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Author Topic: World Generator NPC 'playing'  (Read 2815 times)

Thndr

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World Generator NPC 'playing'
« on: July 31, 2008, 02:18:12 am »

Formally topic'd as: Community World Generation
Changed due to bad wording for thread title. Only part of the major idea


Not really an idea with a point or anyway, kinda stupid actually, but hear me out.

Make a stand alone server that generates a world, and have people log into that server to 'play' characters in the world.

The method of playing the character would be basically the same way they would play a character on #idlerpg or Progress Quest.
An almost entirely pointless endeavor to be sure, but simple and silly enough to have people actually play it. Who knows, with modifying parameters for each player to set for their character(s), they could somehow shape the world history.

And once the slowly generated world has reached a certain year, you could even post it online to play a world many players helped shaped with idle CPU time.

but other than that, no real point of doing the whole thing anyway other than novelty.



Granite26 had a more concise way of explaining the base idea that I did. (Which I keep forgetting the lesson of Write Idea-> Sleep-> Format Idea ^^;;)

OK, mind if I rephrase a bit?

What if you could create NPCs that would be introduced to the game during history.  They would be defined similarly to adventure characters, but would have names, personalities (such as they are) and base stats.  After they are added, they are treated just the same way as any other NPC in worldgen, except they might be a little bit tougher because of the initial stat boost.

As a benefit, doing this would allow a large number of people to seed the legends with alts, so that community type games would have a procedurally created history that involved NPCs that were requested.

Also, it could serve as a legends mode progress quest, where a bunch of people create alts and see how they do through world gen.

--  As an idea, it's not horrible, it sounds kind of neat.  I especially like the way that it leverages existing features to create new play styles, which seems very DF
« Last Edit: August 01, 2008, 02:38:39 pm by Thndr »
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Draco18s

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2008, 03:02:09 pm »

No.

If you want to know why search for "multiplayer DF" or "MMO."
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Thndr

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2008, 03:10:55 pm »

Don't mind this post >.> Just got a little defensive towards Draco.

Nice short and concise response, but you have failed in one aspect:
Reading the damn idea, no matter how stupid it is.

I even admitted it was pointless and stupid.

Seriously, read it. Also make sure you check out what I compared the idea to, you know. The programs/chatroom where you do nothing except idle.
I know full well others have requested MMO DF and MP DF style things, if I wanted that, I'd just make my own game in which I could control the variables of what could be essentially modified in game. This is nothing like that at all, except for the word 'multiplayer', in which it could be even put in as 'singleplayer' too.


The whole suggestion wasn't even meant to be taken as a serious thing, other than novelty as admitted. Taking it seriously makes you have a demeaning and belittling tone to your response, which isn't cool at all.

I apologize if this response is a bit harsh and and offensive towards you, but seriously; if you're going to act that way, why not just not respond to the dumb idea and let it fester to the back pages of the forum?
« Last Edit: August 01, 2008, 01:47:10 pm by Thndr »
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Idiom

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2008, 04:01:44 pm »

Ignore Draco, he does that.

Like a community fortress repository? Where you can grab a world that 100's of others have influenced, do your thing, then upload your contributions?
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Thndr

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2008, 05:11:34 pm »

Sorry if I got a little defensive ^^;... It's just that people who try to mini-mod like that annoy me when they do it without reading the post. I figured I discredited my idea enough so that if everyone truely thought it was stupid and pointless, they'd just ignore me like they should.
---------------
Sorta, but potentially both that and maybe something based off from a central server too.

In reality the idea just calls for a world to be generated ultra slowly and all the 'contributor' does is place a more defined NPC into the world, aside from what the world generator already does. This way there could be a NPC adventurer, or a more defined NPC shopkeep, or whatever.

Just a silly idea in itself, that since the world generation already does everything procedurally with creating the history and such, a novelty style thing like this would essentially be doing the same thing the world generator does while making the NPCs do NPC stuff.

Sure right now each figure in history doesn't really do much, but once the World Gen evolves, they could do more, and with that, if a player could just insert a NPC that stands out a little bit, potentially becoming a figure (without literally playing the character in adventure mode) would have a tiny bit more personalization towards worlds.

And adding onto that idea of adding special NPCs that can be 'played' (figuratively, as you do nothing really) why not make it so many could be done at once, and if that, why not let many do it to one world.

Granted this idea only spawned because I descovered Progress Quest and I found the novelty amusing (as idlerpg isn't as novel due to it being just a chatroom and not a whole program), and realizing that it's basically 'playing' an character for you, as the world generator 'plays' a whole world for you so you can play DF or Adventure Mode in that generated world.

I know I'm over explaining the idea, and the idea itself is rather just silly and would just waste CPU time, but I figured everyone on here is rather silly for playing a game about dwarves and making up wonderous stories about their adventures and fortresses. They'd probably do the same to an adventurer that plays itself and produces a log of what it does and accomplishes.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2008, 06:02:53 pm by Thndr »
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Align

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2008, 07:28:07 pm »

Just explain how it would be different from playing on downloaded worlds and we'll see if there're any major blocks in the way.
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Draco18s

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2008, 07:41:48 pm »

Ok, I read the post.  I come to this.

The method of playing the character would be basically the same way they would play a character on #idlerpg or Progress Quest.

What.
The.
Fuck?

You understand that PQ is not a game and that a PQ character is not something you play, right?

I am seeing 0 gross advantage to this idea.  Even if the point is to have something more fleshed out than PQ, I don't see the point.  So...I create a character, give him some attributes, click a check box that says "start an inn" and voila, the world has more depth?
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Thndr

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Re: Community World Generation
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2008, 08:47:39 pm »

@Draco
You know, other than being a total troll, you could be doing something useful with your time, like not being on the internet trolling people. I've said it many times now: Stupid Idea, Silly Idea, Pointless Idea, Novelty Suggestion. Nothing to be taken seriously.
------

But to address you post, you obviously seem to get the basic point of my rather silly suggestion now.

It does nothing more other than maybe set alignment and preset goals that could be selected for an individual NPC in the world. Other than the novelty of seeing what a single 'person' in the world would 'randomly' do, there is absolutely no point to the ideal at all. A rather silly idea, as I've stated before.

I hope you understand that in the similarity that DF doesn't have a set story for each fortress and many people make up epic ones, they could potentially do that for a character they 'play' in the world.

The depth part would only be if the NPC they 'play' adds to the events of the world, help shaping it in some what that the normal generator would have done with a random character.

It really isn't much of an idea to consider, as it is just a random and rather silly suggestion in the first place. Other than the illusion of depth(and maybe more if it would work towards that), and the novelty of 'playing' a NPC and maybe giving them a special story, it would also give those who are a fan of the world development a window into how characters react on their own in the world.

Just explain how it would be different from playing on downloaded worlds and we'll see if there're any major blocks in the way.

Honestly, nothing would be different other than community involvement. It would basically only provide the sense of that along with diversity that each seed would generate.

Basically the only way it would do that if the NPC the person 'plays' does something significant that the world/history generator under that see would not do, like tip the scales of a war, or kill an ancestor of someone important that the seed would normally generate at that time (causing them not to exist, in which everything could be different.)

Hell, the centralized server idea would only be feasible if the local idea got enough popularity that players want to become an NPC in a community world that many people 'play' at once (while not really doing anything other than 'sponsoring' a NPC)
« Last Edit: July 31, 2008, 09:03:58 pm by Thndr »
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trav

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2008, 12:30:46 am »

You understand that PQ is not a game and that a PQ character is not something you play, right?

You're totally wrong, and jaetrix my Crested Dwarf Runeloremaster certainly didn't reach level 30 WITHOUT me playing him.  I think you just don't know what a game is
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Draco18s

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2008, 12:42:36 am »

You're totally wrong, and jaetrix my Crested Dwarf Runeloremaster certainly didn't reach level 30 WITHOUT me playing him.  I think you just don't know what a game is

Game, noun:
A series of rules bounding play, whereby the players engage in some activity for enjoyment and ascribe to reach a goal, the outcome of which is uncertain.

From Crawford's definition:
* A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive.
* If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy.  If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.

PQ has no interaction, and no goals.
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Thndr

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2008, 12:52:10 am »

You're totally wrong, and jaetrix my Crested Dwarf Runeloremaster certainly didn't reach level 30 WITHOUT me playing him.  I think you just don't know what a game is

Game, noun:
A series of rules bounding play, whereby the players engage in some activity for enjoyment and ascribe to reach a goal, the outcome of which is uncertain.

From Crawford's definition:
* A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive.
* If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy.  If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.

PQ has no interaction, and no goals.
More offtopic here but:

The only interaction is making the character, aside from that, Progress Quest does it's own thing. There is more interaction for online servers in the form of ranking, and only ranking (although there are guild rankings too that form more status)

Thus although limited interaction, it is a game. If you want to be broad about the definitions, along with yours. Progress Quest is more like a computer program toy than a fully fledged computer program game (like how a toy car is different from ball'n'cup toy that has a goal of getting the ball in the cup*game of skill* or a Rubix Cube *Puzzle game*)

In that same aspect, the toy car has it's uses as a toy car, and it's uses as a toy that is a substitute for a car in which one's imagination can make better use of it if it has no apparent goals (like being the car Mad Max is in, and jumping over the cliff ridge while being chased by a tanker that is on fire)

This is also similar to how people make up epic stories for fortresses. Their imagination does the work (although it is more interactive than just idling, as you can make them do things to you will *as much as their will allows you to*)

My analogies may be a little bit off, as Progress Quest has some interaction and could be noted as similar to Ball'N'Cup toy, as the point is to get the ball in the cup (create the character) and you set your own goals on how many times you do it (or how long you play PQ, what level you get)
« Last Edit: August 01, 2008, 12:54:13 am by Thndr »
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winner

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2008, 02:48:24 am »

I don't see draco trolling, you said that your idea was kinda silly and draco said that you were right and he agreed with you.
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Heavy Flak

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2008, 06:54:04 am »

As silly as it is, I kind of like the idea.  Fortress mode already does this for you, to some degree.  Dwarves to a lot of things autonomously, and there's some people who claim a calm area with rivers and lots of animals can lead to a fully surviving (but not happy) fortress once you queue up some cooking and brewing jobs. 

I can see this as being a good way to generate some new stories in adventure mode without having to actually do the work for it.  Everyone's going all nuts over the world histories and how cool they are.  This is the exact same, on a teeny scale.  It's just one character, doing one character things like talking to mayors, taking quests, and most likely dying horribly in an ambush. 

This is something useless, sure.  But it's also harmless, and fun.
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Lazer Bomb

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2008, 07:11:45 am »

You're totally wrong, and jaetrix my Crested Dwarf Runeloremaster certainly didn't reach level 30 WITHOUT me playing him.  I think you just don't know what a game is

Game, noun:
A series of rules bounding play, whereby the players engage in some activity for enjoyment and ascribe to reach a goal, the outcome of which is uncertain.

From Crawford's definition:
* A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive.
* If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy.  If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.

PQ has no interaction, and no goals.

I have to say that PQ, by tht definition, is a "game", though there is no real interaction, you do have "goals" (I wanna reach level 30!) even though they don't mean anything. Wait, what do you call something that has goals but no interaction (oh yeah a screensaver).

Besides of that pointless screensaver, I really disagree with the idea. Its pointless, and I don't think it would be fun...after one world generation.

If this was in the "Various Nonsense" forum, and not something that was semi-seriously suggested for DF, then I would find this an awesome idea.
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Granite26

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Re: World Generator 'NPC' playing
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2008, 07:58:34 am »

OK, mind if I rephrase a bit?

What if you could create NPCs that would be introduced to the game during history.  They would be defined similarly to adventure characters, but would have names, personalities (such as they are) and base stats.  After they are added, they are treated just the same way as any other NPC in worldgen, except they might be a little bit tougher because of the initial stat boost.

As a benefit, doing this would allow a large number of people to seed the legends with alts, so that community type games would have a procedurally created history that involved NPCs that were requested.

Also, it could serve as a legends mode progress quest, where a bunch of people create alts and see how they do through world gen.

--  As an idea, it's not horrible, it sounds kind of neat.  I especially like the way that it leverages existing features to create new play styles, which seems very DF
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