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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: What's this thing we call AI?
Message-ID: <GJtnsv.3Ir@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:36:30 GMT
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emshort@mindspring.com <emshort@mindspring.com> wrote:
>buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett) wrote:
>> I agree that AI for NPCs is of more questionable utility,
>> since they could easily wreck stories or wreck puzzles due
>> to their unpredictability.
>
>Hmm.  People seem to keep assuming that AI-driven NPCs == NPCs with
>the ability to decide they want to stroll across town for a cup of
>coffee, or burn a hole in the wall, or marry the PC's sister, leaving
>the plot empty and formless.

This wasn't really what I meant; in fact I nearly qualified the above
comment with "unless managed by some sort of gamemastering AI".  But
I decided I didn't want to beat that drum too much, because I don't
want to give the impression that I think gamemastering AI is really
the best thing since diced bread.

>If you let NPCs roam your physical environment moving things around
>and manipulating objects significantly, then yes, it is possible that
>this will result in him, for instance, unintentionally locking up the
>player in the attic without a key, rendering the rest of the game
>unplayable.  Here again, though, it seems mostly that there's a
>question of imposing additional constraints or making the AI even
>smarter -- teaching the NPC to recognize when it is about to constrain
>the player's movement, for instance, or to answer when the PC knocks
>on the attic door.

The moment the NPC AI starts coloring its actions based on the
potential player experience *as a game*--or, alternately,
the moment the NPC begins coloring its actions based on our
goals for the player instead of the NPCs goals--you are to
my mind writing game-mastering AI, not NPC AI. Hence what
I really meant but didn't say was "NPC AI (without gamemastering
AI) is more questionnable."

SeanB
