I am currently working on a roleplay game and I just started so it gets basically no players. Because of that, I want a way for the player to still have fun even with no one else to play with. Does anyone have any ideas?
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Maybe make npcs to roleplay with? Maybe make it so you can interact with certain npcs and if you have a certain reputation or something like that if your game works that way and if you do certain quests for certain npcs your reputation can either go up if you are working for a nice npc(sherrif, builder, etc.) or go down if you are working for a mean npc(criminal, shady dealer, etc.) Just a thought!
My game’s not really a quest type game, its like Brookhaven, Adopt Me, and Bloxburg.
Ah, I see. Still, some sort of npc feature I think would be cool. The npcs can be their friends and talk to them. Also, if you advertise for well enough over a couple weeks or have a youtuber do a vid on your game it can explode.
Ok thanks, I will give it a try!
Unfortunately, Adopt Me, Bloxburg, and Brookhaven are all games centered around social interaction and community. Since you don’t yet have a large enough community, I would suggest making NPCs, however it wouldn’t be the same as interacting with regular humans.
The second option you could do (the harder option), would be to shift the entire gameplay so that it does not rely so much on community and social interaction. Maybe once you get a large enough community, you can start to incorporate the social aspect of the game a bit more.
It’s really hard getting a game that heavily relies on social interactions started. Good luck to you!
As others have said, the point of roleplay is to, well roleplay, and you need other people to do this so there’s really no way around this. You’ll have to advertise your game a bit and hope it does well. Even though some have suggested NPCs, there’s only so much you can do with an NPC so I don’t really suggest doing that.
There are multiple ways you could go about this, being NPCs, activities, and a combination of both.
NPCs:
As others are saying, NPCs! Making NPCs that give quests, run shops, or even just wander around aimlessly will help make the world feel so much more alive. While their behavior can be pretty limited as its difficult to make an NPC that does everything another player could, it definitely helps. You can use these NPCs as a way to introduce other stuff as well - for example, a quest given from a hard to find NPC can give a rare item, or even more simply doing jobs for NPCs can allow you to buy stuff from other NPCs or players. If you just want NPCs to populate the world, you could have some that wander around and if you interact with them they say something about the weather, their day, the town their in, kind of like you would see in an Elder Scrolls game.
Overall, if you’re going for an Adopt Me/Bloxburg type of game, NPCs are probably going to be more limited to shop keepers, and simple and relevant quests like delivering an item, retrieving something lost, and so forth. These types of quests aren’t as focused on the quest itself, but rather about making the player explore the game world and becoming engaged with what you have created (in contrary to something like slaying a dragon).
Activities:
Of course, there’s other ways to go about it as well. You could add other activities - mining, farming, building, or just have a map that is fun to explore to keep players on when overall playercount is low. This is going to keep gameplay pretty limited to earning money to buy new stuff, but dedicated players will still find this enjoyable.
A combination:
You could also do a mixture of both - for example, you could be given a quest to go and deliver a letter, and upon doing so you can reward players with new building materials or something like that. Basically, interaction with an NPC leads to a quest/activity, and that activity rewards the player with something they can use to make gameplay more fun on their own.
Some more examples of this:
- A quest that upon completion unlocks an activity, like an NPC asking you to retrieve a lost bike and upon completion the player can part take in bike races
- A quest to find a lost ring, where upon completion the player gets some money and some cosmetics (encourages players to explore any cosmetics you have in game to customize their character)
- Talking to a specific NPC tells the player a bit about the world (e.g. how the town was founded or something like that), and by doing so they unlock a related location like a library or museum (which can lead to more activities - think the museum from Stardew Valley)
Hope this helps!