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[nenjin]

A truly good dynamic AI system would procedurally create personalities on the fly, then deconstruct or abstract them away when it's not interesting/fruitful.

The problem with games like Oblivion is they get trapped in their own design; zomg, we've committed to 30 functioning AIs per area...and they end up creating 20 generic AIs that do the same things, and spout the same lines, and respawn if they happen to die or get murdered.

That's where the tedium sets in, and the genre weariness starts. We need games that can switch hit on the fly, to change up what we're presented with to keep us guessing, to make us doubt we've really seen all the game has to offer.

If there was procedurally generated AI, along with procedurally generating paths and all that stuff, there's no limit to the amount of shit you could get it do, and that's where emergent game play would start to show up.

[Neonivek]

The interesting thing with Oblivion is they limited what the AI could actually do more and more as time went on because their system was horrible.

The AI would either be super salesmen, kill others with little regard for morality, and basically not act like a real personality.

[nenjin]

Yeah, I remember the hype. "Radiant AI" or some such junk. And what we ended up with instead was just the stupid diplomacy mini-game.

[Chutney]

Procedurally generated AI? The issue there is whenever it needs to call the AI, likely there would be a big lag spike as the computer tries to create this thing. Now imagine you enter an area with 2 of these, and 4, or 10!! Now, obviously the AI is going to store itself to a seed so the same person has the same AI every time, but when things change? Say the beggar found enough money to buy a house, his AI needs to change to reflect that. He needs to stop begging!
But his seed says he is a beggar, so while you might leave the area with him acting appropriately, the next time you come in it picks up the seed for beggar, and he's in his nice clothes with a house and a wife and kids and begging you for cash.

fakeedit: thinking more about this, probably you meant the actual ai being saved and loaded after the initial generation? That would still produce spikes, but admittedly not as much as generating a whole new personality. This also hampers open-worldedness. The world would have to be divided into areas or cells and npcs per cell/area limited to save processing power and limit load times. It'd be taking a step backwards in that regard but would the dynamic procedurally generated AI be enough of a payoff to ignore that?

new thought: Why is the AI procedurally generated? Why can't you design these characters in an editor, with personalities etc. Unless you're wanting a procedurally generated world, it would be better to have pre-made AI that can change. The first time you enter a cell with a new npc could spend so long generating it's AI when all it has to do is load Actor_2014's AI (bounty hunter, aggressive, low morality, prefers to sneak up on targets).

All in all, the idea is pretty feasible (imho), it's just there would be a lot of loading screens and probably some issues with cell-crossover not working right (run outside of bounds of -1,-1 with a wolf chasing you, when you load -1,0 the wolf is gone because it isn't part of the cell you're in now) BUT that is probably easily avoidable.

[Nivim]

 It's things like this that remind one why almost all of us are on this forum; because we found a little game that was different than the others.

 I actually agree with what Gaelic is trying to communicate, even if it can't be done effectively. It's the change in how role-playing games are viewed and played; a change in art. That thing everyone has a different definition of, and a different view point.

 I guess the goal would be to get the commercial developers to have the view point of a minded players, but such mental influence is nearly impossible these days.

[Grakelin]

What is a minded player.

[Neonivek]

What is a minded player.

Sorry this is a hardcore game. We don't tell ya nothin!

[Nivim]

 I don't have a definition, merely a sense of it that snuck up upon me. I guess good marker would be enjoying and admiring complexity, making an effort to understand what goes on behind the scenes, and having about as much fun with imagination as with anything else, habitually. Most of the people on these forums are minded players.

 However, the intent to answer a question asked in innocence falls more under "charitable" than "minded".

Edits: I just hit the end of my hypertension, tis a sad thing.

[Muz]

What does RPI stand for?  I'm never seen that term before.

Role Playing Intensive. Basically like a MU* devoted mainly to roleplaying. Shadows of Isildur, Armageddon MUD, and a bunch of others that didn't become as popular. The admins build a plot, sometimes even involving player actions, and it gives the same quality of roleplaying as a tabletop game, with a lot more people around. You get a damn good game out of it, when people aren't busy grinding their skills.

[Neonivek]

What does RPI stand for?  I'm never seen that term before.

Role Playing Intensive. Basically like a MU* devoted mainly to roleplaying. Shadows of Isildur, Armageddon MUD, and a bunch of others that didn't become as popular. The admins build a plot, sometimes even involving player actions, and it gives the same quality of roleplaying as a tabletop game, with a lot more people around. You get a damn good game out of it, when people aren't busy grinding their skills.

Ironically people in real life train by grinding.

Personally I think a lot of Hardcore games are overrated. A lot of them function on the premise of "We can play it and you can't" as the main source of entertainment. Since that isn't the topic at hand I'll simply say this

The Issue is that RPGs of any complexity cannot exist without the assistance of the majority of the gaming population. The industry shifted from dedicated players to the casuals because they ARE the players. They don't forget about the dedicated gamers because they are the most vocal and the ones who write the reviews everyone reads.

The statistics on the average player is rather surprising. They often don't even finish games.

[Cthulhu]

Yes, but people don't train their stealth skills by sneaking past the same guy over and over again.  There's a limit to what kind of grinding makes sense in a MUD

[Neonivek]

Yes, but people don't train their stealth skills by sneaking past the same guy over and over again.  There's a limit to what kind of grinding makes sense in a MUD

Yes but REAL stealth training is even more boring then that.

(well ok... Yes AND No... that is how some people train their stealth skill)

and I doubt... I HIGHLY doubt the mud included that training.

[ductape]

What does RPI stand for?  I'm never seen that term before.

Role Playing Intensive. Basically like a MU* devoted mainly to roleplaying. Shadows of Isildur, Armageddon MUD, and a bunch of others that didn't become as popular. The admins build a plot, sometimes even involving player actions, and it gives the same quality of roleplaying as a tabletop game, with a lot more people around. You get a damn good game out of it, when people aren't busy grinding their skills.

I maintain that the best AI is other humans. So yeah, they are not AI. And the RPI environment is always going to be the best RPG environment, the world has to most potential to feel alive.

Ask yourself, what is it you want? You want to type anything using any words and have intelligent responses? You want to create your own path in the world, no limits at all and see the game world take shape around you, even react to your plots and schemes? You want really devious enemies who might actually outsmart you? Would you like to feel like you could really win or loose, not simply by a combat mechanic or conversation tree but by literally living with the choices you make and al of the consequences of them?

Only humans will give you that.

I have an old thread around here about NWN 1 and a very special server/world that is still living and breathing, Escaped from the Underdark. Characters rarely live past lvl 7 or so, and I have played around 15 characters in that world over the years. Because of this, there is negligible grind at all and you can have some serious great plot-filled world shakin' fun in just an hour or so whenever you have time to play. I can level a character to lvl 7 in about 3 days of playing and not spending too much time. By then he will have friends and enemies, a plot to be involved with and so forth. I can decide if I want to fling him into danger and let him live or die, or take a more careful approach. If he dies, well, roll a new one, it's a deadly world anyway.

Most everything going on is player plot drive with an active team of DMs assisting the plot action. Go on, try it. Its all you want out of these RPGs with their space-age AI and all done with an aging game and some real people. Why program an AI to do what real people are willing to do?

EDITS: all sorts of typos

[Neonivek]

The best AI could be other humans but ultimately their third person perspective removes them from their characters wants and wishes.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I tried Armageddon...

Ignoring the silly premise, the game itself was terribly boring.  There was nothing at all to do except wander aimlessly reading the same flavor text over and over for random nameless NPCs that you can't interact with.  I think once another player ran past me.

CRPGs just aren't there.  You either have games that aren't even trying or games that just fail.