Inspired by a thread in "Game design" about what people would like to see in an rpg, I decided to open a thread about AI ideas you think could prove interesting. Feel free to post and comment on any AI releated ideas and/or visions you may have. I for one, enjoy mystery and investigations, so my current project has some focus on that. For this, I thought about a memory system for NPCs. I'm afraid it might eat resources, but I think it would be cool if AIs could remember if they see wierd things happend. If I go out and shoot someone, the other NPCs in the area could identify me, assuming they get a good look at me. If I dress up like someone else, and it's dark, they only get a blurry picture, that they can later on describe to the police (for example, "he had a red jacket and baseball cap, but I didn't get a look on his face"). The problem here is the implentation, but I think it is doable. I'm also thinking about stronger and weaker memories and things like that. Any comments? --- I'm also interested in the state and rule based system described in that other thread. To those who didn't read it, it's all about trying to cause chain reactions to events. The example given was (more or less) that if I kill a merchant on his way to the castle, they notice he never shows up, and send someone to check it out, and in the meanwhile, the citizens complain about the castle supplies being out of whatever the merchant was delivering. How deep and interesting do you think you could make these chain reactions in such a game?

An abosolutely bat-crazy idea, to start things off:

AI Storyteller - A series of events with multiple variables, and a "pacing manager" that ensures the story remains interesting throughout the game.

For example, the designer doesn't know which characters will join the players party. Moreso the designer doesn't know which characters will be the players favorite. But all of this information can be gathered by recording data about the players style (does he use this character alot? Does this character always get the best equipment first?).

The game decides it's time for a bloody battle (through some means, one of which I mentioned in the other thread), and needs a high-drama action. It checks the list of possible "High Drama Events" and picks "Players favorite sidekick injured". Use your imagination as to what could happen here.

After this high drama battle we need a lull, a quieter segment of the game. Helping this character out is one possibility (find the healing spring, or whatever you like). However if the player just goes out into the countryside the game will limit the difficulty of events that happen (you're not going to get attacked by a dragon) for a short time. Eventually it's time for another climactic segment (based on a number of variables including time), so we check the event manager again and see what can possibly happen.

And so on...

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Original post by JBourrie An abosolutely bat-crazy idea, to start things off:

Well, I wouldn't call it bat-crazy, not when I've got the same desire to see the same storytelling system in games [smile].

I've made several posts on this a year or two ago in this forum if you search for interactive storytelling or stories to get the full description of my wish for storytelling AI, however my ideas are pretty similar to yours; having an AI storytelling or "pacing manager" as you describe it decide what story based events to give the player based on their prior history of playing style.

What about days, nights and sleeping? Say we have 1000 NPCs in different map sectors, with no way whatsoever to keep them all in memory at once, and still want them to eat, sleep and well, do their duties, and you should be able to follow them 24/7 and expect them to do different things like those. I think this could allow for some crazy infiltration style quests.

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Original post by DvDmanDT What about days, nights and sleeping? Say we have 1000 NPCs in different map sectors, with no way whatsoever to keep them all in memory at once

Why update NPCs that aren't in your map sector?

Zelda: Majoras Mask did alot of very interesting puzzles with a simple version of this, but there was no AI driving the characters, just a time-based script. But there were quite a few puzzles that required you to meet people at certain times of day.

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Original post by JBourrie Why update NPCs that aren't in your map sector?

Well, in games like oblivion, it feels like sectors, other than the one you are currently in, are frozen in time (because they are). You want the world to feel alive, so you need to keep all map sectors updated and breathing at all times (obviosuly you only need to do high-level processing for the other map sectors, you dont need to simulate everything, because it will never be seen, but some sort of simulation should happen, IMHO, even when the player is not nearby).

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Original post by issch Quote: Original post by JBourrie Why update NPCs that aren't in your map sector? Well, in games like oblivion, it feels like sectors, other than the one you are currently in, are frozen in time (because they are). You want the world to feel alive, so you need to keep all map sectors updated and breathing at all times (obviosuly you only need to do high-level processing for the other map sectors, you dont need to simulate everything, because it will never be seen, but some sort of simulation should happen, IMHO, even when the player is not nearby).

As an alternative to keeping all sectors updated, you coul just update the sectors when needed. The player only really needs real-time updates to the sector that they're in. Once they travel to a new sector however, the game could perform whatever updates it needs to account for the changes in time. Say the player spends two days away from a sector and returns; the game could save the current state of the sector and keep a record of all events that could influence the sector in the rest of the world, and then perform it all in one update when the player heads back.

This way you can retrospectively change events in the past for whatever dramatic end you need without having to plan for it in real-time. If the player goes away from a sector of a year in game time, then maybe a new king has taken over, maybe monsters have overrun the sector, or maybe everything is just the same as it was; the storytelling AI can make a decision when the player returns rather than having to plan ahead and overthrow the kingdom while the player is away.

TZ: I was thinking about that, and it might very well be possible. Another solution is to always keep all characters in memory, and update the ones in the players current sector each or every other frame, and update the rest every second or something, and only update what really needs to be updated. Then you could perform a more full update when you enter their sector. Might turn out to use an insane amount of memory though.

@Trapper Zoid

That's exactly what I was thinking. The player just has to feel like something has been happening... to be real lazy you could randomly place them and it would seem different. Possibly wouldn't even be noticeable by the average player.

Hi, I don't really know much about AI but I'm trying to picture how this would work. I'm picturing an example where you have a butcher or a metal smith. Where normally you could just have scripts for them to go from one place to another to another given certain times of the day. For instance from home to work to the pub and home. Now if the bartender gets killed or the butchers food supplier gets killed this would upset the NPC's normal duties and you could just have an alternative script for what to do instead given certain circumstances. Is this kind of what you guys are talking about?

I think it would be pretty awesome to have a world that is producing stuff say people in the mines mining and bringing the material back to town where a metal worker refines and uses it. Or hunters or fisherman would be gathering their material and selling it in town. That way you could interupt any of those services and either try to profit from it, or use the materials for yourselves. Of course in order to prevent a character from just farming a particular resource this way countermeasures would have to be implemented, such as if you rob a gold mine once or twice the next time you show up it will be surrounded by guards who should be able to kill or at least severly weaken you. I can just imagine an MMO with this that if you didn't have countermeasures like that no services would ever be provided anywhere. Also reputation would be a big factor in what you could do with stolen supplies.