The NPCs are going to be everywhere in Elyria, they are going to be our neighbors and family members, but how are they going to be, act ?
What we know is that their AI will be built on two things :
The personality of the NPCs will use the Big Five personality traits.
Their need will follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
What all that means is that the NPCs will be driven by their needs, trying to fulfill them, starting from the base of the pyramid. If they successfully fulfill the needs of one level they then go to the next.
If they can not fulfill some needs, they will try to act in order to achieve fulfillment, how they will act will be drove by their personality.
Lets review the needs and try to theorize what can be done to ensure those needs are fulfilled....
Physiological needs, basic needs
Air, water, food but also clothing and shelter and reproduction.
Water and food seems pretty obvious, but it needs attention, those need to please all the different tribes present and their availability must follow population expansion; if food source already reached maximum capacity you'll need to search or expand to increase it.
Air seems like a no-brainer , but in CoE context it might also include, temperature, humidity, toxics and sun exposure, swamps and tropical forests that come with a certain degree of natural toxicity might not suit some NPC's needs, same can be said with dry/wet biomes and hot/cold ones....
Cloths and shelter means that NPCs will request some amount of ressources and habitations and the skilled characters to use and craft/build them. As for food it is importent that the growth of the population be accounted for and insidently the collateral impact that it will have of food production resources.
Last one, reproduction should be ok except if messed up with, what it tells us is that population must be expected to grow and as such things should be planned accordingly or shortages of resources will occur and needs fulfillment will fail, prompting NPCs to act.
Safety needs
Personal, financial and health security.
Personal security imply law and order, low crime rate, peaceful and safe environment.
Financial security means, availability of jobs and fair salaries, prices and taxes, also included here are trade regulations and property rights.
Health security in Elyrian context would bean environment free from plagues, meteorological and geographical hazards like active volcano, hurricanes, blizzards, flash floods...... that last type of needs will be the hardest to provide if not present as we will not have access to terraformation or waterway control, best guess is to take it in account from the start.
Social belonging
NPCs will want to be part of groups, religious groups, professional organizations, clubs, teams or gangs..... any and several groups.
To me that means two things, first where you see an NPC there should be others not far ! secondly, if no custom made groups are available the NPCs will focus on the existing default groups, religious, tribal, social class, settlement, which will encourage a static closed society, centered around itself and not opened to outsiders and new things. To counter that i'd ensure lots of groups and if possible overlapping groups exist and if possible include characters from outside the default groups.
Esteem
The next step is status, recognition, fame prestige .....
To me it says that NPCs will want to improve them-self and their lot in life AND expect to be recognized for their achievements. To allow and enable that, it will be importent that such opportunities exist and that laws, organizations and event be devised to fulfill NPC's attention needs, delegating some powers or creating councils, awarding wealth and such things....
Self-actualization
Finally the last step, it says that NPCs will want and try to be not only better, improving them-self, but will ultimately have the goal to be the best at what they do.
It appears to me that it will them be importent to us to provide them with at the very least the illusion that they can achieve that goal, if they are in competition for that top of the crop position with a PC we should find a way to let them feel supported, how to achieve that without interfering with the player i do not know ...
