i really like the interaction between our char with hoary boulder back in rising stone (together with his friend coultenet too), at that time i though iam going to get another important npc or something like that but nope, they actually just there for the "another adventurer" npc, which i actually find it amazing because it just to show that we are not "the one" of sort and on top of that, hoary as opponent is actually pretty hard if you are not careful so its also another to show that we are not exactly superhuman from the others. they are not important npc but not exactly passing by npc either, ever since then i tend to come back to rising stone just to check if they have new dialogue to read because...
for not important npc, they actually has progress to show, back when i met them 1st time, they all wearing level 20ish equipment, now they wear much more grandeur equipment which seems level 50ish of sort, you cant see that kind of progression from a mere NPC in other mmorpg, this kind of stuff usually only apply to important NPC only like alphinaud for example.
then in SB i got even more amazed because of 1 npc, arenvald. this guy is also just "another adventurer" and before SB he like others is just there for the "other adventurers" trope. never in my life in SB this guy actually become a story character and actually play a key role of all things. i expected him to be there when we reclaim the palace because he is also one of the "local" but to actually play a role and actually interact and connected with our story? talk about role upgrade.
and the best part for me is that this guy also has the power of echo THE echo albeit very small compare to our char but he has it, a much much more important npc like alphinaud or his sister didnt get one then suddenly this one npc who i never even notice but already among us since pre HW get the same power as us.
i really wish SE give us more something like this in the future, maybe another focus on hoary and his gang.