Sorry about the title, I didn''t really mean it. (Dedicated to my evil twin, Warren Spector) If games are going to evolve past click-to-kill, we need to do some SERIOUS thinking about interface. If you don''t understand why you would want to evolve past click-to-kill, please leave now, the door is that way. There are other forums for that... about 30 of them. I feel that interface problems are the only thing keeping games so unrealistically violent. (I love violence, so I refuse to use the word "pointlessly") Our interfaces allow us to do very little besides select two kinds of targets, or (if we''re lucky) baby-talk to a parser. People such as myself bitch that there is nothing to do in MMORPGs except for combat. In order to make non-combat techniques, such as seduction, worth doing, we need to overhaul the system. We need to be able to control our character''s tone of voice, body language, that little glint in thier eye, facial expression. Anyone who knows anything about interface design knows that this is harder than hard. It''s impossible. But, everything''s impossible when you think about it. Here''s a preliminary idea for what I would call Demeanor Management. It is by no means perfect, since I can shoot holes in it myself very easily. I''m much more interested in YOUR ideas for advanced interface, but I want to get the ball rolling.0 What I mean by Demeanor management is the simultaneous control of the various aspects of physical appearance I have mentioned above. It is intended entirely for player-player interaction, although it might also be applied to make NPCs more like real people. Basically, the player has a list of Attitudes her character can assume. These control facotrs such as posture & body language, tone of voice (let''s assume voice synth or microphone for the future''s sake), facial expression (have you ever zoomed in on the faces in Soul Calibur while they talk? Very convincing.) etc. At certain location-based intervals, the player MUST select one of these Attitudes (to keep you from forgetting, being happy when your character looks sad, etc.) Something LIKE everytime you pass through a door or walk so much of a distance. Then the game will send you a prompt that doesn''t interfere with gameplay, reminding you of what setting you are one. The best way to achieve this without pissing off the player is to use sound. So if I''ve had my attitude set to PISSED for a certain amount of time or I pass through a door or something, my character will grunt angrily. If I realize then that my character is happy and I forgot to switch settings, I can do it now before anyone misunderstands. You could add facial subsets to this system, by mousovering a certain facial expression your character will hold it till you remove the mouse (?). You could also theoretically develop a parser to look for things like curse words, and other indicators of anger, and then chage the expression accordingly. But it would need to distinguish between a GOOD "Fuckin''" and a BAD "Fuckin''"! While we''re on complex parsers... you could also develop one (brace yourself) to select graphics for the speaking mouth, based on the pronounciation. Oh, god, we''re getting far-fetched here. But, if something like seduction is going to be a reality, it has to be convincing... And now, for your ideas! ====== "The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates "Question everything. Especially Landfish." -Matt

That would be great, body language and facial expression I mean. It would work, too, especially if it's for player-to-player talking. Don't know about the lip-synching thing (especially if your typing the message) that would probably be impossible. It really doesn't matter, though, because the eyes are probably the most important part anyway.

Anyway, it would be very simple to show and act out emotions, even assigning them hotkeys like 'p' for pissed and 'f' for f*cking pissed, or whatever.

Here's another question: What is better, an interface that is simple and quick, but possibly limited, or a more complex one that isn' limited at all? 1 button to attack, or 4 different attacks with 4 different buttons (sorry for the combat ex. Landfish)?

Hey Landfish, some guy on another thread wants to kill you! He was talking all kinds of smack on you, and he said something about your mom.... it's the anon poster on the other thread you started.

Edited by - pacman on July 10, 2000 7:29:54 PM

you people disappoint me with all of this talk of the impossible. why is this so impossible? difficult, yes, but far from impossible. you just have to work harder.

as far as voice sync goes, isn''t that a planned feature of team fortress 2? from what i remember, you can talk over the net to other players and your character on screen lip syncs the words.

a little while ago i read an artivle on gamasutra by...jeff lander i think. he talked about this very thing (lip syncing). basically he came up with i think 15 basic mouth positions for all of the sounds we make. then, getting realistic lip syncing became just a matter of interpolating these positions as appropriate. the hardest part of this method would be to have the computer interpret the player''s voice into these basic sounds so the lips could match it well. this wouldn''t have to be perfect though, at least not yet.

as far as facial and bodily expressions are concerned, i think this too is not very difficult to do. you just need to approach it differently. you could have the computer interpret the players actions throughout the game (including what they say, and how they respond in conversations), and use this information to estimate how the player wants the character to be. this, coupled with some methods mentioned above like having the player actually select an "attitude", would give a realistic presentation of the player though the character. this can only be taken so far though; using current input devices it would be hard to simulate winking an eye or say flexing a bicep for the ladies. it is doable, but it would not really be intuitive.

if you weren''t too concerned about slowing the pace of the game, you can have some kind of system whereby the player can select these types of actions. this could be through a text box where they might type in "wink left eye" and the character would respond. or it could be a gui where the user might select the body part, then the action, etc. this kind of system would only be practical during a conversation, and it wouldn''t be very realtime. this may be acceptable though, if conversation plays a significant role in the game and a more complex system is needed. and, if you think about it, such control over body language and expressions would not be needed in any other context, especially fighting (unless you are making some kind of ultra hip action game where fighters frequently stop to adjust sunglasses, straighten coats, take picturesque posses, and have a cup of tea). if you want to use in more than just conversations, make it available at the press of a button.

well, that was rather long winded... i am sure i have more, but i will leave it for later.

<(o)>