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Original post by thk123 However, for that to work, you must first create a game in which the player expects to be able do to anything that they can think of. If a game does not explicitly state that X is possible, most people won't run up to the telephone box and hitting it on the off chance that this game allows you to do that.

So maybe you shouldn't make a game that does not show the player that X is possible.

What does this have to do with anything I posted, BTW?

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Original post by Stroppy Katamari Quote: Original post by thk123 However, for that to work, you must first create a game in which the player expects to be able do to anything that they can think of. If a game does not explicitly state that X is possible, most people won't run up to the telephone box and hitting it on the off chance that this game allows you to do that. So maybe you shouldn't make a game that does not show the player that X is possible. What does this have to do with anything I posted, BTW?

Woah loads of negatives!:P My point was that if you make a game which does not explain to the player that X is possible, then most people won't randomly try it to see if it is.

It relates to your original point in that, as cool as it would be to do all this and have different operational tactics, gamers at the moment don't expect to be able to do it, and so won't try it, hence including it would be pointless.

Hope this clarifies :)

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Original post by thk123 Quote: Original post by Stroppy Katamari Quote: Original post by thk123 However, for that to work, you must first create a game in which the player expects to be able do to anything that they can think of. If a game does not explicitly state that X is possible, most people won't run up to the telephone box and hitting it on the off chance that this game allows you to do that. So maybe you shouldn't make a game that does not show the player that X is possible. What does this have to do with anything I posted, BTW? Woah loads of negatives!:P My point was that if you make a game which does not explain to the player that X is possible, then most people won't randomly try it to see if it is. It relates to your original point in that, as cool as it would be to do all this and have different operational tactics, gamers at the moment don't expect to be able to do it, and so won't try it, hence including it would be pointless. Hope this clarifies :)

So your argument goes like this:
Gamers at the moment do not expect to be able to (insert any new mechanic here), therefore including it would be pointless.

Do you perchance live in an alternate universe where games contain no tutorials, cutscenes, tips, help, dialog and manuals which introduce new mechanics, or graphical and auditory hints that help the player to find the mechanics by experimentation?

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Original post by Stroppy Katamari Quote: Original post by thk123 Quote: Original post by Stroppy Katamari Quote: Original post by thk123 However, for that to work, you must first create a game in which the player expects to be able do to anything that they can think of. If a game does not explicitly state that X is possible, most people won't run up to the telephone box and hitting it on the off chance that this game allows you to do that. So maybe you shouldn't make a game that does not show the player that X is possible. What does this have to do with anything I posted, BTW? Woah loads of negatives!:P My point was that if you make a game which does not explain to the player that X is possible, then most people won't randomly try it to see if it is. It relates to your original point in that, as cool as it would be to do all this and have different operational tactics, gamers at the moment don't expect to be able to do it, and so won't try it, hence including it would be pointless. Hope this clarifies :) So your argument goes like this: Gamers at the moment do not expect to be able to (insert any new mechanic here), therefore including it would be pointless. Do you perchance live in an alternate universe where games contain no tutorials, cutscenes, tips, help, dialog and manuals which introduce new mechanics, or graphical and auditory hints that help the player to find the mechanics by experimentation?

Lol, but that isn't exactly what I said. If you don't tell the player then they won't. However, if you do (using tutorials, cutscenes, tips, help, dialogue and manuals) then some of the fun would be lost, because it would feel so scripted. I think that you would have to introduce a ton of mechanics so that they all felt like choices on the part of the player. A well designed tutorial could get round this problem providing, like I said, it was not the best thing to do in every situation.

It could work where the player had to analyse the thing they were about to assault. If it was a large, well organised enemy, then cutting them off may raise alarms back at base and actually result in more reinforcements. Whereas a smaller gang may only call in for support and think nothing of no one calling in.

Here's a blog entry by Introversion (Indie studio, developed Uplink - some of the developers may visit this site, I don't know) that is vaguely relevant in terms of the kind of gameplay you're discussing here - disabling alarms, smashing cameras etc.

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Original post by Chocolate Milk Take STALKER; They were forced to utilize enemy respawns so that returning to a place like a train station is as action packed as the first time you were there. Most people complained about the task of going through "recycled content", but the devs knew that it sure beat a cleared-out field devoid of action. A dynamic enemy could have resolved this problem because engaging the static enemy would only be the first part of the battle... dealing with the reinforcements (point of entry, level of response) would have brought about diversity in the conflict simply by adding these dynamic variables. The symptom is so obvious. When I'm attacking an outpost, the rest of the world does not exist. All that exists are the enemies at the camp. Compared to a linear game with heavily scripted scenarios this open world results in a much devolved and degraded player-vs-enemy relationship. Open world shooters commonly improve the conflicts between the player and enemy by utilizing mission-specific scripts. But this does nothing for battles taking place outside of mission content. This is so critical because a dynamic enemy adds to the sandbox appeal and I think an open world shooter is only as good as its sandbox elements. For example, in GTA, city driving was fun, interacting with the police response was incredible, and city exploration itself was pleasant. Without sandbox elements like these, your open world shooter is just a wanna be that should have been linear because creating a sandbox IS the reason for creating that open world.

While your point is 100% valid, you're missing something about STALKER. It has all of what you're talking about, but for god knows what reason, the developers DISABLED the AI and made it pretty stock standard and plain boring.
STALKER uses ALife and being a modder of the XRay engine, having seen all the mods released that activate the ALife, STALKER's AI is the best i've ever seen, it's just a shame that the actual level design and story telling was so linear, however as I said. Once you get freeplay mods and so on, the game is fantastic.

First you'd play the stock standard game, no ALife enabled, you take out a bandit base with some of your fellow stalkers and come back later, only to find that bandits are running the place again and your fellow stalkers are dead, and they keep dying whenever they try to attack...it gets boring.

Then you play with ALife, and you have mutant attacks on the base, you will be walking over to the bandit base only to see mutants running around hunting all of the panicked bandits who actually flee from the base back to another location, only to get hunted down by wild dogs on their retreat. Then when you go into the base, the mutants are laying down in the shade, or dragging bodies under the shelter out of rain.
You come back later, and you find that your fellow stalkers have attacked with a large force, as well as the bandits, and there is a battle between bandits, stalkers and mutants.
Come back another time and you find the whole place just had dead bodies laying about everywhere, and your fellow stalkers are standing around the campfire or looting the bandit bodies for new weapons etc.

Or say you walk past a building that previously was quite safe, you walk in only to get attacked by bloodsuckers in the middle of the night, and you're overwhelmed and dead within a few seconds.

With the STOCK AI, none of that happens, it's all prescripted and crappy, with ALife enabled and fixed up, you have a fun an unpredictable game that you can play over and over again without getting bored.

As for GTA, I have never liked the AI for any of the GTA games, just as I've never liked the AI for pretty much every FPS game, especially Call of Duty games, where the AI are old school path finders that will know your location no matter where you are hiding, and shoot out the side of their gun before they physically aim at you.
And as for that police thing you're talking about, the whole city does not have AI, the AI is basically occluded, so if you can't see the vehicles, they will disappear to reduce load on the system, it's always been the same, the police spawn from around the corner so to speak, when you've got your wanted rating up.
People on the streets are randomly spawned, there are pre made events such as police chasing people on foot that are spawned in as well, when there is a fire, fire trucks spawn from around the corner, and so on.

It is not GOOD AI, it's always been the same, however it's AI that is convincing, which is by no means a bad thing, but i'm just telling you that it's not what you think.
Basically the AI spawns are triggered by these events. The higher your star rating the higher your chance of a police vehicle of a certain type will spawn around the corner, or a policeman on foot will spawn around the corner and come after you. When kill someone, that triggers the ambulance spawn, when you blow a car up or burn something, that triggers the fire brigade and so on. It's all done with triggers and illusion

Anyway...rambling on now.

I think STALKER has been the best AI in a proper FPS, despite it's clunky animations which make the AI look like garbage. If you combined the AI of STALKER with the fluidity of animations using euphoria in GTA, and put it into say...a freeroaming zombie FPSRPG, then you'd have a recipe for a very beautiful game, it's just a shame that GSC Gameworld do not support the modding scene, because their engine could be used by modders to do some wonderful things.

The only main problems with STALKERS AI is that they cannot open doors, they cannot use vehicles, etc, since the only way to create those scripts in the code, is to have access to the internal engine code. Right now modders only have access to scripts, textures, models etc used for the game and that's it.