Non-romance dynamics in games

[Walsingham]

 

 

Query: would it be acceptable to have common themes and subplots anchor on different NPCs, depending on which ones we identified with and took along with us? Like an ex lover or nemesis? So two different NPCs X and Y, can bring the baggage evil NPC Z into the story. Possibly in different ways, but still...

 

I accept this would be mindblowingly difficult in terms of the way we build games currently. But I'm talking in the abstract.

I need you to clarify, do you mean that the NPCs have interdynamics that only relate to each other but not the player? Or that their response be based on choices made by the player?

 

 

Sorry for not being clearer. I knew at the time I wasn't.

 

I mean that you have story archetypes which are generically engaging, like revenge, or a lost infant. However, the point made in the vlog was that each individual player responds to different personality types.

 

So my question was whether you could have a fixed story line, but it was delivered by a number of different possible NPCs.

 

So, in New Vegas I really enjoyed Boon's quest. Mistakes made in the heat of the moment, regret, redemption. All that good stuff. But could it have been delivered by another NPC? So have the same sequence of encounters, 'narrated' by (I don't know) Ed-E?

[Raithe]

I think on one hand it could be feasible ot do that on certain technical levels, but I don't think it would be able to engage as emotively if it was set up like that. Part of the reason those sorts of stories can work is because the characters (npcs) involved are fleshed out and provided with that background and depth.

 

If you try to make each npc fit a whole bunch of different stories depending on whether you picked up x,y or z... you'd have to shift the focus on each specific character and provide too many story linkages. So you'd end up with shallower characters with the potential of linking to multiple arcs..

 

Also, that could mean that each NPC's "own" brand of story would be set aside in favour of the new one. So at what point would that choice be made? Or were you meaning that rather then each NPC having their own storyline, there are a dozen or so stories that randomly get linked to the NPC's travelling with you depending on choices you've made and how you've interacted with the world and them?

[Walsingham]

Well, Raithe, now you're talking how to balance the creation with the resources. I do see your point, but if we abandon the resource constraint, what do you think?

[Raithe]

Well, I'm not sure it's purely about the resources.

 

If you right an npc so they're intimately linked to a specific story archetype : ie, revenge, loss, etc..  Are they going to be suitable to follow a completely seperate storyline? Would it work to the same depth if their range of emotions are tied to something else? If they aren't tied to that, are they going to have a suitable depth to really connect to the storyline and to you as the player?

 

If they're going to assume a completely different personality type, is there any point in them being the same NPC?

[Orogun01]

Wals I think what you talk about it has already been used in games and not just with NPCs but with the environment as well. They serve as a frame of reference to present a character to the player and to develop that character's background without lengthy expositions. 
For example in KOTOR you're told a lot about Revan through NPCs which provided him with a background, gave insight into his motives and established him all without having him meet the protagonist (although, I'm not sure how he could do that...but it's the Force or whatever)

[anubite]

A "relationship" between the player and an NPC is impossible if the NPC cannot interact and respond with the player in a believable way. A lack of good AI and design prevent good interaction. Alyx still stands out as the best iteration of Elizabeth/Ellie/etc I've encountered so far. If developers refuse to invest in AI and design to make a "relationship" work all you've got to work with are cheap heartstring tugging and other emotional exploitation..

Edited July 16, 2013 by anubite

[Orogun01]

But we are not only arguing romance or relationships but the whole spectrum of dynamics that might exist between the player and NPC.

[Walsingham]

OK. I see what you mean.

[Raithe]

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

[Walsingham]

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

 

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain?

 

I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel.

[Orogun01]

 

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

 

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain?

 

I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel.

 

It's a pseudo random quest generator.

[Raithe]

Technically its the "Radiant AI", which is divided into two parts - one that relates to npc's and one which goes with story.

 

Supposedly the NPC part is geared around giving them certain things to do, but not scripting that behaviour. So the ai will change how they act to achieve a set goal depending on whats going on around them and what the player has done in the area.

 

The story side is more what you're thinking about (I think). Supposedly a dynamic quest generator type of thing. They have a whole stack of quests, but depending on where you are in the game, which dungeons/locations you've already found, it changes up the various locales and makes sure you never get sent back to the same dungeon for multiple quests or a dungeon you've found on your own, and which "basic" npc provides the quest and such like.

 

Very plug and play quests though, not anything really deep or with evocative story telling. Or at least, that's the general theory to it.

 

One of the supposed things its meant to do is say you get a quest relating to some character being kidnapped, it would check the gameplay to see if there was some NPC you'd already met that would fit the bill and say that character had been the one kidnapped. Part of making it feel more like a living world.  But I never really noticed anything like that actually happening when I played the game. So I have no idea if that's just a talking point they had that never actually got developed fully.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Raithe

[anubite]

 

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

 

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain?

 

I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel.

 

Radiant was never actually released. Go look at the 2005 Oblivion demo at E3. It ran on a PC. Radiant AI was pretty cool, but they dropped it because the 360 couldn't handle it (and it was likely way too buggy for Bethesda to maintain for just a PC version). We got a watered down version of it in Skyrim, pretty sure only vestiges of it are in Oblivion.

[Nonek]

Two kinds of relationships usually appeal: The first is that of the tool (insert ribaldry) such as the dog, an extension of myself that is valuable, useful and almost symbiotic. Through training, feeding, and careful use we boost our chances for survival against outside elements, until the creature is as much a part of my character as a limb. In this case it must always be useful and preferably silent, to reinforce that aspect.

 

The second is a meeting of philosophical ideals, where even if the means of the person are less than admirable, the motive is correct. Obviously Kreia and Kaelyn spring to mind here, they are both fighting against injustices, though their methods are vastly different. Admiration and respect is a rare thing in rpg's, where most characters are at the will of the scripts whims, but a clear defined agenda and a determination to enact their plans is something to be cherished in my eyes.

[Zoraptor]

 

 

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

 

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain?

 

I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel.

 

 

The idea of Radiant AI was to give AI knowledge, aims etc so they could develop their behaviour organically rather than have specific schedules and scripting governing their behaviour. It didn't work, leading to thieves stealing apples directly in front of shopkeepers repeatedly and house owners raking their carpets or staring at walls for hours. Radiant AI was a good if impractical idea, genuine scripting like in Gothic 3 was less flexible, but worked far better.

 

Radiant was never actually released. Go look at the 2005 Oblivion demo at E3. It ran on a PC. Radiant AI was pretty cool, but they dropped it because the 360 couldn't handle it (and it was likely way too buggy for Bethesda to maintain for just a PC version). We got a watered down version of it in Skyrim, pretty sure only vestiges of it are in Oblivion.

Thought it was an open secret that the Radiant AI demo was specially scripted rather than being on the fly. The average 2005/6 PC would be considerably worse than a 360 in terms of power.

[Raithe]

Well we weren't bringing it up to say it worked great or whatever. More in the way that what Wals was talking about sounding like the idea of Radiant, but focused on NPC companions and the archetypal stories that tend to go with them.

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

I'm kind of getting the idea that you're talking something akin to the oh..Radiant System of quests in Skyrim, but applied to NPC's, their relationships, and the quests they're invovled with/provide to the player.

 

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain?

 

I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel.

 

 

The idea of Radiant AI was to give AI knowledge, aims etc so they could develop their behaviour organically rather than have specific schedules and scripting governing their behaviour. It didn't work, leading to thieves stealing apples directly in front of shopkeepers repeatedly and house owners raking their carpets or staring at walls for hours. Radiant AI was a good if impractical idea, genuine scripting like in Gothic 3 was less flexible, but worked far better.

 

Radiant was never actually released. Go look at the 2005 Oblivion demo at E3. It ran on a PC. Radiant AI was pretty cool, but they dropped it because the 360 couldn't handle it (and it was likely way too buggy for Bethesda to maintain for just a PC version). We got a watered down version of it in Skyrim, pretty sure only vestiges of it are in Oblivion.

Thought it was an open secret that the Radiant AI demo was specially scripted rather than being on the fly. The average 2005/6 PC would be considerably worse than a 360 in terms of power.

 

 

How do you know about the failures of the Radiant AI? I find it interesting as I see it as the future of AI in RPG

[alanschu]

Some quick research:

 

 

During testing, testers discovered that a drug dealer character who was supposed to give the player a quest was usually dead by the time the player got to him. Eventually they discovered the problem. By the time the player got that deeply into the game, the drug dealer's 'customers' had run out of money, stolen and sold everything of value in the town and had eventually murdered the drug dealer for their 'fix'. No one had programmed the characters to do this and it's an amazing bit of emergent intelligence…but the simple fact is it broke the game and the AI had to be scaled back for the retail release

 

http://thebritinsc.blogspot.ca/2009/06/interestingbut-wrong.html

 

 

Which is true.  An AI that is unpredictable is very scary as a developer.  For instance, if you think about a learning algorithm for say, a sports game.  Lets pick soccer.  Now, imagine that the AI ends up having success by literally just kicking the ball towards the net whenever it gets the ball.  WHen it doesn't have the ball, it just tries to get it.  If it starts to decide "this is the most effective way for me to play," then you pretty much destroy the "soccer experience" for most people playing the game.

[Zoraptor]

[edit: I'm less than convinced by that drug dealer story, to be honest, or at least that it worked quite as described. Watching a character steal a pile of apples from in front of a shop keeper, one at a time, in broad daylight, in a crowd, while obviously being watched, that character being a thief and getting caught each time but not getting stopped because he was Plot Critical convinced me pretty much absolutely that their AI was... vestigial, in the I front, in practice if not in theory]

 

How do you know about the failures of the Radiant AI? I find it interesting as I see it as the future of AI in RPG

 

I know about its failures because I played Oblivion, for my sins.

 

It (or something similar) probably is the future at some point but it will have to overcome some significant problems with getting to a level of realism (verisimilitude, really) where it doesn't make you regularly facepalm.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

Some quick research:

 

 

 

During testing, testers discovered that a drug dealer character who was supposed to give the player a quest was usually dead by the time the player got to him. Eventually they discovered the problem. By the time the player got that deeply into the game, the drug dealer's 'customers' had run out of money, stolen and sold everything of value in the town and had eventually murdered the drug dealer for their 'fix'. No one had programmed the characters to do this and it's an amazing bit of emergent intelligence…but the simple fact is it broke the game and the AI had to be scaled back for the retail release

 

http://thebritinsc.blogspot.ca/2009/06/interestingbut-wrong.html

 

 

Which is true.  An AI that is unpredictable is very scary as a developer.  For instance, if you think about a learning algorithm for say, a sports game.  Lets pick soccer.  Now, imagine that the AI ends up having success by literally just kicking the ball towards the net whenever it gets the ball.  WHen it doesn't have the ball, it just tries to get it.  If it starts to decide "this is the most effective way for me to play," then you pretty much destroy the "soccer experience" for most people playing the game.

 

 

[edit: I'm less than convinced by that drug dealer story, to be honest, or at least that it worked quite as described. Watching a character steal a pile of apples from in front of a shop keeper, one at a time, in broad daylight, in a crowd, while obviously being watched, that character being a thief and getting caught each time but not getting stopped because he was Plot Critical convinced me pretty much absolutely that their AI was... vestigial, in the I front, in practice if not in theory]

 

How do you know about the failures of the Radiant AI? I find it interesting as I see it as the future of AI in RPG

 

I know about its failures because I played Oblivion, for my sins.

 

It (or something similar) probably is the future at some point but it will have to overcome some significant problems with getting to a level of realism (verisimilitude, really) where it doesn't make you regularly facepalm.

 

Okay so we can see the obvious flaws so I suppose the developers need to program or consider as many possible scenario's as possible which does make it very difficult to develop the AI effectively. But I do find it exciting and still something in the future that can be implemented to improve the whole RPG experience

[alanschu]

 

 

[edit: I'm less than convinced by that drug dealer story, to be honest, or at least that it worked quite as described. Watching a character steal a pile of apples from in front of a shop keeper, one at a time, in broad daylight, in a crowd, while obviously being watched, that character being a thief and getting caught each time but not getting stopped because he was Plot Critical convinced me pretty much absolutely that their AI was... vestigial, in the I front, in practice if not in theory]

 

Well, the drug dealer story sounds like it didn't exist at all in the released version.

[Walsingham]

Two kinds of relationships usually appeal: The first is that of the tool (insert ribaldry) such as the dog, an extension of myself that is valuable, useful and almost symbiotic. Through training, feeding, and careful use we boost our chances for survival against outside elements, until the creature is as much a part of my character as a limb. In this case it must always be useful and preferably silent, to reinforce that aspect.

 

The second is a meeting of philosophical ideals, where even if the means of the person are less than admirable, the motive is correct. Obviously Kreia and Kaelyn spring to mind here, they are both fighting against injustices, though their methods are vastly different. Admiration and respect is a rare thing in rpg's, where most characters are at the will of the scripts whims, but a clear defined agenda and a determination to enact their plans is something to be cherished in my eyes.

 

Interesting analysis. If I can run with the ball, wouldn't that mean that your first archetypal relationship is the one many parents WANT from their kids. A builder's pride. So to speak.

 

Have to ponder this further.

[Orogun01]

 

Two kinds of relationships usually appeal: The first is that of the tool (insert ribaldry) such as the dog, an extension of myself that is valuable, useful and almost symbiotic. Through training, feeding, and careful use we boost our chances for survival against outside elements, until the creature is as much a part of my character as a limb. In this case it must always be useful and preferably silent, to reinforce that aspect.

 

The second is a meeting of philosophical ideals, where even if the means of the person are less than admirable, the motive is correct. Obviously Kreia and Kaelyn spring to mind here, they are both fighting against injustices, though their methods are vastly different. Admiration and respect is a rare thing in rpg's, where most characters are at the will of the scripts whims, but a clear defined agenda and a determination to enact their plans is something to be cherished in my eyes.

 

Interesting analysis. If I can run with the ball, wouldn't that mean that your first archetypal relationship is the one many parents WANT from their kids. A builder's pride. So to speak.

 

Have to ponder this further.

 

They first have to be established as the protagonist's kids through interaction, not just shoved on him. You know like in "Kramer vs. Kramer: Zombie Apocalypse".

[Zoraptor]

 

[edit: I'm less than convinced by that drug dealer story, to be honest, or at least that it worked quite as described. Watching a character steal a pile of apples from in front of a shop keeper, one at a time, in broad daylight, in a crowd, while obviously being watched, that character being a thief and getting caught each time but not getting stopped because he was Plot Critical convinced me pretty much absolutely that their AI was... vestigial, in the I front, in practice if not in theory]

 

Well, the drug dealer story sounds like it didn't exist at all in the released version.

 

It doesn't, but that was unrelated to anything Radiant AI. They turned off both the ability to kill plot critical characters and for those plot critical characters to become hostile to other NPCs through their actions. When a non plot critical thief steals apples from in front of a shopkeeper it would be "stop criminal scum!" and he'd be chopped to sausage (indeed, the shopkeeper starts saying "stop thief" but stops halfway through stop for the plot critical one); so the general behaviour is still there and the problems at the heart of it remain.

 

And that fundamental problem is that while the thief 'knows' he should steal he has none of the essential context of how he should steal, so he goes to a shop and steals stuff in front of witnesses and in broad daylight. For a functioning behavioural AI that is a fundamental error as it breaks verisimilitude, no real person could behave that way, be regarded as a thief, and get away with it. That's also why you end up with people raking carpets and the like.

[alanschu]

I facepalmed for not remembering the pot on the head thieving trick too (from Skyrim).

 

As a programmer I can appreciate what they tried to do, and how it fails.  At the same time, as someone in QA I can also see this as a situation where the existence of a bug may or may not actually take away from the project.  I think due to the open ended, exploratory nature of the game, people see bugs like that as fun as they discovered it.  Kind of like X-COM where people talk it up amazing (myself included), and then cite "awesome" things like how the way to open a door was to send some schlub to open it and then shoot him in the back with a stun grenade (I'm a bit less keen on talking this up as a strength of the game, but some love it because it's a type of emergent behaviour).

 

 

I never really noticed what you described in Oblivion, mostly because I have attempted to purge it from my memories!

Edited July 20, 2013 by alanschu