Yo!

We did a bit more work on NPCs today! Mostly in the way of adding dialogue. We want NPCs to have a really decent variety of things to say to the player depending on their race.

At the moment we’re aiming for about 40 dialogue options per race for standard villagers. So…a Glitch villager will have at least 40 different things to say to an Avian, 40 different things to say to an Apex, etc.

As far as AI progress goes, villagers will be more inclined to hang out outdoors during the day, and while they’re out there they’ll work the fields! We’ve also limited the amount of guard NPCs that will run after you when you’ve committed a crime, so you won’t have a hundred guards on your tail at once, humorous as that can be.

That’s all I’ll say for today! Goodnight guys. :)

Hi guys,

So for the most part work continued on NPCs today. The Glitch village is now entirely finished. Stephen has done a wonderful job populating it with farms, Inns, shops, wells, signs, etc

The NPCs got another brain boost. NPCs will now approach eachother and ‘silently chat’. Meaning you’ll see their lips move and youll see them emote to each other. They’re also aware of the time of day, so they’ll head out during the day, they tend to stay in at night and sleep. Their path finding has improved again, they have names and will sometimes call each other by name. Villagers will egg on the guards as they attack you, they’ll look for safety when attacked and react when they feel they’ve escaped. Villagers that see you attack another villager will call the guards.

The next step is getting NPC shops and quest givers working. These NPCs can also be used to produce travelers and wandering merchants.

Here’s a silly sped up gif:

Hi guys,

I’m finally back up to speed! My internet connection is all sorted out and I can finally get back into the swing of things.

So! We’ve continued to throw a whole bunch of work into NPCs. NPCs now know what ranges to use melee/ranged weapons at.

They navigate even better than.. well.. yesterday and have a bunch of additional behaviour.

We’re also working on making the NPCs match the area they come from. So previously the guard NPCs we showed off had generic guard armor.

Now Glitch guards look like this:

Rho and George continue to womp away on dungeons. George is busy finishing up a bunch of Hylotl content whilst Rho works on the Floran.

Kyren is working on some messy serialization problems that relate to how the players ship is saved.

Bartwe is tackling a small performance issue and is adding the ability to make NPCs shop keepers and quest givers.

Omni has added energy costs to the grappling hook, it now costs energy to wind it in and out.

Armagon is putting the finishing touches on the Glitch villages (roads, sign posts, farms, etc).

Progress is good!