[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:10, topic:2672”]No need to guess, this kind of thing is exactly what we want with factions, but as also mentioned, it’s absurdly difficult to do right, so it has the greatest risk of anything we’re planning on of completely failing. I have total confidence that we’re going to have working tiles, z-levels, stealth, a cool fighting system, and a whole lot more.
I’m not super-confident that we’ll be able to implement NPC factions in a way we’re going to be totally happy with 
BUT! there’s a consolation prize, which is that we should be able to scale up NPC interactions bit-by-bit to have working NPC allies, then shopkeepers or similar, then settlements, then inter-settlement conflict. We’ll definitely be able to do the first few, the question is how far up this line we’ll be able to push it without burning ourself out, overloading the game, or making the universe implode.[/quote]
Well, if we can at least have NPCs which can be interacted with in a meaningful way (have personalities, memory, might generate missions based on their background and needs, etc) and that are able to react and respond to the world properly (able to scavenge, barter, defend themselves, etc) then that’s certainly something.
Maybe a middle ground between what I guess is your vision of a full fledged faction system and something slightly simpler could be found if there would be two categories of NPC: primary and secondary. Primary NPCs would be a handful which you can interact fully with and which have all the mentioned AI capabilities. Secondary ones would basically be copy-paste ones with minimal AI, the only purpose of which would be to populate areas (fortresses, wandering in forests, etc). As you can see, my suggestion is nothing new. It’s how most RPGs use NPCs . You have the “story” or “utility” -shopkeepers, et- ones and then the rest -a random peasant randomly walking on a market square. It might also help to lessen the inevitable performance impact.
STALKER is a particular game (series of games, actually) which deals with NPCs in a similar way, and provides all the features that seem to be expected from a CataDDA one. They also divide them in two categories: those related to quests or who provide some kind of good, and then the rest of random ones whose only purpose is to either fight for their faction or scavenge on their own (and interactions are limited to ask for “news” or barter). In fact, STALKER would be a very nice example for CataDDA could be, as it deals quite successfully with everything we’re talking about here (NPCs, faction wars, AI scavenging, virtual wildlife, etc).
