Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.vt.edu!news.stealth.net!news-xfer.siscom.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!world!buzzard
From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: NPCs in a Simulation-ish Enviroment
Message-ID: <GLMor7.9L7@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 22:21:07 GMT
References: <tt86mdhkjpf6d@corp.supernews.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 31
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:93810

In article <tt86mdhkjpf6d@corp.supernews.com>, ibel <nothing@for.now> wrote:
>For example, if a subgoal in the game is to break a metal rod the PC might
>eventually figure out that he can use his Freeze-Ray to make the rod easier
>to smash.  The most "intellengent" goal-seeking NPC will never ever figure
>this out--unless the knowledge is hard coded somewhere.
>
>I'm going to wave the magic wand again and say that we have a reasonable
>goal-seeking NPC--just one that lacks common sense.  The NPC knows simple
>stuffs: how to follow a pre-scripted plan, breaking down subgoals, choosing
>pathes to follow when solving a branching plan

[snipped description of using nested plans and solving the
problem of providing the knowledge such planning requires]

While I advocate deeper simulations, including propogating
knowledge of changes in the world to NPCs, I don't think I
go all out for problem-solving NPCs. I've been thinking
about this for ten years and it just doesn't seem to me that
there's much room in a "player-centric" game to have problems
for NPCs to solve. Some simple planning scenarios like
path-finding are really useful, and there's something to be
said for the idea of making the world *really* reactive and
varied based on player input, e.g. by having NPCs cope with
the arbitrary states the player can put the world in, i.e.
when players do very different things NPCs behave very differently
automatically in appropriate ways; but at a certain point you
find you've gone down the 'simulation/toy' not 'story/game'
avenue, and I just have trouble thinking of any application
for this level of planning.

SeanB
