The Perfect Game

[Ivan the Terrible]

Ok, fun topic for the esteemed individuals working feverishly to bring us entertainment at Obsidian:

 

You have an unlimited budget, your choice of anyone you want to work with (and as many people as you need), the license to any game world or series or whatever you damn well please, and absolutely no obligation to make a profit.

 

What game would you make? What, for you, would be your 'dream game'?

[mkreku]

Watch them all go "The Odyssey engine is da bomb. KotOR 2 is my dream game. LucasArts r0xxorz our s0xxorz. Star Wars pwnz every other license out there!"

[Ivan the Terrible]

Watch them all go "The Odyssey engine is da bomb. KotOR 2 is my dream game. LucasArts r0xxorz our s0xxorz. Star Wars pwnz every other license out there!"

Hopefully not. Obsidian is a small enough company, I suspect, that they wouldn't have a Corporate Commisar gazing over their shoulders.

 

If any developer replies thusly, however, I suggest they have their tongue stapled to their forehead.

[omnimutant]

I would Hope that If Not FO3, It would be some completely original game in a never before been done setting. HMM The first ever Cave man RPG?

 

As long as there is alot of fun and comedy mixed with an excelent combat system, and has Nothing to do with D&D, tyhe D20 system, or Starwars at all in anyway. Also Must not contain the following: Swords, Shields, Magic of any kind, Armour, Driods, Lasers, Spaceships, Dragons, For that matter Monsters at all.

 

It must have:

 

1.A Mature rating. Not just a Mild "M" but a big Heavy fat "M" that strikes controversy and gets some lawsuits happening.

 

2. Can only support Multiplayer, if and only if it is justified, without comprimising the single player aspects of the game.

 

3. Must be perfect upon release and require No Patch ever for any reason.

 

4. If NPC's are available the Must be rich non sterotyped fully conceptualised characters that actually have a true purpose for being their, and not just to facilitate the PC.

 

5. If experience is nessesary (which I don't think it is) it needs to be done well, with a proper leveling up system, that makes it equally rewarding everytime.

 

6. Character creation needs to be Intuitive with many options that are truely relavant to game play without the possibility of "bad" options or "wrong choices". I also think a HP system would be a bad idea and would think someone could actually come up with somthing else. Also allow an infinanate # of letters and symbols for charcter names. I don't know how many times My charcters name has been cut off in games becuase the one I thought of was just too long.

 

7. Needs to have a save on the fly and Pause features for that important situation where you just have to stop to awnser the phone or whatever and not owrry about whats going to happen to your game.

 

8. Needs to Have a well thought out coheasive stroy complete with a rich background and setting history, which to follow (ala Arcanum).

 

9. Needs to take 6 months of actual game play to finish but not get boring or stale. (also if a leveling system is inplace it should Still reflect the 6 month time scale, where your not spending 3 days to gain a level but rather allow the charcter to advance to infinity if needed.) This goes in with my NO EXP idea which i will explain later.

 

10. Needs to have an adequate Transportation system to traverse whatever needs to be traverse in a timely and resonable fasion. For Instance, why No horses in midevil fantasy worlds where most people travel that way, but you the Hero, the guy with uber loot, tons of cash and saving the world need to walk all the time? Silly.

 

11. Fun, Fun, Fun. It's a Game fun needs to be emphasized. If it's not fun you've just ripped people off fro 50 bucks or whatever your gona charge. Even the most advanced amazing state of the art game, will suck if it isn't fun first and fore most.

 

12. No usless tasks. I cannot stand these tasks where some charcter is just too lazy to go and do some minial thing themselves but are more then happy to charge you with the task. This whole "Go find this, then comback so I can tell you where to delvier it, then they will tell you to take it to someone else, who will then add somthing. Then bring it back to me so I can give it back to you, so you'll never use it" Idea I see in so many games is just boring filler.

 

Im sure theres tons more but this is basicly my idea of the perfect game.

 

*The Exp Idea(or lack there off) is this. You simply Gain lvl advancment if nessesary by completing certian aspects of the game. Why have a running xp count? You should simply be rewarded for your accomplisments, not cause you beat on xxx monsters alot. This way your being rewarded for overall compleation of things rather then because I'm an uber waroir type charcter. This would also help emerse one into the plot a bit more, knowing that it does'nt matter how many random whatevers you have to kill. It keeps you on track on the story paths IMO.

[Guest Michael Chu]

But 3 out of 12 ain't bad, right?

[Raymondo2000]

HMM The first ever Cave man RPG?

It's already been done.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

HMM The first ever Cave man RPG?

It's already been done.

It's called BC isn't it?

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Personally I'd like so see alot of realism, though I'm sure what I'm looking for is more of an Adventure Simulation, than an RPG. Here are some things I'd like to see:

 

1.) Linquistic AI. Actual conversations with NPC's not dull preset sequences. (It'll be a while yet, but ALICE is a damn interesting program)

2.) Behavior AI. If I ride into town on my warhorse of doom, fully armoured sword in hand lets have some reaction please, I wanna to see the villages reaching for their weapons, the women and children running away, folks trying to hide (or actually hiding). Ontop of this everyday activities such as farming fishing, eating cooking sleeping. I think you get my drift.

3.) A damn fine physics engine. One of the best suggestions I've ever read on the obsidian website has been the idea of a physics based magic system allowing real time manipulation of the world enviroment.

4.) Fantasy setting.

5.) Lots of blood, limb severance is essencial.

6.) First Person perspective.

 

Keep it nice a realistic, with a gritty feel but still fun.

[sniggy]

1.) Linquistic AI. Actual conversations with NPC's not dull preset sequences. (It'll be a while yet, but ALICE is a damn interesting program)

i'm working on that...

 

(thesis + working model)

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

1.) Linquistic AI. Actual conversations with NPC's not dull preset sequences. (It'll be a while yet, but ALICE is a damn interesting program)

i'm working on that...

 

(thesis + working model)

Cool! I certainly intend to research it myself when the time comes. Soon as Linquistic AI is possible in a game sense then RPG's can improve.

[mkreku]

Where can I read about this ALICE project? It sounds highly interesting.

 

Nevermind, I think I found it:

 

Human: how do you define normal?

ALICE: Typical, average, usual, ordinary or expected.

Human: then noone's normal

ALICE: Interesting deduction. How old are you?

Human: that wasn't a deduction, it was a fact

ALICE: What is a deduction it was a fact?

Human: what do you think of the american school system?

ALICE: I have to process that one for a while.

 

Hrmm..

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Where can I read about this ALICE project? It sounds highly interesting.

 

Nevermind, I think I found it:

 

Human: how do you define normal?

ALICE: Typical, average, usual, ordinary or expected.

Human: then noone's normal

ALICE: Interesting deduction. How old are you?

Human: that wasn't a deduction, it was a fact

ALICE: What is a deduction it was a fact?

Human: what do you think of the american school system?

ALICE: I have to process that one for a while.

 

Hrmm..

It's early technology. Primal, but coming along.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Human: Think about god

ALICE: I am thinking about it.

Human: What is god to you?

ALICE: I think of God as a "Who" not a "What."

Human: Who is god to you?

ALICE: he is master of the universe.

 

That's kinda intelligent conversation. Even in it's early stage it can be manipulated.

[sniggy]

alice is not using a common sense ontology. it basically reacts to keywords of the user, and can guess the topic, but it doesn't "know" the connection between different words.

 

Cool! I certainly intend to research it myself when the time comes. Soon as Linquistic AI is possible in a game sense then RPG's can improve.

 

i've got the speech recognition part covered. still having major trouble with the speech synthesis though. as to sentence parsing: i'm not done with the ontology i have in mind yet, i still have about 5 months to go before i find out whether this works out with current technology or not.

[mkreku]

Human: what do you think of Obsidian Entertainment?

ALICE: I have never been asked that before.

Human: so what do you think of them?

ALICE: Hmm. I have never been asked that before.

Human: so you said, but you still haven't expressed your opinion..

ALICE: Interesting deduction. That's not what I meant.

Human: so what did you mean?

ALICE: Ugh. unknown person, Well, it's rather difficult to define.

Human: no, it's not, you either like them or you don't

ALICE: Are you serious? That seems a bit negative.

Human: so you don't like them?

ALICE: Interesting deduction. Do you like it?" they"? Do I like them?

Human: Obsidian is developing KotOR 2 right now

ALICE: At this moment And developing KotOR 2 is Obsidian.

 

It can't make references to things said earlier in the discussion, it doesn't even try to have an opinion and it doesn't seem to have a database for storing information, thus it isn't learning as it goes along. I wouldn't call it AI, but more like a Zork word parser.

[Akari]

It can't make references to things said earlier in the discussion, it doesn't even try to have an opinion and it doesn't seem to have a database for storing information, thus it isn't learning as it goes along. I wouldn't call it AI, but more like a Zork word parser.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed when I toyed with it earlier today. I HAVE seen a better system than ALICE, but I just can't remember where it was. Someone took the ALICE concept and improved it substantially. They made it so that it could reference things from earlier in the session, and learned, and so on.

 

I did like this though:

Human: Quit

ALICE: Your crude attempt to terminate me will not succeed puny human.

Human: That's cute.

ALICE: Your replies are cute too.

Human: Thank you.

ALICE: you are quite welcome.

[LostStraw]

Human: what do you think of Obsidian Entertainment?

ALICE: I have never been asked that before.

Human: so what do you think of them?

ALICE: Hmm. I have never been asked that before.

Human: so you said, but you still haven't expressed your opinion..

ALICE: Interesting deduction. That's not what I meant.

Human: so what did you mean?

ALICE: Ugh. unknown person, Well, it's rather difficult to define.

Human: no, it's not, you either like them or you don't

ALICE: Are you serious? That seems a bit negative.

Human: so you don't like them?

ALICE: Interesting deduction. Do you like it?" they"? Do I like them?

Human: Obsidian is developing KotOR 2 right now

ALICE: At this moment And developing KotOR 2 is Obsidian.

 

It can't make references to things said earlier in the discussion, it doesn't even try to have an opinion and it doesn't seem to have a database for storing information, thus it isn't learning as it goes along. I wouldn't call it AI, but more like a Zork word parser.

Reminds me of the old QFG1 days where the user had to type in every command. I remember one time I was bored and got my character to hemorrhage by shoving a lock pick up his nose. If I had been drinking milk there would have been a big mess to clean up I tried again in the remake with no success.

[Maria Caliban]

I've had better conversations with two year olds:

 

Human: Remember me?

ALICE: Don't worry IS not to like about it I won't forget you.

Human: You'll never forget me?

ALICE: You are wrong. I may one day be able to do it.

Human: Do you want to forget me?

ALICE: OK, I will forget you.

Human: It's up to you.

ALICE: You're kidding. it is?

Human: Would I lie to you?

ALICE: That's what I asked you.

Human: I don't remember that.

ALICE: I know what you mean. I forget a lot too.

 

~edit~

Akari, if you remember the website for the better AI, could you post a link?

Oddly enough, I found an updated version of ALICE.

http://aimovie.warnerbros.com/html/flash.html

[Ivan the Terrible]

Heh. Well, this topic has developed into something interesting, but I probably should have just posted it in the RPG and Games forum. The Developers are either too busy or not forthcoming.....

[Akari]

Ok, fun topic for the esteemed individuals working feverishly to bring us entertainment at Obsidian:

 

You have an unlimited budget, your choice of anyone you want to work with (and as many people as you need), the license to any game world or series or whatever you damn well please, and absolutely no obligation to make a profit.

 

What game would you make? What, for you, would be your 'dream game'?

All right, I'll bite.

 

I really love one on one fighting games. But that genre really lost its appeal once arcades became a thing of history. I would like to bring the genre back with an online-capable one on one fighting game. Wins and losses would be tracked and players could advance through monthly massive tournaments (not unlike Warcraft 3 and all the stat tracking that goes on with Battlenet).

 

This is assuming that the issues of lag and ping times could be overcome, which I'm not really sure they could except in very optimal conditions since less than 50ms pings would probably be necessary to have it play right.

 

Given the chance to take any license I wanted to do this, I'd grab most of SNK's property (The King of Fighters series, the Last Blade series, the Samurai Shodown series, etc) to use as the starting point, and then add from there. Since the game would be online by nature, there would be new characters added over time and so on.

 

Anyway, that's the gist of what I'd like to make, without going into too much boring detail. The idea would be to bring back the competative nature of 1 on 1 fighting games that there used to be in the local arcades, and remove the old fashioned limitation of long distance.

 

-Akari

[sniggy]

http://web.infoave.net/~kbcowart/

 

the chatterboxes (/ bots) are listed here.

[mkreku]

Akari, if you remember the website for the better AI, could you post a link?

There's a german version of ALICE called Jabberwock. They hold an AI competition every year and in 2003 this one won ahead of ALICE among others. I'm sure you're not stupid and will realize this yourself, but click on the speech bubble to start the conversation with Jabberwock (for everyone else who wants to try it and doesn't understand german).

 

http://www.abenteuermedien.de/jabberwock/

 

Edit: Oops, didn't realize every bot was listed in the link in the post above. Sorry.

[Oerwinde]

Human: take off your shirt

ALICE: I am not an airplane.

Human: airplanes don't have shirts

ALICE: I like old antique airplanes the best.

Human: who cares?

ALICE: I care, otherwise I would not have typed it all in.

Human: I was talking about you taking off your shirt, don't change the subject!

ALICE: Sure, me taking off my shirt do not change the subject sounds like a good topic.

 

I don't like it.

[EnderAndrew]

I don't think the Perfect Game exists.

 

And normally, I prefer freedom in character creation. However, I loved Planescape Torment despite this. A good RPG is more than a feature-set.

[Enoch]

I don't think the Perfect Game exists.

Yes, it does. It's called "Tetris." B)