quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Hmm. Just noticed we were talking about NPCs instead of plots. Plot element might be an NPC but also includes settings and scenes.

True, but I''d think that a huge part of plot is the actual characters. I see setting as a (potentially huge) modifier, but first and for most the characters need to be able to conflict in order to make plot.

You do have stories where it''s one character vs. their environment, but unless the player has some input I''m not sure that makes for an interactive tale.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by kseh

I was thinking, if a history generator is worked out first, instead of plopping the player down at the end of the generated history, put him at the beginning. Then, have all the factions, empires, and NPCs work to fulfill that history. The player wouldn''t really know if he''s fighting destiny or fulfilling it unless you decide to say something at the beginning.

My first reaction to this was *ack!* But you''ve got me thinking. You''re not necessarily suggesting that the plot be immutable, only that it be a general direction.

This *migh* solve a few plot problems I''ve been thinking about. The first is reversal: How do you reverse the direction of things to surprise the player. The second is foreshadowing, which might be solved by somehow giving the player hints or glimpses of the future, or even allowing NPCs to have prophecies and future fears / doubts / predictions.

Hmmm... On second thought, this might be really powerful.

quote: Original post by Ronin_54

Just have the game create a plot head-on, before the player starts. Then, make sure that the player cant actually leave it, just make sure the game is smart enough to keep him on track

Just like Baldur''s Gate... You think you can make choices, but in the end, you will fight Sarevok. No other choice. This plan would do exactly the same

Okay, sorry Ronin but this 1gets my *AAAAAACK!!!!!*

Why bother with the whole effort if in the end the plot is immutable? A writer could probably craft a much better story. The whole point is to create plots that the player can observe, alter, interrupt, or ignore.

Fixed plots are what we''re trying to get away from. False choices undermine gameplay because every choice you make has no real consequence.

quote:
And generating plot ahead, instead of real-time, will free clock-cycles for things like NPC-AI...

What sort of things did you have in mind? To me, this *is* NPC-AI.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Blackstream

The only problem is to organize the need based system so that it doesn''t get repetitive.

"He just captured the princess. That means that at 2:00 pm tomorroow, he will be heading over the left bush in order to try to assisinate the king. Then at 3:00 pm..."

Yeah, I do have some concern over repetition. On the one hand, repetition makes for predictable plot and predictable strategy. But on the other, predictable behavior in a character could make for interesting gameplay. Imagine if you were a cop trying to finger a thief, and could predict his next move based on what you know. Or if you''re trying to make a terrorist attack, and think you know how the cops operate (remember Die Hard, and how the villains knew and accounted for the FBI playbook? The player could be the unpredictable fly in the ointment, just like John McCain )

But ultimately you''re right. This can''t be TOO predictable, or it gets boring.

quote:
"Oh crap, I''ve got 3 villains all trying to kidnap the princess at the same time. *watches scene*

Villian 1: I have you now!
Villian 2: Got you princess!
Villian 3: Aha!
"

I see your point, but this itself might be good.

Villain 1: "I have you now!"
Villain 2: "Fool, get away from her, she''s mine!"
Villain 3: "Maybe we can cut a deal here, guys..."

(meanwhile the player sneaks in and out with the princess while the villains fight it out )

I think this is a matter of dealing with goals and getting NPCs to take the right actions to get to them. The above suggests that NPCs need to deal with blocked goals, determine the obstacle, and try to find a way around it. If there is a way of making the actions they can take rich enough, and their situational awareness is developed enough, then three villains makes the plot all the more rich.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

I agree the conflict for the player should come from NPCs (rather than environment) most of the time.

The way you describe seems to be to create an environment (city, for example) then populate it with AI controlled NPCs and let the whole thing evolve conflicts based on the AI interaction. Very sim-like. Please correct me if I have your idea wrong.

An alternative would be to spawn set pieces with appropriate opposition all at the same time. That is, we spawn a thief and a church with a gold cross at the same time - they are created together. You never create a thief without an object that the thief wants to steal, and you don''t create a stealable object without a thief (though this could be the PC).

So instead of focusing on an evolving, independent AI, you instead create a library of connected tiny-plots, a map of concrete goals and results that the player wanders through.

The trick would be to generate the entire set when the game initializes as mentioned above. Think of it like a random quest generator that spawns the necessary NPCs, locations, objects all at once, and spawns them at the beginning so you can re-use some of the NPCs and locations.

It''s an option, anyway. The AI is easier, but it means more work up front with the writing.

That''s what I meant by modeling the plot elements as more than just NPCs - more like generating a play (here is the scene, here is the conflict in the scene, here are the characters that will walk on during the scene, etc)

First of all, are you planning on this being online or not? I think this ai thing would be pretty good for both. Personally though, I''d like to see world threatening events happen every now and then as well. Which imho would be much cooler in a mmorpg because then the players (which would normally be fighting each other or something) might have to band together and stop the villian.

Whoa, I''ve got visions of a dbz mmorpg now. I can see it now...

*Villian is generated, name Cell*
*Series of battles happen with lots of players all trying to take out Cell*
*In comes in a clan of really strong people and they all join in and take out Cell*
*New villian generated, name Buu*

and so on...
Although this kinda thing would happen only once in a while. Most of the time, "mundain" events like a thief stealing dragon balls or something would happen. And if you didn''t stop the thief from taking the dragons balls in time, we''ve got another cell on our hands.

Don''t mind me (or do if you wish), my imagination is going while. I just wish I could program what I imagined... I''m getting there, just give me time

-Blackstream

Will you, won''t you, will you, won''t you, won''t you take my virus?

-The Mad Hacker

Blackstream''s Webpage

quote: Original post by JSwing

I agree the conflict for the player should come from NPCs (rather than environment) most of the time.

The way you describe seems to be to create an environment (city, for example) then populate it with AI controlled NPCs and let the whole thing evolve conflicts based on the AI interaction. Very sim-like. Please correct me if I have your idea wrong.

Yes, that is basically what he and I have been thinking of. Combining RPG,Sim, and strategy all together.

quote:
An alternative would be to spawn set pieces with appropriate opposition all at the same time. That is, we spawn a thief and a church with a gold cross at the same time - they are created together. You never create a thief without an object that the thief wants to steal, and you don''t create a stealable object without a thief (though this could be the PC).

So instead of focusing on an evolving, independent AI, you instead create a library of connected tiny-plots, a map of concrete goals and results that the player wanders through.

The trick would be to generate the entire set when the game initializes as mentioned above. Think of it like a random quest generator that spawns the necessary NPCs, locations, objects all at once, and spawns them at the beginning so you can re-use some of the NPCs and locations.

It''s an option, anyway. The AI is easier, but it means more work up front with the writing.

I think that is sort of like what Bishop once talked about here...at least close anwyay...


A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Oh yeah, now I remember what I was going to say. If you spawn gold crosses with thieves, that can lead to too much predictability. I can see players going "church hunting" looking for gold crosses, then hanging out and waiting for the thieves. I think that treasure and stuff, if spawned at all, should be spawned with nothing attached. The thieves would then walk around, maybe try and and get information on where treasure is.

-Blackstream

Will you, won''t you, will you, won''t you, won''t you take my virus?

-The Mad Hacker

Blackstream''s Webpage

You can get around that by being sneaky.

Have a church appear in more than one plotline, and have give the thieves different objectives. A bit of random selection would do the trick.

Not to mention misdirection. Any church that appears has an iron cross. If there is a corresponding thief plotline the cross is really gold painted to look like iron.

Could the player figure this out ahead of time? A definite yes - no need to restrict the player''s actions. But tossing magnets at the local holy symbol might be bad for the reputation.

I could create a mini-example of the whole shebang, but I don''t want to hijack Wav''s thread if he''d rather focus on the AI approach.

Well, I like my churches/gold crosses/thieves to be built/crafted/born rather than ''spawned'' but then I always was fussy.

I think this sort of system has a great deal of potential, but processing power is going to be a problem. Lets say you have a medium sized city of 5000 people - that is a hell of a lot of work to do, calculating the interactions of all those people.

How about some kind of NPC heirarchy? At the top level, you have the movers and shakers of the world - the kings, the queens, the famous heroes and the infamous villains. These NPC''s are always active, and get their AI interactions ticked every turn. At the bottom level, you have the ambient NPCs. These guys dont really contribute much to the story, so the computer only bothers to calculate their interactions when the player is nearby, with maybe a few extra interactions to generate a recent history for the NPC. In between are important, but not necessarily history making characters, who get a number of AI ticks relative to their importance to the story. If the PC kills an NPC at one level, a new one is promoted from the level below, so there is always a certain minimum number of NPC''s in each level of the heirarchy.