Thread: A busier Bree (and also other cities?)

We have all read I guess first impressions of journalists about RoI. One remark was the view from a top of a hill where you could see a large encampment/settlement bustling with busy people going on their errands, preparing for fight.

Now, if crowd display techniques will be improved indeed and in a way which makes it possible, I recommend to spice up the life in some areas a bit with more NPCs (well, even if that's not the case with RoI). One area which lacks NPCs and thus a vivid everyday life is Bree. Those empty streets feel very strange for me. Similarly, I would also bring just a little more NPCs to Michel Delving. Hobbiton is good being so small as it is now.

Extra NPCs could be an option with the lowend pc owners in mind. In the end, these extras wouldn't be functional in the sense that they are not quest givers or traders.

Bree could also make use of some "non-functional" animals like dogs, cats (yeah I know about Cat Lady's home ), pigeons, whatever... And again, some extra animals might considered for other towns/villages as well.

/signed.

I wish they would put more work into making Middle Earth feel more alive. Don't get me wrong, this game is great in that respect, but they should improve on what they have. I particularly like what you say about extra NPCs being optional so people on low graphics can toggle them off if need be.

I've always found it weird how some places have sounds of people chatting away, hustle and bustle, and then all you can see are 3 or 4 NPCs.

I would like it...
same for other cities, for example Michel Delving
and I assume if they generation and display of NPCs is accomplished purely on the client side (well, considering the fact that these NPCs are just flavor, there would be no reason to globally keep track of them) and therefore no additional server bandwith/processing power would be needed,
I assume there are no reasons that speak against lots of NPC activities in major towns.

Maybe they also could adapt the town life to the day/night cycle...
i.e. lots of activity during the day,
but only limited activity (aside from patrols of the city watch) during night times

And NPCs that go indoors when its raining. Its incredible how happy current NPCs are to stay out in the rain.

When the game was first released, the crafting vendors and trade vendors were all outside. When there were a lot of players in Bree, the frame rate would drop dramatically. To correct this problem, Turbine moved most of the NPCs inside their own little instance (i.e. the crafting hall, tec.). I doubt they are going to want to add more NPCs outside in Bree or they will just be back where they started with frame rate problems.

Nice idea but I suspect it will not happen due to the above.

Originally Posted by Dunford

When the game was first released, the crafting vendors and trade vendors were all outside. When there were a lot of players in Bree.

You said it yourself: it was players, not NPCs that caused the problems. NPCs were moved indoors, since the players went to where NPCs were put.

The frame rate drop had nothing whatsoever to do with NPCs.

And in any case, they have the layering system now too.

I agree with the OP of course. Bree in particular, ever since the "easy mode" quest revamp, feels empty and sterile. The environments in this game are generally fantastic, but the static NPCs in them kill immersion in a lot of areas.

Even the early Ultimas did more immersive dynamic NPCs far far better than LOTRO does. Sure, they were single player games, but they were also made almost 30 years ago. And the entire game took up about as much memory as one or two screenshots from LOTRO.

Originally Posted by PantsOnTheGround

You said it yourself: it was players, not NPCs that caused the problems. NPCs were moved indoors, since the players went to where NPCs were put.

The frame rate drop had nothing whatsoever to do with NPCs.

And in any case, they have the layering system now too.

I agree with the OP of course. Bree in particular, ever since the "easy mode" quest revamp, feels empty and sterile. The environments in this game are generally fantastic, but the static NPCs in them kill immersion in a lot of areas.

Even the early Ultimas did more immersive dynamic NPCs far far better than LOTRO does. Sure, they were single player games, but they were also made almost 30 years ago. And the entire game took up about as much memory as one or two screenshots from LOTRO.

Of course the NPCs contribute to frame rate drop and load. They still need to be drawn in each characters view screen. Their animations still have to occur and utilize bandwidth. The players still needed to interact with many of them. If it were just the NPCs standing around talking to themselves, the load was acceptable, but when players interacted with the Bree environment, it added to the load already present to the point where it affected the players. Graphics and frame rate loading comes from both NPCs and players, not just from players alone (of course if no player is around to interact with the NPCs it is sort of like the tree in the forest making a sound but still valid nevertheless). Yes, Turbine could re-introduce them to the outside area via dynamic layering, but most players don't like dynamic layering and prefer not to have to deal with it. Also, dynamic layering was not coded into the game when they moved the NPCs inside, so it was the only solution Turbine had available at that time.

Originally Posted by Dunford

Of course the NPCs contributed to frame rate drop and load.

Sorry, but you are incorrect.

It was player characters and player characters alone that caused the slow down.

Take the 21st hall for example. When moria was first released, the vault, AH, and crafting were all outside in the common area. The 21st hall filled up with players and a lot of players' computers ground to an unplayable halt.

Once they were moved inside, PLAYERS were moved inside. Things improved dramatically.

The recent addition of a LOT more NPCs to the 21st hall - easily more than were previously moved out - did NOT cause the same problems.

You are most certainly mistaken.

Originally Posted by PantsOnTheGround

Sorry, but you are incorrect.

Yes and no. When they moved the NPCs inside during beta, they also removed some of the patrolling NPCs... players have a far larger impact because they involve bandwidth and far more game assets being loaded. But NPCs matter too, just less so. I can pretty much guarantee that if they had a crowd of 50 NPCs milling about in the center of Bree, it wouldn't be very pleasant for anyone .

NPCs that are "lively", moving around and such, are basically AIs. Adding more AIs will most definitely have an impact on server loading. Of course, Turbine's developers are the only people equipped to decide what they can actually handle.

Khafar

Originally Posted by PantsOnTheGround

The recent addition of a LOT more NPCs to the 21st hall - easily more than were previously moved out - did NOT cause the same problems.

You are most certainly mistaken.

I can only talk about myself. I find the addition of these new NPCs has caused serious negative impact on my game play experience. I have reduced frame rate, sluggish UI functionality, I get get stutter lag, I get freeze lag unable to move. I wish Turbine would move some of NPCs into the existing bunkers. Or make new bunkers.

21st Hall sucks. I hate doing a milestone recall to 21st Hall. Arrive. Have to wait 10-30 seconds for the goats and the stable master to arrive so I can leave.

I use Lhanuch because it does not have the game play issues that 21st Hall does.

I would welcome more life in all middle-earth. Hopefully the technical side can be fixed so that we can see some NPCs on the streets again Thanks for posting

Originally Posted by Khafar

Yes and no. When they moved the NPCs inside during beta, they also removed some of the patrolling NPCs... players have a far larger impact because they involve bandwidth and far more game assets being loaded. But NPCs matter too, just less so. I can pretty much guarantee that if they had a crowd of 50 NPCs milling about in the center of Bree, it wouldn't be very pleasant for anyone .

NPCs that are "lively", moving around and such, are basically AIs. Adding more AIs will most definitely have an impact on server loading. Of course, Turbine's developers are the only people equipped to decide what they can actually handle.

Khafar

I disagree (especially concerning flavor NPCs).

I´d rather see the flavor NPCs as simple circular finite state machines which cycles through a limited set of animations (or follows a patrol route by cycling through a limited set of patrol points).

They just follow their patrol route or do their animation cycle, with the only interaction with the player being, that sometimes they say personalised messages (something that can be solved entirely by the client).
This is in contrast to monsters (which might sometimes follow a pseudo randomised patrol patterns and also react to the player (by attacking him if s/he is in range and of a low enough level) and whose positions and actions therefore might have to be constantly updated.

And of course it also is in stark contrast to players, whose actions rely on an ultracomplex (semi infinite) statemachine (which is located between our ears ) and whose current state (as well as most environment influences that change the state) are unknown to the server.
Therefore the server constantly has to know (and transmit) the position of all players and also constantly transmit the informations of the chat channels they are subscribed to.

For flavor NPCs therefore it shouldn´t be a problem, to keep the amount of data transferred between server and client limited and put most of the workload on the client side. (and probably already is the way it is done)

Just for example:
Lets take an NPC guardian, who patrols through Bree.
All information about the NPCs patrol cycle is stored within the client so that, if the client has information about the current state of the NPC (which corresponds to the current position on his patrol) it can calculate the whole patrol cycle of the NPC by itself, without needing any further input from the server.

The only thing that the server therefore would have to do is
1. If a player enters Bree, transfer a single integer value to the client that represents the state of said guardian NPC (for example: 25 = I am at the mailbox in fronnt of the prancing pony)
2. Keep its own server reference to the state machine and update it repeatedly (which can be solved simply by: after x ticks of the computer clock: If ([state counter] < [max state]): Increase [state counter] by 1; else: Reset [State Counter] to 0)

Therefore the amount of processor power and bandwith used by the server for a single flavor NPC should be negilible compared to the amount needed to manage a single player and should also be much less compared to the amount needed to manage a single monster.

That might be what you'd prefer, but it's not the way it works. Clients get to render based on information the server sends them, and anything that's in the shared experience of players is handled by the server. That includes the patrol routes of NPCs, what's in the inventory of vendors, etc. They want for players to experience the same game world, so if you're clowning around with a patrolling guard, other players will see that (and not some fool circling around and emoting to empty space). When one player points to a specific NPC and tells his friend that he wishes that outfit were available to players, his friend needs to see that NPC in that spot at that time, which isn't likely to happen if the server isn't in the driver's seat.

The client doesn't get to drive much of anything, and the server spends CPU cycles to validate everything the client tells it (lest they open themselves up to no end of exploits). All of which is why they thinned out some of the NPCs in the streets when they moved most of the service NPCs indoors. The biggest deal there was of course to compartmentalize the players, allowing them to distribute the loading across subservers if it were too busy. But having too many NPCs contributed to the lagfest that Bree was in alpha and early beta too.

Could they add some back? Maybe. They're the only ones in the position to know that. But I wouldn't hold my breath for it to ever look "crowded" out there.

Khafar

Cannot comment on the system currently in place, as I haven´t tried to analyse it with regards to NPCs (i.e. for example by repeatedly checking if myself and other players always see the same (patrolling) NPC at the same time at same locations)...

but the implementation you mentioned (if it is implemented this way) might lose its value with Isengard.

After all, if the informations about the phasing technology are correct, it involves massively creating situations such as you mentioned, i.e. where NPCs that are visible for one player aren´t visible for another player (for example because said NPC got killed in the other players "world") or are at a different location for the other player.

/agreed

I think that bree could use more flavor, mystery and quests. More involvement in the towns with npc's rather than the usual mundane "fetch" tasks. It would be nice to see the underside of the shire, bree and other towns....there has got to be more to Bree than pale buildings and "same old same" npc's walking/standing around. There is a town hall, there is a prison, there is a taxidermist, a feast hall: thus there could be intrigue and greater story backdrops to interact with.

I like bree but it is fairly boring.....



As for other towns, etc. there is room for improvement.

It is possible (if done cleverly) to run alot of 'furniture' NPCs on the client alone. These would be 'atmospheric' NPCs that the player doesnt interact with but would visually increase the feeling that Bree and other towns arent mostly Ghosttowns. Many would be dressed exactly the same or with limited interchangable assets so as to minimize the texture/asset loads upon the client.

Flocking 'boids' mechanisms run on the client can make these 'furniture' npcs act a bit more lifelike.

Someone esles said that it will look weird to see someone gesticulating at an NPC or refere to them to another player who might not see the same NPC if they were run unsyncronized on players Clients and with a slider control to minimize that client load as an option (cutting out the 'furniture NPCs).
But people rarely do that (since the NPCs dont react except maybe to spout their linite set of phrases which I dont think anyone else sees now anyway).

Similar things might be done out in the boonies (across all the map with various 'furniture' animals particular to each area and sub areas) to help remove the current desert like state/appearance of most of the world (the 'pretty empty desert filled with a minefield of rail mounted killer mannekins' as I usually refer to it).

As I said it could be done but it depends on how 'clever' the developers are.

I wont hold my breath.