Another thought, perhaps an NPC could have a "perceptive" flag or skill, that might allow them a (small) chance to "cheat" and determine the players true motivations if the player were to remain in dialogue with the NPC long enough... Maybe this could be used if the player were pulling a "two-faced" game, or perhaps trying to lie their way out of trouble. Sort of the same way that we can see right through a character in a movie or a game when they are trying to be deceitful. Now the AI could actually have a way of guessing what the players intentions were, like the way a player can guess the AIs intentions... That''s actually kind of scary. Perhaps the player could acquire this "perceptive" skill as well.

I see this melding well with the AI. The NPCs and the Player could share pretty much the same motivation system.

Perhaps for a multi-player, it could be possible for a player to quick-start as an existing NPC? Would a player do it for the challenge of playing a random personality, or would they change the NPCs personality to match their own?

Could a game without an overarching story succeed? {laugh} Do players expect to be able to kill the big woozle?

-pwd

I think this is a pretty cool idea, I particularly like the idea of having the computer track the players motivations, although this could be bloody hard in practice.

One possible way of doing this, is to give the player little 'tests' throughout the game, to narrow down the players motivations. For each motivation that you can identify, design a series of tests with varying rewards for varying amounts of effort. By seeing what lengths the player will go to satisfy one of these obectives, you can determine which one is the primary motivating factor.

There are problems, though, some gamers will take every quest opportunity that comes along, others may prove to be quite balanced in their goals, and others (like me for example - I like mad, unpredictable characters ) might do all sorts of random things that generally confuse the issue. Some of these can be eliminated with a careful choice of goals and tests. For example, having a good "reputation" should be a goal in itself. If the results show no pattern, the character could be classified as mad, and his only goal is to make his apparent character change as often as possible......

Edited by - Sandman on January 27, 2001 7:36:53 AM

quote: Original post by Sandman

I think this is a pretty cool idea, I particularly like the idea of having the computer track the players motivations, although this could be bloody hard in practice.

Never said it would be easy But I think that it definately can be done. We can track what a character has in their possession, where a character has been, what they have done, etc, so we can take this information and try to get a feel for what their motivation is...

quote:
One possible way of doing this, is to give the player little 'tests' throughout the game, to narrow down the players motivations. For each motivation that you can identify, design a series of tests with varying rewards for varying amounts of effort. By seeing what lengths the player will go to satisfy one of these obectives, you can determine which one is the primary motivating factor.

Certain motivations could be tracked by more tangible means. For example, with greed, you could check the maximum wealth that the player has ever had(combined $ and value of possessions, land, etc), and when the player increases their wealth above this point, and maintains it for a period of time, we see that they have advanced their greed.

Other more abstract motivations may need additional data for the NPCs/objects etc. It could be as simple as the charitable example above - tracking an NPCs wealth, or much more abstract. For example, a spiritual signifigance value for a location.

Sort of like 'tests' but a little more open.

quote:
There are problems, though, some gamers will take every quest opportunity that comes along, others may prove to be quite balanced in their goals, and others (like me for example - I like mad, unpredictable characters ) might do all sorts of random things that generally confuse the issue. Some of these can be eliminated with a careful choice of goals and tests. For example, having a good "reputation" should be a goal in itself. If the results show no pattern, the character could be classified as mad, and his only goal is to make his apparent character change as often as possible......

{laugh} It would not be possible to take every quest possible. A single situation would have multiple possibilities based on the players motivation. Take for example a kidnapped princess. A chivalrous character would save her and return her to her father in the name of honour/valour. A greedy character might capture her from the kidnappers, and ransom her himself, sell her to slavers or a rival kingdom. Others might not want to get involved, or could have their own reasons for getting involved. In other words 1 situation does not necessarily equal 1 'quest'.

Perhaps a sort of scripting system could be developed to handle these situations. It should be quite possible to do this with the current state of technology. Keep the situations small, and let the player fit them together based on their character - let the player make their own story. The scripts could possibly pass parameters either to other scripts, or perhaps to the game objects/npcs, for example, you sell the kings daughter to slavers, the next time you run into him... Or, it could start off another, more general purpose script, that of the king sending his men to hunt the player down. Or a combination of the two. Ultimately a player would never be able to see the entire game on a single run through.

Completely random behaviour could be an issue... They could have wildly shifting motivations, and perhaps could never "win", if they don't have a motivation that really drives them. Or keeping the rate of change at a fairly slow pace could work - they would have to consistently follow one motivation to change, and there could be an allowance/filter for "noise". Determining the initial motivation could be difficult, though. Would it be acceptable to force a player to define their character before they can have advancement opportunities? Or would the quiz idea perhaps be stronger?

Thanks for the feedback

-pwd

edit: The king object could get the "Revenge" motivation against the player for doing something so horrible. Then the king object would call the general purpose "hunt the player down" script, because of the motivation

Edited by - pwd on January 27, 2001 10:25:27 AM

pwd, I really like your thinking. About the quests, I suggest you take a look at this thread.

It contains some nice ideas about the world state generating its own quests.





"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Another thing. I wonder if it would be useful to have all NPCs have motivations/personalities as well. Some NPCs would be more greedy, some more generous and kind.



"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

A possible problem, a feedback loop could be created through such a system. If a person is greedy, and so advances in skills of "greed" such as stealing etc.. and that is measured in gold. Wouldn''t a feedback loop be created? As the theif got more gold, their steal skills increase thus increasing their chances of getting gold? Where will it end? In other CRPGs as the characters advance, there was a exponential increase in exp required to advcance to the next level. It could be the same here but even then, each motivation has to be balanced individually, as you can''t apply 1 gold to theifs advancement doesnt equal 1 person saved to a priest. Its going to be a very difficult problem, balancing and all. An unbalanced system will create loopholes which allow for uber characters.

Perhaps creating a CRPG with no skill levels, no exp points, no advancement at all? Just a world based on actions, which all players can do but with the require knowledge and tools/instruments. Include in this an element of player participation in the actions as so they can facilate these actions based upon their skill (their skill not the avatars). Hmm and let the people sort themselves out, those who play CRPG to win will quickly find the time investment too much, those who play to experience the game would find others like themselves.

Good Luck

-ddn

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Perhaps creating a CRPG with no skill levels, no exp points, no advancement at all? Just a world based on actions, which all players can do but with the require knowledge and tools/instruments. Include in this an element of player participation in the actions as so they can facilate these actions based upon their skill (their skill not the avatars). Hmm and let the people sort themselves out, those who play CRPG to win will quickly find the time investment too much, those who play to experience the game would find others like themselves.

That''s a pretty good idea. No advancement except the advancement in the stories and quest. Then perhaps the game ends when the player reaches their ultimate goal.

Perhaps a greedy character becomes the head of the thief guild. The person who wants spirtual enlightment becomes some sort of leader of a religion or something. Then throught that process of getting to that point.

Although, without advancement there would have to be some kind of reward for performing consistant actions.



"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

quote:
Nazrix:

Another thing. I wonder if it would be useful to have all NPCs have motivations/personalities as well. Some NPCs would be more greedy, some more generous and kind.

I was thinking that they probably should. I think this could merge well with AI.

quote:
ddn:
A possible problem, a feedback loop could be created through such a system. If a person is greedy, and so advances in skills of "greed" such as stealing etc.. and that is measured in gold. Wouldn''t a feedback loop be created? As the theif got more gold, their steal skills increase thus increasing their chances of getting gold? Where will it end? In other CRPGs as the characters advance, there was a exponential increase in exp required to advcance to the next level.

I think that there would have to be an exponential growth for advancement, unfortunately each motivation would have to be balanced seperately. In the case of the greedy thief, they would have to go after larger and larger takes to keep advancing at a steady pace, and this would obviously be more difficult even with greater skills. Or they could keep going after the small takes, which would be easier, but they would have to do a lot of small takes. Another issue, which actually seems to be an advantage, is that money will be expended on temporary items: food, medicine, rooms at hotels, etc. I was thinking that the advancement would have to be based on the greatest amount of wealth achieved... Could a similiar thing occur for the other motivations? There would have to be a considerable playtest period to find issues such as these. (Partly why I''m trying to flush any out that I can now )

quote:
ddn:
Perhaps creating a CRPG with no skill levels, no exp points, no advancement at all? Just a world based on actions, which all players can do but with the require knowledge and tools/instruments. Include in this an element of player participation in the actions as so they can facilate these actions based upon their skill (their skill not the avatars). Hmm and let the people sort themselves out, those who play CRPG to win will quickly find the time investment too much, those who play to experience the game would find others like themselves.

That is an interesting idea. I think there would still have to be some sort of reward/egoboost system in place, which is what I''m trying to change, not destroy

I think at this point players do have certain expectations of what a CRPG is, and there is a certain amount of conditioning from all of the previous reward systems... By changing the reward system, we can show the diehard Diablo/etc. players that there could be something different. No reward system, and they''d probably turn away in confusion.

Now, whether skills are necessary is another point. I think that allowing the avatar to both grow, and do things that the player never could do (or assist in for that matter) brings a little more interest into the game. It allows for differentiation, both from other characters, and from the player him/herself (if that is what''s desired). Skills could possibly be non-traditional in this system (the "perceptive" skill I mentioned above, for example) - maybe giving the player a different view of the world???

Or another reward system could possibly work... Any ideas?

-pwd

If we were all rats, i would say just up the daily cheese rations. I think human motivation has been ever the mystery. Difficult to disect with reason and observation alone, it has to be felt. I hear that great writters let their characters speak for themselves.

Drop them in a world steeped with history and magic, add 2 pinches of blood and mana, and throw in alot of randomly generated similar looking monsters and you got yourslef a hit! 8^)

I think any reasonably designed reward system will entice the player. Its more the wrapping around the game, the UI + graphics + sound, these days. What type of view are you thinking about for this game ? Fallouts/Diablo iso 2d, maybe Final Fantsy series 3D 3rd person, Morwinds first person ?

-ddn

To hell w/ what players are used to. It's how well the game is designed.

Do you think that players were used to the gameplay of Thief?

It looked like an FPS, but you didn't kill 1000 people per second. It rewarded patience and intellect, not fast fingers. I don't think many people were prepared for how it played, but it was beautifully well-balanced and thought out. At least IMHO





"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.


Edited by - Nazrix on January 27, 2001 3:55:23 PM