Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by colddog04

I can tell this thread is just going to end up making SWTOR look really bad in the "lively areas" department instead of detracting from what Guild Wars 2 was able to accomplish in the same department.

 

I keep looking at various videos and it does seem like Arena Net spent a lot more time fleshing out the city ambiance, NPC movement, NPC interaction and just a general city feel.

Exactly since Anet is making a non subscription model, they have to remain more honest in their approach to the gameplay and address problems more quickly. I think with their Devs experience in Blizzard and their experience with mmo's in general this being their second game and all they've actually learned from gaming history on what not to do. We can expect honestly a great experience.

 

SWTOR had the fastest patches and fixes, and the most content added the fastest out of any MMO ever.

If this isn't true, please prove me wrong.

 

 

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/patch-notes/

VS THIS

3 months (SWTOR)

Vs a year and two months (RIFT)

Seems about the same pace, if not faster.

Funny how when you look at each and every SWTOR patch it's all bug fixes and no new content but when you look at the rift ones every x.# they have new content of some kind they added for the fun of the players. There is no comparison.

1. 1.1 endless court invasion
2. 1.2 new rifts, lfg tool, wardrobes
3. 1.3 the opening of hammerknell
4. 1.4 new epic questline, warfronts, dungeons
5. 1.5 planar atunements, solo duo dungeons, master mode dungeon difficulty, addons
6. 1.6 new dungeon, new hard mode open world zone called Ember Isle, Seasonal events
7. 1.7 new raid area open, new solo duo dungeon, no more buying specs

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by colddog04

 

I think part of the problem is that the capital cities in SWTOR look just as bad as that hub you linked earlier. Or at least very similar.

What do you mean by bad? Idle chatter and noise or actual movement?

There is some idle chatter in SWTOR although not as much as I have seen in the GW2 videos. One thing that irritates me in SWTOR though is that there is no "doppler" effect. Once you pass by a npc conversation, it is the same volume no matter where you go. You'll be flying on a taxi and you'll still hear the conversation as if it were right next to you until that particular conversation ends.

I'm coming in a big late here but wth.

Here's the thing about TOR.  It's not just that there are a lot of static NPCs, or that there isn't enough ambient life, or that there are no day/night cycles, or that the world is drab...it's all of these things added together that causes the problem of a dull, static world.

People complain about "static NPCs" in TOR because they feel that the world is dull and they are trying to voice why.  So they just pick out one particular problem and talk about it ad infinitum.

That's why this argument doesn't really have much merit.  Even if GW2 has a lot of static NPCs...that was never the ONLY problem with TOR.  WoW, for example, had tons of static NPCs, but I never really thought its world was dull back in the day.  It just had so many different places, wild life wandering around, nice little atmospheric effects, and you could go to almost anywhere you could see.

But in TOR, much of the interesting scenery is just that...scenery, background.  You can go to Coruscant, but it's nothing more than a "city-themed" questing zone, and a drab one at that.  The cool city you see in the background is just a background.  You can never go to it, it's not really "alive."

Contrast this with GW2, where you see a marvelous city on the horizon and you can actually explore every nook and cranny of it.  The world actually interacts with you (dynamic events) as you walk around as opposed to you being forced to solicit interactions from it (questing).  There are day and night cycles and different things can happen at night as compared with day.  And yes, there are NPCs that walk-around...even though this is minor ;).

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by Laughing-man

VS THIS

3 months (SWTOR)

Vs a year and two months (RIFT)

Seems about the same pace, if not faster.

Funny how when you look at each and every SWTOR patch it's all bug fixes and no new content but when you look at the rift ones every x.# they have new content of some kind they added for the fun of the players. There is no comparison.

1. 1.1 endless court invasion
2. 1.2 new rifts, lfg tool, wardrobes
3. 1.3 the opening of hammerknell
4. 1.4 new epic questline, warfronts, dungeons
5. 1.5 planar atunements, solo duo dungeons, master mode dungeon difficulty, addons
6. 1.6 new dungeon, new hard mode open world zone called Ember Isle, Seasonal events
7. 1.7 new raid area open, new solo duo dungeon, no more buying specs

when compared to the SWTOR list all i see on the SWTOR list is "fixed, fixed, fixed" did anyone else see that or is it just me. Not to mention that i've read they will be adding new content in 1.2 on SWTOR....

 

Please don't make broad statements it's only hurting your case.

It's just you. You obviously haven't been paying attention to the actual SWTOR patch notes. I guess I'm not surprised as you are clearly biased against it.

If you HAD paid attention, you would see that they have already added a lot of content to the game and the next big patch (1.2) adds quite a bit more. Patch 1.1 added both a new flashpoint and a new operation along with many bug fixes. But keep telling yourself that they aren't adding content if it makes you feel better...

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by colddog04

 

I think part of the problem is that the capital cities in SWTOR look just as bad as that hub you linked earlier. Or at least very similar.

What do you mean by bad? Idle chatter and noise or actual movement?

There is less actual movement in SWTOR by far from the videos I've seen. Look at this one. You will see some people walking around, but if you stack it up to the GW2 videos that people linked earlier, it looks pretty lame if we are strictly talking about movement from one point to another.

In the GW2 videos, NPCs actually seem to have much more interaction and seem to be more lively overall. They walk and talk and just seem more alive. And I know this isn't what you are specifically trying to talk about, but I feel like it would be a diservice not to at least mention it.

I will say this. I think that the Coruscant video that I linked did a hell of a lot more for ambiance in SWTOR than any video I've seen. Hearing and seeing the speeders fly across was a treat. But really we are talking about NPCs here.

Originally posted by Exilor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjLmknda6_Q

I'll leave this here.

Counted way more than 4 anti static npcs. 

Woulds also like to state, quality is much better than quantity in terms of content.

Oh well.

What's sad is, the world it self as far as static goes is of course less static than the cities lol.

Originally posted by Creslin321

I'm coming in a big late here but wth.

Here's the thing about TOR.  It's not just that there are a lot of static NPCs, or that there isn't enough ambient life, or that there are no day/night cycles, or that the world is drab...it's all of these things added together that causes the problem of a dull, static world.

People complain about "static NPCs" in TOR because they feel that the world is dull and they are trying to voice why.  So they just pick out one particular problem and talk about it ad infinitum.

That's why this argument doesn't really have much merit.  Even if GW2 has a lot of static NPCs...that was never the ONLY problem with TOR.  WoW, for example, had tons of static NPCs, but I never really thought its world was dull back in the day.  It just had so many different places, wild life wandering around, nice little atmospheric effects, and you could go to almost anywhere you could see.

But in TOR, much of the interesting scenery is just that...scenery, background.  You can go to Coruscant, but it's nothing more than a "city-themed" questing zone, and a drab one at that.  The cool city you see in the background is just a background.  You can never go to it, it's not really "alive."

Contrast this with GW2, where you see a marvelous city on the horizon and you can actually explore every nook and cranny of it.  The world actually interacts with you (dynamic events) as you walk around as opposed to you being forced to solicit interactions from it (questing).  There are day and night cycles and different things can happen at night as compared with day.  And yes, there are NPCs that walk-around...even though this is minor ;).

Well said I agree.

On the other hand I am very surprised at the level of whin...err..scrutiny that an MMO goes through now days. "The NPC's are not moving, oh the game is not fun"...

Just play the game you like and have fun guys, all of them could be good it depends on the eye of the beholder.

It is not that simple I know...peer pressure is a big deal now days. eh? Who is playing the Coolest game?

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Distopia

The video showcased what I was talking about actually so yeah /thread.. Most NPC's were stationary with one or two at most 4 -5 or so moving on screen at a time.

The point here isn't to point out a flaw in GW2 it's to point out a flaw in old arguments. The flaw is the thought that GW2 would be different than any other MMo and the limitations that will inevitably be there consdering the medium. MMO's will not have truly scheduled NPCs until the tech allows it. It doesn't..

People can go on and on about GW2 has more ambience, I never said it didn't I actually agreed with a person who said it does. That wasn't the point I was bringing up. But of course since it was viewed as a negative for another game, everyone see's red and all logic goes out the window.

I highlighted the important part. You saw a guy running past NPCs and saw that only 4-5 were moving at a time. Did he hang around and see if the ones standing around would move on after a while? No?

See the problem is that you are stating that they dont move, when you have only watched them for a short period. Like I said earlier, pretty much every NPC moves and does other tasks if you watch them long enough. The only exception were merchants and vendors (for obvious convenience), although some merchants will contribute to defending outposts if they are attacked.

 

I talk about what I see, not what I can't, where are you getting this information from that they "all" move? Like I said if there was something I'm missing point it out, as in show it..

At least we're somewhat on topic now.

I dont know about "all" npcs moving around but I do recall watching a video a while back of the main Norn town where the player went into a building and outside were two guys standing and talking (don't remember the convo but it sounded like one of the dudes was mad at somthing).  The player spent about 5 minutes inside the building and when he came out one of those guys that were talking was gone and it looked like the other was sitting on the ground with what looked like a mug in his hand.  

Also in an older video of Divinity's Reach there is an area where people were gathered around listening to someone talk and you could see npcs walk up and stop to listen then see others walk off.  So just because you see npcs standing in one place when someone runs through town doesn't mean they always stand in one place.

Originally posted by DJJazzy

There is a bit more movement in the GW2 cities if that is what you are talking about. Now if it is acceptable the level of immersion that you want, only you can say for sure. I will say this, there will never be an mmo that has the activity of an Assassins Creed game for example.

This is really key to the point here. The thread title is actually important to this as well, more so than a lot of threads.

 The question was, was it all just misinformation or am I missing something? Maybe it's petty, maybe its pointless, but it was a question I wanted to ask. Becasue I wrote countless posts arguing with others on this very subject on the tor forums. The statues as many liked to put it back then, that would be scarce in GW2( yes this was said back then), just as even a poster here in this thread went on to say, "all NPC's move if you wait around to watch it".

I figured back then that GW2 would be little or no different in this department, tried saying as much, not to mention trying to explain why TOR has many NPC's standing around... what response did I get? Being called an apologist, Biodrone or Fanboi.

Now back to the question, Was it misinformation? Or is there something I don't know? Can all NPC's move? What did that poster mean when he said that?

Is it like TOR as in some NPC's move their hands, peerform idle emotes, IE: laughing, interacting with one another, etc.. While some roam around the map area?

OR

Does that mean one npc moves from point A to point B, stands there for 15 mintues doing stuff, while another NPC starts to move from point A to point B, and another and another etc... ? As in does every NPC eventually migrate, or are most also statues (positional) like every other game? This was the essential question. I'm not sure whether even once it has been approached like that, instead I'm trolling blah, blah, blah..

Sorry for typos scatter-brained trying to keep up with everything said in this thread.

Divinity's Reach

- Can just listen as he run's down the first slope (the guy has no idea where he‘s going and seems to get excited at every back alley). NPC conversations are triggered for everyone when someone runs past, they'll have an internal cool down to stop people getting spammed with the same stuff. He should have run it during the day cycle tbh, would have been more NPC's about. Even though it's in the night cycle it looks pretty active and alive to me.

6:20 = NPC's giving vocal clues about a large event in progress....no clicking, just passing.

 Kaas City.

Felt it was unfair to only represent 1 side of the game.

 Coruscant.

Kaas city is a ghost town (what you'd expect from a repressive faction), there are still NPC's about animatedly talking to each other but for a fully voiced MMO it was eerily quiet. The Battle druids you see will occasionally spit out some audio that sounds suspiciously like Twiki from Buck Rogers. It’s night time, it’s always night there. There is no night/day cycle in ToR, at all.

Coruscant, for anyone not in the know, is a planet made of a city. The whole planet is one big city, the in game lore say's there are 1 trillion people living on it. Must have been a public holiday during that video (Filmed at the single most important building on the planet, the whole republic come to think of it). Once again plenty of NPC's knocking about and no voices. Different from Kaas in that the republic is an open society so there's no interrogation droids floating around and people are free to come and go as they please.

For anyone screaming BETA!?!. I've played both factions, this IS what it's like. They didn’t suddenly flick a switch and shout “ha!”, they just didn’t add it

TL;DR - Watch the videos.
GW2 has a dynamic living world with a mixture of mobile/patrolling NPC's and static flavour NPC's.
GW2 has proximity triggered conversations that are fully voiced.
ToR has cool music in a library. And lot’s of mute citizens nailed to the floor.

I doubt this’ll do any good but meh!, there’s the video’s, make up your own minds.

I don't think any Vendor NPCs move (there may be a few).

I don't think every single NPC besides vendors move.

I think that there are far more NPCs that move in GW2 than in SWTOR per capita.

Originally posted by BigDave7481

I dont know about "all" npcs moving around but I do recall watching a video a while back of the main Norn town where the player went into a building and outside were two guys standing and talking (don't remember the convo but it sounded like one of the dudes was mad at somthing).  The player spent about 5 minutes inside the building and when he came out one of those guys that were talking was gone and it looked like the other was sitting on the ground with what looked like a mug in his hand.  

 

Also in an older video of Divinity's Reach there is an area where people were gathered around listening to someone talk and you could see npcs walk up and stop to listen then see others walk off.  So just because you see npcs standing in one place when someone runs through town doesn't mean they always stand in one place.

Thank you this is all I've been trying to find out throughout this entire thread. Took 19 pages but we got there. Any Videos for this stuff that people know of?  If this is the case it is much different than TOR.

I'm not sure if anyone realistically expected NPCs in GW2 to behave like NPCs do in Skyrim where they have routines, day/night and work/rest cycles. There is really no reason for that in GW2. NPCs in GW2 are backdrops that mostly add flavor and give hints about nearby events, whereas in Skyrim most NPCs were part of the game and could be killed, robbed, etc.

With that said, judging from the various GW2 city walkthroughs I've seen, the NPCs create a decent enough illusion to make the city feel alive and it is much better than SWTOR where most NPCs just stand in one spot stuck in one animation loop.

It's clear that Distopia is an undercover agent on a mission to reveal all the lies spread by GW2 fanboys...

Because that's what all his posts lately are all about: "but you said this about SWTOR and now it's the same in GW2!!!  i'm going to keep repeating this so that people know that i know the truth behind GW2!!1!"

People like you keep acting like you want to start a civilised discussion, when it's pretty clear that you're only starting up these arguments so that GW2 fans come and defend their game, so you can be all like: "lol its impossible to disscuss anything with GW2 fanboys" or "lol GW2 fans can't take any criticism"

Stop pretending that the GW2 fanbase is a swarm of bees (thanks Pony) that is ready to assault you at the first sight of criticism, when it was exactly the same with the SWTOR fanbase. The reason why you think it wasn't as bad with SWTOR, is because you were actually on SWTOR's side, so you didn't see all the stuff that you're seeing now from the other side.

Regarding your post, most of the people weren't talking about GW2 NPC's moving a lot more then SWTOR's. Most of the people were saying that cities felt more alive in GW2 then in SWTOR. I think you originally wanted to talk about overall city life in this thread, but when you saw all the responses that showed GW2 has more city life then SWTOR, you went the easy route and claimed you were only talking about actual moving NPC's.

If you were indeed originally planning to only talk about actual moving NPC's, then just admit that the only reason you started this thread was to stir up an argument. Don't pretend that you only wanted a constructive discussion.

Originally posted by heartless

I'm not sure if anyone realistically expected NPCs in GW2 to behave like NPCs do in Skyrim where they have routines, day/night and work/rest cycles. There is really no reason for that in GW2. NPCs in GW2 are backdrops that mostly add flavor and give hints about nearby events, whereas in Skyrim most NPCs were part of the game and could be killed, robbed, etc.

With that said, judging from the various GW2 city walkthroughs I've seen, the NPCs create a decent enough illusion to make the city feel alive and it is much better than SWTOR where most NPCs just stand in one spot stuck in one animation loop.

Read the post I quoted above yours.

It's hard to believe this thread was started because GW2 forum posters evidently stated often that  "GW2 cities would have more movement then SWTOR".  Really? 

I thought us die hard, blind faith, GW2 is the best thing since sliced bread crowd overstated everything about GW2.  I thought that was the reason behind all "GW2 fans are going to crash hard for over hyping GW2" threads.

Since this thread has grown to what it is with the target constantly moving.  Yes, I would like to see links to these posts that have evidently spewed nothing but complete falsehoods about the NPC movement comparsions to STWOR.  Yes yes I would like to see the utter distorted fabrications that led to such a discussion. 

Forums are the backbone of accurate information.  They are second to none for quality, accurate, and trustful sources.  

\sacrasm

Sorry I couldn't help it. 

Originally posted by Somsbal

It's clear that Distopia is an undercover agent on a mission to reveal all the lies spread by GW2 fanboys...

Because that's what all his posts lately are all about: "but you said this about SWTOR and now it's the same in GW2!!!  i'm going to keep repeating this so that people know that i know the truth behind GW2!!1!"

People like you keep acting like you want to start a civilised discussion, when it's pretty clear that you're only starting up these arguments so that GW2 fans come and defend their game, so you can be all like: "lol its impossible to disscuss anything with GW2 fanboys" or "lol GW2 fans can't take any criticism"

Stop pretending that the GW2 fanbase is a swarm of bees (thanks Pony) that is ready to assault you at the first sight of criticism, when it was exactly the same with the SWTOR fanbase. The reason why you think it wasn't as bad with SWTOR, is because you were actually on SWTOR's side, so you didn't see all the stuff that you're seeing now from the other side.

Regarding your post, most of the people weren't talking about GW2 NPC's moving a lot more then SWTOR's. Most of the people were saying that cities felt more alive in GW2 then in SWTOR. I think you originally wanted to talk about overall city life in this thread, but when you saw all the responses that showed GW2 has more city life then SWTOR, you went the easy route and claimed you were only talking about actual moving NPC's.

If you were indeed originally planning to only talk about actual moving NPC's, then just admit that the only reason you started this thread was to stir up an argument. Don't pretend that you only wanted a constructive discussion.

This is what I am asking about.... This is why I asked people to focus on the question posed not me...

Originally posted by BigDave7481

I dont know about "all" npcs moving around but I do recall watching a video a while back of the main Norn town where the player went into a building and outside were two guys standing and talking (don't remember the convo but it sounded like one of the dudes was mad at somthing).  The player spent about 5 minutes inside the building and when he came out one of those guys that were talking was gone and it looked like the other was sitting on the ground with what looked like a mug in his hand.  

 

Also in an older video of Divinity's Reach there is an area where people were gathered around listening to someone talk and you could see npcs walk up and stop to listen then see others walk off.  So just because you see npcs standing in one place when someone runs through town doesn't mean they always stand in one place.

I'm gonna say that whatever information the OP is referring to was taken out of context by someone down the line, and it was likely misinformation, yes. As someone (if not multiple people) pointed out, static NPC's are kind of necessary to a degree, like vendors and stuff. I mean, sure, some less meaningful vendors could be walking around - even WoW had bread vendors walking around and stuff - but shopkeepers and such aren't going to leave their place of business, some NPC's are just hanging out and chatting with others, and all that good stuff.

It's not necessary to make every NPC dynamic, but GW2 gives a variety of both static and dynamic NPC's all over the place, which is way better than entirely one or the other, for sure.

So yes, what you've read is likely misinformation, and I think that's for the best.

Originally posted by Gajari

I'm gonna say that whatever information the OP is referring to was taken out of context by someone down the line, and it was likely misinformation, yes. As someone (if not multiple people) pointed out, static NPC's are kind of necessary to a degree, like vendors and stuff. I mean, sure, some less meaningful vendors could be walking around - even WoW had bread vendors walking around and stuff - but shopkeepers and such aren't going to leave their place of business, some NPC's are just hanging out and chatting with others, and all that good stuff.

It's not necessary to make every NPC dynamic, but GW2 gives a variety of both static and dynamic NPC's all over the place, which is way better than entirely one or the other, for sure.

So yes, what you've read is likely misinformation, and I think that's for the best.

 

No it doesn't seem to have been misinformation at least according to a post above. Really the only one which focused on the question asked. The NPC's seemingly can move from place to place, while I'm sure that doesn't mean all do, those walking don't seem to be on a loop like those in TOR or other npcs are, as they will stop on their trip to do things, or interact with others, then begin again, at least that is what I took away from the post, So if this is the case it is much different than TOR or others in a sense.