EQ Never
- Thread starter Convo
- Start date
From what i've seen from non gaming related sources of Storybricks it's pretty far along. Truthfully I think we have been "Oversold" on the complexity of story bricks I think that the NPC interactions we will see are going to be leaps and bounds better than what we know today but I think some people are thinking the game is going to have some Lanwmower man style AI shit.
It's going to be simple stuff at first like
Guard A
Storybricks are as follows:
1.Protect Qeynos Faction NPC/Players.
2.Protect Self
3.Hates Orcs.
4.Patrol Town
So we have this guard who wonders around the town slaying monsters/enemy factions. He will have an internal kill counter for Orcs say 50 and once he hits 50 orcs kill he will start emoting "We are having a serious orc problem here, I'm starting a bounty for orc scalps" And will now start offering a precoded script for "Orc Bounty 1"
The "Orc bounty 1" is something EVERY NPC who has the "Hates Orc" Storybricks and sees/kills 50 orcs. So it may look like the NPCs are learning an reacting to the environment but they are just making generic quests that can rotate from NPCs.
Again, Systems like that are leap and bounds better than what we have now but I dont think it's going to be this magic a lot of people think it will be.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 11,569
- 7,881
Either I'm misunderstanding Storybricks, or you are. I'm not sure.
From what I understand, Storybricks just defines how NPC's behave by allowing them to be assigned desires and preferences. That doesn't mean they actually think for themselves. Dialogue will still be triggered by conditions being met. If you have gold, NPC_01 attacks you. If you are poor, it leaves you alone. If it thinks you are a good dude because you helped his buddies, he requests your help with a task. If it hates you because you fucked his buddy's mama 2 towns over, he's gonna charge you more for repairs etc etc.
Vitality
ＨＵＳＴＬＥ
- 5,808
- 30
I'm totally going to find that farmer guy who gives me 10 silver for watering his tomatos and just do that all day.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 12,588
- 11,904
HAHA. I'm not saying it's a bad thing but if anyone has been following The Sims 4, it sounds a hell of a lot like the AI system they have in place. Really going to come down to the ease of use with the tool set.
Ofcourse you can.
It's not "sploits" though since its probably some garbage repeatable quest you do once for flavor or faction.
You also have to know that guard hates orcs.
I would also like to have some sort of randomness set to storybricks that would really spice things up.
You have Qeynos Guard right? He is locked into two bricks 100% of the time 1.Protect Citizens/Players on Qeynos Faction 2.Kill Hostile NPCs those he has to have because he would be a shitty guard if he did not.
Every time he dies/respawns/resets he will gain 3-5 more random Storybricks from a pool that guards can have. Hates "Certain NPC race", Patrols, Lazy, Takes Bribes, Hates "Certain NPC Class" Alchoholic, Xenophobic, Secret Shadowknight.
All of those storybricks will have quests/dialogue attached to them you can interact with.
Lleauaric
Sparkletot Monger
- 4,058
- 1,823
It may not just be triggering quests though. Its very possible they can tie dynamic world changes to the entire server that the devs had no idea were going to happen.
Storybricks Demo and Interview | Kill Ten Rats
Im excited because of the endless things that can happen because of things players actually do.
Storybricks Demo and Interview | Kill Ten Rats
Another thing to consider is that the AI is interacting with itself. So Vitality trains 1000 orcs to the gates during the day. This causes the guard to call for more guards to the gate. More guards at the gate means less guards in the City. Because there are less guards, the Theives guild becomes bolder and starts handing out more daring quests. Because the Thieves guild is more active, crime rate is up. Because crime rate is up, the Kings popularity declines. Because the King has lost popularity, other nobles start to plot against him and offer quests to players to try to dethrone him, The King starts offering quests to try to get his popularity back up before it hits a level where he is dethroned. ect, ect, ect.. Who becomes king? That depends on what noble had enough players do quests for him. And what if you build in certain traits into each nobleman and woman (hates Elves, secretly spying for Halas, ect), the focus of what the city does and how it acts can change.
Im excited because of the endless things that can happen because of things players actually do.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,383
- 276
One interesting aspect is that your actions are supposed to have consequences - not sure how it would translate in game but that particularly guard hating your guts for training him with orcs and getting him killed own own. Kinda like getting KoS at druid rings for farming treants but on a more personal level.
Do you think the game should have elements like a hotkey for sparing the life of an npc or is that going too deep? I was just wondering how the game can tell the difference between letting someone live on purpose or fleeing because you are near death yourself - the way I understand storybricks and their statements about personal consequences that npc should have a different reaction during your next encounter based on how the last one went down.
Do you think the game should have elements like a hotkey for sparing the life of an npc or is that going too deep? I was just wondering how the game can tell the difference between letting someone live on purpose or fleeing because you are near death yourself - the way I understand storybricks and their statements about personal consequences that npc should have a different reaction during your next encounter based on how the last one went down.
I'm talking about random Generic NPCs like "Orc Retard, or Qeynos Guard" Sgt Slate would be a named NPC and would have a predefined set of bricks to him.
Random storybricks allow for spicier PVE and makes it easier for devs to make content. You are grinding Orcs in Crushbone and if a random Orc Lego spawns with "Hates Clerics" you may have a harder time keeping him off your healer.
Edit:
When Georgeson said "You will never kill the same NPC twice" He doesn't mean there are an infinite amount of fantasy creatures to murder it means every non special NPC will spawn with a random personalities.
I'm sure it's 1000 time easier to develop 500 storybricks and randomly assign them every time an orc spawns than to individually design 500 special orcs.
Vitality
ＨＵＳＴＬＥ
- 5,808
- 30
Random hyyyyyype, if this is true, this game's pve should be pretty interesting. I just hope the Randomization is larger than 5 options or it can get pretty predictable.
I'll be waiting for that cleric to tell the paladin or whoever's tanking that they suck, not realizing the orc hates their guts and ignores threat tables.
Assuming Storybricks offers the kind of complexity in your example, the king should offer a bounty for the death of Vitality for causing the king so much grief. Vitality would be KOS to all players until the bounty is collected.
How realistic though is it that we will see that kind of AI complexity?
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,383
- 276
Not sure if that's their goal but it would be pretty easy within the grand scheme of things. They need a huge amount of likes/dislikes/quirks if you look at the entire system, making sure that Slate spawns with his usual guard set, plus 2 random from badass pool and another 2 random from the world pool sounds pretty easy. NPCs could even start with standard setups when the game launches and develop extra bricks when they respawn, with the events that lead to their death deciding which pool of bricks they pull from.
I do agree with your earlier statement that this still needs a ton of dialogue for all the npcs that are simply based on bricks. On top of that there is specific writing for notable NPCs as needed for any other MMO so that's even more effort. On the upside, if it works out it'll make for a much more immersive world then the entirely static environment of old MMOs or the linear story-based, phased and instanced modern MMOs.
As far as alpha/beta/release goes, judging from Landmark and the absolute silence since the last SOE Live I'd say pay-to-alpha in about 6-10 months, closed beta in early 2016 and then open beta (which is release for a F2P title) at the end of '16 or early '17. The F2P nature actually gives them alot of wiggle room because it already seems widely accepted that an established studio acts like they are a 5-man indie game, it'll be even more common by the time they go beta.
Lenas
Trump's Staff
- 7,496
- 2,236
Anyone saying they could train orcs to a guard over and over really doesn't understand how StoryBricks is meant to work. Once you wipe out an orc camp, that camp is gone forever. It's not going to respawn in the same spot. Orcs are going to respawn elsewhere and look for a new, low traffic area to establish another camp. That guard also probably isn't going to take scalps forever, eventually his motivations should change. Once orcs are no longer a threat to the village, he should update to have you go after whatever the current threat is. Things being dynamic like that is the entire reason anyone ever got excited for SB in the first place.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,383
- 276
It'll be a good day when NPCs spout a line like "clerics like you must die" and actually back that up with appropriate ingame behaviour.
Vitality
ＨＵＳＴＬＥ
- 5,808
- 30
Don't underestimate my sploits, If npcs located near an "Orc Region" will likely have "Hates Orcs" I don't need to re-train the same guard lol.. I'll move onto the next set of npcs who haven't triggered their hates orc dialogue yet specifically located at the next spawn of orcs down the chain.
Density matters, I get it, I also know how to manipulate density.
Triggered quests are exploit 101 rofl.
The only thing that really stops this is flagging a character as having already completed a particular interaction. And at that point, this entire system becomes some kind of non-descript "Daily quest" game.
Density matters, I get it, I also know how to manipulate density.
Triggered quests are exploit 101 rofl.
The only thing that really stops this is flagging a character as having already completed a particular interaction. And at that point, this entire system becomes some kind of non-descript "Daily quest" game.