i been watchin this thread ever since it started but i never had anything good 2 add. i think this is an excellent idea and should be pursued. but i was wondering if pitting player vs player would help. take revenge for instance, player X''s goal could be 2 gain revenge on another greedy player Y because Y robbed X''s kingdom(hope u got that). i think that would add another level 2 the game because players aren''t just goin on NPC quests, but they are actually making the game world. but i don''t know about removing skills because u still need 2 have some way of measuring advancement. if players come into combat w/ ea other, u need stats, unless it''s an FPS, then the hell w/ stats!

p.s. i must admit i''m VERY impressed w/ the thread pwd & nazrix :-)


--I don''t judge, I just observe
Stuck in the Bush''s, Florida

Well I totally disagree with what the AP said. What he is suggesting is "game XXXX sold really well, lets just give people more of the same". Which is, IMHO the wrong way to design games.

I''d also just like to point out to the AP that if players wanted to just run around and kill everything that moves, this system isnt stopping them. It does however, offer a bit more to those players who want a bit more from their game.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

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.

That is the whole point. If we are handing out the cheese, we should be thinking more carefully of what we are handing it out for Do we hand the rat the cheese for being vicious and attacking the other rats? Or do we hand the rat the cheese for pushing the red button and opening the door? Or do we just take the cheese away altogether, and see what happens?

I think the strategic use of "cheese" () in a game could lead to a much different experience.

I hate to say this directly, but there are those who view games as encouraging violence - and can you blame them? You break it down, and what are we rewarding the player for? I''m not saying that it has to go away altogether, but by not rewarding violence, we could open new markets who would not have considered these games acceptable before.

quote:
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''m sorry, but I believe that is part of what is wrong with the games on the shelves today (barring a few exceptions). Change the formula, and you end up with an entirely different product... Would it be succesful? I honestly can''t say, but I''m willing to take the risk myself.

In a way, this changes the focus of the game... Is it still an RPG? Is it closer to being an RPG than {ahem} Diablo X? Could it be more of an "interactive drama"? Can we really get players to think of the consequences of their actions?

Would we even need the horde of randomly generated similiar creatures waiting for the slaughter???

quote:
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 ?

UI, graphics, sound, etc., can be important to a game, however the basic idea behind this thread is independent of these things. Bringing these particulars up here, would only confuse issues.

I apologize now if I seemed at all harsh or rabid in this reply.

-pwd

Nazrix,

The Looking Glass Studios games are the only reason I still have a Windows partition on my machine to this day

Dynamite,

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I do think in multiplayer, there could be interesting consequences of using this motivational system. There could be players competing to achieve the same goals, or with complimentary motivations/teamplay like I mentioned before. Perhaps a motivation with a parameter (like the revenge motivation) could have a player as a target... The only problem I see with this, is what do you do when the other player is offline, or quits entirely? But, if you can change your motivation through gameplay, this might be acceptable.

And I do think that skills are a necessary evil. Perhaps, it might be possible for a player to assist their character in something like lockpicking (remember Hillsfar?), but what about other things, like if the world includes magic (I may spin-off a thread on "magic" if there''s interest) that the player can use??? Or something similiar, that might just be too complicated for most players (technological systems/engineering, etc), but that we would want the avatars to be capable of...

-pwd

quote: Original post by Sandman

Well I totally disagree with what the AP said. What he is suggesting is "game XXXX sold really well, lets just give people more of the same". Which is, IMHO the wrong way to design games.

I agree 100%. Marketdroids might not though

quote:
I''d also just like to point out to the AP that if players wanted to just run around and kill everything that moves, this system isnt stopping them. It does however, offer a bit more to those players who want a bit more from their game.

This is probably completely unrelated to what you were just saying, but this may be why we don''t see modern RPGs. There could be no suspension of disbelief, if the players went around killing everybody that they ran into to gain experience. If we could remove the emphasis of combat as filler and allow another method of advancement, perhaps we could see RPGs set in modern settings... There are untapped opportunities here, police/modern criminals, all of that conspiracy/X-Files stuff, modern military, etc. A horror RPG could also be a possibility - there would not be a need for hordes of enemies to fight, so the ones that are there could be more for ambience, or truly horrifying when the player does confront them.

Back to what you were saying - exactly, you could run around killing everything that moves if the setting allows for it, or you could play a pacifist if you wanted. This would hopefully give the player more freedom than in other systems, and may allow designers and writers more freedom when designing the setting.

I''m not saying that this system will be for everybody, but that it could open new possibilities.

-pwd

I think you may be underestimateing the factors which i have mentioned, above. Regardless of you underlying design, those factors are still significant. One of the main reason i dont play old CRPGs (look to http://www.theunderdogs.org/) at all, is their archaric and bad UI compared to todays apps (not just games). The graphics i can forgive, being as its an old game, but the UI has just advanced so much over the years, its difficult to enjoy a game without good UI. I think in the past when there wasn''t a better way, people could accept any type of UI, but today there are standards.

As for view, that has great implciation which ripples through your desgin. Best pick one, becuase its going to define what and how you can do with your character more so than any thing else.

Good Luck

-ddn

Oy! Such a great discussion, how could I miss?!!

I want to make sure I''ve got it this down:

The objective is to reward the player for behavior that''s in character. For every action, then, there is a mapping to a reward (or punishment?) matrix which gets translated to character skill advancement.

So, let''s say I create Inigo Montoya. My motive is revenge against the Six Fingered Man who slaughtered my father.

Every time I practice swordsmanship, it contributes to my pool of motivation points (or something). Every battle I have with the Six Fingered Man''s agents does this as well. Maybe I even get a bonus for killing them, because it gets me closer to my goal. Other actions, like piracy or the magick arts, don''t go up as fast because they''re not relevant to killing the SFM.

Good so far (and I like + APPLAUD the effort), but I have a problem or two. Easiest if I express it this way:

We can detect 1 to 1 actions, but we can''t determine WHY the player is taking them.

What if I, not knowing that it doesn''t help, choose to avenge my father with magicks? What if I attempt to avenge him by forming a pirate army and destroying his nation, and thus weakening the army so I can get to him?

Said another way (as someone once said to me about law & automatic punishments in MMO games):

We can detect "A causes B," but it''s much hard to detect the indirect "A causes B, which causes C"

Let''s say I''m a Peaceful Spiritual seeker. I go to the shrines, give to the poor, etc. etc. Then, I come across a ravine with a bridge. One the opposite side are poor hapless peasants running from a dragon toward the bridge.

I blow up the bridge.

If this isn''t strictly a scripted event (esp. if it''s multi- or massively multiplayer) then the system still considers me a Peaceful Seeker. There''s no way to tell that I''ve caused C (the mass peasant slaughter) by causing B (bridge blowup).

Furthermore, you have no way of knowing if I did it on purpose or accidently, even if it is scripted.

OK, so let''s say you fix this by saying "Spiritual Seekers can''t blow stuff up." But what if all the peasants cross, and THEN I want to blow up the bridge to keep the dragon from crossing?

(I''m not trying to shoot you down, btw... I''m actually trying to figure this out myself for the Friends thread... how can you tell a friend''s true motive)


One solution: You could make things extremely object / objective based. Robin Hood would be rewarded not so much for what he did, but who he did it to. Robbing the nobles is good because they''re bad people. Robbing the peasants, however, is bad because they''re good people.

This would be closer to a faction system where actions against faction persons and property would be considered. It still would not fix the bridge example.


If you want to get really nightmare about about the "A causes B causes C" thing, then you''re going to need to keep a lot of data. You can determine that the NPC''s pathfinding is blocked, and you''d keep in memory that there WAS a bridge there. Then you''d have to ask who destroyed the bridge.

It still wouldn''t tell you WHY the player destroyed the bridge. Did he just have bad timing? Did he expect the NPCs to go hide in the nearby cave? If you smack him for messing up regardless, then you''ve got a very Ancient Greek view of punishment and reward, where the game system metes out justice / rewards without taking motive into account at all.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

AP: Let me get this straight, you are saying that game design is all about "lets make sure the user interface is pretty, we can bolt on some rip off game later"? That is the biggest pile of bollocks I have ever heard in my life. I agree that User Interface is very important, and a badly designed UI can break an otherwise good game, but user interface alone does not MAKE a game. If UI is all you want, dont bother with games, just play around with windows/linux/whatever all day.

Wav: Thats a tough one. You could set it up so that you get points for just being nearby when something beneficial to your goal occurs. Likewise, you could be negatively effected if something bad happens. In your example, simply being nearby when all the peasants are saved, could benefit you (even if you had nothing to do with it, perhaps the occasion inspires your character, or he learns something from the event, or his faith in his cause is strengthened). If all the peasants get killed (because you blew the bridge up too soon) then you are negatively affected. If they were killed through no fault of your own, then you still lose out because, as the saying goes, "if good men do nothing, evil will triumph". Even if you were busy at the time, your character will be all cut up and guilty about letting the dragon eat them, and will suffer some advancement penalty.

This is just one suggestion. It would certainly encourage people with like goals to group together.

[EDIT]
I also think it should be possible to have several goals, possibly with different characteristics. For example, you might have a career based goal (to become a master wizard) and a mission goal (take revenge on the six fingered man). if the career bsaed goal is strongly defined (ie, the character is constantly using magic for just about everything) then the vast majority of the skill that he learns will be magic related. if his career goal isnt clearly defined, (he does a bit of everything) then his learnt skills will be a mixture. He will increase his skill by furthering his overall mission goal (killing the six fingered man's henchmen)

Of course, achieving his mission goal might not be enough to let him reach his career goal. Perhaps then he must find a new mission goal.....?


Edited by - Sandman on January 28, 2001 7:01:22 AM

Wow, it''s getting more active in here

ddn,

This concept is completely independent of UI/graphics or even setting. I could be implementing this in a pen&paper RPG, or a first person 3d with the UI designers who work for Apple, and it shouldn''t apply to what we''re discussing here. I''m not saying that UI and graphics are not important, they just don''t apply to this topic - and I''m trying to keep it as generic as possible (I''m only using a fantasy setting as an example).

Wavinator,

quote:
The objective is to reward the player for behavior that''s in character. For every action, then, there is a mapping to a reward (or punishment?) matrix which gets translated to character skill advancement.

Basically, yes. I try to stay from actually punishing the player in this system, to allow for a little more freedom. As I''ve mentioned, the denial of reward should be punishment enough. Let the setting do the punishing if appropriate. If it is feasible to judge behaviour by tangibles/results (wealth for example) then that would be the ideal. Also, by not punishing directly, it would be less noticable when we make the occasional miss, which I''m sure will happen.

By allowing for multiple motivations to form, we could possibly allow for a succesful catch of the pirate army situation. For example, over the course of forming the pirate army, the players motivations would shift to include the "power" motivation. Could this work? It may classify as a cheap trick - but the player would be focusing on building a pirate army, and waging war with the SFMs nation. If they could balance, perhaps as the player draws closer to their original goal, the motivation could shift again... Perhaps a major motivation, and a minor motivation system?

I''d like to keep the system as simple as possible so as to allow for it to actually be implemented.

Netscapes chewing up my resources, more in a minute

-pwd

Ok, let''s shift focus from the Six Fingered Man to the Holy Hand Grenade

Ok, the spiritual seeker comes to a ravine, and blows up the bridge.

We wouldn''t penalize him (system wise at least). The setting may do so, however. Perhaps Ghandi was on the wrong side of the bridge, and so gets eaten by the dragon. Then the player would never be able to meet Ghandi, or gain any benefit from doing so

If the player were aware, and made the mistake, the player would hopefully be bummed, but that would be about it.

If the player did it on purpose, to watch the dragon eat the peasants (sick, sick, player), I doubt that there would be a way to really determine that... If the player were constantly doing things like this, they would not really be advancing their motivation anyway.

If the player saves the peasants, and it were in tune with their motivation, then they would get the reward. If they failed, the only punishment would be the denial of reward. Allow the player to fail, and get on with their life In a non-linear setting, don''t bring the game to a halt... Perhaps there would be consequences for not saving the peasants, but the "game must go on".

Sandman,

I like the idea of being near things that advance your goal giving you the reward. This would help out a lot with teamplay. Perhaps, being near things that are arbitrary to your goal could shift your motivations somewhat - like someones bad habits rubbing off on you.

-pwd