What steps will I need to take to eventually be able to make an everchanging world?

First, I am just going to say that I know nothing about scripting right now, so I do not plan on attempting this until I take some C# (and 3D modelling) classes... after a few smaller experiments of course, for practice.

But I eventually want to make an open world game where, instead of every NPC being meaningless, everyone has a scripted story that you can change depending on your actions.

For example, on day one, you can meet an old man at the super-market, who is looking for a particular item. Since the shop doesn't have it, he asks you if you know of any close-by stores that might have it in stock. By this point, you will know of two stores, marked on your minimap.

If you send him to store 1 and continue on with the scripted story with your cousin (who you're staying with until you can get on your feet,) you will eventually see a cop car racing down the road. If you follow the car, you will see the old man shot dead on the ground with a crowd around him. A girl will race into the crowd - his grand-daughter. You can talk with her here and try to cheer her up, making your first friend and, later on, potential girlfriend.

If you send him to store 1 and don't follow the cop car, on day two, you can walk into a coffee shop and find the granddaughter crying alone at a table. You can walk up to her and ask what's wrong, and can bring her a coffee for extra points. This way, you also make her as a friend.

If you send him to store 1 and follow the man before you see the cop car, you can see the mugging/murder in progress and stop it. The man will still be alive, and will invite you home to meet his family. You meet the granddaughter this way too.

If you send him to store 2 instead of store 1, the man will continue to live his life, but now, meeting his granddaughter, or bumping into him again, will be pure chance.


Since I am not a coder yet, I am asking early on what would be the best courses to take so I can get there. And when I do get there, what would be the cleanest method to structure the code when I do get around to writing it? Like, would it be best to have one script per NPC, or several scripts that turn on/off depending on what has happened in the world? What should the basic structure of each NPC's script roughly look like? How would I go about telling which NPCs to do what at specific times of day? (Each full in-game day will be 48 minutes long - 2 minutes per in-game hour, and will repeat seamlessly in realtime.)

Now before someone tells me I'm aiming too high, I would like to say that I am aware of the possibility that this idea may never become a reality, but I am willing to do whatever I can to help make it one. I most likely won't be doing this alone in the end, either. I do know, though, that if I ever attempt to create this idea, that I will have to be quite the expert at coding, and decent enough at modeling. Hopefully, I will get there someday. If not, I'm sure someone else will, eventually. Thank you for taking your time to read this, if you've gotten this far.

I would also like to apologize if this is in the wrong section, as I'm not entirely positive on where this goes.