Hey everyone!
We are close to the release of our first major update since we launched to Early Access at the end of April. We're excited to share details on what to expect in the update!
Before we dive into features, lets talk a little about our goals.
NPCs in games are too unrealistic...NPCs in a lot of games, including Archmage Rises, feel flat and it breaks immersion. Real people have goals, responsibilities, habits, emotions, reactions, likes, dislikes, opinions, etc, all of which are contextually aware of their surroundings.
Our goal in this first major update is to lay a foundation in creating NPCs that are each unique, individual, and special in their own ways. You can connect and interact with the NPCs in a way that builds a unique emotional attachment to each NPC that matters as you share in their successes, joys, failures, and losses, driving your own behaviour as you impact each of their lives.
[h2]New in Update 1: Townsfolk[/h2]
[h3]NPC Schedules[/h3]
The first major change coming to Update 1: Townsfolk is that NPCs are no longer static. In games we often see NPCs in the same places doing the same things.
After the update, NPCs in Archmage Rises will have their own schedules. They have places to go and things to do based on their own personal goals and responsibilities! They might have a job to get to, maybe run out to the market to do a little shopping during their lunch break, stop by the armorer to say a quick hi to their friend, return to work. After work, you might find them hanging out and having a bite at the inn.
We aren't just talking about daily or weekly static scripted schedules either. The tech allows each NPC schedule to change based on season, economy, town events & festivals. They can take trips out of town, flee from a town attack, etc.
At first the schedules will be coarse and general, but over time as we get more familiar with it and our tooling gets better, get more specific and detailed.
[h3]NPCs have Strong Feelings[/h3]
In this update, NPCs will have likes and dislikes about each other based on traits. This will later affect how you might relate to NPCs or how you make your decisions in interacting with them.
[h3]NPCs Can Express Emotions[/h3]
I didn't think it would be practical to get emotions into our procedurally generated portraits, but Rubi found a way! So now NPCs can express their emotions visually. If you are talking about something they like, their portrait can now express happiness. Conversely, if you anger them or talk about something they feel negatively toward, you'll see that on their face.
[h3]Deeper Conversations & Interactions[/h3]
Up to this point, conversing with NPCs in Archmage Rises has been pretty limited. In this new update, NPCs will be a lot more knowledgeable about things and the world. We like the idea of learning about the world through people.
As you dialogue with NPCs you will learn 'subjects of interest' (keywords like people, places, events, etc). You will be able to ask about people, places, resources, services, and historical events. They will happily share what they know, give their opinions, or direct you to someone who will know.
[h3]Job Skills & Job Quests[/h3]
This update introduces a new feature for NPC's:
job skill. Each NPC will have a "job skill" stat which determines how good an NPC is at their profession. The higher the NPC's job skill, the better options they can offer (better quality rooms at an inn, better/more food and drink options, better weapons, etc), along with opening up new quest options.
While we've had some form of job specific quests in the starter town before, this update will also include a deeper layer when it comes to our questing system. There are 2 main types of job quests:
1. General Job Quests - These are job specific story quests, like an inn keeper or outfitter. The main purpose of these quests are to build relationship with NPCs by doing favors for them.
2. Job Skill Quests - These are more involved quests with the goal of improving an NPC's job skill. An NPC's job skill will increase incrementally over time, but completing Job Skill Quests will help boost their job skill significantly to the next tier.
By building relationship and completing job skill quests, NPCs will in return give favor and gifts back to the player according to their relationship (for instance: a permanent discount for his friend, the player).
An NPC with a higher tier job skill has better offerings of goods and services. An innkeeper has better food, drink, and entertainment options. A weaponsmith crafts better equipment.
We think the perks, favors, and gifts NPCs provide will give greater dimension to relationships and help you feel more connected to the world.
[h3]Revised Relationship Levels[/h3]
With all of these new changes to relationships with NPCs, we've also revised the relationship scoring system to better balance how relationship tiers are obtained and affect the other systems in this update.
[h3]Enhanced Economy[/h3]
With all of the new job skill quests and relationship perks coming in this update, we've made some extra enhancements to towns and economies. Now each town is generated with a theme, just like real towns. You might find a mining town which bases it's economy on the available natural resources surrounding the town and might be rich in metals and metal working, versus a brewing town that makes most of it's income based on alcohol production. Goods can travel between towns, so those near a brewing town will be stocked up with varieties of alcohol produced by the brewing town, etc.
Towns can also vary greatly in their wealth levels. Some towns are rich with resources, materials and goods to sell, while others struggle to make ends meet and have little to offer in terms of goods and services. But those towns can also benefit from a little help from their friendly neighborhood mage who might be willing to invest time and resources to help boost their economy.
Those are the major changes coming in the Townsfolk update, which will be launching on June 28th!
We'd love to hear your thoughts and what features you are most excited about!
