Here is what I had in mind. Say you had a game that put the player in a world that needs to be dynamic and ever changing like so many games out there. However, alot of them have only hardcoded events in the game that get executed only when a player reaches point A or does mission B. I think that exploration in a game is key to bringing the player back time and time again. If you had a system that handed out random events to objects for no reason at all, things are happening even when the player isnt focusing on that part of the game so every time they go back and revisit it something different and interesting is happening. A big feature that appeals to me most is the events that happen around the player that arent related to them in any way at all. They are just happening because the world is going on around you. Take Grand Theft Auto for example (There are many good examples, GTA is the first thing that popped into my head). The world is huge, cars are going everywhere, people are visiting places and things are generally real busy looking. It makes a game feel alive and constantly changing, which creates a good feeling or atmosphere to the game which draws players back to explore places and see whats happening this time around. I havnt actually played the RPG Elder Scrolls Oblivion yet, but I read that they made a system like this with their NPC's. They were assigned tasks to do at all times, even when the player was no where near the town. You could follow the NPC and watch it do whatever it needed to do for as long as you wanted, one event after the other. Events would be randomly picked by code and handed to the NPC to do. This is a big thing in my game as alot of the content will be randomly generated at the start and put into the players savegame so that every game is different. In my case it will be the Names and all other details of Corporations that occupy the game world (Among other things as well). All the corporations will be linked to a event system that hand's out things to do at all times of the game, one event after the other (including breaks inbetween events). One thing I have thought up is when a Software Corp has finished building and releases a piece of software, things appear on the news that they have created a new product and that comapny is in the spotlight temporarily. This would affect the player because as the product stays out longer, the more sales and therefore money the comapny makes from it, so then player could then target their bank accounts and rob them for their newly earned money. Other things include if servers go offline you cant get communicate or get access to them or data may be lost so all their money goes towards replacing it, leaving them with less funding to give players missions or for them to rob from their bank. Just simple things like that can make a difference to how things feel in the game. What I would really like to hear is your ideas on how to make this system seem more real and dynamic. Things that could keep it interesting and different. like how could the player get involved in these random events? (If you were bothered to read all that :P).

The problem is it can only be random up to a point.

The initial game situation could be scrambled from a set of
factors (from a list all of which might not be present in every game).

Like a set of factions which are given random positions in a cityscape
and then have different patterns of influence and areas where they conflict.

The random part is easy -- Gang A is located at XY and has Z strength resources
that roughly define the area they can control. The same would be set for
Gang B C D etc... The hard part is then resolving that seed factor into
a realistic pattern of what area the gangs would control -- simulating the previous actions to gain territory to result in the situation the player is entering. Recursive growth cycles -- aggregation and anealing, border areas between rivals would form which are in contention while other core areas are strongly controlled. Different strategies for holding territory would define
where units/assets are positioned.

The logic to do that kind of thing can be fairly complex depending on how detailed you want the game situation to be. But it could the present the player a logical situation with reasons of why things are -- instead of a mish-mosh of random elements just thrown together.

A similar mechanism can be used to shift the world situation WHILE the game is in progress with events causing shifts and counter moves from the different factions. It would be up t the player to see the events and their effects and find opportunities.

Missions/Quests can be built to use the different situations generated by
the mechanism, in a general way with appropriate elements but at different places and other variables.

Quote:

Original post by wodinoneeye A similar mechanism can be used to shift the world situation WHILE the game is in progress with events causing shifts and counter moves from the different factions. It would be up t the player to see the events and their effects and find opportunities.

Thats what I had in mind. It would be alot cooler visiting a Security Software Company that has just released their first program and has a little bit of money and a small company. Then say you go off and do half the story missions, come back to visit the same company and they have released many patches and other projects, they now have rival company's that try to sabotage them, allied company's that help them with their programs (that would also be subject to this system, and went through something similar). The Company would now seem huge and still growing.

You could also do things like make company's go bankrupt after a MAJOR sabotage or sale flaw. then after a little bit the Event System would create a new company to replace it (So if the player plays for a long time, all the company's dont end up going bankrupt).

Just things like that would make the game seem more alive and ever changing.