I was thinking about some older games, and some older discussions on creating. I wanted to try and devise a way to create and manage an RPG game world dynamically. 1) villages. Now in real life there a lots of villages all over the place, however in games there is usual only a couple of premade locations. So to make a game world real why not fill it with lots of dyanmicly created villages. i)buildings - One approach that might work is to have stock buildings. when the village is generated the buildings it posses are chosen and their design based on the stock buildings that have been created, possibly consiting of prerendered buildings. These buildings are then arragened int ii) People - A village would be assigned a population indicating the number of people in it. These peoples would then pe assigned ages,sex,race, and jobs. Then a knowledge base would be built containing the information that people know and can discuss. People would be assigned a model to reflect their characteristics. Aswell as assgining them a building to live and work in. iii)Goods - villages have stores, the kinda of goods they sell are relection of the village. As such each village would be assigned a specility good. Which would be a unique good for sale solely in that area. Stores would also be assigned a goods matrix which contains all the goods the village has access to sell. iv) Jobs - it may be possible to create a dynamic quest or jobs that the village needs done. Not all villages would have these and they would morelikly be based on factors external to the village. v) Treasue - A village could be assigned treasure which would be various items of value placed with parts of the village such as people houses. this would a more realism to the game since the people would own possesion that the player could aquire. vi)Extras - these are the varius trimmings added for appearence that don''t have any real use. 2) Items - Dynamic items would be varily simple matter to create. There would be base items, with a modiflables stats,bonus and penalties. By assigning bonuses, penalites and modifed stats, a new weapon would be created and it would be assigned a name from a matrix of possible names and images. Thus a matrix of world goods could be created representing all the items currently existing in the world. OR the items could be created as needed. 3) Wandering People - As in the real life there a people who travel from place to place. To create these people would be created in a similar manner to village people. except they would have no fixed location, and much broader knowledgebase that would grow as the person wanders. The persons locaiton would change as the they move so that they could be encoutered on the world map or in a village. 4) Dungeons - A dungeon is series of connected rooms and floors. That is then populated with traps, treasure and monsters. Some would also include knowlege of importance that is hidden within them. 5) Monsters - The world contains enemies or monsters. these would most likely have to stock eniemes. With modifed stats to create a diversity to the enemies. These enemies would then assigned habitats and populations throughout the world. ----------------------------------------------------- Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades Current Design project Chaos Factor Design Document

I''m trying to do something similar in my game.

But the biggest problem in my opinion is to not make it soulless (for lack of a better word). And that''s what randomly generated data is, in my opinion.

My plan is to make it all parametrized. And give the people real personalities that stand out. Some people will be randomly generated, but even they would get a parameter that specifies how much their personality (and actions) stand out from the crowd.

And in case of people you know, or whom you are currently travelling with, you would have conversations that happen in the background. I''m placing a big emphasis on realistic dialogues, but I haven''t really done any research on that yet.

it seems like RTS basic gestion, well we can enhance the model with a hierachical need tree from the village need to npc need which will decide on what way the village evolve itself, while belief lead the kind of decision to reach the needs (a lawful good village will fit to rule but in order to save npc needs before the whole village need while a lawful evil village care most on the whole village need than each npc need for ex)

it will be truly dinamic because it can respond to external event which can happen (a war, destruction of a part of the village, ill foreigner, etc...)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Try Uncharted Waters: New Horizon. They have some of the features you mentioned.

Most cities have specialties, thus trading certain goods between cities is the recommended way of earning gold (other than looting).

Jobs. Most cities have a guild where you can find a job. And they pick random targets. "Meet a merchant in city X, he will give you the details."

The game has a list of all treasures. But, it will only select some when you start a new character. For example, you play character X, the game select 8 out of 20 treasures, leaving 12 treasures behind that you won't never find. You create a new game, the game will select 8 out of 20 treasures again (some treasures may be picked more often that the other depending on its value). So, in every game you play, the location of the treasures vary (however, after some few games, you may likely to remember them all).

One way I'd recommend to add dynamics to games is to add NPCs who also wander and explore and kill monsters ("Wandering People" on your list). They are adventurers also. They can be friendly, neutral, or hostile. So you are not the only visitors in villages, and you are not the only person who kill goblins and ogres. You are not the only customers who bought broadswords and shields. And you can fight them just as you fight monsters (but keep in mind that they can be stronger than you). You can hunt them down, they can hunt you down.

Uncharted Waters: New Horizon has amazingly implemented this feature (although it gets repetitive if you play long enough). If you kill one of them, a new one will respawn (under a different name picked at random). So, the world will always be populated with these people wandering around. The stronger you are, the stronger they are. The longer you play, the stronger they are. And there is always at least one (and usually a tough one and bad) who will hunt you down (asking for gold) wherever you go.

[edited by - alnite on August 31, 2003 7:09:42 PM]

I remember New Horizons. I started playing it a couple of times, but I wasn''t very good at it so I never got very far.

Also one game that has these characters that will be sort of "players" like you is "Vangers: One for the Road" (warning: it''s a *really* weird game). You''re a driver doing miscellaneous quests. Other drivers are controlled by NPC''s and some of them might want to eliminate you if you get strong enough. Eventually two of them started following me EVERYWHERE and I couldn''t beat them. That completely ruined my game.

Yes, it does seem very similar to strategy / empire building games with AI opponents. I see little reason why a game couldn't be made with such an evolving game-world.

The question that would have to be answered is, how do you control the quality of the gameplay?

Such games could even react to how the player behaves, ie. if they steal lots of things, the village may build a watchtower and hire extra guards.

(My idea for dealing with the "lack of personality" of having thousands of random NPCs and a randomly generated and dynamic game, is that you get rid of the ability to talk to any character in the game, instead there are several very important characters. ie. you can talk to the town council, the king, etc). Just like in the strategy game Civilisation where you negotiate with the ruling parties.

Likewise, you could have guild houses that would provide you with quests. (okay this is a bit dull and non-dramatic), but it would save you from having to go around looking for quests.

At other times, you would have a random encounter with a messenger or come across people who need your help (just so that things don't get too predictable.

[edited by - Ketchaval on September 8, 2003 1:54:02 PM]