How do you make NPCs interesting?

How do you make NPCs interesting?

Make them fight with you or give you free stuff.

Step one, make them act like human fucking beings.

Aka they don't repeat lines of dialogue over and over
They don't stand at attention until you press the action button
They have actual motivations, purposes, desires.

Not really the case in Pokemon - I am reminded of the tones of generic NPC's that exist only to give handholding items to the PC.

Make them cute like hex maniac

just make them all waifus.

If you can't write well, you can at least let your dick write for you.

same way you make ordinary people interesting, make them ignore you

dropping quests and question marks and exciting events on the player just makes the player bored

in ultima 4 you had to work to figure out what the fuck was going on, and even what your goal was, nothing whatsoever approached you, except monsters that were trying to kill you

Design a story to fit around a character, not a character that fits into the story.

I like it when games at least change dialogue NPCs in various places say depending on where you are in the game/what's going on at the point.

RPGs that have NPCs change lines after big events, for example, makes going back to towns I've been to already a little more interesting.

Really a minor thing but makes for a very different experience.

fat thighs and big tits full of milk

do thicc

It really does. Probably overuse example but still:
>slay dragons
>save entire cities
>have honorary title in most cities
>regarded as one of the most important people in history
>>Do you get to the cloud district very often? What am I saying.. of course you don't.

I was playing Tales of Hearts R recently, and that game does that a lot. There was an NPC in an amusement park, a young boy, who is standing under a shaded area under a tall platform with grates who goes on about how he's never leaving that spot. If you go around all the way up to that platform, you can talk to a lady who mentions she feels like someone's watching her. She's standing directly above the kid, is wearing a skirt, and the grated platform she's standing on implies enough.

If you talk to both of them at different points in the game, their lines will change, along with everyone else in that park, and at the end of the game, the lady will finally notice the kid.

There's also several NPCs going on about wanting to start a relationship with another NPC, and throughout the game they often end up as couples. It's not treated as a big deal, it's just passing conversations you can see if you bother talking to people. It's extremely mundane, but it helped give the setting and each town personality, with mini-stories being told through simple, brief lines of dialogue and implications.

It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's always nice to see something like that.

It's also great seeing NPCs react to things you've done or things going on in the world at the time. Helps give a sense of progress and accomplishment.

I think that's the biggest thing you can do with NPCs; not make them static, and if possible, inject even the tiniest bit of personality into them.

Make them unique like the one in your pic

Give them an interesting backstory, but do your best to not spell it out to people. Implications are more interesting to people than simply informing you of who they are and why they do it.

Less "I'm going to fight you to avenge my father who died to your hands!" More "I'm going to fight you" coupled with finding clues in their house that implies why they were trying to fight you.

Also appealing design. Even better if you can get elements of said design to wear after.

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Make them worth a meme. Have them say something slightly interesting.

UUUUUUUUUUUUH

Just give them something to do other than repeat a few generic tip lines. Would probably require cutting down on the number but also have them have some kind of interactions with the world.

Also pic not related. Hex Maniac is ugly as fuck and also canonically an ironing board.

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One of the problems with this is the amount of dialogue that needs to be written, which becomes especially difficult if your game has voice acting.

>interesting npcs
>voice acting
Just give them lots of wacky one liners, at least one of them is bound to become a meme on Reddit.

It's so mind-bogglingly simple it's ridiculous that people still make shitty NPCs.

Just make them have their own life aside from being tutorials or merchants solely for the hero, make them have their own dreams and ambitions, make them achieve something and make them lose something. Don't expect them to always be there.

This