Too many NPC's?

before the rabid flaming starts i just want to point out this is just my opinion, not a fact in any way or form. Every time i play this game i cant help but feel like theres tones of people helping me, its just within the first 10 min you meet the most friendly guy in any game ever. compared to demons souls where you could go through the game and maybe meet like 3 other people without even realizing anyone else existed, let alone that they gave you the tools to be indestructible. in this game if you play your cards right you can get the lightning spear before you even defeat the gargoyles. now I love some of the NPC's (lautric, patches, and the pryromancer) but they seam too easy to find, no mystery to how they got there, half the time i wonder how they got as far as they did! just some thoughts and some hopes to the next series

I somewhat hated the fact that Demon's Souls had so few NPCs. It made some areas just feel bland. Plus with how Dark Souls is open world, I feel having fewer NPCs would really make the world feel empty. Really kind of hard to explain but basically I find that they provided just the right amount of NPCs into the game.

Demon's Souls made me feel more than a little helpless at times, going through so much without a friendly face in sight. This also made finding a buddy like Ostrava or Biorr great fun and feel really rewarding. I think that maybe they did overdo the amount of NPC's in Dark Souls just a tad.

I really like the idea of having MORE NPCs because otherwise it feels too dead. Too empty. And keep in mind, not everyone has access to internet, thus they would feel pretty lonely with no one at all. I understand more NPCs might be less Souls like, but i just like the thought of there being others around.

^With so many NPC's around will you ever really feel like your in danger? Of course From did make it a point to not have any of the friendly NPC's help you out in a fight unless they were summoned via the WSS.

This also bothers me a great deal. When I draw two big skeletons out of the graveyard and by the bonfire, I expect Laurentius to get off his A$$ and put in a little work. Whenever Ostrava saw me in fight, he would come running over to help. OK sure he usually got himself killed, but at least would try.

"its just within the first 10 min you meet the most friendly guy in any game ever" <-- are you talking about the guy who attacks you from behind when you go back to the asylum?

mugenis4real wrote:^With so many NPC's around will you ever really feel like your in danger? Of course From did make it a point to not have any of the friendly NPC's help you out in a fight unless they were summoned via the WSS.

This also bothers me a great deal. When I draw two big skeletons out of the graveyard and by the bonfire, I expect Laurentius to get off his A$$ and put in a little work. Whenever Ostrava saw me in fight, he would come running over to help. OK sure he usually got himself killed, but at least would try.

NPCs do not necessarily have to be friendly. Just like players there could be both bad and good NPCs. I was just suggesting a more friendly game for players that do not have access to the internet. A game should always be as good offline as it is online.

@Rynoa
He probably meant Solaire. Hah hah hah.

If only I could be so grossly incandescent...

I want more NPCs...

Oh and romance too...

What?

As much as I loved Demon's Souls minimalism , I don't think more NPC's is a terrible thing, it gives the player more interactment within the world in which they are spending hundreds of hours in.

Each area should have at least one NPC. Gives it just that little more character. Plus I want to see just how many unique creepy laughs the voice actors can come up with. Oswald of Carim wins this hands down btw.

too all you guys who think that the lack of NPC's made demons feel dead, that was the point you where the last hope. even the guys you do meet where broken to a degree, dark souls gets someone to help you in every other fight. GREAT for single player, not so good for the atmosphere. in demons we hada guy who had given up, another who had lost all he loved.....and edd. then you go on to meet a few of the people who where the hopes before you, only to realise that they too could only help you so much if at all and then only if they weren't trying to kill you. this games like "hey, your lonely lets just throw happy npc's at you. i miss the challenge in NPC's only onion knight really ever felt challenging

I think they could afford more npc's given the minimalistic approach the souls games use, these aren't floods of peasants or unrelenting quest givers, they're imperfect, twisted beings who do as much to reflect the world as the enemies within it. They don't follow you place to place or aid you in quests, you have to go to them, and even then everything has its price. Even Solaire the kindest of all Npcs has his own motives for helping you defeat bosses and even then you have to survive the area to reach them.

The souls games could benefit from more lesser characters that give off the impression of rich backgrounds that you may never learn more about than on the day you kill them. Learning their stories by ending them and reminding us just how horrifying and bleak the world truly is by seeing others destroyed by it.

On my previous playthrough, I deliberately fulfilled the conditions for making more or less everyone in Firelink disappear or go Hollow. It was lonely.

none of them are THAT twisted. look at demons souls, you have a power hungry mage, demon worshiping priests, an obsessive apprentice, a corrupted priest and her......friend. an assassin and an assassin's assassin, the mad king and the old king who stayed alive only to protect a sword. and then there's patches XD. im not saying the NPC's suck its just when you make ones as good as the ones from DeS you cant half-*** any more.

Those are npcs who are more corrupted by power, I think Demons souls war more a world corrupted by the power of the demons while dark souls is filled with characters who have slowly lost themselves to time and desperation, they fall to their own weakness.

Few npcs give you a reason to hate them so that when you do kill them you feel as though Lordran is corrupting you as well. This was in DeS as well however it's only end for the npcs in DkS, they die without accomplishing their goals and create a powerful paralleled to your own struggles.