[MUD-Dev] AI not worth doing in our games?

[rayzam]

From: "David H. Loeser Jr." <daklozar at insightbb.com>
> From: Damion Schubert

>> I've been on several muds with shops that closed.  Ultima Online
>> had shop owners that could move.  The players hated it, in both
>> cases.

>> In EverQuest, human shopkeepers wouldn't sell to dark elves based
>> upon their race, and human guards would attack them on sight.
>> That was also one of the more despised features of the game, as
>> huge parts of the game became nigh-unreachable for low level dark
>> elves.

> It may have been a despised feature of the game but all the same I
> think that it is believable... Given all that we know about dark
> elves... if you choose to play a dark elf, shouldn't you expect
> some adversity?

>From a design standpoint: Yes. From a player standpoint: often times
No.  There have always been min-maxers in the p-n-p world, and there
are just as many, if not more, in the online rpg world. Some people
play a dark elf, because they want to play a dark elf. Others do it
just because of Drizz't.  For many, it ends up being a sack of
attributes and abilities. And that generalizes to race and
class/skill choices. A lot of times, the same sack also has
restrictions and disadvantages. But if it impacts with the general
player's ability to play, by restricting them when they don't want
to roleplay the race, the general player complains.

As Retro is a place with lots of races, currently 62, we've tried
hard to have the races be distinct and balanced. In fact, we've
culled races that weren't distinct. As a rule: the number of races
is supported by diversity, and diversity depends upon the
depth/breadth of the game. To support more races, you need more
features that will distinguish between them.

Two of the largest restrictions are alignment and vision. There are
always players who complain that they don't care about roleplaying,
so they don't want an alignment restriction. Okay, so take a
non-aligned race. But they want the attributes of a particular
aligned race without the alignment restriction. Uh, no. By having an
alignment restriction, the race is compensated with more creation
points towards things like those selfsame attributes. It's a
template of plusses and minuses. The same goes with vision: so what
if the race is an underground dwelling, hurt by the light race. In
this case it sometimes gets worse, with the player later claiming
hardship because they can't walk around easily on the planet of
Light and Good. As an aside, there is a planet of perpetual darkness
and one that's entirely underground.

This attitude generalized beyond Retro. Thus, there's a segment of
the player populace that doesn't care about and doesn't want to be
bothered with the thematic aspects of a race. The restrictions
prevent them from accessing a portion of the content. And every
player feels entitled to accessing that content. If it's in the
game, and I'm paying for my time here, I should be able to access
it. It's okay that some areas require being higher level to survive,
because that makes it a goal and a mark of honor/progress. But a
restriction that can't be overcome can be deemed Unfair.

>> And I don't buy that simply changing out the visual appearance of
>> a shopkeeper will make players say 'hey! this is new, fresh and
>> interesting!'

> I think that you may have overlooked the point I was trying to
> make and latched onto an example that I gave...

> There are 'things' that we can design/code that will make the AI
> more believable.  For example, when you run through a group of
> MOBs and one of them chases you... isn't it more realistic that
> the entire group would chase after you?

We have it.

> Or how about when you meet up with two MOBs and you attack one of
> them - wouldn't the other one run to get help?

We have it.

> Or maybe help his companion and attack you?

We have it.

We also have MOBs that call for help, while fighting you. MOBs that
flee at the sight of you, if you've been terrorizing their
village/town/city/tribe/race, i.e., 'group'. MOBs that normally
watch quietly, but will attack out of revenge if you've harmed
someone of their group.

We've got MOBs that work in parties where there's a tank, a healer,
a blaster. Some summon guards. Some call for guards to patrol the
area when the players flee.

All of this is fairly easy to code, and makes MOBs more interesting
to fight.

> These actions would be more realistic (for certain races) and
> would cause players to devise different/new strategies when it
> comes to combat with MOBs.  (Yes, I realize that creating MOBs
> that behave as I have described above would probably anger many
> players - but would this not be a more believable system?)

Actually, it doesn't anger them. These actions should only occur
where it makes sense. So different monsters have different sets of
these abilities. Some players consider it part of the achievement
scale. Yes, anyone can kill monsters, but tougher monsters gain the
player more respect.  In fact, we show slayer levels, where slayer
is how infamous you are with a group for mass-murdering them. Being
a slayer gets them to attack you on sight in revenge, if they have a
chance, or fleeing in terror if you're much more powerful than
them. The collective memory diminishes with time, and with time the
player spends killing elsewhere. Some players now collect as many
groups as they can under their slayer status, which is visible via
the finger command to all other players. Others attempt to keep
their slayer status as minimal as possible, especially if the group
would be considered an easy farming group for a player of their
level.

Instead of anger, we do get grumbling by the last group I hinted
about above. Those that farm easy monsters grumble when the monsters
flee at the sight of them. A level 50 Paladin killing level 6 orcs,
the orcs will of course run like crazy. When the grumbling gets
public, other players rise to the response, telling the player to
hunt somewhere more appropriate.

> I think that we can code AI that is more believable and realistic
> with out having to bring someone like Steve Grand in to code the
> system using neural networks... Do not misunderstand me, I'm not
> saying that NNs aren't the way to go - I'm really saying that AI
> is worth doing... and the AI exist, in part, to make the overall
> game feel more realistic...  with out an AI... would it be a game?

Yep, none of what I mentioned we have is coded with neural networks.
It's basically a series of stimulus/response contingencies.

At the beginning, I talked about some players treating races as
sacks of attributes and abilities. Here, without the AI, or
pseudo-AI, NPCs are just sacks of exp and loot. Adding just some
little things like these abilities makes them feel more real,
without necessarily being all that much more difficult. The first
time a player attacks a Bard in Nineveh, hears him yelling, and then
is attacked on sight by all Bards in Nineveh, the city of Bards,
while they talk about revenge, is the first realization that they're
more than exp buckets.

rayzam
www.travellingbard.com

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev