Quote:Original post by templewulf
You guys bring up some interesting specifics, but I'm curious as to why you can't integrate both approaches to some degree?

You can have both dramatically modelled A.I. characters and a higher level storyteller A.I. managing the drama. In fact, I think you have/i] to have both in order for it to work best.

However, in all the approaches that I've seen described and/or implemented, one of the two will be dominant over the other. In the approach that I'm designing, the higher level storytelling A.I. is the driving force behind the stories; the characters will influence the story, but the focus in on the higher level constructs. In other approaches, it is the characters that are the focus, and the higher level drama aspects are imposed as a thin layer over the top.

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For instance, the CWriter object (great naming convention, I know, you can have it free of charge! :-P) would set up various scenarios into which to throw you, but actually playing out those scenarios might change based on the participants.

This is close to what I'm doing, as I think this is the best approach for fitting some interactive storytelling elements to the current standard of games. Of course, you have to make sure that the scenarios both fit together to make a story arc, and are able to be influenced by the actions of the player(s); it can't just be a random quest generator.

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One game I'm very eager to get my hands on is Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The descriptions of the "Radiant AI" are amazing, but a lot of critics have dismissed them as scripted events misrepresented as AI.

Does anyone know the particulars on Bethesda's Radiant AI scheme?

I knew they were making another Elder Scrolls game, but I haven't heard much about the A.I.; I'm a bit out of touch with the latest industry gossip since I haven't been keeping up with my developer magazines. I'll have a look at it, but my gut feeling is that it will be well-designed scripted events. Scripted events are much easier to build and test, so that tends to be what is used for RPG storytelling. Every time something gets hyped up in the media for having dynamic storytelling, such as Fable, it turns out to be just a deeper level of what we currently have.

But when I have the time (and access to a decent internet connection! My home connection really sucks!) I'll check up on Oblivion. While I'm sure they are guarded about what they use, I'm pretty good at reading behind marketing spiels to make a shrewd educated guess at what they are doing.

My book review for Chris Crawford on Intreractive Storytelling is up. For those of you who are interested in this topic it's worth reading a copy.

templewulf: I've read a few press releases and journalist descriptions of the Radiant A.I. engine used in Oblivion, but I haven't found any real hard info. on what it's meant to do. It sounds like they are trying to implement a Sims-like model of physicological needs for each NPC. However, other points, such as making all NPCs try to have lunch at the same time, suggest they are using a series of scripts. I think that Radiant is working by a series of small scripts that get triggered by various internal and external factors, such as what to do when hungry or tired, for example. I think this is a good way to get low-level believable character interaction, but for interactive storytelling you need something more. They seem to be focused on the believable aspect by having physicological modelling, but not on the dramatical level, so I assume there will be a fixed storyline.

The main flaw of this approach, as far as I can see it, is that since every NPC will be based on the same model they will all seem to have the same personality. This is similar to what is present in the Sims; every Sim seemed to me to be similar to each other. Sure, some were more grouchy than others, some more shy etc., but at their core they were all the same A.I. script. I don't see any easy way around this for large games, however, as you can't write a different script for every NPC.

The other flaw is with so many little scripts it's easy for the NPCs to break the illusion of intelligent behaviour by doing something stupid. An example is given by all the journalists reporting that demo, where the shopkeeper tries to silence her dog by setting it on fire with a spell. I'm sure the Elder Scrolls Oblivion designers will not want their NPC towns turning into anarchy, so they might cripple the A.I.s functionality if that is the case; we'll have to see when the game is released what it can do.