When I need to relax, I often find myself watching timelapse videos of ocean creatures like starfish taking over patches of the sea floor. It may sound a bit morbid, but there’s a certain beauty in nature’s ways.
Recently, I came across a similar concept in Warhorse’s latest RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. By dropping various items in a random town square, NPCs would gradually gather them based on their class preferences. A Reddit user, Mcloganator, created a video showcasing this unique system in action, with a value of three thousand groschen worth of goods to collect.
[KCD2] Timelapse of 300 thousand Groschen worth of goods being scavenged from the streets of Kuttenberg.
byu/Mcloganator in kingdomcome
(In case the video embed is not visible, here is a link.)
Isn’t it mesmerizing? This kind of feature would be a great addition to Bethesda games. The video has gained popularity on Xeetbox, and Warhorse programmer Patrik Papšo shared some insights on the social systems behind the NPC behavior in the game.
“Haha, that’s an NPC behavior I implemented!” he mentioned. “They choose items based on value and social status.” Under the game’s AI system, when an NPC spots a dropped item, it evaluates its price against their social multiplier and checks if another NPC is already picking it up.
Papšo also discussed some abandoned features, like the ability for NPCs to trace stolen items back to players and a bug where NPCs could take items from the player’s inventory. These were removed due to gameplay complications.
Beyond the captivating scene of townsfolk collecting goods in Kuttenberg, the concept of NPCs actively acquiring, exchanging, and discarding objects opens up exciting possibilities. Imagine tracking your favorite boots as they change hands and end up in unexpected places.
Perhaps there’s a simulation out there that does this already. For now, I can only think of how dwarves claim items in Dwarf Fortress.
