Heh. The lady telling you about how to get to Hawaii in the grocery store gives you a lot of perspective on what conversations in RPGs really are! You should actually have a reason to talk to someone, otherwise it looks silly. We're just so used to it happening in RPGs that we don't care. A good thing would be having a list of contacts, with all the NPCs you know or have a reason to talk to. As the story progresses, some NPCs are added because of events or pointed to you by other contacts ("I have a friend who might be able to help you with that"). It has been mentioned in TechnoGoth's thread that talking to every NPC to find the one that progresses the story is irrealistic and boring. But this is caused by the "a man in the forest, must be a quest" syndrome, so if we solve that problem, populating the world with NPCs that are interesting yet meaningless to the story should not be a problem. The player knows that he should only talk to the ones with their names in different colors because they're in his contact list.
About whether the best solution is to run the NPC simulation only for a small amout of time (while doing some daily chore like doing the laundry) or a complete simulation, I've been thinking about this for a while and I still don't know what to do. Maybe a good compromise would be using cellular automata or similar rules to control the big picture of economics and politics, without a true connection to the small NPCs that ocasionally pop up to do their chores and look good for the player, while some of these NPCs could be promoted to permanent NPCs because they're now more important to the player (the random merchant NPC that the player saved is now permanent so he has lower prices and might give some quests to the player, gives him a pat in the back whenever he sees him, etc). These VIP NPCs :P could act as a bridge between the events at the low NPC level and the high nation-scale events - the daily actions of NPCs are emulated cheaply by the high level simulation, but when something different happens, that NPC is here to stay, making sure there are consequences, and possibly changing the high level simulation as well. Or maybe I'm just rambling. Anyways, I've been toying with these ideas in my head for a while so I thought I might as well contribute :)
Idea Troll: A 'living' blacksmith?
Morrowind successfully uses the reference system within their fairly large towns. Basically you can wander through and find a guild that you want to join, and they give you missions and directions of who to talk to, and where. I've done alot of quests where i have to find some joker (who previously just stood in the middle of nowhere and told me to piss off), and speak to him about the job i'm doing.
Morrowind has an arsenal of quests for a number of guilds that would probably take forever to complete, but once you seem to get the major ones done there's not much left to do (since the game technically has no real ending, gameplay is continuous and all pre-scripted, so eventually you run out of quests).
I suppose if i were going to try organizing or scripting a living world around the player, that it would heavily depend on timing and events. The trick is to script all the events (and potentially upto 3 outcomes), and then engage them over time. You see the same thing with NPC's disappearing at night, and then appearing during the day, the game doesn't actively track them when the player isn't around, it just checks the time to see which events should be active, and which ones have resolved in the players area.
So you can create detailed scripts and actions to give characters life (like merchants who make regular trips to another town), and then slap on a random number generator which can 'randomly' play one of a number of 'surprise' events that may disrupt that NPC's routine (like a merchant getting attacked, and possibly killed when the player isn't around). The same system can be used for critical plot elements, where certain events (like an invasion) happen at a specific time, and resolve (with it being random as to who wins based on several variables) by itself without the player even setting foot in the area, or the computer doing more than twitching to change the variable of the events outcome, and open up the next batch of events that are linked to it.
Morrowind has an arsenal of quests for a number of guilds that would probably take forever to complete, but once you seem to get the major ones done there's not much left to do (since the game technically has no real ending, gameplay is continuous and all pre-scripted, so eventually you run out of quests).
I suppose if i were going to try organizing or scripting a living world around the player, that it would heavily depend on timing and events. The trick is to script all the events (and potentially upto 3 outcomes), and then engage them over time. You see the same thing with NPC's disappearing at night, and then appearing during the day, the game doesn't actively track them when the player isn't around, it just checks the time to see which events should be active, and which ones have resolved in the players area.
So you can create detailed scripts and actions to give characters life (like merchants who make regular trips to another town), and then slap on a random number generator which can 'randomly' play one of a number of 'surprise' events that may disrupt that NPC's routine (like a merchant getting attacked, and possibly killed when the player isn't around). The same system can be used for critical plot elements, where certain events (like an invasion) happen at a specific time, and resolve (with it being random as to who wins based on several variables) by itself without the player even setting foot in the area, or the computer doing more than twitching to change the variable of the events outcome, and open up the next batch of events that are linked to it.
Sounds like this extensive blacksmith AI belongs in a medieval simulation game. "The Sims: Siege & Conquest Edition"? For games like Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege and Diablo II, kickass AI only makes the game fun if the player can observe the AI in action.
Really the whole point of advanced AI for NPC's is a dynamic to make a gmae world seem more like a real world, and lets face it some of the online RPG's really do start to seem that way. I personally think that the key to making a realistic game world in an RPG, is to make the player feel like the world is there fopr its own sake and the sake of its inhabitants and not just there for you to play a game. This works on several different levels, firstly the world feels bigger and more awe inspiring because instead of the world revolving around you have to go out and earn you place in it. Secondly it promotes a feeling of community. When things and eople around you seem real then it really does promote a sense of loss when they are destroyed/killed/stolen. This helps the story too, when the dragon comes down from the mountain to destroy the village, instead of thinking 'yes, I get to try my new weapon out on the dragon', you think 'I hope this weapon is powerful enough to help me defeat the dragon and save my firends and family'. Note the fact that the motivation is no longer simple curiosity but a need to protect the surroundings that you love (ergh! that sounds a bit soppy sorry!).
Well actually maybe I should really get back to the point. Getting the blacksmith to be real is essentially one of the holy grails of game development, although it could theoretically be acheived within limitations. Here are a few suggestions
-Blacksmith has openning and closing hours (shows that the blacksmith has other commitments than standing waiting for you all day)
-Blacksmith can only make weapons he has the materials for, once he's run out he has to close shop and go and fetch some more.
-Blacksmith can run out of weapons already made, if you buy something after that you have to wait while he makes them (This could introduce a clever game dynamic for online RPG's wherby in busy periods the blacksmith has a backlog of weapons to make, may even need to try and hire someone to help)
-Blacksmith has a home where he goes when he's not working
-Blacksmith sometimes accepts other things than money for his weapons, e.g. it his kids birthday party and he wants to hire a clown.
There are many things such as these that can be used quite simply and inexpensively to make an NPC such as a blacksmith seem more real. There are more complex ideas such as giving him an action probability tree where any action he is about to perfom has a probability depending on what his current state is. However this is wehn things start to get much to complicated for what is usually one of many many NPC's
I am very sorry to everyone who put up with my awful writng skills and actually read through this. but if you did reply and let me know what you think.
Well actually maybe I should really get back to the point. Getting the blacksmith to be real is essentially one of the holy grails of game development, although it could theoretically be acheived within limitations. Here are a few suggestions
-Blacksmith has openning and closing hours (shows that the blacksmith has other commitments than standing waiting for you all day)
-Blacksmith can only make weapons he has the materials for, once he's run out he has to close shop and go and fetch some more.
-Blacksmith can run out of weapons already made, if you buy something after that you have to wait while he makes them (This could introduce a clever game dynamic for online RPG's wherby in busy periods the blacksmith has a backlog of weapons to make, may even need to try and hire someone to help)
-Blacksmith has a home where he goes when he's not working
-Blacksmith sometimes accepts other things than money for his weapons, e.g. it his kids birthday party and he wants to hire a clown.
There are many things such as these that can be used quite simply and inexpensively to make an NPC such as a blacksmith seem more real. There are more complex ideas such as giving him an action probability tree where any action he is about to perfom has a probability depending on what his current state is. However this is wehn things start to get much to complicated for what is usually one of many many NPC's
I am very sorry to everyone who put up with my awful writng skills and actually read through this. but if you did reply and let me know what you think.
OK. There are two fundamentally different types of AI that are being discussed here. Please feel free to correct me if you think this is wrong:
1) Apparent intelligence. Which is what I have been talking about. This is presenting the illusion to the player(s) that the NPCs have lives outside of player actions. In fact the NPCs do nothing when the PCs are not about, but change state based upon a combination of what the PCs have done, the given time or date, and set plot events.
2) Genuine, if simple, AI. In which the NPCs really do interact with each other outside of player involvement, plot developments are occuring due to these interactions, and playability and believability is maintained for the players. Of course, what the PCs do also affects the game world.
In my opinion its harder to make a game using 2) playable and realistic. I prefer the illusion of 1), which gives the developer more control in guiding the player down certain paths.
1) Apparent intelligence. Which is what I have been talking about. This is presenting the illusion to the player(s) that the NPCs have lives outside of player actions. In fact the NPCs do nothing when the PCs are not about, but change state based upon a combination of what the PCs have done, the given time or date, and set plot events.
2) Genuine, if simple, AI. In which the NPCs really do interact with each other outside of player involvement, plot developments are occuring due to these interactions, and playability and believability is maintained for the players. Of course, what the PCs do also affects the game world.
In my opinion its harder to make a game using 2) playable and realistic. I prefer the illusion of 1), which gives the developer more control in guiding the player down certain paths.
Quote:Original post by malachantrioRealism and representing the real world are two different things: one is good for games and the other is bad until virtual reality technology is ready for real-world representation. I predict that with advanced virtual reality people will continue to favor playing realistic fantasy games in medieval, sci-fi and other fictional environments.
Really the whole point of advanced AI for NPC's is a dynamic to make a gmae world seem more like a real world...
We play games to have fun. Let's keep that in mind.
How is a blacksmith going home in the evening going to benefit the game's fun factor if the player is not in viewable distance of the blacksmith? Action must take place in the player's immediate vicinity; otherwise, such an action is like an implementation of the philosophical question, "When a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound when it hits the ground?" If the player can't see the action, they don't know of the action and are thus unaffected by the action.
This type of AI is best used in a strategy or simulation game such as, respectively, Age of Empires or Dungeon Keeper. AI this extensive just doesn't fit in a MMORPG or a single-player RPG. Also, the average desktop computer wouldn't be capable of handling the infinite number of calculations required to produce Seed AI.
Relative to this topic...
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Quote:Original post by Adraeus
We play games to have fun. Let's keep that in mind.
That is a good point actually, when is realism so realistic to the point it becomes dull and uninteresting. I don't claim to know alot about the phycologies (sorry can't spell) inherent in this question, but it is obvious to any one who plays games that mostly they are fun because of the escapism. Which is most especially true for RPG's. Thinking about it, if the problem was analysed then it would probably be found that games are most fun within a narrow band of realism. Too unrealistic and the player cannot bond with the game. On the other hand, too realistic and who really wants to play real life, its specifically what we are trying to escape from.
Just a quick word on the subject of the tree in the woods. Its a good analogy, but in one sense incomplete. Quite often "Its not what is there, its whats not!" It would be more complete if you said there is a forest with a great huge oak unlike any other at its centre. If the oak falls and is removed when no body is around. Does that make no difference. Well actually it does. Because it is unique, its absence is noted. Its not the action thats important (producing the sound of falling over) its the consequences that the action have made (the tree is no longer there). Its the same with the blacksmith whether you see him go home or not the fact remains that he is at home and not at his shop, which in turn has implications (not being able to use the service he provides). But still whether a blacksmith with that behaviour pattern would make a game more or less interesting to play - to be honset I just don't know.
but it does make a very interesting research topic for any buding game physcologists out there.
You don't need to be an expert in psychology.
Do you watch your neighbors come home from work for entertainment?
Do you watch your neighbors come home from work for entertainment?
Quote:Original post by Adraeus
You don't need to be an expert in psychology.
Do you watch your neighbors come home from work for entertainment?
No but then I wasn't saying that watching the blacksmith walking home was entertaining was I? If you actually take care to read what I wrote you might understand what I was getting at. The blacksmith walking home may be the action but its not the consequences is it!?
The real question is whether the player having to work around another entity's schedule is entertaining. The immediate effect this would have is to lower the players percieved status within the game world. You should try and look at things on as many levels and as many perspectives as you can.
Unfortunately evryone has opinions on this which is why it is not easy to say "Yes it makes a game better" or "No it makes a game boring"
Anyways most people's curiosity does stretch to whether their neighbours are in or not. That itself might not mean anything but its consequences might. These things are all based on personalities so there are no right and wrong answers. I'm not trying to make you think I am right, I'm just presenting ideas.
No reason to get snippy. Twas a rhetorical question intended to demonstrate that watching people come home after work is not entertaining unless something else happens. For instance, let's say after work the blacksmith goes home, finds his wife in bed with a competing blacksmith, and then proceeds to hammer the hell out of both his wife and the other blacksmith. Then the royal guard arrive, sirens flashing, and kill the just-got-home-from-work-and-killed-my-wife blacksmith because the competitor was working on a project for the king.
Another way watching people come home from work can be entertaining is through boredom. Old women like to spy on their neighbors because they've nothing else to do! Let's hope that some game doesn't need to implement this coming-home-from-work idea to make up for a fun-deficiency.
The point is that if the feature does not make the game more fun, scrap it because the reason why people purchase games is to have fun! After participating in a focus group for Sony Online last night, I can say that with reasonable certainty now: people buy and play games that are fun.
You touch on the issue that what's fun is subjective; however, most people would not consider watching their neighbors come home fun. The tiny market segment that does is wholly irrelevant. Successful games appeal to the majority, not the minority.
Which you would you rather have:
a) pseudo-seed AI that enables blacksmiths and other NPCs to be obviously virtual representations of real-world people that don't affect the fun factor,
or
b) actionary AI that enables monsters to hunt the player instead of only reacting to the player when in sight?
Another way watching people come home from work can be entertaining is through boredom. Old women like to spy on their neighbors because they've nothing else to do! Let's hope that some game doesn't need to implement this coming-home-from-work idea to make up for a fun-deficiency.
The point is that if the feature does not make the game more fun, scrap it because the reason why people purchase games is to have fun! After participating in a focus group for Sony Online last night, I can say that with reasonable certainty now: people buy and play games that are fun.
You touch on the issue that what's fun is subjective; however, most people would not consider watching their neighbors come home fun. The tiny market segment that does is wholly irrelevant. Successful games appeal to the majority, not the minority.
Which you would you rather have:
a) pseudo-seed AI that enables blacksmiths and other NPCs to be obviously virtual representations of real-world people that don't affect the fun factor,
or
b) actionary AI that enables monsters to hunt the player instead of only reacting to the player when in sight?
This topic is closed to new replies.
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