Revisiting an idea

I had an idea on a direction in RPG gaming earlier (in 2021), I kept it in my mind and left it aside. The latest patch by Hogwarts Legacy pushed the thought to the forefront of my mind again.

You see what we now need is a smarter NPC. An NPC that reacts to you, to some extent we are already there. Some games do that, but to a limited degree. So consider two elements Honour and Dishonour. Every NPC will get a value and to the degree it has its own value, an outfit will get a new rating. In this example The Azkaban will carry Dishonour +5 and Honour -8 there is not linear setting and that will set a new stage. Poachers will see you optionally as an enemy, Ashwinders will see you as a ally (to keep track of the example). To the other games this applies to and the larger setting is that your choice of outfit isn’t just to stop cold, shield from heat, and to stop buoyancy, but it will also present you to them. Consider the Crusades. All those people in metal armour, it had an impact. I had been playing with this idea for some time. Why clothing is merely cometic, it can be so much more. Like weapons, there is a strategic side and we never used it to that degree in RPG games. 

As I see it, the new RPG will need this, as well as an upgraded economy setting. We have all the elements and now that we have powerful PC’s and a powerful PS5 the hardware will be able to deal with this. The question becomes, who will incorporate this setting first? I reckon that any RPG game lagging by 2026 will have lost interest by gamers pretty quickly. 

We need to push gaming forward and this is one direction we can add to the equation. 

Almost Monday now.