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From: sonix@schunix.dmc.com (Duane Morin)
Subject: Re: Some further thoughts on NPCs
Message-ID: <1994Mar10.133800.11353@schunix.dmc.com>
Organization: SCHUNIX Public Access Unix for Worcester County, MA, USA
References: <grady.763085126@xcf.berkeley.edu> <CMCnAA.DM5@world.std.com> <2llqvb$fl@news.u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 13:38:00 GMT
Lines: 59

In article <2llqvb$fl@news.u.washington.edu> scythe@u.washington.edu (The Grim Reaper) writes:
>Okay.  NPCs should all have a purpose in the game.  

Think as a player, not a designer.  The player won't *know* whether or 
not you've thrown in an extraneous character, and they'll spend their
times going nuts trying to figure out what they need to say to this 
character to get the magic widget.  People have been discussing the fact
that most puzzles are simply of the "all all" variety, and here's a
variation where the user can do that all day and still not get anywhere.
Maybe the user will learn that it ain't gonna work, and start paying
attention to what's going on. [Bringing in the idea of time, we can
allow for racing between characters...don't spend too much time on 
one object, or another character might pick up somethng else and take
it away!]

Or, succinctly:  NPCs should all have a purpose in the game, even if that
purpose is simply to add variety to what the player encounters.

>Most of them should be natives to the area, too.  

<shrug> Why?  I think the idea of stumbling across another adventurer,
on the same quest that you are, is kind of neat.  Or what about an NPC
that you run across in town, who's probably never been in the caves at
the base of the mountain?

>This means they should know where all the 
>locations are, where all the objects are (or, more accurately, where they
>last saw them), 

I'll agree that, if we're talking about townspeople, then sure, we can 
give them a map to get going.  Other than that, though, let them figure
it out right along with the player.

>and should have some sort of point to being here.  No
>real person just walks around randomly.  

Making a stable script for NPCs would be tough, but I don't think impossible.
The earlier example was given of a character who was told to open door,
go through door, and get sick [or something like that].  But, if he
opened the door, and then you closed it on him, the script went all flooey.
Maybe something more the equivalent of:
	WHILE in_room(1)  
	  open(door);
	  if (opened(door)) then go_through(door);
	ENDWHILE

Seems like it would do a little bit better of a job checking to make sure
that the environment hasn't changed unacceptably.

>Perhaps the ogre wanders the
>area looking for children to eat.  Fine, so he should use some sort of
>search pattern, whatever it might be.  

Ogre?  search pattern?  Ogre goes where ogre wants to go.

Duane



