I take back what I said. In light of the system we have now "smart blocks" could be a sucess. What NPC's need now though are motives then to sell your armor or ask you to return their missing power ring. I think a number of variables could create intelligent AI, some of them being:
-Path Routines: Having NPCs visit certian areas, like shops during the day, and the NPC's cluster at the inn at night.
-NPC Actions - A set amount of animations could be applied to a template. Examples could include actions like going to sleep in a bed, Picking up an object, sitting down, etc. That could be applied to characters. To set templates, characters like a farmer could have the animation to bend down and plant seeds.
-Story building blocks that take input from the character. The basis being depending on the combination of quests the player has done, they define which building blocks are available. If you for example completed a quest to clear an area of wolves, then another quest to chase bandits out of town, these two variables could create a quest where the bandits are now living where the wovles were (This is assuming instances, which is the basis for these worlds)

I have more ideas, but school is pinning down my time with exams approaching. I would love to work on this over the summer, if others were interested.

Quote:

Original post by Anonymous Poster ------------ Unfortunately, planning for tasks/actions/solutions upon things that are out of a NPCs sight (or current need) continually requires tracking of resources (like supplies/tools) and monitoring of the situation that effects the NPCs existance. Ownership of objects and rights to access resources would be important aspects. Relations with other NPCs (sources of needed resources OR impediments to them) also must be tracked and evaluated. *** Note- suddenly the amount of data(memory) and cpu requirements for such an AI scheme increases by magnitudes.... (Ive spent more than a little time working on ways to farm AI to more than one computer...).

I think this could be solved more easly by having a more stratigic and hiractic AI to controll like city or so.

My thoughs in this is liek

World AI ( Main story line /plot )
--Hand out goals for its underlings
*As GM you hand the world AI tasks to achive and it will divide it as it see fits*

+Underling ( in line with City/Race/Landmass )
--Plans the storyline/plotline goals for City/Race/Landmass.
*This could be like the king of a city or the land of an alliance to raid to protect to achive and so on*

++Subsystem(like a guild or coperation ) or Inviduals
--Has his own goals but will get a role to fullfill from its superior
--Daly life family and so on
*Detailed daly life or Sub cultures and so on*



Telonder
if i have the time for it i can help/team up with you to toy with such systems.

Darn if I didnt have a whole big thing written out...then the power cut off :P
I had no idea that when I first wrote about NPC goals and quest-generation that it would take off like this! Here's how Im looking at the subject:


I. Are my needs at an acceptable state?

A. Physical (the most basic requirements)
1. Safety - If Im being attacked I will forget hunger and sleep
2. Food - If I am hungry, I may not be able to sleep
3. Sleep - If I am tired, I cannot meet other goals
4. Shelter - I need a place to sleep, avoid distraction, collect things
5. Freedom - The above conditions can be met without freedom (prisoner/slave)

B. Psychological (Is my personal identity acceptable?)
1. To like myself (Do I like who I am?)
a. My status
i. personal
ii. professional
b. My plans to manage my status (Do I like where Im going in life?)

2. For others to like me
a. My status (Do others like my identity as it is now?)
i. personal
ii. professional
b. My actions to manage my status (Do others like the direction my life is headed in?)


II. If not, who do I decide which need is most important / to be done first?
A. Character traits
1. Nature - what behavior is innate (who was I at birth or what cant I change about myself)
2. Nurture - what behavior has been shaped (adaptive response to physical or mental environmental changes over time)

B. Physical changes
1. Environment = danger?
2. Environment = incorrect for activity?
3. Environment = incorrect for schedule?

C. Social changes
1. Direct personal contact (NPC or Player)
2. Indirect social contact (Video, audio, or written information)
3. Internal emotional change (conscious change, not adaptive change like traits)


III. How do I return needs to an acceptable state?
A. Where do I do it?
B. What is needed to do it?
C. When am I to do it?
D. How do I do it?
E. Whom do I interact with to do it?

There are a bazillion crux-points in that outline that could be chosen to set off all kinds of quests, change faction, develop character arc...etc.

If anyone is interested in working on this, I invite you to join my project already in development.

Vanquish, what you describe is going to have to wait for the 9 cell processor power of ps3. However, I see a planner as a completely feasible concept. The question is how to best implement it. Right now I am producing a 2d isometric rpg, as our tester project (our studio) to make a game as a team. Over the summer we will be begin our full featured rpg in ogre3d (once the 2d iso game wraps up), and these sort of AI motives would fit in well. I wish we could snag a Bethesda ai programmer, the Radiant engine seems amazing. However, compiling an AI routine like this could be a huge benefit for the entire game dev. community, especially after the blow of reality engine closing down. However, what would be best to do now is consult a few pnp rpg players, and see how they define npc personalities. While I have played PnP dungeons and dragons, I would like to talk to a guru.

If anyone here has played the old Ultima 7 (maybe other versions too, i don't know), it had a great scripted system of simulating NPC activity. The debug mode allowed to hack up its scripts, so here's what i found:
The NPC activities are bound to a)places (eg Inn, Shop, Market) b)actions that they do there (eg Sleep, Eat, Trade, Work) c) all-day schedule of activities.
So, NPCs slept from 10pm to 7am, then went to work, worked, went to a meeting, made speeches(!), went home, slept, etc etc etc. It isn't AI to any point, it's scripted, but it looked real good anyway. I've never seen a better NPC activity sim in an RPG.

On computer power: you don't really need to model activity of the whole world - only the areas where players are present. In a single-player, it cuts off most of the complexity, and in an MMO, it still simplifies the process.

Forcing people to role play is a very bad idea. Not everyone wants to do it, and rewarding those that do is unfair. It will drop the popularity of your game a lot probably.

What you should do is do what World of Warcraft did and make servers that are specifically for Role Playing, and servers for Normal Playing.

Quote:

Original post by SumDude Forcing people to role play is a very bad idea. Not everyone wants to do it, and rewarding those that do is unfair. It will drop the popularity of your game a lot probably. What you should do is do what World of Warcraft did and make servers that are specifically for Role Playing, and servers for Normal Playing.

Actually i think you are very very very very wrong. Mainly becouse i am not trying to entice thouse who do not want to roleplay. Why should i make a game less roleplay intensiv if its target audiance is roleplayers?

The main reason i think WoW Failed is just becouse thay try to reach everyone and main focus on people who has never played mmorpg before.

With systems i have talked about above is mainly trageted to people who want to roleplay and not just "play". You always make games for the target audiance and not for the general mass. It would be like thay should put in killing and scorekeeping in a barby game just to get guys play it too.


*edit*
extra question?
what more to World of Warcraft is there to then kills bosses or players? following a quite linear quest pool. Thats right nothing. WoW is about score and items. It could just as easly be an fps och diablo 3.

My self played it a few months sure its fun for a while but then you realise its very static. I had great time on RP servers but even that got old.
*/edit*

By all means, make your game totally selective and go on thinking everyone that plays your game is gunna be nice and play by the rules.

Eventually it might bite you in the ass, and then what are you going to do? You only planned that RP'rs will play the game and now theres tons of people that don't want to RP joining? People are bothering you day and night about GM's giving away stuff to RP'rs and they are annoyed at it. What will you do if that becomes the case? Ban all of them?

While making a game you should take in the fact that not everyone will play the game as you intended. And if you don't think it happens look at Game Hacks for Counter-Strike and other popular games that are infested by them. Just now they are trying to battle it and are so far unsuccessful. Day of Defeat had a few levels that were made with people playing by the rules in mind and tons of people abused that to annoy players beyond belief. A game called Furcadia was created and it was made for RPing and eventually that changed as soon as more people came in and didn't want to RP and basically ruined the vibe of the game and the GM's really couldn't do anything to stop it.

And who said World of Warcraft failed? I know people that have played it since it's release and still playing it.

Quote:

Original post by SumDude By all means, make your game totally selective and go on thinking everyone that plays your game is gunna be nice and play by the rules. Eventually it might bite you in the ass, and then what are you going to do? You only planned that RP'rs will play the game and now theres tons of people that don't want to RP joining? People are bothering you day and night about GM's giving away stuff to RP'rs and they are annoyed at it. What will you do if that becomes the case? Ban all of them? While making a game you should take in the fact that not everyone will play the game as you intended. And if you don't think it happens look at Game Hacks for Counter-Strike and other popular games that are infested by them. Just now they are trying to battle it and are so far unsuccessful. Day of Defeat had a few levels that were made with people playing by the rules in mind and tons of people abused that to annoy players beyond belief. A game called Furcadia was created and it was made for RPing and eventually that changed as soon as more people came in and didn't want to RP and basically ruined the vibe of the game and the GM's really couldn't do anything to stop it. And who said World of Warcraft failed? I know people that have played it since it's release and still playing it.

Um i have never said that i would have GMs promoting players for thair deads. It was only 1 idea. and i see nothing wrong with it. And yes if i would do this kind of gameplay i would enforce Roleplaying.

Its not like you can go to any competitione for example and edit the rules just so you can win. And if i do this game i am doing it for Roleplayers out there and i would state that it is for roleplayers and that roleplaying will be enforced. And i dont care what thar large mass or the big bucks WoW make. But i care about the RP communities out there. I dont want kidz with d00dSpeak or anything else. And yes thouse players would get a warningn then a temporary ban then perm ban.

Seems you have missed the diskussion in this thread over all. And it seems you are a CS kid who wouldnt play my game and thats fine.


WoW failed being a massiv multiplayer roleplaying game. But this is my opinion and my knowledge. I know a lot have fun rping in WoW but there isnt the tools to really roleplay as you would want. Thats why it failed to be an ROLEPLAYING GAME in a roleplayers perspectiv. But its till true that you take on a "role" in the warcraft universe and you "play" that role of a worrior or so. But that has no mening in the sentance i am trying to discuss in this thread.


Btw i must say you are very narrow minded. Thanks to people like you we only have 5(?) diffrent gametypes in the wester world today. While in the east ( east and west is not totally true but its an aproximation) thay have more diffrent gametypes. Its the same with movies and seires especially drawn/cartoon seires and movies.

and please if you dont have more to contribute to the topics real diskussion make sure next replay is your last please.

Athos

OK, like all other subjects spoken of in the context of an MMO, you MUST look at it holistically. It would be a huge mistake to implement a questing/NPC system without thinking about why people aren't RPing in RPGs in the first place.

The reason for this in MMORPGs is that players play to become better than other players. "Developing the Character" no longer carries the role-playing connotation that it used to. "Developing the Character" is all about EXP/Hour now, that is the brutal truth.

The second an MMORPG environment becomes complex and dynamic enough so that players are unable to calculate the optimal "character development" path (a.k.a. leveling spot), will be the same moment that the role-playing context increases in importance to the player.

This does not necessarily mean going with open-ended skill systems as opposed to your classic character development system. Take for example a classic CRPG: the Baldur's Gate series. The game definitely has a huge emphasis on role-playing, but still carries a very linear character development system. Why do people role-play in BGI and II? Why not in other story-driven games like... World of Wacraft?

The difference between the two is that in BG, role-playing is part of your character development. There is as much role-playing as there is fighting, if not more. In world of warcraft, you may have to click through a few pages of quests before you start smashing mobs on the head, but in the end it's all about mob-smashing and mob-smashing-optimization. The focus has always been on being stronger and being able to smash bigger things or other players better.

I think dynamic questing systems and more fleshed out NPC systems are the solution. However, before you get there you really have to deal with heightening the range of risk associated with character development. There is no point in making a quest system and NPC system if 5000/5000 of your players go to the same NPC and the same Area to kill the same Monster so as to level as fast as possible.