Nice idea Nazrix and non-linear game devices as a whole are a good concept to avoid stale FFVIII style adventures. However there is the problem that, in a chaotic world, the situation could turn against the intention of the game designers. What happens if, because of a certain series of unlikely but possible events, the NPC''s don''t bump into each other for days? This leads to a fairly long-winded boring episode for the player.
The less constraints placed upon the plot the more chance there is for circumstance to conspire against the designers and lead away from good, tight game play.
On the other hand the more constraints placed upon the game the more linear the plot development and the more likely you are to end up with a scene-by-scene forced storyline.

I think main plot lines should be more directly scripted in terms of player circumstance (where the player is at a given time, not where an NPC is) leaving the non-linearity to minor plot-lines and less consiquential occurences.

From my point of view I''d love to see a world expand based on the intelligences of the NPC''s and what they decide to do at any given time but unless you want the possibility of a meandering experience then you have to have some form of constrained sequencing to the game.

Just my $0.02.

Mike

You know, I''ve been reading alot of threads like this about realistic NPC interaction. Ultima 7 did it really well without overdoing it. It''s amazing what those guys accomplished with a 80386 processor and 4MB RAM. The Ultimas invented a while ago the kind of NPC realism we''re trying to accomplish.

True NPCs in most Ultimas were simple -- all but Ultima 7. Have you ever used the cheat menu and modified NPC attributes? There were maybe 3 dozen different attributes/states. It was neat to set the "loiter" flag off and turn the "baking" flag on. Then turn the "fly" flag on and watch them bake on the roof. That to me is pretty sophisticated, espeically because it could be modified on the fly without recompiling.