Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree

Chapter 230: Chapter 224: NPC and Players

*Could an NPC become friends with a player?*

For most players, NPCs were just tools in the game, serving the sole purpose of pushing the story forward, selling items, or acting as enemies for players to kill for fun.

Perhaps players could also develop feelings for specific NPCs, such as certain exceptionally crafted characters by game developers, or like pets players painstakingly raised in the game…

However, these feelings were more of a condescending recognition and affection for things that matched their preferences or for things they had worked hard to shape.

In essence, this type of emotion was not equal.

Even in many games, where players endlessly fawned over NPCs, it was mostly not because they liked NPCs but because they sought benefits or used it as a form of mental support…

Even if they truly liked a character, it was only because of the persona the game creators had crafted for that character, and perhaps the backstory behind it.

In players’ eyes, no matter how likable an NPC was, they were still just NPCs, equivalent to characters in a story, except… this was a story players could participate in.

But it was just participation, after all.

Even if they engaged in the NPCs’ stories, even if they entered the game’s plot… players remained players.

Perhaps they would be moved by the plot, or maybe they would cheer for the story.

But they knew it was just a game, something meant to relax and entertain them, designed around them.

Of course, another reason for this situation was that emotional exchanges during gaming were one-sided…

NPCs… were ultimately NPCs.

Players had genuine emotions, players had truly independent thoughts, but NPCs did not.

They were just a mass of data, and all their reactions were pre-programmed.

Players were the true masters of the game.

In this context, asking players to communicate equally with NPCs was actually unfair to players.