Project Zomboid Will Get Ambitious Narrative System for NPCs

The Indie Stone published an interesting post on their official blog about the upcoming narrative system for NPCs in Project Zomboid. It promises to be ambitious.

1. This mechanic will ensure that NPCs are given their own goals to pursue and are expected to be able to share stories about their adventures.
2. All NPCs will begin the game with a set of conditions, which shape their needs and goals. The system will then simulate their actions and decisions.
3. The game will keep track of these events and record them. If we get close to such a character, they will be summoned by the engine so that they can interact with us based on their pre-recorded story.
4. Project Zomboid will generate these stories even if the NPC has not yet appeared in the game - so that the character will have an interesting past when they do.
5. This system is also meant to simulate interactions between various NPCs.
6. On top of that, there will be dialogue generation, so that the NPC will be able to tell us their story without having to have a script written by the developer.

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a long time for all these attractions. According to the plans, the narrative system for NPCs will be added in patch number 43, while the next planned patch is 41.69.

Project Zomboid was released in early access on Steam in 2013. Recently the game's popularity exploded thanks to the release of update 41. Soon afterwards the game set a new activity record at 64,000 concurrent users.

Currently, emotions have subsided a bit, but Project Zomboid is still very popular. Yesterday, at the hottest moment of the day, the title was played on Steam by almost 20 thousand people at the same time.

1. Project Zomboid - official website

Project Zomboid

November 8, 2013

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