[MUD-Dev] Virtual worlds as a Society of Mind

[Ted L. Chen]

Frank Crowell, of sober mind, writes:

> Someone coined "social computing" for when humans are used in a
> computer environment to do a simple memory lookup or to solve a
> problem -- simple or complex.  I don't believe I made up "social
> computing".

> Other parts of virtual worlds is that it holds a model of a world
> that you have never really been in.  But it could also hold a
> model of your real world except you would have to describe a lot
> of things and it wouldn't look as accurate as your real world.

> The other components then are the autonomous agents/mobs and
> objects with embedded smarts. For example instead of you looking
> at a lamp and determining the properties, you can ask the lamp
> about it's properties.  Actually, at this point everything looks
> the same-- the characters with human operators, mobs, and objects.


I think The Sims is an excellent example of this in action.  It's
restricted to object interactions, but each piece of furniture and
food broadcasts what it does, etc.  Best simple description of it is
from the Gamasutra article

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20001101/woodcock_01.htm

  Excerpt from "Game AI: The State of the Industry"
  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  The power of A-Life techniques stems from its roots in the study
  of real-world living organisms. A-Life seeks to emulate that
  behavior through a variety of methods that can use hard-coded
  rules, genetic algorithms, flocking algorithms, and so on. Rather
  than try to code up a huge variety of extremely complex behaviors
  (similar to cooking a big meal), developers can break down the
  problem into smaller pieces (for example, open refrigerator, grab
  a dinner, put it in the microwave). These behaviors are then
  linked in some kind of decision- making hierarchy that the game
  characters use (in conjunction with motivating emotions, if any)
  to determine what actions they need to take to satisfy their
  needs. The interactions that occur between the low-level,
  explicitly coded behaviors and the motivations/needs of the
  characters causes higher-level, more "intelligent" behaviors to
  emerge without any explicit, complex programming.

  The simplicity of this approach combined with the amazing
  resultant behaviors has proved irresistible to a number of
  developers over the last year, and a number of games have made use
  of the technique. The Sims is probably the best known of
  these. That game makes use of a technique that Maxis co-founder
  and Sims designer Will Wright has dubbed "smart terrain." In the
  game, all characters have various motivations and needs, and the
  terrain offers various ways to satisfy those needs. Each piece of
  terrain broadcasts to nearby characters what it has to offer. For
  example, when a hungry character walks near a refrigerator, the
  refrigerator's "I have food" broadcast allows the character to
  decide to get some food from it. The food itself broadcasts that
  it needs cooking, and the microwave broadcasts that it can cook
  food. Thus the character is guided from action to action
  realistically, driven only by simple, object-level programming.

  Developers were definitely taken with the possibilities of this
  approach, and there was much discussion about it at the
  roundtables.  The idea has obvious possibilities for other game
  genres as well.  Imagine a first-person shooter, for example, in
  which a given room that has seen lots of frags "broadcasts" this
  fact to the NPCs assisting your player's character. The NPC could
  then get nervous and anxious, and have a "bad feeling" about the
  room -- all of which would serve to heighten the playing
  experience and make it more realistic and entertaining. Several
  developers took copious notes on this technique, so we'll probably
  be seeing even more A-Life in games in the future.


There are two difficulties with this approach.  First, determining
what and at what strength the data being broadcast is.  The second,
is to actually decide how your NPC would react to certain broadcast
stimuli.  What decisions are being made.  How are they made?  Tuning
is hard with this approach, though not impossible.  I'm sure every
Sim player has experienced the consecutive binge eating situation
that happens when the food yells just a bit too loud.  But then
again, maybe that's a good reflection of reality ;)


TLC


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