Nuclear NPCs

[TimeLadyKatie]

Inspired by the fine work 3DNPC did for Skyrim, NNPC intends to diversify and enrich the NPCs of the Commonwealth. Unlike the wastelands of the Mojave or the Capitol, the NPCs of the Commonwealth don't typically feel that deep or meaningful and interactions with them are usually formulaic and with narrow sets of potential outcomes.

 

NNPC will add a host of new, voiced characters to the Commonwealth, with more meaningful character interactions and more potential to develop the Sole Survivor from those interactions. The mod also will introduce new locations and questlines as well.

 

While we won't know a solid release window until after the GECK is available, we plan to release a small 'sample pack' of NNPCs as we develop the larger mod. We also intend on continued development over the Fallout 4 life cycle.

 

Why not just wait for 3DNPC to release theirs? In part, because we intend to make this mod as friendly to other quests and mods as possible and doubt that their group has the time to make a similar approach. And, honestly, in part because there is no such thing as too many unique NPCs in a game that really needs them.

 

Since EmiKivel and I are developing this in parallel with the companion Beth Esda, we also intend the mods to work synergistically, with Beth aware of NNPC situations and characters and vice versa through compatibility patching.

 

FEATURES

:nuke: Characters and stories that both tonally match and enrich the Fallout 4 experience.

:nuke: Fully voiced. Or at least, all NPCs are voiced. Not yet sure how we'll approach the Sole Survivor.

:nuke: A new radio station. One that tells you what that other radio station doesn't want you to know.

:nuke: New quests, including one featuring Lyons-loyalist Brotherhood reformers.

:nuke: New locations.

:nuke: Developed with integration with Elizabeth Esda in mind.

:nuke: Integration with vanilla NPCs and quests.

:nuke: More opportunities to define who your Sole Survivor is through character interactions.

:nuke: New, interesting and unique companions with detailed backstories and personal quests, who will be both location and quest aware.

 

SAMPLE NNPCs

:nuke: Sebastian Holt, a ghoul living in the sunken parking structure in the Glowing Sea and pre-war radio personality.

:nuke: Lancer Pascal, a vertibird pilot for the Brotherhood of Steel working to bring the Brotherhood to it's gentler FO3 days.

:nuke: Old Green Eyes, a post-apocalyptic Frank Sinatra in search of a nice bar to not really work all that hard at.

:nuke: Jay Oppenheimer, a Child of Atom priest on a mission to save the souls of the Commonwealth's ghouls.

:nuke: Conrad Spires, the host of his very own radio station where he gives the latest news about how the Institute is feeding babies to super mutants or how New York is just Enclave propaganda.

:nuke: Wayland Carlysle, owner of Carlysle Caravans and absolutely uninterested in spending time talking to you. Time is caps and you waste his.

:nuke: Major Lionel Adams, an Enclave recruiter left behind in Boston. His uncle, Sam, wants you to serve your country.

 

DEVELOPMENT

As the scale of this mod is rather large, we plan to take it in smaller stages. For now, as we await the GECK, we're focusing on developing characters, writing and recording, and are seeking voice actors for this particular task.

 

We will update this post regularly with the progress of this project.

 

CHALLENGES

Admittedly, this is a lot to take on, and we don't have the vast experience with this particular mod style that the folks at 3DNPC have. It is for this reason that we plan to have an open communication with players and release the early stages of this mod's development in fairly regular updates.

Additionally, we are unsure at the moment how to approach the voiced player character.

Edited December 24, 2015 by TimeLadyKatie

[Vulon]

Awesome -- sounds quite similar to what Mod-Tec's trying to do with Denizens of the Commonwealth. The more NPCs the merrier, I say. :D

 

As far as the voiced player character is concerned, what I'm planning to do for DoC and other mods is to compile a fairly extensive catalog of general dialogue prompts and responses for both male and female PCs. There are still limitations, to be sure; for instance, we can't expect to implement voiced player responses that specifically address unique topics that any custom-voiced NPC brings up unless there are pre-existing spoken records of the player character that correlate with said topic.

 

With DoC, I've proposed that the initial line of any given topic or subsequent response prompted by an NPC should therefore be written in such a way that a fairly generalized player response would work. It's not ideal, but I believe it's the best option at present.

 

I also plan to 'splice' different bits of audio for both male and female protagonists together in order to create additional dialogue options. Given the sheer volume of voiced content for both PCs (nearly 13,000 lines each), there's certainly plenty to work with -- that being said, doing so will be a time-consuming endeavor, so this isn't something that will be completed any time soon. Once I do have a comprehensive library of both pre-existing and newly edited voiced content put together and organized for ease of use, I'll most likely release it as a modder's resource.