Originally posted by stealthbr

I'm not talking about NPC difficulty levels. I'm talking about NPC's making decisions on their own from a scripted list of options which would allow the world to truly feel alive and could potentially create the possibility of infinite quests. AI difficulty is something else entirely.

Okay, I goofed and did a derail.

Bascially - it's the Game vs. Virtual World issue, and the tech is finally catching up to allow AI's to really simulate another person/being.  Too good a simulation can turn off players as much as static bricks can.  I suppose it's a nice problem to have, but the programmers are going to need a bit of cleverness in how they do the AI.  If it's too intelligent, it can feel even faker than cardboard cutout NPCs.

Bear in mind that I envision the concept of having NPC's evaluate situations and make decisions based on a variety of factors in a more sandbox type of game. A game where there is very little linearity in the sense that you progress from one area to the next (quest hub to quest hub). It would be a game where the player's actions would have a real impact in the world, but the world would never be static, even if there were no player input. NPC's would be more than simple quest givers, they would become living and breathing entities with complex lives capable of changing the world around the player. That way, the experience would always be fresh, there would always be things to do, stories to experience, and consequence would gain new meaning.

It's not really about mobs being hard to kill or not.  You could still have intelligent seeming NPS that are easy to kill.

Take this example of some virtual ants that each have senses and a neural network as a brain which evolves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iamM0SuPto&feature=related

Wouldn't it be more immersive and cool if all the animals etc in a world went around there own business fighting other animals and growing stronger and so on.  You could have really cool things like certain animals growing stronger than others, and they would start to look bigger and more fierce - you would get more "points" for hunting them and taking them out.

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Originally posted by Rommie10-284

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Originally posted by stealthbr
I'm not talking about NPC difficulty levels. I'm talking about NPC's making decisions on their own from a scripted list of options which would allow the world to truly feel alive and could potentially create the possibility of infinite quests. AI difficulty is something else entirely.

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Okay, I goofed and did a derail.
Bascially - it's the Game vs. Virtual World issue, and the tech is finally catching up to allow AI's to really simulate another person/being.  Too good a simulation can turn off players as much as static bricks can.  I suppose it's a nice problem to have, but the programmers are going to need a bit of cleverness in how they do the AI.  If it's too intelligent, it can feel even faker than cardboard cutout NPCs.

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Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Robsolf

I remember someone uploaded a conference where they talked about different types of AI.  I wish I had the link, as it's very pertinent to this conversation.

I am REALLY paraphrasing here(it's been years since I saw it), but in summary, they talked about how most AI, particularly MMO AI is, and should be designed to lose.  Because the goal isn't to kill the player, but rather to provide a surmountable obstacle to getting to a goal.  The game or task at hand doesn't really focus around 2 sides trying to "win".

The AI for, say, chess games, or RTS's is different.  There they intend for the AI to behave like a player.  It plays to win, because unlike MMO's, winning IS the game.

I wish I could remember more.  It was pretty interesting.

That would be Soren Johnson, a smart designer who's written a lot of design articles I've enjoyed in Game Dev magazine.

Playing to Lose: AI and Civilization

Thanks, Axe! 

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Originally posted by Apocamentus
It's not really about mobs being hard to kill or not.  You could still have intelligent seeming NPS that are easy to kill.
Take this example of some virtual ants that each have senses and a neural network as a brain which evolves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iamM0SuPto&feature=related
Wouldn't it be more immersive and cool if all the animals etc in a world went around there own business fighting other animals and growing stronger and so on.  You could have really cool things like certain animals growing stronger than others, and they would start to look bigger and more fierce - you would get more "points" for hunting them and taking them out.

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In Bob's burglary scenario when a player does the stealing, they could not log on again for a month on that character. What then?

Another factor is grouping, which many players look forward to. If people are on differing quests, that will make grouping tougher with no common goal to share.

I agree with the OP's idea of a better AI with questing. I would be pumped for that game. But then players sign in and all that wonderful thinking goes down the tubes. I think the majority of MMO players want to "just kill stuff."

Originally posted by Axehilt

Professional AI programmers (people who've made multiple games and watched how players play them and react to various methods of AI) would point out that if the player doesn't perceive it it doesn't exist.

In this case Bob's AI gives out the same exact quest he could've just been hardcoded to do.  Most (possibly all) players won't know the difference, and if we don't know the difference the underlying logic is completely meaningless.

Time and time again when I read articles about AI the important keys to success are about giving the perception of intelligence.  The actual need for true intelligence isn't there -- in fact in many situations intelligent AI is detrimental to the fun of a game.

So while AI can certainly stand to be more game-like, less exploitable, and less perceptibly stupid, it's actually not a good idea to make it more intelligent for intelligence sake.  

Very true.  There are many ways to simulate intelligence without really adding any AI.  The vast majority of players wouldn't know AI from a hole in the ground.

Originally posted by stealthbr

I'm not talking about NPC difficulty levels. I'm talking about NPC's making decisions on their own from a scripted list of options which would allow the world to truly feel alive and could potentially create the possibility of infinite quests. AI difficulty is something else entirely.

 

Ultimately, it's a ratio of value added / effort required.  In the basic example of community simulation, there's a pretty massive effort in many cases for something that many players will never fully understand.  A player knows that Bob asked them for help because Tom plans to steal his business, but what motivates Tom to take this action?  Why wouldn't Bob call on the town magistrate?  Or did he, to find out that the magistrate was paid by Tom to look the other way?  Did another NPC observe this?

See, all of this sounds really interesting, but it certainly makes it clear that a few random choices by one character wouldn't really create the illusion of a living, breathing community, and unless you never experienced those other events, then it just seems like yet another QG asking for help from the hero(OP's example would be remarkably like a particular DDO quest, in fact).

And even in those NPC choices proposed by the OP, only one is relevent to a player, "asking for help".  All the rest would have a minimal effect on the player, unless of course other NPC's react to those decisions and bring about their own relevence to the player's "goings on".

Ultimately, the amount of "freewill" isn't necessarily a tech limitation in a game.  It's just that there has to be coherence to the NPC's actions or else it lacks significance to the player.  So events are carefully scripted, even in sandbox games.  Heck, even with scripting, look at what happens in Skyrim, even:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EzfG0CuUc

I do hope for better AI in MMO's in the future, though.  Still bugs me to this day that in LotRO, NPC's work day and night, and never set foot in the Pony for a pint.  Just doesn't seem right.

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by dave6660

Originally posted by Axehilt

Professional AI programmers (people who've made multiple games and watched how players play them and react to various methods of AI) would point out that if the player doesn't perceive it it doesn't exist.

In this case Bob's AI gives out the same exact quest he could've just been hardcoded to do.  Most (possibly all) players won't know the difference, and if we don't know the difference the underlying logic is completely meaningless.

Time and time again when I read articles about AI the important keys to success are about giving the perception of intelligence.  The actual need for true intelligence isn't there -- in fact in many situations intelligent AI is detrimental to the fun of a game.

So while AI can certainly stand to be more game-like, less exploitable, and less perceptibly stupid, it's actually not a good idea to make it more intelligent for intelligence sake.  

Very true.  There are many ways to simulate intelligence without really adding any AI.  The vast majority of players wouldn't know AI from a hole in the ground.

Yea reading through the comments I would say that what MMOs are best at are giving illusions of AI and intelligence. The minecraft example of a pig running away from someone hitting it with a sword is simplistic. But very simplistic concepts often combine in unique ways to create a truely authentic experience, here is a quote from Majong's blog about updating Minecraft as an example:

"While testing the biome code, I started running out of food in the game and started hunting animals. Cows would just stand there, looking at me as I mashed them over and over to get their precious loot, so I figured I’d just make that mechanic a bit more fun. Four lines of code later, and animals now flee randomly after taking damage. Hunting animals suddenly became a lot more fun and morally questionable as pigs would storm off grunting and chicken (or whatever the heck they are) would jump into ravines. But the real fun came later on."

"Back to doing some further testing. I was exploring a forest biome, hit upon a river cutting through it, and walked over a small hill. On the other side, a wolf was chasing a sheep, but the sheep was running away. I didn’t have this in mind when I wrote the code to make mobs flee, but it ended up giving me an unexpected experience of having some kind of echo system of competing behaviors in various animals, and it just felt.. nice. It made me realize we should explore more mob to mob interactions, and have more chaotic competing behavior."

Originally posted by Robsolf

Ultimately, it's a ratio of value added / effort required.  In the basic example of community simulation, there's a pretty massive effort in many cases for something that many players will never fully understand.  A player knows that Bob asked them for help because Tom plans to steal his business, but what motivates Tom to take this action?  Why wouldn't Bob call on the town magistrate?  Or did he, to find out that the magistrate was paid by Tom to look the other way?  Did another NPC observe this?

See, all of this sounds really interesting, but it certainly makes it clear that a few random choices by one character wouldn't really create the illusion of a living, breathing community, and unless you never experienced those other events, then it just seems like yet another QG asking for help from the hero(OP's example would be remarkably like a particular DDO quest, in fact).

And even in those NPC choices proposed by the OP, only one is relevent to a player, "asking for help".  All the rest would have a minimal effect on the player, unless of course other NPC's react to those decisions and bring about their own relevence to the player's "goings on".

Ultimately, the amount of "freewill" isn't necessarily a tech limitation in a game.  It's just that there has to be coherence to the NPC's actions or else it lacks significance to the player.  So events are carefully scripted, even in sandbox games.  Heck, even with scripting, look at what happens in Skyrim, even:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EzfG0CuUc

I do hope for better AI in MMO's in the future, though.  Still bugs me to this day that in LotRO, NPC's work day and night, and never set foot in the Pony for a pint.  Just doesn't seem right.

As I stated, my example was crude and short for the sake of brevity. However, I do not agree that only one of the options I presented would be deemed useful by the players. For instance, if Bob were stolen by Tom, and Bob were to choose to go after the thief himself, a quest could open up from Bob's relatives to go and see if he's alright. If Bob were to decide to not go after the robber and instead ameloriate the security of his store, a quest could open up allowing the players to help Bob amass the materials needed.

Another interesting point that needs clarification is that no action would be out of context. For example, Tom would not steal Bob without any purpose. Perhaps he needs the money to survive. Maybe he's crazy and thinks Bob is conspiring against him. Or perhaps he works for the rival village and is there to cripple it from the inside. Also, the quests could work both ways, in the sense that players could help Tom to steal Bob if they believe it to be the best choice.

AI in mmos seem to be non existent.

Before they see you they're in a state of:

"Oh man I bet this road would look SO much cooler 4 feet to my left."... "nah it was better over there."

as they wander back and forth mindless.

Then when they see you or you aggro them it's best described by looking at space invaders.

Keep coming at you, until it dies or you die.

Hell even minecraft is getting some AI tweaks that make the mobs slightly more intelligent than most mmos.

"Egad the sun is burning me!"

*moves into the shade*

Mobs in mmos:

*Kills 40 boars with one hit.*

"Egad he's 1 hitting us... Maybe if I can just touch him he'll die!"

There's no sense of urgency or intelligence in many mmos, and from what I've seen in the star wars the old republic (start flame fest) it's not raising any eyebrows on my end.

"Holy crap a guy with a lightsaber is running at me killing everyone in his path, what do i do what do i do?!?!"

*stands still while shooting enemy*

Definitely need to get a revolutionized way to make AI because the way it currently is bores the hell out of me.

Everquest had some rudimentary AI:

Some mobs would run for help on low health, some would enrage and fight harder as they got weaker. Some would talk to you, or mock you.w

Mobs could "assist" each other - there were distinct and separate "aggro" radii and "assist" radii.

Not all mobs would assist each other, it was based on their factions

Now almost all of that was hard coded, and hardly classifies as AI. After a while became pretty predictable, but that brings me to my next point:

AI is resource intensive. Very resource intensive. Keep in mind that it has to run on the server, so that each and every player in the game sees consistent actions across the virtual world by the NPCs (not to mention security). Even if you have a finite state machine with pre-determined outcomes (Bob gets robbed, so Bob does A), B), or C)) - that's still a lot of lookup tables for a lot of NPCs, and that's a lot of effort in defining each and every state, and the tables for that state.

It sounds very easy to make Bob the Builder react to Tom the thief. Now consider how many NPC's are in a typical MMO. If I walk down a typical town setting/zone in a typical MMO there are dozens, sometimes hundreds depending on the game. And even out in the "wild" there are literally dozens of hostile NPC's waiting to kill me (or for me to kill them).

And how many players interact with Bob the Builder on a routine basis to make an investment - not only in time and code, but also in server power and resources - in Bob's AI pay off? - My point there is that some NPC's would see more benefit than others, and certainly not all NPC's need advanced interaction routines - most are just there as eye candy to fill out the world.

I do agree, having a more robust AI scheme in place for most NPC's - particularly those that get interacted with routinely (Monsters/Mobs, main quest NPCs, infinite quest engines, etc) would make a marked difference in MMO's. Even small and poorly defined "AI" such as that in EQ and Darkfall make for a dramamtic change (I think for the better) in the game play. Something more than "Mob attacks per hate table" at any rate.

The thing is even in single player games the AI is still quite lacking. Could you imagine a smart dragon in skyrim?

"Pah this guy doesn't even have a bow! What a joke!"

*flies around shooting fire at you instead of walking on the ground and letting your 2 handed axe cut my face open*

I understand some gameplay mechanics would be ruined by this, but it would definitely make the game more engaging if the dragon hunter had to actually prepare to hunt them instead of the waiting for animation queue > walk on ground and shoot fire, rolls in.

But yeah, bosses would be a first step to making them more interactive. Then of course I would love to see the city life being more lively.

Was playing Star Trek online earlier and I was ashamed to be surprised that the NPC said Hello DwarfJuggler (my name.) Stuff like that should be commonplace with the advancements we've had in gaming capabilities.

Would say though that Assassin Creed did a decent job. The damn beggers were always getting in my way. And while the animations and such are programmed in it still seemed like there was a life to the city as they wandered from shop to shop acting like they're buying things. Even something like that mixed into an mmo... egad. Would be like day and night compared to what we have now.

Originally posted by Ridelynn

<snip>

True, I am no programmer, but I would be inclined to agree that such a concept would be very taxing, not to mention difficult to implement properly. I just think it's a glaring facet of MMO gaming that needs to evolve, and one that would have a large impact on gameplay. After all, we are interacting with NPC's almost all the time.

Just thought of a way to make npcs more engaging :) Make them all run on Cleverbot algorythms. Would be funny watching the guards try to talk to the people begging for gold to buy items in an actual debate :).

Originally posted by Ridelynn

AI is resource intensive. Very resource intensive.

Don't make the mobs smart, make the world smart.

Originally posted by stealthbr

True, I am no programmer, but I would be inclined to agree that such a concept would be very taxing, not to mention difficult to implement properly. I just think it's a glaring facet of MMO gaming that needs to evolve, and one that would have a large impact on gameplay. After all, we are interacting with NPC's almost all the time.

You know, the more I look at this thread's responses, the more I think that this is an inappropriate direction for MMOs to go. It's really more suited for single-player games. In a single-player game, the NPCs exist to define the world. If as the designer of a single-player game, you want to use NPCs as a tool to express the idea of a world that irrevocably changes due to random things going on within it, that's great. But in an MMO, other players can already fill this role far better. If the world irrevocably changes, it's supposed to be due to the machinations of the players.

There's nothing really wrong with what people have suggested here except that the game world would be defined by the random things that AI do in the background. That just screams single-player. MMOs don't need that.

There is really no such thing as "evolution of AI".

Outside of science fiction like "The Matrix", Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", droids from "Star Wars", or the bots in the Webcomic "Questionable Content", AI in reality is still just as primitive as it has been since the 1960's, and only very, very little has improved since then.

Like, we have constructed an Eliza that uses insults instead of comments. Turns out people have a much harder time recognizing they are talking with an AI if said AI keeps insulting them.

In games, AI still just executes predefined scripts that react to certain outside conditions.

And getting more would require different kinds of computers, computers designed as neuronal networks, instead of the same old Neumann design all the time.

I really hope they develop Artificial Intelligence fast. Biological Intelligence is so rare. Maybe I can finally have some meaningful conversations?

Originally posted by Elikal

I really hope they develop Artificial Intelligence fast. Biological Intelligence is so rare. Maybe I can finally have some meaningful conversations?

Once Artificial Intelligence recognizes patronizing tones, you'll just be in the same boat you're in now...