One thing which strikes me is that there is a whole range of character development and definition that can be opened up in NPCs. This would be done by making them "play" in a way which is both part of their personality and which reflects it. This behaviour would be so consistent that you would know it was "Jenny" or "Garrett" even if it used vector graphics to display them, and had no sound. Ie. their personality shines through in their behaviour, and their behaviour shines through in their personality. This could probably be done by combining artificial Intelligence routines with a statistics system. (But I''m not a programmer). For instance, there is Dave a footballer who is good at defending but when attacking he becomes cocky and tries to show off, by holding onto the ball for too long and doing some Trick moves (has a higher likelihood of trying to pass through between the opponents legs). Thus just by watching this character''s BEHAVIOUR, you would know that it was him EVEN if you couldn''t see him. As opposed to Darren, the insecure midfielder, who passes as soon as possible, but will take a shot at goal if an opening appears. Or Helen Maigret, who is more susceptible to Psychic attack than anyone else on the team. But is prone to kicking alien (** with a machine gun....

Mmmmmm... yeah, this is a cool area that I think is often overlooked. I liked that in Tekken there was this one character that was a training dummy who emulated the other player''s styles. You could tell who you were fighting by their style, which went well their personality.

There''s a lot of room for brainstorming here. I''d like to see this sort of thing used more for NPCs as well as strategy games. It''d be cool to examine how different behaviors might correspond to different actions. You could have cowardly characters prone to panick in battle; overconfident characters taking on foes at greater and greater odds.

One interesting impact on AI: You''d need a lot of different behaviors, but I can see varying even basic behaviors. For instance, how close to close in a fight, when to run, when to surrender, what weapons to use, whether to attack straight away or go the long route, etc. You''d need to be clear that this was personality and not AI failings, of course (hehe, although personality *could* explain some subpar AI behavior)

Taking this into the not combat realm would be even more challenging (probably because noncombat actions aren''t that well developed in most games). Lots of options here...

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Hmmm. Theoretical problem. One thread, two locations, different replies...