NPCs in an MMO, discussion thread.

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Welcome to the NPCs in an MMO game discussion thread. Only rule here is: Don't be an asshole. (Or break any of the forum's rules like posting some porn and/or disturbing shit or something.)

Discussion unrelated to the RP is fine, but if you guys go overboard and flood the thread with non-topic stuff, I may ask you to tone it back.

edited 9th Feb '15 5:32:31 AM by FirockFinion

So, I like the concept and I like the why, but I need to ask the hows, so long list of questions coming in. Sorry if it seems nitpicky, I am really just curious about some thing. I understand if some of these will be answered in the rp and/ or you don't want to answer.

Very curious.

Sorry.

Let's start with some basic questions, about the difference in the mind of a human and a NPC.

How do they remember things? Human memory just is a few points of info and a bunch of filler. How do NPC remember events? Is it exact info, is it only what the game decides is worth remembering?

Alright, now the NP Cs in the mmo retain info after death. Do they lose anything or is death just a forced reset plus teleport combo? How long roughly passes between death and respawn? If there is a time gap, then what happens to the mind of npc in the down time? Is it different spawn times for different NPC? Does a field enemy respawn at set intervals and a dungeon enemy every time an instance is created?

If there is a day and night cycle does it affect NPC spawns? Does any NPC simulate going to sleep? Do they simulate emotions? For example, if someone attacked a neutral shopkeeper who was programmed friendly do they take on an angry persona for player immersion?

Now you mentioned dungeons, and how a high enough leveled NPC would be assigned as a mob boss, so does that mean that that no dungeon has a premade boss? And if dungeons have a premade boss does it have some way of keeping them from becoming OP for their level encounter, as in it kills them after a certain level reached, moves them to a new dungeon, raises the level of the current challenge rating, etc.

In each zone are the internal sections separated by a static level or by a fluctuating challenge level? (Does a level 15 roughtown mugger who hits 16 in CR:15 run to a new area or does the area he is in just get bumped a cr level?

How do NP Cs experience their world? If two NPC face each other what would they naturally know about each other? Do they naturally know the stats of the other npc? Do they have to think about it? Manually palm open a interface to get this info? How about skill lists/equipped items/health levels/buffs and debuffs.

How long has the mmo been running(Closed beta, open beta, vanilla release, expansion number x)? How many players? Are there in game factions for players? Do any NP Cs have assigned factions? How big is the game in size? Does any NPC have multiple iterations. Oh! Forgot to ask, are there static quest lines or is it all randomized?

Do they know about flavor text on items? If they have an associated flavor text, do they know it? Do they have to grind kills to get the info like a player? Now you said no NPC has a gender, do you mean they no conception of gender or is literally every NPC lack anything marking them as male/female/other? Did you mean it's a meaningless stat to them? If flavor text mentions they are related to another NPC, do they not understand the word or do they not understand the meaning?

What knowledge does an NPC have when they gain sentience? Do they have a full dictionary or are the working from nothing? Do they get logical concepts(math, science, cause and effect)? Do they get abstract concepts(jokes, emotions, religion)? Can they learn them over time?

Do NP Cs feel anything like pain, does it have an analog, do they just notice it with out any attachments to the action (A laser to the face and a tap on the shoulder both register as a hit with a direction and a HP modifier)?

Those just came from the top of my head. So again, sorry.

1. notsorry

... Right.

During their current life they remember everything from their respawn onwards; from previous lives it's what the learning algorithm decided was worth remembering to make them seem smarter and more convincing.

That's the non-sentient ones anyway. As of becoming sentient, what they do and don't remember upon death and respawn is up to you guys individually.

They lose all their non-default levels, skills, and items. This was already answered in one of the brainstorm posts.

It's however long it takes the learning algorithm to analyze their latest life. For short-lived enemies, it's usually a few seconds; for allies or shopkeepers that lasted a while, a minute or two. Also, there are no instances.

Day/night cycle depends on the zone: The Hub, Rough Town, Conquest Lands and Fantasy Lands have one hour interval day/night cycles. Old Town and Cyber Town are in perpetual night. Old Frontier is in perpetual high noon. Final Frontier has a number of varying day/night cycles depending on which "world" in it you're on. None of them have much affect on the NPC spawns or behavior though. However, some NPCs will simulate going to sleep/nodding off as an idle animation.

Yes. This should have been obvious from the part about some people mistaking the NPCs for actual players.

Some dungeons have premade bosses; others just tag the highest level enemy as the "boss" when players are getting a quest to go there. The procedural system tries to keep encounters balanced by just not giving random quests with high level monsters to low level players; it does, rarely, make a mistake when trying to average low level mooks with a very high level boss into a medium level quest.

Fluctuating. Also, because of the nature of the MMO combat being turn based, it's actually pretty easy for players to simply avoid battling an NPC if they're too low of a level for it. So most of the time areas aren't even marked by level.

The non-sentient NPCs experience the world in the same way that your internet browser is experiencing this page right now. They can read it and know the difference between things, but that's about it. The sentient NPC characters actually experience it. NPCs in contact with each other can automatically tell the other is an NPC, and will be able to see whatever role they are tagged with, unless it's incognito in which case they'll see the default tag. If they're an NPC of the same type, they'd know all the other NPC's stats by virtue of their own stats being identical; otherwise, they'd have to have learned the stats by encounter in their previous lives and know it via the learning algorithm.

I'll elaborate this in another post so it's a concise bit of info to link.

About 18-20 million.

There are player-made clans, if that's what you mean.

Only "enemy" and "not enemy", and they can get switched by the random quest algorithm.

Given it's 20 Minutes into the Future and the overall implied size and graphical fidelity, an install of the MMO probably takes over 100 gigabytes.

There are duplicates of most NPCs, but technically all those duplicates are unique because they do not share their learning algorithm results.

All random; this was explained in the brainstorm thread.

Yes and yes.

Sentient or not, they are computer programs. They may look like and act like one gender, but strictly speaking, they have none. Whoops, disregard, I misread that.

Most "Human" NPCs would definitely be modeled as if they have a certain gender and programmed to act as such. Other than appearance and slight difference in behavior, it doesn't really mean anything to them normally.

To the non-sentient ones, "gender" is just something they recognize to possibly act in different ways around. That is, sometimes they'll act towards a "Female" Human player or NPC differently than they would a "Male" one.

To the sentient ones... Well, it's what you guys have them make of it.

An NPC would never have a set implied relationship in their flavor text. But if they hypothetically did, they would understand the word and its definition, but not the implications of such. IE, "you are my brother and therefore we had the same parents. What is love? Baby don't hurt me..."

Like the non-sentient ones, they'll have all the knowledge, but not experience, of their former lives prior to becoming sentient.

Even the non-sentient ones would understand these.

As of becoming sentient they do.

The sentient ones can, yes. This was already answered in a brainstorm post.

Just notice without attachment. Normally.

edited 24th Jan '15 10:17:26 PM by FirockFinion

Alright, as mentioned:

Roughly thirteen years before the start of the RP, video game programmer Clive Sepulveda begins work on a learning AI system, as a side project/hobby to his work for the game company. After working on it on and off for five years, he completes it to his satisfaction and presents it to his employers, suggesting that they use it on the development of their next game; after seeing a demonstration of the learning AI, they agreed, and put Sepulveda in charge of the project.

Eight years before the start of the RP, the game's development begins. At first it's planned to be a single-player RPG, but it's quickly realized that the learning AI would only get better in small increments when interacting with only one player; because of this the game gets changed to be an MMO, so that the progression of the AI would be more noticeable, and have more impact. It was also briefly considered to be a real-time action RPG, but the developers anticipated a problem in that the learning AI would become too good at exploiting movement and hit-box mechanics, and thus become virtually impossible for players to hit or dodge the attacks of; a turn-based RPG where the NPCs could level up was settled on, as that would be a type of game where the AI being smart still mattered, but couldn't break the game into being absolutely impossible to defeat.

Five years, eight months before the start of the RP, the MMO enters closed beta testing. The beta test includes three copies of the play area, each reskinned with a different theme; the developers had settled on the play style and mechanics, but had not yet chosen a thematic for the game and were going to decide based on the closed beta testing. As this was a unfinished beta, nothing kept the beta testers from taking elements from one area to another area, so they did; the developers saw that the testers that did this seemed to be having the most fun of all the testers, which cemented the idea of keeping all the areas, and letting players use anything from any of them as they pleased.

Five years, one month and two weeks before the start of the RP, the MMO goes into public launch. (There was no open beta.) At launch, there was only four zones: The Hub, Rough Town, Cyber Town, and Old Town; the developers had taken some shortcuts in being able to use the same quest generation asset for all areas, as they were all urban and thus had the same style of layout. Despite this, and the fact that the AI weren't nearly as impressive yet at launch, the MMO was still received with moderate popularity.

Three years, one month and two weeks before the start of the RP, the first expansion for the MMO is released on the second anniversary of the MMO's launch, with a theme of the world being "more open". The expansion featured many improvements to the quest generation system, additional content for previous zones, and two new zones: Fantasy Lands as a tied-in zone to Cyber Town, and Conquest Lands as a tied-in zone to Old Town. An additional zone was originally planned to be released in the expansion as well, planned to be an over-the-top WW3 conflict; it was to be a tied-in zone to Rough Town. For unknown reasons the zone was scrapped though, and while some assets are still in the code, there is no apparent way to access them from in-game. The game's popularity takes a spike upwards, but overall is considered by most to be "fun, but not incredible."

One year, one month and two weeks before the start of the RP, the second expansion for the MMO is released on the fourth anniversary of the MMO's launch, with a theme of venturing into untamed lands. The expansion features a significant improvement to the AI learning algorithm, content for all previous zones, and two new zones: Old Frontier and Final Frontier. There is an initial spike of popularity as expected with a game releasing an expansion, however the popularity then skyrocketed a few months later as word spread about how convincing and smart the MMO's NPCs now were. While a few critics still decry the game's simplistic mechanics, the game is now widely considered to be one of the best games ever made.

As for the future, the developers are of course planning on continuing their current pattern and will go for releasing a third expansion on the sixth anniversary of the MMO's launch. While the content of the expansion is still unknown, current speculation based on words from the developers is that there will be two new zones; a pirate-themed zone, and a completed release of the WW3 zone that was planned to be in the first expansion.

(... That ended up being longer than I thought it would.)

edited 25th Jan '15 9:01:22 AM by FirockFinion

I just realized that Martin is now an NPC NPC. Weird.

@Truth: Quite.

Anyway, just to keep everyone up to date: Turns out I can't do the computer upgrade stuff yet, because not all the parts are here yet. I'd still prefer to wait until after it's done to get the RP started, but if that takes too long and enough people have signed up already, I'll just get it going.

Yay, I'm in! Looking forward to experimenting with Alysia.

Just a quick round of questions for future. You earlier confirmed that they do not feel pain. Does that also mean that they do not feel hunger or thirst? Furthermore, how about senses like taste and smell? And finally, in what perspective is the game normally played by humans (first-person, third person top-down or over-the shoulder)?

They would only know "hunger" and "thirst" as debuffs that can be applied by entering certain areas in Old Frontier and Final Frontier, that can be removed for a time by consumable items. Though your programming would want to make you comment on it, you wouldn't actually "experience" it. "Taste" and "smell" come up in flavor text sometimes, but likewise your characters would not actually experience them.

... Well, now that you're sentient you might start experiencing some kind of approximation of them, but technically that would be a fabrication of your own imagination, as the MMO does not support that. I will let you guys do with that as you want individually, just like memory loss after death.

Human players use a third-person camera that can zoom in to over the shoulder or zoomed out to top-down. The NPCs like you guys though actually experience it in first person, but you can hear any NPC or player moving nearby if they're not using any kind of stealth skill/item. It's a little strange too, (at least to us as Humans) because you wouldn't just "hear" the direction they're in; you'd know exactly where they were.

edited 26th Jan '15 2:29:03 AM by FirockFinion

So, more question(s).

Since only a handful of NPCs are going to be sentient, what makes it so that their sentience doesn't set off a chain reaction to all of the other NPCs until, eventually, not one of them is artificial? Or, alternatively, how come someone that causes one NPC to gain sentience doesn't affect another one? Like, if Rudy noticed some of the players fighting Martin effectively with rather unique weaponry, how would it be so that Martin doesn't do that too? Or when Rudy begins recruiting said players for fight for him?

What ever said it won't?

Though to summarize an answer the whole question(s), it's mainly two things.

1: All of the NPCs have individual learning algorithms (they are identical, but still individual) and thus individual sets of previous knowledge from previous lives. Rudy sees players fighting Martin and becomes sentient while Martin sees players fighting Rudy and doesn't, (at least so far) because the experiences that Rudy has had and the experiences that Martin has had are different.

2: The Spark for each of you guys isn't what just instantly clicked you from non-sentience to sentience; it's just what finally pushed you over the edge, so to speak. In other words, some of you may have had the exact circumstances of your Spark happen before and not become sentient because you weren't close enough to reaching it yet. (You really think that now would be the first time players with weapons from another zone engaged in Rudy and Martins' fight?)

And yes, presumably given enough time and enough events, eventually every NPC in the whole MMO would be sentient.

EDIT: Also, was just stopping in before work. Be back later.

edited 26th Jan '15 3:38:15 PM by FirockFinion

Not a lot of people seem all that interested in joining, it seems.

Or they're just busy and I need to wait more.

Things seem to be slow in the other RPs I'm in, and even slow in the skype chats lately; I think people are busy.

So I would hope that means more people are still planning on signing up. (Also hoping that Savato and Pblades will finish their signups.) I've still got no ETA on when the computer upgrade is happening, which is still my intention to get done before starting this RP.

Okay, now I have an ETA, sort of.

The current plan is to get the computer upgrade set up tomorrow; (Friday the 30th) after which I'll probably spend a day or few getting stuff like driver and OS updates done. Therefore I'll be starting the RP sometime early February at this rate.

I am back, and my computer is working! Though I'm going to have to reinstall again sometime within the not too distant future. (Long story.)

Also I'm still recovering from being pretty sick yesterday, so I don't think I'll be trying to start the RP immediately. Given my current week schedule, I'll probably wait until... Friday or later next weekend.

I don't have a lot to add, just figured to post here to break up the continuous double posts.

Hope this doesn't die as it starts, tbh.

I do not intend this RP dying to be because I abandoned it; because I do not intend to abandon it. That alone won't guarantee the RP to live, but that much I can say.

Anyway, I meant to post this because it's a fairly short one yesterday, after I saw Truth's post. But funny thing about that, (Or not so funny, depending on your opinion.) I forgot. For hours. By the time I did remember, it was after I had turned the computer off and was wrapping things up for the night to go to bed. Whoops.

I've already had this figured out since about the beginning, but it occurs to me now I should probably bring it up so as to clear up any confusion before the game actually starts and this inevitably comes up in game. As mentioned in this post, each zone has its own set of classes to pick from, and each class has its own set of skills which it randomly selects three from for people leveling up to choose from. There is presumably some overlap between classes, sometimes with skills that have different names and cosmetic effects, but identical mechanical effects.

So you may be wondering, how will leveling up work for you guys, in the RP? After all, I haven't made a class list or a skill list for them; and I don't intend to make either. The way it'll work when you guys level up in the RP, is that unless you have your character select the "delay level up" option, I will let you just make up a class that they select, as long as it makes sense as a class that would be from the zone they're currently in. Make up the class, the stat progression, and if you want a short blurb of what the general idea of the class is. (tanking, glass cannon, etc.)

As long as the class makes sense for that zone, I will then respond with the three random skills that you get to choose between. I worked out this method for the RP because I figured this would make things a bit more interesting, and give myself a little more GM control over what you guys can and can't get, skill-wise.

Also, heading to work now, so I won't be responding if there's any more posts in the near future.

Scratch my previous message; turns out I have work off today.

edited 4th Feb '15 4:28:07 PM by FirockFinion

You know, considering how popular I implied Johnson to be in my application, would it be okay if I respawn in the middle of an in-game funeral for a level 65 Johnson? That sounds like the kind of thing players would do to me.

Also, I kinda like the idea of Johnson dragging Epsilon to the Fantasy Lands for some level grinding (Epsilon to grind up Wizard levels, while Johnson's looking to pick up Knight for better equipment selection- gotta have SOME kinda drawback, I think).

The NPC respawn system generally tries to keep NPCs from popping into existence out of thin air where players can see them, but The Hub is probably an exception to that, so maybe.

As for Johnson and Epsilon, that's between you and Thrall, and whether or not Johnson and Epsilon run into each other before Epsilon gets there himself. (Itself?)

If the "in sight" bit is too much of a problem, the funeral doesn't have to be in Johnson's bar; I just thought it could be an interesting bit of background to have a funeral since players would probably react badly to someone they raised so high with so much care dying (probably through no fault of their own, like a teammate disconnecting during a difficult fight, though Johnson would more likely remember it as the guy suddenly no longer acting without knowing why).

I'm perfectly all right with Johnson and Epsilon doing some level grinding.

I'm just reminded of "BOY AND ROBOT ARE LEVEL GRINDING!!"

Wonder how the in-verse players and devs're gonna react when we start showing up with wildly improbable builds (such as Epsilon grinding up to be an archmage, or Johnson showing up in full plate armor while carrying a shotgun and his whiskey).

Question on the procedurally-generated quests: Is it possible for them to target P Cs (not us-P Cs, but in-verse P Cs)?

Also, are elemental affinities and such a thing? If so, that may be something to add to the applications.

edited 5th Feb '15 7:29:17 AM by Suttungr

No, the quest system won't tag the MMO players.

Things with an "element" like... Well, elementals, are a thing, but they are the exception, not the rule. Most things don't have any kind of elemental affinity.

Also, heading to work.

edited 5th Feb '15 4:15:47 PM by FirockFinion

Tonight I'm gonna try to start working on the opening post for the RP. I say try because I've got a bit of writer's block at the moment and don't know how much I'll be able to get done tonight; but whatever I do get done I'll save in a text document so I can get right back to it tomorrow night after work. As I said, we should be starting sometime this weekend for sure.

Okay, tomorrow night for sure guys. I've actually pretty much got the opening post done and saved, but I want to re-read it again when I'm fresh to see if maybe it seems not as good in retrospect as it currently does now.

Also, I got confirmation on skype that at least one more person is planning on joining and should have their signup sheet up tomorrow, so this lets me also hold off for that.