The idea of giving NPC's the illusion to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. Is it possible? Is it probable?
I think playing in a world where the npc's actions might not always be expected would be surprising and fun. For instance, when I go to kill a bunch of Orcs with a group of friends and the orcs instead offer us a bit of coin to go raid a village instead, and we have the option of taking it or killing them...
Lets say my group decides we want to kill them because they have something that we need that supposedly only drops off orcs but when we kill them we find only one of the many items we actually need.
Now lets say we decided to take that money from the orcs and go raid the village instead and while we plunder this village we find a entire sac full of the items we were looking for and as a result we find out that these villagers who appeared to be 'the good guys' were villifying the orcs- claiming they were bruts who destroy and create mayham where ever they go.
Slowly it's becomming clear these villagers have been terrorizing the orcs for years taking what they wanted and making orcs preceive humans as the enemy causing the orc faction to hate humans and other races who are alligned with humans.
After you complete this quest you can take your goods and go or you can go back to the orcs and tell them you completed their quest. When you turn your quest in lets say the orcs can decide by random number generator just to kill you and take back their belongings or give you an exceptionally rare and beautiful airloom that will increase your skill set in some way. You have no way of knowing what the orcs will do but you "roll the dice" for a chance at something truly awesome.
I'm not saying all quests should be like this and perhaps there is a way you as developers could mark such quest areas as "emergent" but I think it would be fun to not know what is coming, and perhaps this is a really bad example of what I am trying to convey but I hope you can at least see where I am going with it.
Gamerchick said:The idea of giving NPC's the ability to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. Is it possible? Is it probable?
Not unless they acheive sentience, and even then it could be argued that its still operating within a set of defined parameters.
HemlockReaper said:Gamerchick said:The idea of giving NPC's the ability to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. Is it possible? Is it probable?
Not unless they acheive sentience.
Did you read the rest of the idea or just the first sentence? What did you think of the rest? Can you give a more elaborate response? =)
Gamerchick said:HemlockReaper said:Gamerchick said:The idea of giving NPC's the ability to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. Is it possible? Is it probable?
Not unless they acheive sentience.
Did you read the rest of the idea or just the first sentence? What did you think of the rest? Can you give a more elaborate response? =)
The rest of your idea is great, but its not truly going rogue since they can only do what their allowed to do within their programing. That would only be the appearance of going rogue, which is fine.
HemlockReaper said:Gamerchick said:HemlockReaper said:Gamerchick said:The idea of giving NPC's the ability to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. Is it possible? Is it probable?
Not unless they acheive sentience.
The rest of your idea is great, but its not truly going rogue since they can only do what their allowed to do within their programing. That would only be the appearance of going rogue, which is fine.
You're right I should have been more clear, The idea of giving NPC's the Illusion to make decsions or go against their own scripted code. =) I will edit my original post to make it more clear. I am not expecting miracles hahaha.
As I understand the aim for the mob AI ...
... it is (perhaps best described as?) 'goal oriented'.
Mobs have a set of priorities which vie for their attention. These may be as simple as 'hunger'/'thirst' or as complex as 'guard duty'+'inherently lazy'+'weakly overseen'. These are driven by their levels of things (eg how hungry they are) and vie with one another to determine the mob's next 'mode' (where 'mode' may be 'hunting', 'snooze on duty', 'sleeping in lair' etc).
In your example (of the kind of 'open' quest I like) the player can choose which way to end the quest ...
... giving to the villagers (for a set reward) or to the Orcs (for a less fixed result).
Handing in to the Orcs should have results determined by the AI (with a smidge of randomness added). If your faction with them is bad, your results should be skewed towrds them doing something more 'throat slitty' than 'rewardy'. If the faction is 'ok' then it comes down to the current 'mode' the Orc is in, perhaps. Some modes may prove more beneficial than others... e.g. a smart Orc in 'machiavellian' mode might give you a reward that will actively cause detriment to the villagers. Eg it might be a few opals (which the village is the area's sole miner for) or 'orc herbs' which are known to eb addictive to humans etc.
I dislike 'random' results where you can have no means of judging likely outcomes in advance.
Evoras, says NO to (most) drugs!... apart from enchanter crack!... gimme, gimme, gimme!
Evoras said:As I understand the aim for the mob AI ...
... it is (perhaps best described as?) 'goal oriented'.Mobs have a set of priorities which vie for their attention. These may be as simple as 'hunger'/'thirst' or as complex as 'guard duty'+'inherently lazy'+'weakly overseen'. These are driven by their levels of things (eg how hungry they are) and vie with one another to determine the mob's next 'mode' (where 'mode' may be 'hunting', 'snooze on duty', 'sleeping in lair' etc).
In your example (of the kind of 'open' quest I like) the player can choose which way to end the quest ...
... giving to the villagers (for a set reward) or to the Orcs (for a less fixed result).Handing in to the Orcs should have results determined by the AI (with a smidge of randomness added). If your faction with them is bad, your results should be skewed towrds them doing something more 'throat slitty' than 'rewardy'. If the faction is 'ok' then it comes down to the current 'mode' the Orc is in, perhaps. Some modes may prove more beneficial than others... e.g. a smart Orc in 'machiavellian' mode might give you a reward that will actively cause detriment to the villagers. Eg it might be a few opals (which the village is the area's sole miner for) or 'orc herbs' which are known to eb addictive to humans etc.
I dislike 'random' results where you can have no means of judging likely outcomes in advance.
Evoras, says NO to (most) drugs!... apart from enchanter crack!... gimme, gimme, gimme!
Yeah I like your idea with the results relating to faction but I also like the excitment of chance. It's a fine line to walk to be sure. =)
This thread has some interesting info from Zippyzee, the dev in charge of NPC AI, that you might find helpful: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4533/npc-s-just-standing-arround/view/page/1
The thought is a good concept. Mob AI is something that every game has tried to improve upon. However, mob AI still has to follow some type of a script so it's 'choices' are limited by that programming.
Using your example for instance, those orcs could attack you or they could thank you for bringing back their things. What will be that determining factor? Faction? Race? Weather? There's any number of things that can be used to make that decision. Hell they make it so that they attack 3 turns in in a row but the 4th they thank them. This is the problem with mob AI. There is no way to give a program free will. If that ever becomes a thing, well we maybe looking at a new real life Terminator movie lol.
Basically, a quest like this would work well for the first few weeks people hit it but once the script is figured out people will know what the best choice is and how to make that happen. Which effectively kills the whole 'choice' process. It still works for story purposes and/or lore but the chance is taken out.
I am in no way saying I am against these types of things. I think they are great and surprises are very much needed and wanted. I just know that past my first play through, it won't be such a surprise anymore.
Enitzu said:The thought is a good concept. Mob AI is something that every game has tried to improve upon. However, mob AI still has to follow some type of a script so it's 'choices' are limited by that programming.
Using your example for instance, those orcs could attack you or they could thank you for bringing back their things. What will be that determining factor? Faction? Race? Weather? There's any number of things that can be used to make that decision. Hell they make it so that they attack 3 turns in in a row but the 4th they thank them. This is the problem with mob AI. There is no way to give a program free will. If that ever becomes a thing, well we maybe looking at a new real life Terminator movie lol.
Basically, a quest like this would work well for the first few weeks people hit it but once the script is figured out people will know what the best choice is and how to make that happen. Which effectively kills the whole 'choice' process. It still works for story purposes and/or lore but the chance is taken out.
I am in no way saying I am against these types of things. I think they are great and surprises are very much needed and wanted. I just know that past my first play through, it won't be such a surprise anymore.
Is that not the best we can hope for though.. that the first time we play the game that there are many surprises? Gaming now a days doesn't allow for a lot of that because you can look up things online but that's in the players hands, not the devs. The devs can't make people play by the rules to keep things as interesting as they SHOULD be. We effectively have games now and the cheat cards online. People can choose to play without the "Hints" and experience the game as it's meant to be and be surprised and have fun the way the creators designed it. We as players are our own worst enemy at times. We just have to decide to play it right.
Gamerchick said:Enitzu said:The thought is a good concept. Mob AI is something that every game has tried to improve upon. However, mob AI still has to follow some type of a script so it's 'choices' are limited by that programming.
Using your example, for instance, those orcs could attack you or they could thank you for bringing back their things. What will be that determining factor? Faction? Race? Weather? There's any number of things that can be used to make that decision. Hell, they make it so that they attack 3 turns in a row but the 4th they thank them. This is the problem with mob AI. There is no way to give a program free will. If that ever becomes a thing, well we maybe looking at a new real life Terminator movie lol.
Basically, a quest like this would work well for the first few weeks people hit it but once the script is figured out people will know what the best choice is and how to make that happen. Which effectively kills the whole 'choice' process. It still works for story purposes and/or lore but the chance is taken out.
I am in no way saying I am against these types of things. I think they are great and surprises are very much needed and wanted. I just know that past my first play through, it won't be such a surprise anymore.
Is that not the best we can hope for, though. that the first time we play the game that there are many surprises? Gaming these days doesn't allow for a lot of that because you can look up things online, but that's in the player's hands, not the devs. The devs can't make people play by the rules to keep things as interesting as they SHOULD be. We effectively have games now and the cheat cards online. People can choose to play without the "Hints" and experience the game as it's meant to be and be surprised and have fun the way the creators designed it. We as players are our own worst enemy at times. We just have to decide to play it right.
This is true, but most games contain the cheats within them now. You are told what to do and where to go. I would look at a game like Darks Souls and say that is a good example of how old school games used to be, but at times they were even more cryptic.
This seems to me more of a moral option that is programmed into certain parts of the game. This was very popular for a while and we saw it in games like Knights of the Old Republic. You could choose to be good, evil, or neutral based on your actions. Faction kind of accomplishes this, but what you are saying is more than just killing certain mobs. It's programming the chance for a mob to stop and try to reason with you. This is an interesting concept, but I could see it becoming predictable due to the slow leveling process. You might end up doing the same areas multiple times.
To me, it's less about moral options and more about choices in general.
The game designers make our quests but wouldn't it be cool if we could decide how we finished them?
Yes to a certain degree they will be able to prophesize what we are going to do but it will still be OUR choice and that to me is certainly more interesting than playing a completely dictated experience.
So maybe I just killed Orcs for hours because I didn't want to go to the village and mess up my faction or maybe I do because I'm intrigued by the quest option the orcs gave me, maybe I take my spoils and run after I find out that going to the village was profitable and I forgo the exp and possible loot the orcs might have given me at the potential cost of my life..
Either way if the devs could find a way to make any of the solutions worthwhile than we might really have something cool here, because players are smart and they will figure out which "quest endings" are more benifical as a whole so the devs would just have to make the all quest options benifical and unbenificial for different reasons.
At the end of the day we as players are still consumers and consumers like choices.
Gamerchick said:To me, it's less about moral options and more about choices in general.
The game designers make our quests but wouldn't it be cool if we could decide how we finished them?
Yes to a certain degree they will be able to prophesize what we are going to do but it will still be OUR choice and that to me is certainly more interesting than playing a completely dictated experience.
So maybe I just killed Orcs for hours because I didn't want to go to the village and mess up my faction or maybe I do because I'm intrigued by the quest option the orcs gave me, maybe I take my spoils and run after I find out that going to the village was profitable and I forgo the exp and possible loot the orcs might have given me at the potential cost of my life..
Either way if the devs could find a way to make any of the solutions worthwhile than we might really have something cool here, because players are smart and they will figure out which "quest endings" are more benifical as a whole so the devs would just have to make the all quest options benifical and unbenificial for different reasons.
At the end of the day we as players are still consumers and consumers like choices.
With the perception systems, the majority of quests won't have a unilateral "Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, etc." design. Rewatch the last stream - around the 01:08:20 mark, Joppa explains how you can complete the necessary elements of a quest in almost any order, as you come across them. They haven't really showed an example of that yet - but that's basically the entire point of the Perception System - that it is a less guided experience and you have more control over how you complete quests. But more on point to what you're saying, I imagine too that some quests will be more "Choose Your Own Adventure" style, where you have multiple options, and each option leads to an alternate ending. The idea of actions making a noticeable difference is also essential to Pantheon's tenets.
Well, you can also change the script. I think too much emphasis is put on 'creating new content' when a lot of excitement could be created by varying the existing content.
Maybe this week your orcs are in a good mood... so they change their attitude. But a month from now (when a dev thinks of it), the orcs get mad because too many people killed them even though they tried to offer this sweet deal.
That could make for interesting times, indeed. :p
I just wonder why this can't be done with roleplaying using factions in your mind. Nothing is as dynamic as the mind working out these types of things. Coding them into the game people experience them quickly as they will probably repeat the content a lot on their during course of a certain level range. Having it be random won't really help that much. You will experience all the different possible outcomes and what if you choose different outcomes that contradict each other with the same character? It is a slippery slope to tread on.