NPC

* See also Team
* See also Object
* See also MMORPG_AI_Improvements
* See also Splicers
* See also Roleplaying
ADD further about AI
NPC = Non Player Character
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Computer-controlled (simulated) Sapient-type entities in a game (?? Are Zombies considered 'Sapient' ?)
A gaming term (used in role playing games before computer games were much of anything).
((For BioShock see Splicers, Little Sisters, Big Daddies, Bosses AI ))
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Ordinary NPC People/Characters In A Computer Game Should Not Be Like Mannequins :
OR BE SINGLE-MINDED HOMICIDAL ATTACK-BOTS
With some normalcy in the New City, we can't have most of the NPC inhabitants generally standing around like mannequins, like they do in BS:Infinite.   There is more of them than in older games, but in Infinite BS it was still a largely empty landscape.   Most NPCs were still soul-less marginally-animated window dressing (most when you walk up to them, now instead of being frozen like statues(or instantly shooting at you), stare at you generically or first utter some canned phrase to get you to bugger-off).  The Rapture Reborn MMORPG has to remedy that sad situation, which is why the Player Contribution system is so important.  Who else will have the time and creativity to add all the diverse people doing all the various things real people do, with simulated real tasks and varying activities to make them appear much more alive ?  Being Reactive to situations, that can be done with enough work/effort/imagination. IT HAS BEEN PROVEN - Game Companies themselves can't afford it. 
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GTA San Andreas - All Those Things the Generic People Said :
That Games Denizens walking the Streets, with local Flavors :
* Can phrases be mixed up more (with additional feature of word/phrase substitution patterns to randomize them further).
* Do not have the NPCs blurt out nonstop, the existing combinations shouldn't get repeated too often
* Voice synthesizing tricks to vary what they sound like and weave/mutate the phrases ?
* Have more mumbling effects overlaid to mask whats being said if heard from a distance.  Ambient noises can help.   You just hear murmuring - has to be carefully handled how the transition to discernible talk.
* Make the Talk appropriate to the current location/activity to add to the 'City' atmosphere (and all places therein) - the GTA NPC talk was largely funny gibberish only with a general locational context.
There's always the problem with theses if the Player chooses to interact with them (in GTAGrand Theft Auto - San Andreas. they would run away or start fighting).
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NPCs would have Inventories of Objects and Tools which they use in their behavior in the game.
Advanced NPCs may be programmed to be versatile in using the objects they have (and be able to change actions with a changing inventory). (An extensive system of Behavior Templates would make that versatility possible.)
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A Page from "Far Cry" (and No Doubt Many Other Games) :
You have a rock, you throw it, NPC Opponent notices/is distracted and goes to investigate the sound, you sneak behind them and stab them in the back of the head.
The MMORPG should have some similar mechanic (throwing things, and not just rocks) as a diversion.
Beware, some Splicers are smart enough to have seen this trick before.  Or they do it to YOU ...
Sensory Activation/Attention of NPCs, with predictable behaviors which the Players can utilize (Watch out for the few 'smart ones' who have seen that trick BEFORE ...)
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Dole Jobs For NPCs :
* Some Citizens had few real skills when they came to Rapture and may have trouble getting more skilled work. For others, their skills eroded while they existed as Splicers (or rather other survival skills supplanted them). The City offers basic jobs to those who haven't 'got on their feet' for standard pay.
* Low Skill Jobs :
** Sweeping streets
** Washing windows
** Emptying trash receptacles (not too many goodies in these ones)
** Simple (re)painting of rebuilt interiors of reclaimed buildings
** Clearing wreckage and rubble and accumulated trash in 'redevelopment' areas.
** Shoveling out sewers
** Moving supplies and furniture as City Offices are shuffled yet again
** Processing trash at the Recycling station of the 'dump'
* Citizens are encouraged to train for higher skilled jobs
Interesting idea that 'training' is more re-awakening skills that have lain dormant for years - like the cliche - 'remembering how to ride a bike' ... Game Design issue of what skills the individual might hold within their reconstituted brains (don't want to limit a players character or have them deleting and starting new ones till they get what they want...). Possibilities that all that ADAM they absorbed in the past may have given them a wide variety of options and it is a (flexible) matter of selecting from the same large set available for all player characters.
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