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

Yes, MikeD, good point. An idea like this would have to be compromised a bit. It couldn''t be too far on the side of chaos.

However, the way that I''m envisioning this, the player wouldn''t be simply waiting for the situation where the 2 NPCs come together. If there are a lot of NPCs then the chance of something happening would pretty good. Furthermore, one situation of 2 NPCs coming in contact may trigger a few other plots w/ it which would keep the player busy.



"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

"The road of excess also just ends making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix

On the point of chaos avoidance, here''s a suggestion...

What if the computer told the NPCs involved that due to a scripted plot event (ie. a murder needs to happen in the story), they have a certain amount of time to make this "chance meeting" happen.

One NPC could be at the bakery, while the other is on his way to the barber. Although the barber might be on the other side of the town, the second NPC knows that he needs to perform this scripted plot sequence within a certain amount of time, so he makes a detour to walk past the bakery on his way to the barber.
If it has run out of time to perform the plot sequence, he just goes straight to the bakery for no good reason at all, and hopes that the player won''t think this strange.

Either way, upon reaching the bakery, the other NPC senses this and knows that she must perform her part of the plot sequence...

Not sure how this could be implemented, but it''s an idea...

Samah


"...the grave is no bar to my call..." - The Horn Of Valere

What about a simple new need : "Kill X NPC" in the system ?

It would be easy to add and will give you the expected result.

Just an idea :p

(Since needs are prioritized, you can give it a low priority to have it done sometime in the future, or a high one to have it done in a few minutes )

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

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.

Hey!
Maybe we should make a petition to get Origin to release some of the Ultima source code? Like from 7 or 8 or something.
They might release it or at least some of it if there are enough people wanting it...

Samah


"...the grave is no bar to my call..." - The Horn Of Valere

I know the more the industry is growing the lesser amount of work is done on each game.

It''s really bad

I don''t think it''s a good idea to see someone else code, I think it''s best to think about it with a blink mind to be more open minded.

With a previous code available we might spend way too much time trying to understand it, and to modify it...


IMHO.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Anyway, as far as I remember, NPC realism in the Ultima series was not that good : it only involved NPCs moving from place to place according to a schedule and fleeing/helping in case of fight.

We want to do something better (tm).

Be reading you,
YA

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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.