RPG News - RPG Concepts @ Jeflak's Codex

A site called Jeflak's Codex that we have linked once previously has an article titled RPG Concepts that looks at various RPG conventions across both western and JRPG genres. Here's a snip on NPCs:

Everyone probably already encountered a couple of NPCs just standing there, doing nothing. When you talk to them, they respond with "hiya stranger". When you talk to them again, they repeat that exact same sentence. After the tenth time of "hiya stranger" you begin to wonder whether the person was on drugs or not. What is the purpose of this NPC? Exactly: a useless object to fill the otherwise void space. Players can enjoy a "guess who holds the quest" puzzle. Things get even worse when each NPC is called "stranger x" or "villager y". This does not give them any personality and give you even less reasons to replay the game since the living world feels artificial and dead. There's a difficult balance to be kept within a city full of NPCs: do you want extreme activity but soulless beings or a less crowded area, where everyone has their own personality and interesting story?
Labelling NPCs in a RPG can also be quite challenging. In Sacred for instance, people actually bearing a quest (defined useful) have an exclamation mark floating above their head. "Good, no more randomly clicking on stupid inhabitants, right!"? Yes and no. If this system was to be implemented in non-hack & slash games, everyone would ignore all other NPCs. And what is the purpose of a less imporant NPC anyway?

Some sections are unfinished and we'll try to let you know as they come online.
More information.

That is still a 'work in progress', but has some interesting history throughout. It is nice how he set up a number of YouTube video streams to illustrate points.

I enjoyed it, but then he seems to like some of the same games I do!!

Originally Posted by Corwin
I enjoyed it, but then he seems to like some of the same games I do!!

Yeah - the liberal dose of Wiz8 videos was a give-away

But seriously, those videos go a long way to showing how things look and feel in a game - better than any written description! I love the Molotov in Arcanum - that is *just* how things work.

I'd love to suggest we include videos in our articles and reviews, but I would have no idea how it was done. I need help to get simple screen shots included!!

I know that using FRAPS can do that … it is just a nice thing catching those moments!

OK, as usual, I'll bite. What's FRAPS?

The program everyone uses to record movies.

Originally Posted by Corwin
OK, as usual, I'll bite. What's FRAPS?

Sort of like UOSU … but for grabbing in-game movies

Very reliable program. Itīs industry standard nowadays. Everybody who doesnīt want to spend a lot of bucks on grabbing hardware uses it.

"The program everyone uses to record movies. "
Lol.

I know how Corwin like linkys he can click.
http://www.fraps.com/

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out, but now for my next question: what's UOSU?? You guys certainly know how to confuse an old man!!

Originally Posted by Corwin
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out, but now for my next question: what's UOSU?? You guys certainly know how to confuse an old man!!

Hehe … I work in the Semiconductor world, a great factory of acronyms And I got that one *here* so I didn't worry as much!

UOSU is the Ultima Online Screenshot Utility, a great little utility to grab screens that is very system-resource friendly.

Thanks, never heard of it, but then I don't play online games other than NWN!!

Well FRAPS has a screenshot utility, but after using FRAPS for 6-8 years now I just use ATI TrayTools, since I haven't ever made game moives and I like keeping as few utilities running in the background as possible.