Will the hireable Pilots have "personality"?

[SimB]

Since we have not seen any of the NPCs banter yet I would like to know, how they are and if they have any "personality" / "character" at all.

Or are they just 3D Models with little to no banter?

Will all hireable NPCs have the same dialog?

[LameFox]

In this style of game it would be very hard to not have them become repetitive I think. Players just spend too much time in it and interact with too many NPCs to do that without huge effort, and I suspect they will get around this by making them just draw no more attention to themselves than necessary.

[Falcrack]

I hope their "personality" won't include stupidly insulting their boss all the time or making sexually suggestive comments...

[Alci]

Meet Jerry (36), an abandoned child, living on streets since age 6, educated enough to complain, not educated enough to make any difference. His piloting career begun when the local mogul wanted to entertain his party guests by watching what a notorious drunkard can do in the small ship. Jerry crashed into the 2nd pier on his way out of docking platform causing injury to 5 docking crew and himself. During 2 years in the hospital he realized he wants to be a real pilot.

Free for hire

[Slashman]

Meet Jerry (36), an abandoned child, living on streets since age 6, educated enough to complain, not educated enough to make any difference. His piloting career begun when the local mogul wanted to entertain his party guests by watching what a notorious drunkard can do in the small ship. Jerry crashed into the 2nd pier on his way out of docking platform causing injury to 5 docking crew and himself. During 2 years in the hospital he realized he wants to be a real pilot.

Free for hire

Lol

[Alan Phipps]

Banter (usually fluff of no consequence for the gameplay) will always be a problem. The cost of using it to assist and maintain immersion is that you would need many alternative conversation texts to avoid too-obvious repetitions, all will need translations into the various languages, and all the voiced languages need several language-competent voice actors to provide each with a variety of voices and deliveries.

Suddenly that little bit of added immersion involves a lot of dev time and money for design, translation, testing, correction and voice acting.

[A5PECT]

IMO, employee NPCs don't have to have deep personalities. They can be uncomplicated but still have a bit of characterization through them through their visual design and manner of speech. The latter is tricky, as you'll probably hearing the same set of responses from them... a lot. There needs to be a balance of being interesting/engaging/satisfying to listen to, but also not get on the player's nerves in the long run.

Old X games got by with good old sci-fi campiness, but it was hit-or-miss depending on the player. Writing concise, effective dialogue that doesn't go bad over time is difficult.

[mr.WHO]

I hope their "personality" won't include stupidly insulting their boss all the time or making sexually suggestive comments...

+1 - after just several hours of crew ferry I wanted to push all NPC out of airlock.
Thank God for "silence all" and "shut up" mods.

[Dreez]

Since we have not seen any of the NPCs banter yet I would like to know, how they are and if they have any "personality" / "character" at all.

Or are they just 3D Models with little to no banter?

Will all hireable NPCs have the same dialog?

This is a space-sim, not an rpg or The Sims... I'd prefer devs focusing on what matters instead of wasting time on wishful thinking that belongs in other gametypes.

[SimB]

Since we have not seen any of the NPCs banter yet I would like to know, how they are and if they have any "personality" / "character" at all.

Or are they just 3D Models with little to no banter?

Will all hireable NPCs have the same dialog?

This is a space-sim, not an rpg or The Sims... I'd prefer devs focusing on what matters instead of wasting time on wishful thinking that belongs in other gametypes.

I am not expecting Mass Effect here.

But it would be nice, if not all NPCs are bland cardboards...

[Seanchaidh]

I hope their "personality" won't include stupidly insulting their boss all the time or making sexually suggestive comments...

This this this this this.

Probably my least favorite thing about Rebirth (mostly the latter).

[Tomonor]

I hope their "personality" won't include stupidly insulting their boss all the time or making sexually suggestive comments...

This this this this this.

Probably my least favorite thing about Rebirth (mostly the latter).

But... Show me your wares!

Anyway, I'm not expecting Star Trek - Bridge Commander level of interaction, but it would be nice if they weren't so robust.

For example, the co-pilot seat in Rebirth, Yisha's role. Man, that was a huge let down. I basically expected the following things from her:
-She would give me directions, basic verbal assistance, or at least announce incoming dangers or whatnot
-She would be able to pilot the Skunk when I'm controlling the drones
-She would be able to manage my fleet when I'm piloting
-She would be at least interactable

What we got instead is a verbal plot machine, and Shut up, Betty. I mean, I remember an older game, Darkstar One. It had the same type of annoying female co-pilot with womanly curves modelled right - but at least she filled her verbal role right and did the first thing I listed up there WHILE being a plot machine.

As for sexual innuendo, I'm not against. Not pro with it either. I'm just completely neutral with it as long as they have standard Terracorp pilot uniforms.

[fcth]

as long as they have standard Terracorp pilot uniforms.

That boob window was a poor design choice (and I think a late addition, IIRC pre-launch videos didn't have it).

[Tomonor]

as long as they have standard Terracorp pilot uniforms.

That boob window was a poor design choice (and I think a late addition, IIRC pre-launch videos didn't have it).

Standard Terracorp uniforms are more revealing though. Yisha had some PMC knock-off, hence the boob window.

[fcth]

Standard Terracorp uniforms are more revealing though.[/url] Yisha had some PMC knock-off, hence the boob window.

Hmm, true enough...

[CorruptUser]

I doubt there will be personality to the pilots. Too much to program before it gets repetitive. Even Fallout 4, with its massive 110,000 recorded lines in just the base game, wasn't able to avoid making NPCs repetitive.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I have heard a rumour that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation were going to supply their "genuine people personalities" but then I also heard another rumour that they had ceased trading after the revolution.

[Ormac]

I hope their "personality" won't include stupidly insulting their boss all the time or making sexually suggestive comments...

+1 - after just several hours of crew ferry I wanted to push all NPC out of airlock.
Thank God for "silence all" and "shut up" mods.

I've wanted to walk out the airlock myself at times.
I'm just glad they're not paid a wage for all the insults, complaining and "I'm an NPC I can do it better" attitude That I have to put up with.

-- Ormac

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Yeah, the number of randos that would *aggressively* flirt with Ren Otani really contrasted with how often his employees would complain about his ship being a complete disaster.

Made me imagine him as some kind of obliviously handsome Axe-wearing dudebro with a dorm-room-pigsty of a spaceship.

[Xenon_Slayer]

Xenon_Slayer does a frantic search for particular voice lines in X4 codebase

Code: Select all

Find all "I do mean ... anything!", Subfolders, Find Results 2, Entire Solution, "*.*"
  Matching lines: 0    Matching files: 0