Realistic NPC's in Shenmue 3

[colacube]

I've heard people say that Shenmue 3 won't feel unique, as the elements it was famous for (intricate open-world, mini games, QTE's), can be found in a bunch of titles now. I obviously disagree, but it got me thinking about the one element no one really copied, having a realistic community simulation. For instance, the Funny Bear Burger guy will wake up, go to his shack, roll up the shutter, do a days work, close up, sweep outside and then walk home. You can even watch his apartment light switch off as he goes to sleep. I absolutely love this attention to detail and, apart from Animal Crossing, haven't seen it in other modern games.

During the postmortem Yu Suzuki reminisced about accidentally losing all the dock workers who'd become stuck in the Tomato convenience store. They were programmed to visit at a certain time, but couldn't leave through the narrow, crowded entrance. I find this attempt to create a functioning community amazing and I hope the NPC's in Choubu receive the same treatment. It could be something truly unique in modern RPG's.

Do you think Suzuki will keep this community simulation aspect even on a limited budget?

[MiTT3NZ]

Defo. I'm quite certain that the overall population will be less than that of the first Shenmue, and definitely the second. Open world games at the moment tend to focus on large scales, which means numerous repeated assets and often lifeless worlds (see: LA Noire)

Shenmue III will be a much more closed, intimate setting. It's not set in a city or a town, it's three villages and possibly three or four areas with travellers. I've no doubt in my mind that it will again be a detail-heavy game. Whether they can do it in the set timeframe though is another matter altogether.

[Bellator]

Great topic.

Strange thing is we saw none of that crazy attention to detail in shenmue II. The areas were huge and full of people but it seems that people were just hoping around without actual purpose or objective.

I have often wondered if shenmue III will be more of an open world experience like Shenmue I or more "GAME full of action" like Shenmue II.

Either way it's going to be awesome.

[JaySw34]

IMO this was one of the original Shenmue's most ground breaking features. And we never really saw it again from any game. (Besides Animal Crossing, but that was really the main focus of that game). It really upped the immersion of Shenmue I

[Anonymous81]

To be fair, games like Bethesda's TES series do have NPCs that all have full work, sleep, and leisure schedules. It was one of the most touted features beginning with Oblivion, and continuing in Skyrim.

The difference - and in my opinion advantage - to Shenmue's implementation of this (apart from being the first game to really innovate it) is the smaller, more closed community allows those schedules and behaviors to 1) feel more important, and 2) actually get noticed by the player.

Sometimes in modern sandbox games, there's almost TOO much freedom to really stop and appreciate the more subtle stuff that's going on. But with Shenmue, everything from the camera's closeness to Ryo, to the methodical pace, to the smaller scale of the world all forces those things into the player's attention front and center. And as a result, they feel so much more immersive and REAL to me.

In sandboxes, the journey and the experience is about massive visual vistas and freedom to roam and create your own personal story. In Shenmue, the the journey is Ryo's, and the experience is about intimate, granular minutia and everyday life details. It's almost more like a life sim than an open world game.

That was by far what I loved most about Shenmue.

Sidenote: What was the first game to feature dynamic shadows that change with time of day? Because Shenmue 2 did a fantastic job with that and I remember thinking at the time that it was amazing. Did it innovate that too? Or at least beat others to it?

[Yokosuka]

@Anonymous81 :
You described it so well, i'm tired of those who are saying Shenmue concept is outdated just because open world is no longer a new thing. The medias can give as many negative critics they want, they have to explain clear what makes the Shenmue open world so special or they're pathetic reviewers.

[Miles Prower]

To be fair, games like Bethesda's TES series do have NPCs that all have full work, sleep, and leisure schedules. It was one of the most touted features beginning with Oblivion, and continuing in Skyrim.

The difference - and in my opinion advantage - to Shenmue's implementation of this (apart from being the first game to really innovate it) is the smaller, more closed community allows those schedules and behaviors to 1) feel more important, and 2) actually get noticed by the player.

Sometimes in modern sandbox games, there's almost TOO much freedom to really stop and appreciate the more subtle stuff that's going on. But with Shenmue, everything from the camera's closeness to Ryo, to the methodical pace, to the smaller scale of the world all forces those things into the player's attention front and center. And as a result, they feel so much more immersive and REAL to me.

In sandboxes, the journey and the experience is about massive visual vistas and freedom to roam and create your own personal story. In Shenmue, the the journey is Ryo's, and the experience is about intimate, granular minutia and everyday life details. It's almost more like a life sim than an open world game.

That was by far what I loved most about Shenmue.

Sidenote: What was the first game to feature dynamic shadows that change with time of day? Because Shenmue 2 did a fantastic job with that and I remember thinking at the time that it was amazing. Did it innovate that too? Or at least beat others to it?

You've basically summed it up perfectly An 'open' world that still feels intimate and small. Most open-world/sandbox games just feel a bit soulless and anonymous, to be honest. As said thoigh it is a pity that some of the finer details were lost in S2, to the point that in my most recent playthrough I have been surprised when some shops have actually closed at night-time. I guess some cutting back was necessary because the world is so much bigger than S1's, but it's still a shame. Hopefully we'll see a bit of this return in S3, seeing as it will be set in villages, hopefully allowing for more attention to be given to the little details

[colacube]

Sometimes in modern sandbox games, there's almost TOO much freedom to really stop and appreciate the more subtle stuff that's going on. But with Shenmue, everything from the camera's closeness to Ryo, to the methodical pace, to the smaller scale of the world all forces those things into the player's attention front and center. And as a result, they feel so much more immersive and REAL to me.

I think you're absolutely right. Dobuita is a reasonably small area, so we notice the routines much more. My dream would be Choubu having around 40+ NPC's who all have actual addresses they return to each day. And maybe a local bar with the same regulars each evening.

I didn't realise Oblivion and Skyrim had a similar deal, but I just looked up videos and saw people have made mods to improve NPC behaviour, so it's obviously something people desire.

[Yokosuka]

I think you're absolutely right. Dobuita is a reasonably small area, so we notice the routines much more. My dream would be Choubu having around 40+ NPC's who all have actual addresses they return to each day. And maybe a local bar with the same regulars each evening.

I didn't realise Oblivion and Skyrim had a similar deal, but I just looked up videos and saw people have made mods to improve NPC behaviour, so it's obviously something people desire.

According Shenhua, Bailu Village will have 50 NPCs.

[shredingskin]

I loved the use on NPCs in a game called Culpa Innata, they were pretty lifelike. They did not have "behavior" because it was a graphic adventure, but you could talk to them about a lot of things and had limited interaction with them and only some questions could advance in the story, it made just talking around very dynamic and it could work pretty good for a game like Shenmue. Really cool game, some of the questions you could ask were pretty random, and you could call your friend to have a chat about random things at the end of the day, it made the game get pretty immersive and fleshed out a lot of the characters.

[shenmue852]

I've heard people say that Shenmue 3 won't feel unique, as the elements it was famous for (intricate open-world, mini games, QTE's), can be found in a bunch of titles now. I obviously disagree, but it got me thinking about the one element no one really copied, having a realistic community simulation. For instance, the Funny Bear Burger guy will wake up, go to his shack, roll up the shutter, do a days work, close up, sweep outside and then walk home. You can even watch his apartment light switch off as he goes to sleep. I absolutely love this attention to detail and, apart from Animal Crossing, haven't seen it in other modern games.

During the postmortem Yu Suzuki reminisced about accidentally losing all the dock workers who'd become stuck in the Tomato convenience store. They were programmed to visit at a certain time, but couldn't leave through the narrow, crowded entrance. I find this attempt to create a functioning community amazing and I hope the NPC's in Choubu receive the same treatment. It could be something truly unique in modern RPG's.

Do you think Suzuki will keep this community simulation aspect even on a limited budget?

To be fair, this had been done on old 2D PC games before, and has been done in Skyrim, but Shenmue handled it a lot more artfully than any other game, I think.

Does Shenmue II do the schedule thing to the same extent? Can you follow that blind violin guy to his apartment and see him go in before the game sends you to meet him?

And I think we'll be pleasantly surprised, I expect all the NPC's to have at least as much interaction and detail as the business owners in Yokosuka, and in many cases more meaningful interaction that affects your relationship to them.

[MiTT3NZ]

I think it may have been unique to the first game. It was supposed to feel like home, like you were a part of that community and that you could get to know everyone. Shenmue II was very much about being in a foreign land, with a heavy emphasis on the main characters and the atmosphere focussing on the "hustle and bustle" of Hong Kong.

[shenmue852]

I've heard people say that Shenmue 3 won't feel unique, as the elements it was famous for (intricate open-world, mini games, QTE's), can be found in a bunch of titles now. I obviously disagree, but it got me thinking about the one element no one really copied, having a realistic community simulation. For instance, the Funny Bear Burger guy will wake up, go to his shack, roll up the shutter, do a days work, close up, sweep outside and then walk home. You can even watch his apartment light switch off as he goes to sleep. I absolutely love this attention to detail and, apart from Animal Crossing, haven't seen it in other modern games.

During the postmortem Yu Suzuki reminisced about accidentally losing all the dock workers who'd become stuck in the Tomato convenience store. They were programmed to visit at a certain time, but couldn't leave through the narrow, crowded entrance. I find this attempt to create a functioning community amazing and I hope the NPC's in Choubu receive the same treatment. It could be something truly unique in modern RPG's.

Do you think Suzuki will keep this community simulation aspect even on a limited budget?

More than being able to keep it, he'll be able to expand it from what it was.

I think it may have been unique to the first game. It was supposed to feel like home, like you were a part of that community and that you could get to know everyone. Shenmue II was very much about being in a foreign land, with a heavy emphasis on the main characters and the atmosphere focussing on the "hustle and bustle" of Hong Kong.

I think it's coming back in Shenmue III, since Baisha and Bailu are small villages you'll get to know the NPC's more. The story details already suggest that, since a whole village is going to siege against the ChiYouMen, so it's likely you'll get to know at least some of the villagers pretty well. Also talking to people would be one of the main things to do when exploring a village, unlike a city.

[colacube]

I was doing some research into NPC community simulators and apparently there's an upcoming game called 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance' that is attempting to do some incredible things. Here's a very interesting video about the game (I've jumped to the relevant section):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... bs7g#t=210

And here's a paper on the process behind it:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... ent=safari

Suzuki should hire these guys ASAP!

EDIT. I just found out this game was on Kickstarter also and raised £1.1M ($1.7M) and the game world seems very large. They've continued to fund-raise on their website.

[shenmue852]

Great topic.

Strange thing is we saw none of that crazy attention to detail in shenmue II. The areas were huge and full of people but it seems that people were just hoping around without actual purpose or objective.

I have often wondered if shenmue III will be more of an open world experience like Shenmue I or more "GAME full of action" like Shenmue II.

Either way it's going to be awesome.

i wouldn't say "none". and the characters have schedules.

and some characters had more variable schedules- Joy can be found in different areas compared to how Nozomi and Tom were in the same place most of the time in Shenmue I. And at one point Fangmei goes to meet Eileen (who also has her own schedule)

You do notice many people that don't have job schedules, they do have home schedules though. Shenmue I also had people that didn't have jobs. Some only walked around and went home, some only went to work and home and some did all 3 (work, home, specific location for other purpose)

Almost every other NPC has a schedule as well, except the street fighters. It's just that they lived in apartments and just walked home or to a restaurant and didn't look distinctively recognizable like the shopowners in S1.

Also, Deilin chills at the harbor after work. Named characters have more detailed schedules, but most NPC's follow at least a basic work/home schedule. I think Cool Z/Larry exist as NPC's too, but all they do is hang out- at one point I think Cool Z is watching a street fight in Beverly Hills, so for a certain part of the game he goes there- this is similar to S1 gangsters too though.