Yeah, you got away with the big score... or discovered the Scroll of Ultimate Doom... or killed the constable... but who saw? Normally, the idea of whether or not a deed is witnessed is applied solely to enemy AI. Guards in Thief will come at you if they "witness" you in their environment. But what of a different type of witness, that can be theoretically implemented with nothing more than a flag? If we have to log actions in order to process them anyway, we could store those that have been witnessed by an NPC or group. KILLED CHARACTER or GOT ITEM events would be stored. To make things interesting, we could even tie the permanance of these logged actions to the life state of an NPC or certain world objects (like cameras). This idea sounds like it could potentially open new and weird strategies for the player. For one, disguises become important (introducing a whole counter-strategy of "unmasking" or framing). Right time and right place for any deed now become vital. Players might even have to go after and knock off a witness (say, to prevent them from testifying). Any random thoughts on this? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Correct me if I''m wrong but I believe this topic has already been discussed not too long ago.

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Allow me to clear my head for once...
Stop polluting the air!

I don''t recall seeing this before. Anyhow, the player would have some type of notoriety parameter defining how recognizable he is. If he isn''t recognizable, does his deed, and disappears to the opposite side of the globe, I don''t think he cares if there were witnesses or not. If he is recognizable, then this is a problem that might plague him for some time to come.

Regardless of how recognizable he is, if the witness saw the deed but was not detected himself, he might choose to stealthily track the player back to his lair to dig up an identity on the fellow. That being done, there are a number of possible actions including blackmail, theft of the object, blowing the whistle, etc.

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I don''t know the topic''s name but the discussion digressed a little to how ''famous'' you were in a town and that being evil didn''t affect NPCs unless they knew it,because of rumours or witnesses.

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Allow me to clear my head for once...
Stop polluting the air!

There would have to be 100% recognition factor on people that actually saw you do a deed, or have seen you and been told "that is the guy". However, it is unrealistic to assume that once ONE guard sees you do something, all of them automatically know that you are the bad guy. If the guards can communicate to each other, the not-present ones would know that there IS a bad guy, but not at 100% recognition.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

jRaskell, I think you have merely highlighted the finer points of the real world. My example was simple, and I implied it for use in a simple game, which I think would still be an order of magnitude more complex that most stuff out there.

Your points are valid, and in refining any model, are certainly things to consider.