I don’t know what work has really happened on NPCs in the last few experimentals, but I have been having a blast with the random interactions I’ve had with them.
Best so far…
I’d been holing up in a military bunker for a couple days, conveniently located near a lab I’d begun to explore, as well as a military outpost I was planning to hit soon. I stumbled across some more bodies and scored two more mil ID cards, so decided to use them to open a couple of the choicier rooms in the bunker rather than blow through the walls with the C4 I’d found in a crate the day before. Swiped the card, entered with a flashlight on and grabbed the couple rifles and plutonium loot… when I noticed an NPC huddled in the corner behind where the door opened. I chatted her up…
“Drop the crossbow and back away!” Hm. Well alright lady with a butcher knife, let’s try this like civilized folk. I drop my loaded crossbow, and as she takes a step forward frantically crying “Buddy, where are you?” I think twice. I’ll be damned if I get jumped by TWO of these A-Holes. Snatch up the crossbow, plug her with a bolt as she charges at me in the center on the room. We have a vicious knife fight, but as I’d luckily found some basic body armor earlier that day, it was quite one-sided. No sign of her “friend.” I felt sorry for her a bit, imagining her locking herself in here and going insane as she slowly ran out of food only to have to be put down by an equally desperate survivor.
I dont know if cataclysm will ever be as nuts as the NPCs that would give you live explosives or the ones that carried items that could rend the entire universe into tiny bits (ie: crash the whole game and corrupt the save)
I loved that, personally. I think some of the erratic behavior should definitely be left in as NPCs get revamped to represent crazies during the apocalypse.
I thought that at first too, but I had a flashlight on the entire time, I missed her in the corner because locked in a bunker vault was the last place I thought I’d encounter a random NPC. It was weird, never heard one say anything like that before.
Last time i played with NPCs i was driving a souped up mega car with a NPC in the passenger seat, i was curious on how they would work when near zombies. I see some zeds in a field, so i veer off the road and start hitting them. One goes onto the left side of the car, right by my door. The NPC decides that zombie is a premium threat and pulls out her sawn-off shotgun. She blows my head apart, but still, somehow gripping the wheel and holding my skull together, I pull out a glock and drop her as she reloads. I took her sawn-off and drove back to base. My helmet was completely shattered, my head had one health point, i managed to get back and patch myself up before i died from brain damage.
Women and firearms :s
… but my aim is improving.