[MUD-Dev] Mob (NPC) behavior

[William Murdick]

I was hoping to get people's opinions on an idea that myself and a
friend hit on for putting into our mud. We're designing it from the
ground up and the main thing we're going for is realism and flavor.

To that end we're implementing a lot of NPC interaction (you can't
just list for products at the shops, you have to greet then examine
and maybe even barter).

The thing we came upon was how to get mobs to perform tasks such as
hunting down criminals without having to manually do this. Or how to
get mobs to talk to each other without forcing them.

What we decided was to implement a stack of tasks with various
weights that each npc can have. These tasks range from simple tasks
such as TRACK <X> (a simple use of walking a path to a destination)
or CAPTURE <PC> which could involve any number of steps including
talking to other NPCs about what they've seen and heard (they DO
record this info to some extent) and tracking down witnesses to
events (they do this as well).

The overall goal is to get a situation where a player kills a
shopkeeper (for example). Another NPC witnesses this event and this
then becomes a rumor which spreads throughout the city (like a
disease of sorts).  Eventually this reaches the town guards and they
may choose to act on it by tracing back down the list of witnesses
to the source, at each point inquiring if each NPC has seen the PC
and where. The goal is to simply get the feel of guards going about
their duty trying to locate a criminal. If they come across that PC
in the street or a room they would immediately try to subdue him/her
and take him/her to jail to be tried (and probably
executed). Realism, as I said before, is the goal.

Aside from the obvious monumental task of getting all of these
various parts coded and working properly, what are people's opinions
on this idea and potential implementation?

- William
www.thickmud.com

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