[MUD-Dev] believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation)

[Samantha LeCraft]

This is my first post to this list, so forgive me for just jumping
in on a topic I haven't been following since the beginning (though I
did read through the past day or two in the archives).

<EdNote: Attribution fixed>

Amanda Walker wrote:

> Since many of the most addicted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hloyal players are
> those with a lot of time and not a lot of money, why not hire
> them?  "Game company has entry level positions for experienced
> bartenders, no cleanup duties, must have own broadband connection
> and type 50wpm."  It does open up new horizons for grief play, but
> think of the quests: "hey!  that new guy I hired stole all my
> stock!  Reward!"

Speaking as someone who was a GM (in-game customer service) for UO
and is now a designer on an unannounced MMO, I think this is more
trouble than it is worth, for several different reasons.

One, players have come to expect NPCs to be "in character" in their
speech and demeanor, and there's no way a company who hired
addicted/loyal players to "act" as NPCs in-game would be able to
effectively police their in-character-ness.  Some would be more in
character than others, and some would vary day by day.  If the
NPC-actor is working from home in a large MMO, the feeling that no
one is watching would be very strong, and so the temptation to not
be in character, or just not talk to people at all, would therefore
also be very strong.

Two, giving someone you haven't worked with, who you don't know, and
whose only qualification is that they like to play the game a lot
that much authority is just asking for trouble.  The NPC-actor would
be seen as representatives of the company who owns the MMO.  This
could lead to players badgering the NPC-actor for information on
upcoming changes to the game, whether the NPC-actor has that
information or not.  Or to players saying they were treated unfairly
by the NPC-actor and complaining to the company that owns the MMO.
Or to actual abuse of power on the part of the NPC-actor.  If
they're a avid and loyal player of the MMO, then they have
undoubtedly formed friendships with some players and come to hate
other players or guilds.  Should they be allowed to give their
friends lower prices on whatever item or service they're there for?
Should they be allowed to refuse service to someone they met as a
player and don't like?

The counter argument to this point is probably going to be that all
of that could be handled by hiring professional actors instead of
devoted players.  The problem with that is that then you are hiring
people who likely know nothing about the game, and possibly nothing
about online games at all.  If you hire someone who knows the game
or is familiar with online games in general, you will have problems
with them being biased towards one group and against another.  If
you hire someone with no knowledge of the game, they are going to
appear stupid to any player who's been playing for any amount of
time.

Three, once people figure out that there are real people behind the
NPCs -- people who can't fight back, who can't call you nasty names,
who can't run away, and who can't log out to get away from you --
the NPC-actors will become an instant target for mass amounts of
harassment.  If players are willing to harass each other, they
wouldn't hesitate to make life miserable for someone who's job it is
to talk to people in-game.  I've done face to face customer service,
telephone customer service, and in-game customer service; the things
people will say to you on the phone are much more rude than what
they'll say to your face, and they are exponentially ruder in-game
than over the phone.  Its something about the anonymity, I think.

Four, the sheer number of people it would take to accomplish this in
any given MMO is staggering.  Most MMOs are *huge* worlds, and we're
talking about having many, if not all, of the current NPCs replaced
by actors.  There would need to be at least some NPCs available
24/7, requiring that some people work the midnight to 8am shift.
I've worked that shift, and its only fun staying up all night for
the first day or two.  After that its just draining.  Beyond that,
you'd probably want the highest number of NPCs available during peak
times, when the people acting the parts of the NPCs would probably
rather be playing the game themselves, or watching TV, or hanging
out with friends and family who work normal hours.

I think a lot of the issues with misuse of power could be handled by
hiring people who know the game, training them on how to be good
with players who harass them, how to stay in-character, etc., and
then making sure that they are highly supervised at all times.  It
is possible, if you have enough people, to create a schedule that
does allow some time off during normal hours.  But you are talking
about a lot of people, even more when you take into account
supervisors, trainers, people to handle complaints about the
NPC-actors, etc etc.

What would probably work best, IMHO, is to combine in-game customer
service with the NPC group, so that you have customer service reps
acting as NPCs, in that they are bartenders, or shopkeepers, or
guards, etc etc, and can sell items to players (for pre-determined
prices), but they are also there to be all-around customer service:
answering questions about the game, helping with in-game issues,
giving directions to such-and-such location, giving suggestions on
how to raise a skill, etc.  If they were seen not as NPCs so much as
in-character customer service, you could still have the
"vending-machine" type NPCs, but also have in-character live people
for players to talk with and interact with in intelligent ways.

I think it's do-able, but you have to be willing to have a service
team of roughly the same size and same caliber as that of Disney
World.  Nothing less will suffice.

-Samantha LeCraft
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