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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster The OP is talking specifically about single-player games. IMO the concept is great, but not feasible simply in terms of today's AI capabilities. Why so? And thank you for answering my other question. We have PCs with dual graphics cores, and dual- and quad-core CPUs. The 360 and the PS3 have technically 6 and 8 processors, respectively. All that calculating power can't be all for physics and graphics. Can it? Or are you saying that AI code and techniques are not mature enough to handle "dynamic" world interaction (no i'm not TMing that).

It is a matter of abstraction, only keeping details that matter. If someone asks someone a question about where someone else is, but exchanges no real personal info about theselves, that NPC might be stored in memory while that player is in town, if the player talked to that NPC again, it might get bumped into a higher level of NPC, meaning the AI fleshes them out a little more, but if they fail to reach a set level of interaction they are discarded once the player leaves that zone.

Group all the NPCs into large groups and have the group be the real AI, the NPCs are just avatars for that larger entity. I have another post somewhere around here about this in better detail.

Well then let's say I go to village A and interact and talk with people there. Say each of those people has there own AI (for the sake of argument). After I finish speaking with the various NPC in village A, I leave. Now supposed that after I leave the AI saves the conversation or what it deems as important parts of the conversation to disk (HDD). now when I go back to the town that information gets pulled up again and we continue the conversation(s) from there.

wouldn't that be feasible and more importantly advantageous to the supposed dynamic interaction the player is having with the NPCs?

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Group all the NPCs into large groups and have the group be the real AI, the NPCs are just avatars for that larger entity. I have another post somewhere around here about this in better detail.

Much of my previous post was about doing just that: a level-of-detail AI, where it only tracks what needs to be tracked. An army is only a speck on a map until you actually go there.

Another thing you want to watch for is the issue of drama. A good story, even when created by the player, needs drama. By creating certain events that can happen in any locale (random attack by enemies, internal party conflict, will-o-the-wisp, etc) you can add in dramatic moments when needed.

This can be abstracted out to a drama manager, which simply watches certain things about the game thus far (a graph of the excitement level, for example, that increases during battles and political tension) and tries to interject the parts of the story that are "lacking" at that point (if the excitement has been declining for a while, make a dragon attack the town that the player is in).

I have been thinking along similar lines for quite some time too, and one of the conclusions I have come to is that virtually every aspect of the game would need to include some form of LOD (level of detail) support.

This includes event and object tracking, AI, and NPC locations.

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Original post by Wysardry I have been thinking along similar lines for quite some time too, and one of the conclusions I have come to is that virtually every aspect of the game would need to include some form of LOD (level of detail) support. This includes event and object tracking, AI, and NPC locations.

This is another great reason to not use the cliche "fantasy" or "sci-fi" or "post-apocalyptic" settings: there are too many expectations. Create a new type of world, where all expectations are off (think ToeJam and Earl or Katamari Damacy) and people will be unable to see where the LOD levels change (and you can work with less LOD levels when needed, because people don't know how "deep" it "should" go). Plus you can work much more with procedural generation with your LOD levels because you are not trying to recreate an experience that the player is familiar with.

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Original post by JBourrie This is another great reason to not use the cliche "fantasy" or "sci-fi" or "post-apocalyptic" settings: there are too many expectations. Create a new type of world, where all expectations are off (think ToeJam and Earl or Katamari Damacy) and people will be unable to see where the LOD levels change (and you can work with less LOD levels when needed, because people don't know how "deep" it "should" go). Plus you can work much more with procedural generation with your LOD levels because you are not trying to recreate an experience that the player is familiar with.

I'm not convinced that is the case.

First of all, most players have not experienced a game with this level of freedom and/or dynamicism, so they will have fewer expectectations.

Secondly, in a fantasy setting life moves at a slower pace than a more modern one. This means that it would be more acceptable to keep track of distant moving objects (such as a coach moving from town to town), the spread of any news/rumours, town growth, technology advancement etc. at lower levels of detail and/or less frequent intervals.

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First of all, most players have not experienced a game with this level of freedom and/or dynamicism, so they will have fewer expectectations.

You would think so, wouldn't you? :)

From what I've seen, that's not the usual case. Players see a world they are familiar with, and they immediately expect that world to act in a way that they are familiar with. Right now, people familiar with fantasy expect an epic with huge lands and a wildly dramatic story, a clash between good and evil, yadda yadda yadda.

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Secondly, in a fantasy setting life moves at a slower pace than a more modern one. This means that it would be more acceptable to keep track of distant moving objects (such as a coach moving from town to town), the spread of any news/rumours, town growth, technology advancement etc. at lower levels of detail and/or less frequent intervals.

Oh, modern is worse than fantasy for this sort of thing (until the proof of concept is established, anyway. Then all bets are off). The examples I gave earlier (ToeJam and Earl, Katamari Damacy, Mario, Pikmin) are more the area I'm thinking of. Something abstract enough to avoid pre-established expectations.

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Original post by JBourrieFrom what I've seen, that's not the usual case. Players see a world they are familiar with, and they immediately expect that world to act in a way that they are familiar with. Right now, people familiar with fantasy expect an epic with huge lands and a wildly dramatic story, a clash between good and evil, yadda yadda yadda.

I don't see why a game such as this couldn't live up to the expectations you mention, or even surpass them (most CRPGs are fairly static).

The main difference would be that the player would not be forced to be involved in the clash between good and evil, it would still continue. The lands could still be huge by modern standards (which isn't saying much) and the story could be dramatic even if the player decided not to get directly involved in it 24/7.

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The examples I gave earlier (ToeJam and Earl, Katamari Damacy, Mario, Pikmin) are more the area I'm thinking of. Something abstract enough to avoid pre-established expectations.

Having at least some pre-established expectations can be beneficial. It would be more difficult to play a role in an abstract setting/world as you would have fewer frames of reference.

It is also my gut feeling that trying to break new ground in too many different areas would be a mistake.

I think we're in danger of derailing the original thread (if we haven't already).

No, you're not [smile]
For the record, I use the LotR type of setting because most people are familiar with it. The type of gameplay and world I'm suggesting and trying to conceptualize and can fit with any type of story I believe.

So feel free to continue. I just taking in opinions and seeing what fits and fits doesn't and such.

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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Quote: Original post by MSW *yawns* How about a RPG that is NOT set in the same old cliched D&D inspired worlds? Now that would be something! Hmmm...In fact there are a couple RPG-like goal less games out there that arn't bound to the lame D&D setting. GTA is one of them. Wow, you posted just to say you missed the point of my post. Had you read the post you would have realized that what I'm suggesting and what GTA is is different. GTA has a goal. There is an end. You progress by being in certain places and sometimes at certain times. But anyway...

Nope, I fully got the point you were makeing. However mine seemed to fly right over your head.

For example in GTA:VC you do not need to play any of the missions (in other words you dont need to go on quests). You can just play the game to your hearts content doing whatever you want to do with no game ending conditions in sight. Its a good example of at least the framework for what you seem to be suggesting...only the quests (missions) are pretty fixed instead of generated on the fly.

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You think that high fantasy is lame, but modern-day LA is super-neato? I could actually go to LA, but I can't become a knight or a mage. And GTA is not a good RPG. Your interaction with other characters is limited to brutal murder and repetitive one-liner responses. Having stats doesn't make it an RPG, or even RPG-like. GTA is a combination of a crappy driving game, crappy shooting game, crappy Crazy Taxi minigames, and probably some other crap that I'm forgetting. Three piles of crap don't become art by mashing them together. Honestly, I prefer GTA2 over San Andreas. If I remember correctly, Kest was working on a post-apocalyptic RPG, which really piqued my interest. You might like that, unless there's not enough gangsta thugs in it for you.

I just used GTA as an example, coulda used Scrapland instead (but few have played it) or even Pirates. all three of those games give players a big world to play in with lots of things to do, uneccissary quests, and character advanceing game mechanics. which is just the sort of thing the OP is aiming for