More alive city and crowds

[x-MuT4Re_0.6-x]

More NPCs, Bigger Crowds & A More Alive World

One of the biggest ways inZOI could feel more realistic is by making every city feel busy, lively, and full of people.

Right now, some places can feel a little quiet. Imagine walking through a city where there’s always something happening around you.

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1. More NPCs Everywhere

Imagine seeing:

• Hundreds of people walking through downtown.
• Busy cafés filled with customers.
• Shopping districts packed with visitors.
• Crowded bus stops.
• Parks full of families and friends.

Every area would feel like a real city instead of feeling empty.

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2. Bigger Crowds at Events

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When something exciting happens, people should show up.

Imagine:

• Thousands of fans at concerts.
• Packed football stadiums.
• Crowds gathering to watch fireworks.
• Busy holiday festivals.
• Weekend markets filled with shoppers.

Big events should actually feel big.

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3. Cities That Never Feel Empty

Different times of day could change the atmosphere.

Morning

• People rushing to work.
• Students heading to school.
• Coffee shops filling up.

Afternoon

• Tourists exploring.
• Families in parks.
• Shops at their busiest.

Night

• Restaurants full.
• Friends enjoying nightlife.
• Streets still active in entertainment areas.

The city would have its own rhythm.

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4. NPCs Living Their Own Lives

NPCs shouldn’t just walk around.

Imagine seeing them:

• Meeting friends.
• Walking their dogs.
• Arguing, laughing, or celebrating.
• Going shopping.
• Taking selfies at landmarks.
• Eating together at restaurants.

Even if your Zoi never talks to them, the city would still feel alive.

[Carnel]

That’s all great, but there’s a huge problem.

NPCs in InZOI are not just “decorations,” as they are in most games. In those, they’re usually “extras” who just go about their daily routines, creating the impression of bustling life in cities. For example, they stand in pairs in courtyards and chat endlessly about nothing. Or they walk along predetermined paths through neighborhoods, having neither names nor personality. Sure, they might have some daily schedule, but it’s all just simulation, not involving any interaction with the player beyond a couple of phrases if you bump into them, or reactions to aggressive actions.

Here, though, an algorithm is calculated for each character’s actions, creating a full-fledged simulation, practically on the same level as the family we play. Clothes are created for them, which are rendered by the graphics card just like the player’s clothes. And enabling the option to create large crowds would put incredible strain on the system—that’s precisely why the population, vehicle, and animal density parameters can be adjusted, just as you can enable physics for clothing only for your own characters, not for all the townspeople.

So I’d also love to see the city feel “alive,” but… I’m afraid that would require somehow changing the logic of their behavior. They’d need to be “faceless dummies” with the simplest cyclical behavior algorithm, and only the moment the player decides to interact with them should they gain personality. I think this could somehow be implemented, but it’s an enormous amount of work. If only because in a city where the player can rebuild everything, NPCs need to orient themselves and properly interact with objects. You can’t just send them to walk inside a building because they need to be able to find the entrance and exit, the sink, the toilet, the fridge, the food counter… And we can rearrange all of that in any order wherever we want, even removing something that was originally on the lot. And an NPC shouldn’t walk through walls and objects just because there used to be empty space there that they were programmed to walk along.

Remember what developers are actively dealing with right now? Exactly the problem where even our zois behave illogically when searching for a place to eat or sleep. The other day, my zoi, upon entering a clothing store, suddenly decided he needed to relax in an armchair. Before I could stop him, he went outside, got on a bus, and teleported to a hair salon he’d never been to before, then sat down in the client chair and started chatting with the stylist So even one zoi can struggle with logic in his actions without help from the player. If it’s hundreds of characters… In short, we won’t be able to play. It won’t even be a slide show—it’ll just be rendering each frame for a couple of minutes.

So the idea is good, but for now, unfortunately, it doesn’t fit a life simulator-style game. A shame, of course.

[Mazikeen]

Stadiums with thousands of people are impossible. We can’t even enter into the game. Sometimes you forget it’s just a game.

[Minthyuyu]

@x-MuT4Re_0.6-x

• Arguing, laughing, or celebrating.

@x-MuT4Re_0.6-x

• Taking selfies at landmarks.
• Eating together at restaurants.

Aren’t the NPCs already doing that? When I’m at the Bliss Bay plaza, people constantly take selfies on that landmark in the middle, eat and talk with others?

And I agree with @Carnel . The game is struggling as is.

@Carnel

In short, we won’t be able to play. It won’t even be a slide show—it’ll just be rendering each frame for a couple of minutes.

I personally prefer an “emptier” but therefore more stable experience, with a normal amount of NPCs, that have simple, but alive behaviour from the outside

[Carnel]

No, maybe it could be implemented somehow — for instance, you could create an environment around the player with 5-6 “real” NPCs that you can interact with, and the rest would just be drawn according to a certain algorithm, and all they would do is depict a crowd of spectators or fans of a singer.

But for that you’d need to write scripted interactions. Something like a roller coaster ride.

Let’s say an NPC sits down in the stands and a football match begins. As long as they’re sitting, they can talk to the nearest NPCs, order food from a vendor walking by, whistle, shout, and so on. The entire crowd around does this, but in a simplified way — shouts, whistles, and waves flags, for example. And when our NPC decides to stand up (or simply the game ends, like a film screening) — there’s a quick load and they find themselves on an empty stadium, and only from the neighboring seats do those NPCs who were real stand up and leave. As if the entire crowd has already dispersed, but they and their neighbors are still lingering in the stands. These kinds of scripted scenarios could very well exist. But definitely not a live simulation of all those hundreds of characters.

[Mazikeen]

This game is not FIFA. Are you aware that we are playing a life simulation game? It’s impossible to include a stadium with thousands of people in it. We can’t enter into the game at all.

system requirements ; RTX 20900 . AMD RYZEN 19600X3D 500 gb ram

[TheresiaBlueberry]

I can imagine this could work when the game is fully working as it should and if we had a huge ( or very large ) map/ city to play in it would be pretty awesome but at this point it’s not possible

the game is struggling greatly to make unique looking zoi’s as it is even with the lowest setting on a small map/town

I sat two days ago and had to customize two series with zoi’s that the game generated because it used the same face and the same profile over and over again and the more i did that the more the game pissed off with me because i did it.

after that i took a break from the game and i refuse to return until this is fixed.

It’s a great wish though and we are allowed to dream!

[Minthyuyu]

I think I understand where your coming from. Sims 3 Showtime had a simplified version of this to make the concert hall look “full”. There were a handful of Sims actually interacting, I call them “real Sims”, while the background crowd was just for noise and clapping. They were just in the concert hall until the concert was over to make the crowd look more full.

A simplified version like this could work instead of having hundreds of independent Zois acting autonomously all the time.

[Carnel]

That’s why I wrote in such detail. And you brought up the right example - FIFA. If they can handle crowd imagery there, they can do it here. But precisely with that same kind of rendering, not actual simulation, which is what I’m saying

The player sits down, gets two minutes of feeling like they’re in a roaring crowd - and then the crowd disappears, leaving only a few actual NPCs.

@TheresiaBlueberry

I can imagine this could work once the game runs properly, and if we had a huge (or very large) map/city to play in, it would just be amazing, but right now it’s impossible.

The game struggles to create uniquely looking characters, even with the lowest settings on a small map/in a small city.

Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s why I’m talking about implementing situations like a football match, or something like that. Where all the fans are dressed pretty much the same, in team colors, and they don’t need unique faces - only our immediate surroundings are truly playable, the rest disappear as soon as we get up from the chair. And they won’t actually be there at all, it’ll be something like a video overlay, without needing the game to render individual figures.

[Carnel]

@Minthyuyu

I think I understand where your coming from. Sims 3 Showtime had a simplified version of this to make the concert hall look “full”

To be honest, I’m seeing something like this for the first time. I never got that far in The Sims and didn’t know everything was implemented that way there. But yes, it’s a very sensible approach, I agree — they definitely had good reason to use it

[Mazikeen]

Oh my god i’m about to faint. It would be impossible for us to even enter into the game. You don’t have an idea how much effort this puts in. I’m directly avoiding the stadium proposal.

[Carnel]

I do understand everything! That’s exactly why I’m looking for “workarounds”!

If a football simulator can handle this — they figured out how to do it. If, as @Minthyuyu wrote, Sims 3 had this feature — they also figured out how to implement it.

Everything is possible. But of course, it requires additional effort from the developers and changes to the internal logic of displaying such events. No “true simulation of every sim” at that moment! Not at all! Scripted scenes, minimal player interaction options with neighbors during the match. Stand up from your seat — the match ends, the crowd disappears.

And then everything could work as it should.

[Mazikeen]

Football simulator and a life simulation game are not the same. Of course, 100-150 people might be able to attend the concert at the venue. But the idea of ​​a stadium with thousands of people is absolutely out of the question. Do you want to burn our computers?

[Carnel]

Life simulation and roller coaster simulation are not the same thing either.

But the developers found a way to switch between these modes so that we can ride in the park, and then start managing our Sims again. And I equally don’t see any reason why something similar couldn’t be implemented for a concert or a competition. Just different modes that seamlessly transition into each other.

Let’s not argue about the same thing. Just trust me that it’s possible, even though it might turn out to be a challenging task

[Mazikeen]

@Carnel

Just trust me that it’s possible

Organizing a concert for 100-150 people is quite possible. I’m sorry but i can’t agree with you about the stadium my friend. The result of this is that our computers burn. Yes the concert idea is great.

[TheresiaBlueberry]

I am sorry about the delay i am following the fan fest in Berlin for FF14

I can imagine something in between like maxis did in the sims 3 you did get the sense of that there is a lot of sims gathered but it was just a trick.

Riverview was a huge map and you could really fill up that map

i felt it was a lot when i had around 200 sims running around it was packed and like minthy pointed out when your sim became a super star you were given the sense there were a lot of sims in that audience but it was just a mere play.

Maybe silhouettes and a play with shadows and light and such wouldn’t be such a bad idea to implent in InZoi as well .

It won’t kill any machines and it wouldn’t be to much for the team to implement

We do see some of that already in Bliss bay , like zoi’s who sits in the garden, talking in the phone or with somebody or chillin in a chair in a balcony but they are outside all day long they never disappear so maybe adding a feature that allows them to make them feel more “alive” like allowing some of the images disappear at night would help the game to feel more " crowded"

Also the team doesn’t have to think big on this they could easily just focus on the area where our zoi’s are living and like you guys mentioned maybe this could be a nice thing if the team ever implement a concert or a sport match

Imagine walking into a coffee shop with your zoi and it looks a bit crowded with zoi’s who sitting around minding themselves like reading the newspaper, eating or chatting with eachother but instead of having living zoi’s doing this, this could easily be different silhouettes or images just for the vibe that it’s a busy place

In this fashion the game doesn’t have to generate tons of new zoi’s, the team could easily cut down the numbers because the place would easily feel packed anyway.

Having the game spawn 3 or 4 new zoi’s would easily be enough

It’s pretty much about the visual experience that the place feels more alive

It’s just some thoughts in all and it’s nice to dream a little bit