making games these days feel that much more alive by the installment. I've seen it most in indie titles - Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club! -, but if great shows and movies and stories have already learnt how to do this (to make compelling characters that engage us and get us to think about the story and our actions/emotions on a personal level), then I believe the whole industry should be more than capable of learning how to do this better and better with time.
Thank you for this talk. It helps highlight some key concepts that I've noticed already and have planned for in my own work, but will definitely help a lot of people build great stories. It's also taught me a couple of things I hadn't yet thought of, and throughout has inspired me to write down some good pointers for said future work. Much appreciated!
I used to write idle filler until I took an arrow to the knee.
Watching this after playing The Last of Us part 2 is a different experience.
What changed?
This was such an amazing talk! Great takeaways here. What I don't understand why so many speakers have technical difficulties with their presentation, come on guys, you knew you were going to give this talk in advance. I always test my presentation file on a different computer and on the day I open my file on the computer I'm gonna use later on and I like to run through all the slides to foresee any issue. It's better to google "how to advance the note section in Power Point" beforehand rather than asking your audience for help.
Since when is Michael Stuhlbarg making games?
I found a NPC I like but they got Alex.
So basically, Majora's Mask ?
Really wish he wouldn't bring up homefront, it makes him less credible...
I could be the first one to down vote this... But I won't. You know why? You did a good job Mr. One Take wonder :) Nice talk.
I would say don't be like Bethesda and have an NPC say a line just because you walked past it. There's a reason players hate Nazeem and the arrow in the knee is a joke created from annoyance. Walking by and hearing a comment makes the repeated lines far more obvious. If an NPC is leaning against something minding his or her own business they should react like a real person to you if you walked by, either a simple hello or silence. Guards shouldn't say anything at all unless the player needs to be warned about bad behavior, the guards should see hundreds of people walk by all week long, you should just be another face they should forget in the next 30 seconds once you are out of their sight... you are moving scenery to them not a friend.
Another thing that brings NPC's to life is giving them a home and a life. If you have a city say the size of Novigrad in Witcher 3 then give the crowd NPC's a home, those homes do not need to be available to the player but the crowd NPC can be seen entering and exiting it. Early morning an NPC steps out of his home as you run by and goes to the market and sandboxes there for a few hours, player can see him or her there, later the NPC maybe is sitting on a stool outside his his/her house, go by later and he/she is talking to the neighbor. And in the evening you might see them go inside. The more this goes on the more noticed it will be by the player, "hey this nameless NPC has a home and this door I cannot interact with has people that live inside it" is far better than enter a shop in the morning while nobody was out and about then exit to find the market full of people but not enough houses for them all and you never see anyone go in or out of the houses you cannot get into.
Just a quick note on the introduction: those who see people in the real world as NPCs are called psychopaths.
That's how life works, though. NPC = Non-Player Character. You can't control others in the most literal sense. Hypnosis is something entirely different, but you are not everyone else or vice-versa. Of course, the guilt and punishment for killing an NPC is much different from a game to IRL. And then there's laws of physics and all the other stuff. But essentially, life is a game, how you chose to play it is your choice.
That reminds me of the talk by David Foster Wallace called "this is water".