[MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling

[Brandon J. Rickman]

On Fri, 12 May 2000, Lee Sheldon wrote:
> > Travis Nixon wrote:
> > In the same way, it will simply not be possible to populate a
> > large world
> > with interesting "stories" as long as a writer is required to
> > come up with
> > them all.  (I'm sort of mangling the word story here.  What I mean is
> > building a history of past events and a system for determining future
> > responses to possible player actions, as opposed to a simple
> > recounting of a
> > sequence of events)   The costs would simply be unreasonable.
> >  Sure, have
> > writers for the big, major, world-changing plots, but to
> > truly fill out the
> > world and the characters in it, you need a lot more than that.
> 
> Travis, I understand your point about the level of detail being so
> overwhelming that an automated solution seems attractive.  As a theory it
> would seem to have a validity, but your assumption that it's not possible,
> or that the costs would be unreasonable, baffles me.  You have no direct
> knowledge of this.  It remains theory because people ASSUME it can't be
> done.  But we have examples of it being done all around us.

I may be misreading your point, but it sounds like you are making the
rather dull claim of: just because it _hasn't_ been done doesn't mean it
_can't_ be done.  And that it, in fact, _has been done_ already with
network television.

In discussing the creation of highly detailed virtual worlds, the people
involved tend to bemoan the inadequate level of technology.  "If only we
had a faster machine" they'll say, "if only we had more RAM" they claim,
"we could make this the way we really wanted to.  So for now we
compromise."

This is basically an effective way to endlessly perpetuate this kind of
research.  Without demonstrating that the research is worthwhile.

Travis's claim that the costs are "unreasonable" is a good response to
this situation.  For what I personally want to do, I believe that
the rewards of hand-crafting and manually seeding a virtual world will
always be overshadowed by the excessive costs involved.  There's just not
enough bang for the buck.

> I'm going to rein in here and say that automated systems need to play a
> strong supporting role, and I agree with several things you say below...
> however...
> 
> Entertainment with tons of "interesting" stories, done on schedules far more
> rigorous that a persistent world would EVER require, is produced now in
> television.  The difference is that sufficient resources are expended to
> produce that product.  In truth the writing costs are second only to the
> acting talent costs.  But unreasonable?  No.  Simply a recognized fact of
> life.  It's a matter of priorities.  You want to populate your world with
> interesting stories written by human beings?  There is nothing except the
> knowledge how, and the willingness to make the attempt, stopping you.

Sounds too much like "interactive movies".  Is that the approach you are
advocating?  This is kind of a red flag for me, is why I stared this
reply.  But rather than start into a "cinematography cannot be
interactive" rant I'll go back and read some of your other posts, maybe
wait for your reply.

One characteristic of television narrative is that they can afford to be
deficient in continuity.  Yes, sometimes the plot has a long term effect
on the world [the X-Files get shut down, so Mulder spends the next few
episodes as a waiter in Baltimore] but generally there is a return to some
stable state, a return to the point at which effectively nothing has
happened.

In the persistent world model, a rigid continuity is built into the model.
My hero went up a level.  The evil wizard is dead.  

In television, a number of small bits of continuity gradually build up, an
inescapable mildew.  At some point, there are so many of these useless
details that the show grinds to a halt, or takes a radical turn.  But in
television this is a rather long-term process, taking several
seasons/years; in a mud, this can occur in a few days.

Get rid of progress, of character development, and you're mud will have a
longer shelf life.  Just like television?

- B!





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