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[PrimusRibbus]

Here's a game design question that I find fascinating: Would it be good game design for a future AI be able to stop play in order to challenge a player's decision as being out-of-character? Could an AI still create a good dynamic story if it is unable to understand the PC's motivations?

I guess I just don't see an AI being able to craft a convincing, coherent, and moving story without being able to talk out-of-character with the player about what their motivations are and why what they're doing in the game is perfectly reasonable. P&P DMs that create wonderful open-world campaigns are not mind-readers; they constantly talk with their players, challenge them, and negotiate with them (often in an impressively subtle manner). I'd argue that successful open-world P&P campaigns aren't as "open" as one might think; they have clear limitations set by the PC personalities that have been implicitly agreed upon by both the DM and the players.

I could entertain the notion that an AI is 20 years away from being able to replicate the experience of a human DM, but I find it much harder to believe that it will be able to mind-read in a manner that will create dynamic storytelling as enthralling as the linear scripts we have today. Frankly, I think by the time we have that, most of our current lifestyle will be obsolete

[Reelya]

I think the player ideally should define what's in-character. At the moment the hand-crafted nature of everything kind of precludes that, and you either play whatever you want, but it's bland, or you play a detailed character, but somebody else decided everything about that character.

The AI characters should be able to pull up the player, but always in-character - they're not meant to be a DM, they're characters - a DM never talks "out of character" as a character, but in his role as a narrator, hence it's always recognized that he's not "playing a character" whilst directly addressing the players - and neither are they. Out-of-character in a game is when you interact with game menus etc.

The NPC's could say "what are you doing? you're crazy! I have enough of this" etc, but must always stay in character, as the DM and players MUST - during the times they are explicitly representing their characters.

I don't find linear scripts for games all that enthralling actually. If I wanted to watch a movie, a movie does that better than a game, any day. And it doesn't kick sand in my face for not being "good enough" to finish the movie :/

[PrimusRibbus]

I don't find linear scripts for games all that enthralling actually. If I wanted to watch a movie, a movie does that better than a game, any day. And it doesn't kick sand in my face for not being "good enough" to finish the movie :/

Could you post examples of some games that have good non-linear stories? I honestly can't think of a game that has a good storyline, but isn't, at most, 5 linear paths. Or do you mean that all video game storytelling to date is bad, and sandbox games are the only enthralling ones (a belief that I can certainly entertain)?

[Mech#4]

I can find linear RPGs interesting, though I've played so many that I tend to look for subversions of the usual tropes. I've enjoyed nearly all of Biowares RPGs but since they all use quite a similar story structure it can feel like a retred. The most recent RPG I enjoyed heaps was Divinity II where, while it's the same "save the world" type deal, it kicks understanding out from under you by making you the very thing your told to detest. It also has a lot of humour and silly moments that makes the world serious but at the same time slightly bizarre.

I enjoyed "Knights of the Old Republic" because it played to the one trope that I was hoping it would

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the player being Revan

and that served as a point of awesome. However, I also liked KOTR II since it took a very different look at the force and how good and evil are defined, making me think a lot about how the characters were justifying their actions.

[Reelya]

For the record, the main gist of what I was talking about was the fact of every conversation being "hard-coded" dumb utterances with simple triggers.

Changing that to intelligently-coded characters with personalities, emotions and memories, and linking this to a speech-generation suite, is not the same thing as saying "throw out all narrative techniques".

The problem is that current techniques lend themselves to worlds which are fairly static, not dynamic. Advanced AI would make open-ended games a lot more immersive. Currently open games lack much dialogue or interesting character interaction because it's not cost-effective to think up all the possible voice acting choices and link them to possible player actions.

[Darkmere]

So, a return to text parsers, but with Microsoft Sam instead?

Sounds terrifying.

[Reelya]

There's a lot better out there than microsoft sam

[Neonivek]

For the sake of arguement

I am going to consider games that have the same path, but you can do that path in any order, to be linear.

[itisnotlogical]

I think the best approach to creating branching stories is to make it more of an organic process arising from gameplay, rather than distilling it down to a dialogue choice during a set point in the game.

For example, say Joe Blow is at the turning point in his quest, and one of his fellow adventurers is nearly killed. There's a chance that Joe can save him, if he rushes him to the hospital RIGHT AWAY. But that means turning back at a pivotal moment, closing some opportunities forever. Bam, instant drama, no special writing required.

That's not to say that dialogue boxes don't have a time and a place in branching RPGs- KOTOR II had some amazing dialogue trees between the Exile and Kreia, especially early in the game. Those made you take a stand on why you did things the way you did, offering interesting insight from beyond the fourth wall about the nature of videogames and players thereof.

However, not every single choice needs a damn cutscene, and I fully blame KOTOR for the massively swollen "RPGs with dialogue trees" market. If you want choice in an RPG done right, look at the first few levels of Deus Ex- everything you do arises naturally from choices during gameplay, and more importantly it's subtle. The game doesn't need to yell "DO YOU KILL BABIES OR DO YOU WORK IN THE SOUP KITCHEN" every time there's a slightly divergent path.

[anzki4]

Here's a game design question that I find fascinating: Would it be good game design for a future AI be able to stop play in order to challenge a player's decision as being out-of-character? Could an AI still create a good dynamic story if it is unable to understand the PC's motivations?

The AI doesn't need to know the motivation behind any given act, unless player states it in-character. If player never states why he does the thing, NPC's knowing the motivation would be utterly moronic.

Consider that you run to some random temple and kill all the priests. Now the villagers start spreading rumors about you. Some think you are just lunatic, while others think you had some sensible (somewhat sensible anyway) motive. Maybe someone hired you to kill the priest. Maybe you are part of different religion and wanted to kill the unbelievers.

Now, if you instead run into the temple shouting: "In the name of Armok, kill the heretics!", the villagers know your motive. All without the need of out-of-character interaction.

In short; nothing in the world should know your motives if you haven't told them to anyone in-character. The story shouldn't change based on your motives either unless you have let the world know about them.

[Seraphim342]

While I think that the options available to the player will increase a lot when synthesized voices become indistinguishable from voice actors, or at least reasonably close, I feel the concept of a "main story" is becoming outdated.  Don't get me wrong, the stories of some games are so good I consider them literature for all intents and purposes, but overall I see a shift more towards completely free-form games.  Many of the most successful games in the past few years have either no story, or the story is just fluff compared to the rest of the game.  Also, now that computer hardware's somewhat leveling out, high-speed internet is widely available, and online gaming is becoming more mainstream and less of a social stigma, I see a lot of focus shifting to online player-to-player interaction and player-driven content. 

Let's look at MMORPGs for a minute.  Three of the new, high-bugdet ones I've played this year are already in a tailspin, burning all the way to the ground.  The Secret World, SWTOR, and GW2.  I played each of them for about a month and lost interest almost the minute I got to the "end," something I've heard repeated quite frequently. One of the chief complaints about these games I kept hearing was that the entire experience was on rails due to a main quest and an overall linearity to where you could go and what you could do.

Compare and contrast that with the only two MMOs that currently show constant growth throughout their entire lifetime, EVE Online and Second Life.  Both have no "story" and are focused entirely around players interacting with one another and affecting change within the game world. 

Now think of the games you've played in the last year or so.  Which did you play the longest, and replay the most?  For me, it was Skyrim, X3:Terran Conflict, DF, Minecraft, and the Mount and Blade series.  Those games are all open-world with either no story or a story that takes up a very small percentage of the game, with the rest being "go play!"  Those five games are a fraction of the games I've purchased, yet I probably put more time into each of them than the rest of the games I purchased combined.  That's not to say I didn't immensely enjoy the story-driven games I played.  It's just that, as a form of entertainment, story-driven games are like a novel or movie.  Once you've seen the whole story, there's not much there.  Sure, in a few years you might want to read it or watch it again, but you don't finish a book and then immediately flip back to page one.  Games that aren't story-driven are more like chess or sports or dicking around in your garage.  It's always different and fresh, if it's done well. 

Basically, "hmm... I'm bored of killing these goblins in this cave.  Lemme see if I can assassinate the king and rule the kingdom" is going to beat "you must fight your way through this goblin cave to reach the palace where you must kill the king who stole your throne!" every time, even if that's the only thing that's different. 

Also, black and white morality sucks.  The 4-point scale of lawful-chaotic good-evil is about as good as we can ever expect though (with maybe a third bacon-necktie axis in rare cases).  I don't think we'll ever get to play as an Unfettered Knight in Sour Armor or an Anti-Villain Magnificent Bastard unless they're specifically laid out that way =(

[Virtz]

I think the best we can currently achieve in terms of non-linear storytelling is something like Way of the Samurai, where you're put in this area where story events unfold in time, and you can interact with/alter them, or just remain an observer. Not only is that branching, but it's also more natural than having all events in the world centered around your character (though the game does take some liberties with when exactly an event takes place to give the player a better chance of encountering it). Like you can try to alter the story that's unfolding, but it's challenging.

And generally I'll take a "simple" but freeform story over something some developer had na overinflated opinion of and wants you to experience as they imagined it. Like take the story of Fallout 1. There's 2 factors - the waterchip problem and the super mutant army, both a threat to your place of origin. They're things that have to be solved, but how you go about it is up to you. There's no 7 sword shards to collect to do it and no one you really have to talk to. It's a goal that drives you into experiencing the setting, meeting interesting characters and possibly solving their problems in return for something to aid in your quest.

[pilgrimboy]

I agree with Virtz. I think the solution with current technology is to have a goal ending, but a freeform world to achieve that goal.

Skyrim completely fails this. It tries to be a Sandbox, but it is really a bunch of linear questlines in the story. You cannot accomplish anything except for the way they wanted it to happen.

Cut scenes would probably have to go. But this would also cut costs.

[Seraphim342]

I wouldn't be too hard on Skyrim.  The vast majority of your game experience takes place outside the quests, and there's enough cool stuff to do spread around that I never felt treadmilled going from one place to another.  That said, the quests could have done with a lot less linearity.  The "dungeons" got much more linear compared to previous games, too, and a lot of things were simplified aka dumbed-down... but that's a symptom of the fact that it was, unfortunately, developed mainly as a console game unlike its predecessors.  PC gaming just isn't a hot market anymore, only 12% of sales were for PC.  The target demographic's shifting, and it's just a sign of the times unfortunately.  That's why I think the future of PC gaming is in indie titles and MMOs, once the MMO producers get it through their heads to stop trying to make "WoW killers."


Overall though I still give it an A+, especially compared to most of its contemporaries, for the immersion alone.  Most of the time I don't even do quests beyond bounties, just run around adventuring with my follower with the camping and survival mods.  Got over 400 hours on it according to Steam and I still think there must be a few caves I haven't explored yet. 

[casserol]

Drop the player-centric written story altogether.  Just build a game that plays itself regardless of the player, and if a written story there is, it should play itself too, vulnerable to player influence but not waiting for it. Good prototypes, although kind of simple because focused on some particular aspects, are Crusader Kings and Mount and Blade. Whatever you (the player) do, things go on around, NPCs interact with each other in a very dynamic way, situations gets solved and new ones arise, sometimes getting in the way of your own plans, sometimes finding you on the way of their plans.

Hilarity almost mechanically ensue. Just write some really complex npcs behaviors . Say npcs would have goals (being rich or famous - wishes for some types of object à la DF) "traits" (npcs is a merchant, or a warrior, or a merchant/warrior) some way to recognize it's environnement ("knows" the richness of other "merchant" types npcs of the same allegiance (civilization/region/town/guild/family...likely, your basic npc merchant would care about other merchants in town, the richest in town would care about the richest in the region, etc) then scripted ways to interact with the environnement to achieve goals.

So say our merchant...


-checks for "traits/goals" : goal "being rich",he's ok being the third in town, but he got the trait "greedy", so he wants to be first
-checks for wealth, says it's the third richest in town
-engage scripts "get richer" : example could be : - checks prices in town, determine most profitable trade, engage craftman npc of XX level in chosen trade (that could be the player)
                                                                   -IF and only IF, the merchant has the "unlawful" trait,engage npc of "warrior" type, with "unlawful" trait, to start "assassination" script/quest ; now that could be the player, but it would happen as well regardless of the player, provided there is a "warrior" "unlawful" npc in town. For that matter, if the merchant is in fact a merchant/warrior, he could engage on the quest himself

-happened he also has traits "art lover", so he'd look for a npc(or the player) with the "explorer" or "adventurer" trait and ask for an item of "quality: => masterwork" "value =>50000 dwarf bucks" "age=> 50 years". Our player would go rob the nearest tomb but meet there members of cult XXX because :

Npc: grand priest of XXX
Goals: maintain religious followers =>50% town population
Now the game must be able to read, DF-room-quality-style, the total value of temples which would contribute to a "religion score" which would be rolled against peoples in the area of influence to see which religion (or lack of) they follow, with bonus and maluses if the leader of the civilization/faction/town/family is of the same religion, etc...
Possible "tools" "scripts" "quest": get MOAR value for the temple.


If we only had a few npcs types (merchant, craftman, priest, bard, scholar....) a few goals and a few "quest" with which they can interact with others npcs, based on actual numbers, on the real situation of the game world at that time (no "fetch me some random animal's part for the hundredeth time while the shop next door sells them in bulk and i don't actually really do anything with them i just put them in my magic pocket and puff ! they disappear then i get some gold out of my ass to reward you with" , but rather  " if casualties to goblin over the past week =>15, then hire adventurer/warrior type to kill goblins--but if available gold=<XXX, then beg adventurer to kill goblin") then we'd have hilarity clusterfucks everyday.

I believe it's the way DF will works anyway.(but not on a micromanagement scale. yet.)


Then for the sake of hardware requirement you'd keep a maximum number of npc active at one time and abstract everything that is happening far away from the player.