[MUD-Dev] TECH DGN: Story detection

[Mike Rozak]

Paul Boyl wrote:

> However, I haven't really seen any attempt to detect the story a
> player is trying to tell within a game.  ... snip

First of all, the term "story" is ambiguous, since it means
different things to different people. You might want to be more
specific. Some people think story means NPCs that are intelligent
and likeable. For others, story is a fortunate confluence of events
designed to make the experience entertaining (The Lord of the Rings
wouldn't be as interesting if Frodo hadn't escaped his hobbit hole
and the dark riders just in time.) Story also implies change, in
both NPCs and the environemt. Story implies backstory. Etc.

By the way, the use of the term "game" is just as ambiguous.

My take on your definition of story, for your post, is that story is
a chain of events that lead to a known/desired outcome. What you
want is for the computer to realize what outcome the player is
looking for, and subtly manipulate virtual reality so the player's
desired outcome is met? Example: In Facade, the system realizes the
player is trying to get a fight going between the couple, so it
plays along.

I haven't seen this done so explicitely, although almost all
computer "games" allow players to affect the outcome of the
experience through their actions. At some level (conscious and/or
subconscious) the player knows that doing X will likley cause Y to
happen. Thus, the player can consciously/subconsciously get to the
desired outcome. This is aided by the fact that most games only have
one or two possible outomes that end the game, but they have many
intermediate outcomes during the game.

However, this solution doesn't include any intelligence within the
game that figures out what the player really wants. The problems
with an intelligence are:

  1) You need to know what the player wants without asking the
  player... which requires the creation of a device/algorithm many
  times more complicated than a personality test.

  2) A rule of fiction writing is that you don't give readers what
  they expect. You give them something better (in their
  eyes). Again, another tricky issue.

  3) What happens when a world has more than one player whose
  desires conflict?

NOTE: I am interested in this idea, but I'm not sure that I'm
talking about the same thing that you mentioned.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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