Quote:Original post by Jotaf 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").
This reminds me of that old classic, The Magic Candle. The NPCs could be found in three places : Cities, villages, and roads (and castles). You could talk to anyone in cities, public places in castles, and on roads, but to get into houses in villages and private rooms in castles you had to know the name of the inhabitant. So a lot of the open-area interaction was stuff like "If you get to Lymeric, you should talk to my friend Hassan" and "Balear has a room on the second floor, he might have some advice for you."
To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
Quote: 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?
Maybe you want to lay in wait in a dark alley the blacksmith uses as a shortcut and rob him.
Maybe you wait untill hes left at night to break into his store and steal something. Or break in to use his tools?
One thing I find facinating about games like D&D is that given even the most ordinary description of events some imaginative player will bend it to his will. Computer games spend too much time on "rails" to allow the player true creativity in finding a solution to whatever currently troubles them.
Alan
"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning." -Louis L'Amour
Quote:Original post by Adraeus 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.
Ummm... not quite right... at all. There are a ton of highly succesful games that make you work around other peoples schedules/include the idea that NPCs have real lives. Here are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head:
All Zelda games since Ocarina of Time Animal Crossing The Harvest Moon Games The Sims
I've spent the last 30 minutes looking for sale stats for these games, but can't find them anywhere >_<. Needless to say, the Sims at the minimum have large mainstream appeal, and the other games are all incredibly succesful too. Half the point of many of those games is knowing the NPC schedule, Ocarina of Time actually gave you a book to keep track of them in.
Quote:Original post by intrest86 Ummm... not quite right... at all. There are a ton of highly succesful games that make you work around other peoples schedules/include the idea that NPCs have real lives.
There are no videogames in existence that have an implementation of seed AI. Some games use triggers and storyline events, such as quests, to provide an illusion of lifelike NPCs but that's not what this thread concerns.
Quote:Original post by intrest86 Ummm... not quite right... at all. There are a ton of highly succesful games that make you work around other peoples schedules/include the idea that NPCs have real lives.
There are no videogames in existence that have an implementation of seed AI. Some games use triggers and storyline events, such as quests, to provide an illusion of lifelike NPCs but that's not what this thread concerns.
The only person who has ever used the phrase "seed AI" in this thread is you. In fact, many of the posts have made xplicit that this need not be some kind of super intelligent AI project: It simply has to appear to be AI like.
Quote:Original post by jonpolly99 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.
This is the thread I was working on. NPCs travers through a set of states, just like in the games I mentioned. The player is given the feeling that they are part of a living world, and enjoy watching characters do what you have characterized as mundane things. In fact, let me add some new games! The Creature series DID use full blown AI in which the player enterained themselves watching their Norns eat.
That is why I quote your objection to NPCs walking home having any value. There are many many examples of mainstream success of games where NPCs appear to have real lives. That seems to assert that for many people these interactions do produce a "fun" factor and add to gameplay.
Majora's Mask, not OoT... Details, details, though.
It's not so much the issue of having the NPCs wander off on their own to their home as it is the possibility of emergent gameplay through a dynamic situation. Okay, this guy's going home. Do you do something while he's wandering? Or when he's away from his shop? Does something from an NPC happen to him? (you hear him scream and orcish warcries...)
If we have a system that we can watch and work with (vs. stand there and repeat the same lines, offer the same gear), it opens up a LOT more options for exploring the game world.
Morrowind more remembers where the NPCs last were (with some floating point errors which make 'em drift over time). Majora's Mask has a good proceedural? setup worked out for the agents ("given time x they will be at f(x)"), and it works quite well.
It's not entirely about having much of an AI involved, if you follow the "Virtual Village" thread, the idea has more become an issue of constructing a need-based agent. If you mix what an agent "needs" and a schedule (wake up, eat, walk to work, work, eat lunch, work, walk home, eat, sleep), you can get a lot of detail for a relatively simple system. More work would be done to track what the given agent needs, what needs they fulfill, and the needs/fills needs for the village, which spawns a bazillion other similar agent need pairs.
The virtual village economies, coincidentally, can be run irregularly if the player isn't there. Once or twice every virtual game day at least, with random numbers filling in more complicated details.
The goal isn't to have *lifelike* AI... it's to promote a feeling that there's more to the NPCs around you then "Yeah, there's this Cave of Unspeakable Doom up north of town" and "To go north, talk to the Guard Captain. I think he needs a job done.".
The system is useful for so many things. Imagine that you want to see a specific NPC and you think "oh it's 5pm that NPC is usually in the tavern about this time" instead of the NPC standing in one place 24/7.
Also, taking NPC AI a bit further, imagine other NPCs breaking into the guy's shop when he's away. Then maybe you would get a real quest to retrieve his items. A real quest that is deveoloped from the system itself.
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself. "Just don't look at the hole." -- Unspoken_Magi
The system is useful for so many things. Imagine that you want to see a specific NPC and you think "oh it's 5pm that NPC is usually in the tavern about this time" instead of the NPC standing in one place 24/7.
Although having that ruitene schedual would be neccissary, you'd have to have it more random. If the player figures out the 'pattern', the illusion is completely lost. The NPC could show up to the bar at different times between 4 and 8 each day. Or he might just not go to the bar. Or you find that NPC going to buy some applie pie and he ends up taking that home.
No one does the same thing every day. But we all do Sort of the same things everyday. For example, I go to work on some days, I school on others.. I have a day where i dont leave the house. However, even though im doing the same schedule, all the details are different. I walk a different road to school, or i get yelled at by a customer or whatever. Having those scripts would be just one more level to their AI
Quote:Original post by Garmichael Although having that ruitene schedual would be neccissary, you'd have to have it more random. If the player figures out the 'pattern', the illusion is completely lost. The NPC could show up to the bar at different times between 4 and 8 each day. Or he might just not go to the bar. Or you find that NPC going to buy some applie pie and he ends up taking that home.
Yeah good point. I suppose if the AI was advanced enough there are probably things that would naturally happen that would slow doen the NPC on some days and not on others.
Like maybe one day on the way to the tavern he sees someone he knows and exchanges some information. But I think some consisntancy wouldn't be too unrealistic. People tend to work at fairly consistent times. And I think giving the player some things to count on could give some interesting situations.
Like, if you know a certain NPC tends to be at the tavern around a certain time and he's not there, you may suspect something happened to him. Maybe he got attacked by some bandits or something.
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself. "Just don't look at the hole." -- Unspoken_Magi
Reading your initial post, and living near Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia (where there are recreationists performing these functions daily) I cannot help but throw in my $0.02.....
Yes, "Smith" in general do all of these things. But there were a variety of Smith. Blacksmiths generally worked with more "raw" metal, typically Bronze/Iron/Steel and hammered things into shape in what most people consider the "traditional" smith job. There were other craft-persons of the time as well, not always called a smith, which did many similar things.
Nails, for instance, could be hammered out, and typically were as it was a quick task. However, more complex shapes which were not typically "sharpened" would generally be "poured" into molds, typically sand molds. This was a separate specialty trade similar to a blacksmith, and using many similar tools, however nothing was "pounded" into shape. Belt buckels, forks, spoons, bells, some jewlery, toys, fine parts, etc would typically be made this way.
I was once lucky enough to work informally with some of these smiths about once a week for half a year. The process is simple, and is the origins of how most modern car engines, and practically every piece of plastic are "cast" in a similar fashion. First, the shape would be carved exactly as desired. Wax, soapstone, wood, or even another work which was desired to be copied would be used. Then, this would be carefully packed into a box where the piece would be tightly packed with the finest grain of sand available to the consistency of packed brown-sugar -- tighter than a beach sand-castle. The box, typically made for this purpose by a blacksmith, would split in half, and the piece carefully removed from the sand, leaving an exact impression of the item to be poured. Channels would then carefully be carved out of the sand allowing the metal a way to get to the object, and placed for air to escape as the metal is poured in. Soot from a dirty source (pure oil, or pine tan) would then be used to coat the exposed surfaces, and the halved of the box would then be tightly sealed together. Meanwhile, an apprentice would be "pumping the bellows" to get the fire as hot as possible -- charcoal fire made from tree trunks buried and set afire (not coal, which apparently does not burn as hot or as clean so I was told). The bellows in the location I was at was actually mounted to the ceiling so that the bellows could be pumped by pulling a line with one hand, which the fire could be stroked as needed with another. No matter what, to achieve the right fire temperature, a steady and CONSTANT pumping of the bellows was manditory. Just going there once a week for about an hour and a half I gained muscles I never thought I would see on my frame. A stone or clay crucible, capable of handling the heat would be in the fire with the "metal" to be melted and poured -- along with another piece of metal which would melt at a higher temperature, to keep the liquifying metal from bubbling and splattering -- and was also used for stirring. Once the metal was at the correct temperature, it would be QUICKLY poured into the exposed channel of the sand mold. Then, about 30 to 90 minutes later, the sand mold could be opened, the sand reclaimed for the next run, and the rough object would be extracted for finishing. The excess metal, right down to the shavings from sanding would be reclamed for the next pour.
A great deal of finishing work would then result. Filing, sanding, polishing, for hours on end. A typical pour as described above takes about 3 hours from prep to finish. But the finishing work could take MONTHS.
Similarly a blacksmith, from my observations, spends most of their time heating the piece, and finishing the piece, with only a small fraction of their time actually "pounding" out the heated item.
I was told that most of this type of work occured at night, because during the day there were crops to be grown, charcoal to be made, deliveries to be run, maintenance to be performed, etc. and also the heat of the typical day would be too oppressive. Thus the additional need for several top Journeymen and numerous apprentices.
Different villages had different levels of smiths. Naturally just about every villiage would have a community forge for that one piece of metal which absolutely had to be fixed locally. Larger enclaves would have the more experienced smiths, which youngsters would be apprenticed to, and the more intricate work would be done. It was often expected, at least in our Colonial times, that if you wanted work to be done, you would not only "pay" the smith, but also supply the raw materials. Pay would not always be in coin, but could be in a share of the harvest, the rights to first review of the logs brought in from the last logging expedition, etc. Also a smith was often part of surgery, whether to hold the person down (no anestesia then), quickly "chop" the runined limb, or carterize a wound -- the smith would generally have cleanest hot metal around.
All of that said, I do not see why it would be that difficult to make a "smithy" more "interesting" without affecting any game play all that much. NVN, Morrowind, or any of the other games discussed could easily have scripted characters added which could be set to do those numerous "mundane" tasks. Young apprentices sitting under windows filing or polishing away, or taller lads continuously pumping the bellows on a hot fire, while the master stands there watching and guiding, awaiting that one moment when the pour, (or pounding) should occur. Also, there is nothing wrong with different smiths having different levels of items. Some are just plain more experienced than other, and my experience has been that the typical quest starts out in a town where that "good" smith would not be. Yes, these are all fairly static traits which could fit into any existing game, or into one being developed "Indie" style on a limited budget -- just to add falvor. Naturally an AI could be added to these NPCs that they could be replacing the items over time which were purchased away, and the whole ballet could be coreographed around those instances.
Do not forget, however, the absolute necessity of the charcoal. The bricklayers, loggers would produce these items usually, but it was not uncommon for any farmer, small villiage to go it together and produce a set from a smoldering tree trunk, buried and maintained just right.
