On a first note, stop calling everyone self defeating in such an antagonisitc way. It is like yelling at a depressed person that they should feel loved.

On topic, it seems as if the standard single player RPG is actually not the best arena for these ideas. In the arena of single player RPG the content creators can take all these factors into account without too many unknowns and create a rather rigid storyline that seems to play to the character.

From my perspective the true strength of these ideas would be in a realm where story content cannot be generated at game creation, and instead must evolve. In other words, it seems like a good way of injecting plot into the plotless, or MMORPGs. As I see it, one of the major problems with common day MMORPGs is that only a certain kid of person can find them appealing, since the sence of plot in this kind of game relies soley on the player. But what if a character lives life even when the player is not logged in?

Depending on the passage of time multiple levels of stories could be incorporated (ie, a long term story of setting up a business, or a short torm story of stumbling across a group of people). The stories could then serve to tie a person into a more concrete (Yet still very liquid) plot, possibly appealing to a larger subset of people. It also allows the programmers to foster elements of play often left to the player, such as social interaction (Story where you meet another player and form friendship/rivalry/deal).

Of course, the main limitation to such a scheme would be less about generating the story and more about storing the data about the past. Since the programmer has little to no control over the actions of a player while signed in, there are quite a few things that could happen that the programmer might want to keep track of for future reference. The more the programmer records, the more data he can cruch, and the more personalized and involved a story he can develop.

At the current day, I would say that the resolution of the previous data would still have to be pretty low, recording only overt or momentous actions. To deal with our present day inability to deal with a higher amount of data, accumalators could be substituted to allow us to at least have an approximation of the player''s persona displayed through the smaller actions we can''t record. As technology improves, the resolution can raise and lower dependence on the accumalation model. In many ways it would be like the weather system in needing exponential storage and processing power, however.

I come to all this through my own experience with MMORPGs. I am not really a power player, and always feel like I should be able to step away from the game for at least a week without coming back and feeling as if the entire world has passed me by. I assume that many people who are not MMORPG players are much like me, and that these story lines will icorporate the player more into the world.

cannelbrae,
Have you studied Roger Schank''s works, and read some of his books?

quote:

---

Original post by intrest86
On topic, it seems as if the standard single player RPG is actually not the best arena for these ideas. In the arena of single player RPG the content creators can take all these factors into account without too many unknowns and create a rather rigid storyline that seems to play to the character.

---

Have you played Thief? The game was good, and it included interludes between gameplay. However, everyone''s story (saga, so to speak) was exactly the same. What I''d like to see, and I''m sure there are many others out there who feel the same, is to have everyone''s experience be different, not the same, and not fixed.

please don''t ignore me bishop!! you forget to flame me then i don''t know if what i say did make sense

do you think my post was helpful??

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

Is this something like Chris Crawfords Erasmatron it it?

http://www.robotwisdom.com/ai/crawford.html

-ddn

I haven''t actually. I may have missed something mentioned earlier in this thread -- any books in particular you would recommend? Unfortunately, I don''t have much time so I may not get to it in a while, but I will definitely add anything to my list.

quote:

---

Original post by intrest86
On topic, it seems as if the standard single player RPG is actually not the best arena for these ideas. In the arena of single player RPG the content creators can take all these factors into account without too many unknowns and create a rather rigid storyline that seems to play to the character.

---

Although I think this could work well with large multiplayer games, I think the main benefits could still come into single player games. Take for example Diablo II. There are many different character classes, but the game plays out exactly the same for all of them. The NPC''s in town have slightly modified reactions (sometimes) to a player based on character type, but the difference is insignificant. What would have been great is if they had something like we''re talking about here, where inbetween monster slaying sessions your character is busy prepping for battle. Even if some of the NPC''s could recognize rare/unique armaments and comment on them, or perhaps talk about a monster you slayed and how it was the scariest horror that ever walked - something to engage the player a little bit more and tie them to the story. As it is, the NPC''s in that game are absolutely worthless after the first time through, except for buying items. Even something as simple as "You''ve sharpened your sword/axe/mace, reinforced your shield, and buckeld your helm, you are prepared for battle." (Ok, that''s a pretty weak example).

But in single player games, those in between connections can be written by the game writers with the specific purpose that they be run. There is no need for a random generation, only people who play the game over again would ever benefit from the feature, and the truth is a lot of people that play games twice expect to get the same game over again and those that don''t would need a much larger change in story to make it worthwhile.

This method would effectively remove control of plot in a single player game from the creators, even though as a medium control of the plot is not only essential but the default. The reason I see this working in MMORPGs is because the game creators actually have nearly no control over the plot for each individual character, only the world as a whole. Your ideas could actually build their control of those plots, while still giving players freedom if they decide to go on their own track.

quote:

---

Original post by intrest86
But in single player games, those in between connections can be written by the game writers with the specific purpose that they be run. There is no need for a random generation, only people who play the game over again would ever benefit from the feature, and the truth is a lot of people that play games twice expect to get the same game over again and those that don''t would need a much larger change in story to make it worthwhile.

---

All assumptions, and ones I disagree with.

Take "Zelda: Windwaker" for example. After playing through the game once you are given the opportuinty to play through a second time, but only wearing your pajamas. The interactions with characters change because of the lack of real clothing, but it is hardly enough to make me want to play again if I wasn''t alreayd planning to. To make someone like me actually continue playing would take more than just slight variations along the path of the plot, it would take a new plot completely.

However, I imagine the pajama scenario was enjoyed by those who wished to play the game over again anyway. It added a slightly new element without drastically changing the game they had come to expect. And since Windwaker was a single player RPG, the creators had complete control over the changes the pajama scenario would cause the game, something that would be lacking in an auto-generated interlude.