May 2004
- Thief class (was: MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 11, Issue 23) Ghilardi Filippo
- Levels, classes and choice cruise
- Levels, classes and choice Sean Howard
- R: Playing catch-up with levels Ghilardi Filippo
- R: Levels, classes and choice Ghilardi Filippo
- R: Levels, classes and choice Byron Ellacott
- What is an RPG? [Was: Playing catch-up with levels] Sean Middleditch
- What is an RPG? [Was: Playing catch-up with levels] Darksuit
- What is an RPG? [Was: Playing catch-up with levels] Sean Middleditch
- What is an RPG? Mike Rozak
- What is an RPG? Threshold RPG
- What is an RPG? Byron Ellacott
- What is an RPG? Amanda Walker
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? rick cronan
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? Mike Rozak
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? rick cronan
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? Byron Ellacott
- Playing catch-up with levels Freeman, Jeff
- SOC ANNOUNCE: Research project into Social Interactions in MMORPG field, need help PMooney@peddie.org
- Multiplayer Game Logic System sszretter
- Multiplayer Game Logic System Douglas Goodall
- Multiplayer Game Logic System Mike Rozak
- [SOC] A letter: Dear MMOG Corey Crawford
- Playing catch-up with levels Sean Howard
- Playing catch-up with levels Freeman, Jeff
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? Mike Rozak
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? Jeff Fuller
- More on levels, was What is an RPG? Mike Rozak
- Reminder: Community Work Symposium - May 21 T.L. Taylor
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Amanda Walker
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Alex Chacha
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Jason Downs
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Malcolm W. Tester II
- DESIGN: Online adventure games J C Lawrence
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Malcolm W. Tester II
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Fred Snyder
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Fred Snyder
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Steven King
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Amanda Walker
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Alex Chacha
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Malcolm W. Tester II
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Tracy Lee
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Online adventure games J C Lawrence
- DESIGN: Online adventure games Malcolm W. Tester II
- MEDIA: Puzzle Pirates wins Webby J C Lawrence
- NEWS: Online Economies Brian Thyer
- IRC Channels for Virtual Worlds Discussion Matt Wilson
- Natural Language Generation Tiago Carita
- Natural Language Generation Eric Rhea
- Natural Language Generation Douglas Goodall
- Natural Language Generation Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Natural Language Generation mugginsm@under-the-fridge.com
- Natural Language Generation Michael "Flury" Chui
- Natural Language Generation Sean Middleditch
- Natural Language Generation blizzard36_2002@yahoo.com
- Natural Language Generation Steven King
- Natural Language Generation Michael "Flury" Chui
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Robert Zubek
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Malcolm W. Tester II
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) J C Lawrence
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) J C Lawrence
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
J C Lawrence wrote:
> Mike Sellers wrote:
>> J C Lawrence wrote:
>>> Michael Sellers <mike@onlinealchemy.com> wrote:
>> ... if a MUD or MMP game could get the effect of actors on staff
>> 24/7 who never break character and who don't offer the same
>> stilted dialogue over and over again, and where such NPCs were
>> integrated with the gameplay itself, I suspect that would add
>> significantly to the players' experience.
> Which I guess is core to my point: Would it? Really? Which
> players? Would this be a one-time one-shot impression, or would
> it be something whose continued presence delivers repeated value?
In the early 1980s, I was part of a discussion between some "old
guard" engineers and some new guys at a big tech company. The new
guys were, as incredible as it may seem, arguing strenuously that
color raster graphics were the wave of the future and would make
computers much more useful. The older guys didn't see this
happening. The company made a bet on color graphical workstations
anyway, and quickly the old vector graphics ones were relegated to
history.
Fast forward to e3 this year. I was fortunate enough to get a demo
of EQ II in SOE's booth. The game is graphically gorgeous. The
demo took place on a ship, and I was pleased just watching the
rolling sea. At one point you interact with an NPC who asks you
(completely scripted) to take care of a goblin that's running around
on deck. Nice interaction there, really beautiful avatar model,
good use of voice, etc. But in one instance, the goblin was running
around and around this NPC while my character tried to whack it.
Meanwhile the NPC stood there idling, well, idly. No awareness, no
reaction. This was the zillionth time I've seen this kind of thing
of course, but it instantly broke the immersion: I wasn't in any
sense on a ship chasing a troublesome goblin; I was watching barely
interactive graphics and clicking a mouse a lot. What had been
meaningful pretty quickly became just tedious.
So yeah, I believe that actually adding *character* to non-player
characters would be a big step forward. It does mean players could
no longer treat NPCs as vending machines, but I have a hard time
seeing that as a bad thing (if you want vending machines to dispense
potions or battery packs, put them in the game!).
Gameplay is about making meaningful decisions toward some goal(s).
For a decision to be meaningful it has to have understandable
consequences. Current narrowly scripted interactions with NPCs may
have consequences, but only in the old branching-fiction Kings Quest
style (if that); outside of that they're completely flat. OTOH, we
as humans are awfully good at understanding that how you interact
with someone is going to have significant consequences for future
interactions. So I believe that adding new levels and types of
non-scripted interactivity to NPCs will greatly enhance gameplay for
all but the most misanthropic of players. Even for the true GoP,
the NPCs become another element of the strategy-space: "let's have
the cleric go buy that potion. Last time I was in town I got on the
bad side of that shopkeeper." I suppose some may see that as
'getting in the way' of their gameplay, but that's like saying a
batting cage is better than playing baseball because all that
running and throwing gets in the way of the game.
> I like the idea, heck, the engineer in me loves the idea, but
> outside of the romanticism of Sirius Cybernetic Real People
> Personalities(tm) I don't think there's value there (and even
> then?). In the end we're talking about emotive content and
> connection, which in turn requires emotional identification and
> suspension of disbelief. More simply, it requires empathy. At
> core the request is to mechanically create situations where the
> player will feel human empathy for what the player also knows is a
> machine. That's a pretty hefty suspension of disbelief.
Maybe. Our early indications make this seem a lot more tractable
than you might think. And consider: did you have any emotional
resonance with Buzz & Woody, Shrek, Donkey, Nemo, etc.? These are
all things we know to be effectively machines -- and not even ones
that interact with us personally -- and yet we have no problem at
all suspending our disbelief and making that affective connection.
In the games space, I already mentioned The Sims in an earlier post.
It's not a coincidence that this is by far the #1 selling PC game
ever, and it's certainly not for the game's graphics (which were
aging when it was released four years ago!). If people make
emotional connections with even these limited-but-semi-independent
characters (and they definitely do), how much more might they
connect with NPCs that seem to be believably inhabiting the same
world they are (when playing the game)?
>>> From the player perspective in terms of the actual goals that
>>> player can be _seen_ to pursue (social, cultural, in-game, etc),
>>> what is the actual function of an NPC?
>> The answer to that will be based on how much we as developers can
>> break out of our own twenty-year-old molds of gameplay. Can
>> believable NPCs add to the gameplay experience in terms of the
>> players' goals? I think so, immensely so. But we'll see.
> If we assume that player's base goals can be divided into two
> classes:
> 1) Get the cheese. > 2) Give me effective parts in interesting
> emotional state transitions.
> and we further assume that "interesting emotional state
> transitions" can necessarily only occur between humans...does this
> still work?
I don't agree with your assumptions. I'm not sure about the binary
division into goal-types (it sure squashes Bartles' types), but I'm
willing to go with it for discussion. But I definitely don't agree
with your last assumption. I do think you refer to a large part of
the difficult nut to crack though: interesting and meaningful
emotional transitions in NPCs are a critical element to making them
believable and have any utility beyond that of info/object vending
machine.
Mike Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Freeman, Jeff
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Robert Zubek
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Samantha LeCraft
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Douglas Goodall
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Hulbert, Leland
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Samantha LeCraft
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Paolo Piselli
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Matt Mihaly
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) J C Lawrence
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Byron Ellacott
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) John Buehler
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) J C Lawrence
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) John Buehler
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Eli Stevens {WG.c}
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Sam Mason
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) John Arras
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Skane2004@aol.com
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Malcolm W. Tester II
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Otis Viles
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Sarah J. Blake
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Kwon J. Ekstrom
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Fred Snyder
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Zach Collins {Siege}
- DGN: Rooms, Directions, etc. - any alternatives? Sean Middleditch
- MEDIA: Virtual Dopers Crave High Scores J C Lawrence
- MEDIA: Virtual Dopers Crave High Scores David Kennerly
- MEDIA: Virtual Dopers Crave High Scores David Heyman
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Matt Mihaly
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Malcolm W. Tester II
- DESIGN: Crime and Punishment Matt Mihaly
- DESIGN: Crime and Punishment J C Lawrence
- DESIGN: Crime and Punishment Ghilardi Filippo
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Freeman, Jeff
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Douglas Goodall
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) John Buehler
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Freeman, Jeff
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Freeman, Jeff
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Matt Mihaly
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Tracy Lee
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Matt Mihaly
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Michael Sellers
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Matt Mihaly
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Amanda Walker
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Freeman, Jeff
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Mathieu Castelli
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Mathieu Castelli
- China practically bans online gaming? Sulka Haro
- China practically bans online gaming Sulka Haro
- SOCIAL MEDIA: California Law Review: The Laws of Virtual Worlds J C Lawrence
- playing the mob (was: believable NPCs) ceo
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Yumiko
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? John Buehler
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? vlad cole
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Brandon J. Van Every
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Brandon J. Van Every
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Tess Lowe
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Kwon J. Ekstrom
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Tess Snider
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Kwon J. Ekstrom
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Peter Keeler
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? John Arras
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Kwon J. Ekstrom
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Tess Lowe
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matthew Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Kwon J. Ekstrom
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Malcolm W. Tester II
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Matthew Mihaly
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? Malcolm W. Tester II
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? ghovs
- BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash? ren@aldermangroup.com