Message-ID: <3A64A74F.995AD95A@csi.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:55:59 -0500
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Styles of Asking NPC About Objects
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emshort@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <3a61f829.19371784@newsserver.epix.net>,
>   emayer00@epix.net (Eric Mayer) wrote:
> > I can think of three major approaches:
[...]
> > There is a "problem" in that the player can't be sure that the NPC
has
> > exhausted its store of knowledge, since it never says so, but I
would
> > think that most players would assume, safely, that once an NPC
starts
> > repeating itself it has run out of information. (Is that usually
the
> > case?)
> See, in my dream world, the NPCs *never* obviously exhaust their full

> store of knowledge.
> I hear the howls of rage.

Maybe it's because I'm the new guy, but I don't really see how such a
thing could be *bad*.  Hard to program, sure.  Hard to cram into a
Z-Machine, probably.  But not a bad thing at all.

> But okay; here's my point.  What we're
> basically talking about here is how to write a game in which a puzzle

> (or the main puzzle) is knowledge-based: the player must obtain
enough
> information to do something.
[...]
> Arguably in a more realistic world model, especially in situations
where
> one is investigating a complex situation or concept, there would not
be
> a one-to-one correspondence of informers and information, but a group
of
> people with a bunch of knowledge some of which is held in common and
> some of which can be acquired through non-NPC means.  This leads to a

> non-linear, multiple-solution-path kind of thing: you can either
spend a
> while looking up and consulting the leather-bound book in the library
OR
> sweettalk the crotchety old professor into sitting you down for a
little
> chat OR piece the answer together by getting pieces of it from
several
> of his less-well-informed but more friendly proteges.
> The point here is to discourage the player from regarding the NPC as
a
> kind of quirky puzzle box that must be "worked" until it has revealed

> all its information.  Preferable would be for the player to play by
> doing things that make sense within the logic of the game world (ie,
> finding out that crotchety professor knows stuff, asking other NPCs
> about how to get to him, etc), returning to people when he has reason
to
> believe that they have more information.

Hmmm...This is actually a very interesting idea.  Programming-wise, I
would imagine that this could be done with a "table" of
information--basically, interconnected phrases, or something (which
wouldn't be more than a mild nuisance in Inform, I think).  The
professor, of course, would have nearly all the information at hand
(maybe missing some bits).  Each book may contain pointers to a handful
of these notes.  And the "grad students" would similarly have pointers
to an assortment.

Which is interesting, in a way, because this means that the students
could possibly be generated on-the-fly (by generating a new sub-table)
from the same game object, so that the player can always find someone
new--specifically, someone who reacts slightly differently to everyone
who has come before--to fill in that final bit of knowledge, or even to
replace a previous student who has been horribly offended by something
you've said or done to him.

I suppose that using such a scheme *might* even lead to NPCs that could
do some of the research for you, by allowing them to select random
books and accumulate those bits of knowledge until you come pick them
up.

I really like this!

Ms. Short, between Smoochie Comp and this idea, you're now my official
hero...at least for a couple more days.


