Friendly NPCs and other questions..

[Magical Girl]

A couple of questions...

Will Grimrock 2 have friendly NPCs of any kind?
It must be difficult to expand upon the lore of a game when it has no npcs.
Also since you can venture outdoors, is the game more open ended and less linear than Grimrock 1?
I obviously dont mean open world, I mean things like branching paths and "web" shaped maps.
Finally, have you taken any steps to make the game more difficult? Grimrock 1 on hard with old school mode on wasn't a very challenging experience outside of the fun puzzles.

I appreciate how hard you folks work and I will be sure to buy the game on day one, im interested in those intro cinematics!

[BuzzJ]

friendly npcs and shopkeepers are possible within LOG1. Depends on which workaround solution you want to use. Its only a matter of whether or not AH makes these workarounds easier by coding examples into their dungeon, preferably with shortcuts hardcoded.

You can make NPC by:

1) static object like an altar, alcove, or statue, maybe with a looped animation
2) onGUI hooks
3) Profit... (whatever the triggers are)

[Magical Girl]

Yeah I know intractable NPCs are possible with mods, I was just wondering if an intractable NPC will ever be featured in the main game of grimrock 2, outside of mods.
I understand why there wasn't any in Grimrock 1, I was just thinking it would suck a little if they have all these areas outside on the surface, with the only life being monsters.

[BuzzJ]

Depends. Its def. nice as an option, and I would really like to see examples by AH implemented with fixes,

but npc shopkeepers can go wrong in terms of gameplay product. The entire purpose of which is to be enjoyable for casual players so they learn modding. Neither Captive's nor Dungeon Master II's were all that impressive. And in the case of Dungeon Master II really detracted from the experience. Grimrock 2 would be well advised to learn a lot from DM2. The parralels are stark.

Play those games and see what I mean. Any other kind of quest giving npcs are functionally indistinguishable from an alcove with text next to them gameplay-wise. Either one works, really. Theres not much difference except for atmosphere.

[comment edited out]

just imo.

edit: also nobody really knows what AH is doing right this moment.

[Dr.Disaster]

Up to now we have too little information about NPC presence at all. My guess by the playing field being a large island is that chances are good we will encounter NPC's of any kind. Yet i won't go so far and count on town-related stuff like shops.

As BuzzJ pointed out shops weren't a good move in DM2. It was too much of a detraction from the gameplay especialy since the best gear of the game came from those shops. The player was more into generating currency to buy all the high-end stuff then exploring and that's something i don't want to have in LoG 2.