Tonitrus
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#76 id:36584 Posted Oct 20, 2009, 12:41 pm
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I have been skimming/skipping your posts, because I have a very short attention span and they tend to run rather long, but I decided to read this one. I got as far as your second quote before I wimped out. I guess I'll probably end up reading the rest through the quotes of it that other people include in their responses. I'm probably a bit worse on the paying-attention category than other people, but you may wish to start including bullet lists or sections or something so that people can jump to the parts they really want to read and skip the rest.
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[00:01:15] KaVir: That's why I'm always careful to empty my inventory before picking up players.
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quixadhal
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#77 id:36586 Posted Oct 20, 2009, 8:16 pm
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I will go back and read the novel in a bit, but for now I just wanted to reply to some stuff that came before it. :)
Some of my absolute favorite games were Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White. The common theme there is that they were all headed by Peter Molyneux. They were all a lot of fun to play. However, in the later games, there seemed to be some element missing, and I think that element was mid-term goals.
Populous was simple. You're God. There's another God over there. You both have tools available to you, and the more followers you get, the more tools you can use (and more often). You win if you have the only living followers left. The game was set in levels, and levels got progressively harder with less resources.
Black & White was more ambitious. Your goal was to take a childlike creature and grow them into a godlike avatar. You had the choice of being nice and developing a friendly avatar who would defend your people, or being mean and developing a vengeful avatar who would kill the enemy by whatever means necessary.
The problem is, it tried to be BOTH a sandbox game, letting you do whatever you wanted, AND a story-driven game, forcing you to follow a script.
The story was decent. The set of things you could do was decent. However, if you weren't following the script, there were no mid-term goals available to you. Either you went back to the story, or you puttered around planting trees, pooping on villagers, whatever.
I think a successful game needs to have short-term goals (fetch me a spoon!), long-term goals (become powerful enough to save the kingdom), and mid-term goals (uncover the corruption in the city's land-grant office). It needs to be flexible enough to let you shift around doing short and mid-term goals freely, but still nudge you towards the long-term goal (or one of them, if you have alternate endings).
A true sandbox game can only work with lots of players (who write the story themselves via PvP conquest), or with the kind of really good goal-driven AI we don't yet have available to us without a LOT of work and CPU power.
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David Haley
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#78 id:36587 Posted Oct 20, 2009, 11:12 pm
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quixadhal said:A true sandbox game can only work with lots of players (who write the story themselves via PvP conquest), or with the kind of really good goal-driven AI we don't yet have available to us without a LOT of work and CPU power.
I'd like to hear more about the AI comment. What makes you say that the CPU is a limiting factor? I'm tempted to believe that the computational resources are actually relatively cheap, and it's figuring out how to model the problem that is vastly more complicated.
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Sandi
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#79 id:36589 Posted Oct 20, 2009, 11:55 pm
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You know, quix, you might have inadvertently hit it. Mid term goals might be just what's needed to stay the course in developing a MUD.
elanthis, your enthusiasm is unquestioned, but in comparing your opinions to KaVir's, yours lack "As someone who has worked in the aerospace, telecoms and medical industries over the last 13 years...". 
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David Haley
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#80 id:36590 Posted Oct 20, 2009, 11:59 pm
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Sandi said:elanthis, your enthusiasm is unquestioned, but in comparing your opinions to KaVir's, yours lack "As someone who has worked in the aerospace, telecoms and medical industries over the last 13 years...".
The credentials game is an exceedingly dangerous one to play; I don't think anybody here wants to start getting into the business of evaluating people's opinions based on "credentials".
I know plenty of people who've worked in plenty of industries for far more than 13 years, and their opinions are terrible and uninformed, and I wouldn't go to them to seek advice in anything but how to be bitter and short-sighted. Fortunately, KaVir is not one of these people, but such statements really don't mean very much at all. Let me evaluate statements based on the statements' worth, not based on the number of certificates, years, or other "gold stars" obtained by the speaker. If what you're saying is true, it should hold up on its own merits, ne?
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quixadhal
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#81 id:36591 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 2:10 am
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David Haley said:quixadhal said:A true sandbox game can only work with lots of players (who write the story themselves via PvP conquest), or with the kind of really good goal-driven AI we don't yet have available to us without a LOT of work and CPU power.
I'd like to hear more about the AI comment. What makes you say that the CPU is a limiting factor? I'm tempted to believe that the computational resources are actually relatively cheap, and it's figuring out how to model the problem that is vastly more complicated.
You are correct, in that the core problem is trying to come up with a solid model.
Nevertheless, one can make a pretty good AI if you have sufficient resources, however it involves doing extremely complex evaluations of current state vs. goal state systems. Without a good model, that means lots of brute-force evaluations and very ugly state machines. :(
Consider chess. Chess is a fairly simple game, with well known rules, played on a small fixed board. Despite that, we've only recently gotten super-computers powerful enough to beat master-level human opponents. A MUD is far more complicated, and trying to model the goals of dozens (or hundreds!) of different AI personalities, mixed among hundreds (or thousands!) of NPC instances, and dynamically adjusting this to the changes that players themselves introduce with their activities.... that's tricky.
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Dean
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#82 id:36592 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 2:17 am
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quixadhal said:
David Haley said:quixadhal said:A true sandbox game can only work with lots of players (who write the story themselves via PvP conquest), or with the kind of really good goal-driven AI we don't yet have available to us without a LOT of work and CPU power.
I'd like to hear more about the AI comment. What makes you say that the CPU is a limiting factor? I'm tempted to believe that the computational resources are actually relatively cheap, and it's figuring out how to model the problem that is vastly more complicated.
You are correct, in that the core problem is trying to come up with a solid model.
Nevertheless, one can make a pretty good AI if you have sufficient resources, however it involves doing extremely complex evaluations of current state vs. goal state systems. Without a good model, that means lots of brute-force evaluations and very ugly state machines. :(
Consider chess. Chess is a fairly simple game, with well known rules, played on a small fixed board. Despite that, we've only recently gotten super-computers powerful enough to beat master-level human opponents. A MUD is far more complicated, and trying to model the goals of dozens (or hundreds!) of different AI personalities, mixed among hundreds (or thousands!) of NPC instances, and dynamically adjusting this to the changes that players themselves introduce with their activities.... that's tricky.
I thought modern chess programs had the capacity to beat master-level human opponents on their hardest setting, regardless as to whether the program is run on a super computer or not?
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Sandi
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#83 id:36593 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 3:17 am
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David Haley said:
The credentials game is an exceedingly dangerous one to play; I don't think anybody here wants to start getting into the business of evaluating people's opinions based on "credentials".
I was referring to KaVir's experience, not his credentials. But if one has neither, I can see the danger in making evaluations.
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KaVir
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#84 id:36595 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 5:29 am
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David Haley said:The credentials game is an exceedingly dangerous one to play; I don't think anybody here wants to start getting into the business of evaluating people's opinions based on "credentials".
I'd appreciate it if we could try and keep a little context, as I think my comment may have been misinterpretted. It was suggested that I couldn't be very good at my job if I didn't care about my industry. My response was: "There is a lot of crossover between software industries, and while specialised knowledge can give you an edge in one or another, it's not at all uncommon for people to move between them. As someone who has worked in the aerospace, telecoms and medical industries over the last 13 years, I'm more interested in projects than industry".
My point wasn't about credentials, it was simply that having spent quite a lot of time working in multiple industries, and having seen the similarities between them, I've come to care more about individual projects than the overall industries - and that I disagree with the suggestion that this makes me bad at my job.
If you look over my other comments, you'll see that I recommend against accepting views based purely on credentials. Elanthis repeatedly refers to commercial video game developers as 'pros', and they are - but not in our field. There are no doubts some useful bits and pieces we can pick up from them, because there is indeed some crossover between their field and ours, but I think it's a very bad idea to blindly follow their methods. There is a huge difference between developing a hobby mud and developing a commercial video game, and I think it's worth understanding those differences before attempting to copy any of their principles.
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Mudder
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#85 id:36597 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 7:46 am
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Wow, so much has been said. So many golden nuggets(or perhaps entire mountains) of insight. I think most of you have made excellent points. Though I dare say the only reason this thread has gotten this large is due to miscommunication/interpretation and repeated explanations.
I planned to write a long response to everyone, addressing the points where people seemed to "not be getting it" or misunderstanding the point but now I'm tired and the conversation evolved greatly in the last page.
Overall I tend to agree with elanthis' points and overall strategies. They, I feel, will work best for me. 
Thank you all for invaluable insight that will undoubtedly guide me not in just my favorite hobby but perhaps in other areas aswell.
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David Haley
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#86 id:36601 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 10:34 am
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quixadhal said:
Nevertheless, one can make a pretty good AI if you have sufficient resources, however it involves doing extremely complex evaluations of current state vs. goal state systems. Without a good model, that means lots of brute-force evaluations and very ugly state machines. :(
The problem is the size of the state space, and the difficulty in coming up with a heuristic to test the current state against goal states without traversing all the states in between. The former is an algorithmic problem in that you have a very large number of states to chunk through; the latter is more of a human problem in that it requires a fair bit of smarts to come up with a good heuristic (or a good heuristic generation via machine learning, etc.).
quixadhal said:Consider chess. Chess is a fairly simple game, with well known rules, played on a small fixed board. Despite that, we've only recently gotten super-computers powerful enough to beat master-level human opponents. A MUD is far more complicated, and trying to model the goals of dozens (or hundreds!) of different AI personalities, mixed among hundreds (or thousands!) of NPC instances, and dynamically adjusting this to the changes that players themselves introduce with their activities.... that's tricky.
I'm not sure I agree that a MUD is more complicated. I would say that the rules are less clear, but the state space is quite a bit smaller than chess, I would imagine, and it's probably easier to come up with heuristics. I think the difficulty is in modeling from a human perspective, not chunking through the numbers. Indeed, as Dean said, we can in fact construct chess programs that rip through human players that run on commodity hardware. I really don't think that the CPU is a limiting factor when it comes to modeling goal-driven AI in games: rather, it's in figuring out how to model the state space and coming up with decent heuristics.
Sandi said:I was referring to KaVir's experience, not his credentials. But if one has neither, I can see the danger in making evaluations.
Then it's a good thing I went on to cover experience in the very next sentence. 
KaVir said:I'd appreciate it if we could try and keep a little context, as I think my comment may have been misinterpretted.
For what it's worth I don't object to your formulation; I was objecting to the rejection of one person's opinion merely because another person had worked in several fields for a while.
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Tyche
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#87 id:36603 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 11:01 am
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quixadhal said:
Nevertheless, one can make a pretty good AI if you have sufficient resources, however it involves doing extremely complex evaluations of current state vs. goal state systems. Without a good model, that means lots of brute-force evaluations and very ugly state machines. :(
You can't often compete with human brains using the same rules.
No need to create complex models, when we can cheat. :-)
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For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
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Sandi
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#88 id:36605 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 1:52 pm
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David Haley said:quixadhal said:Consider chess. Chess is a fairly simple game, with well known rules, played on a small fixed board.
I'm not sure I agree that a MUD is more complicated. I would say that the rules are less clear, but the state space is quite a bit smaller than chess, I would imagine, and it's probably easier to come up with heuristics. I think the difficulty is in modeling from a human perspective, not chunking through the numbers. Indeed, as Dean said, we can in fact construct chess programs that rip through human players that run on commodity hardware. I really don't think that the CPU is a limiting factor when it comes to modeling goal-driven AI in games: rather, it's in figuring out how to model the state space and coming up with decent heuristics.
With this I agree. I only wish MUDs had the complexity of chess. I've been trying to implement a similar challenge for years, but I think I'm still falling quite short. In chess, at the master level, a single pawn move can make or break the game for you. MUDs are much more forgiving of each choice, and depend on an averaging of all choices made. And each choice can be evaluated within a much smaller framework.
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
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quixadhal
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#89 id:36613 Posted Oct 21, 2009, 7:10 pm
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Sandi said:David Haley said:quixadhal said:Consider chess. Chess is a fairly simple game, with well known rules, played on a small fixed board.
I'm not sure I agree that a MUD is more complicated. I would say that the rules are less clear, but the state space is quite a bit smaller than chess, I would imagine, and it's probably easier to come up with heuristics. I think the difficulty is in modeling from a human perspective, not chunking through the numbers. Indeed, as Dean said, we can in fact construct chess programs that rip through human players that run on commodity hardware. I really don't think that the CPU is a limiting factor when it comes to modeling goal-driven AI in games: rather, it's in figuring out how to model the state space and coming up with decent heuristics.
With this I agree. I only wish MUDs had the complexity of chess. I've been trying to implement a similar challenge for years, but I think I'm still falling quite short. In chess, at the master level, a single pawn move can make or break the game for you. MUDs are much more forgiving of each choice, and depend on an averaging of all choices made. And each choice can be evaluated within a much smaller framework.
A MUD does have all that complexity, and more. Just don't think of it from the player's greedy "must hit max level with ub3r gear" mindset. Consider, for a moment, the life of the various NPC agents, since those are the beasties we're trying to develop AI to run.
First of all, we have to decide if there is an overall intelligence to the world, or not. In some cases, the world itself may be designed to smite down the players -- you can think of that as having one or more gods in charge. If so, those entities have some goals which they manipulate the world itself to try and achieve. If the players start doing things which affect their reaching their goal state, they may start attacking the players (bad weather, poor harvests, nudging orcs out of the mountains and down towards the players, etc).
If not, then you have gestalt intelligences such as nation states. A nation will typically have the goal of becoming larger and more powerful. It may have an aggressive persona, where it goes to war with neighboring states to take their land or resources or it may try to form alliances. Either way, it will manipulate things within its borders to try and achieve those goals. It does that by offering players quests of a particular kind, attacking players who work against it, adjusting supply/demand/pricing, and yes, mobilizing troops. It may be working for, against, or independently of the gods (if they exist).
That kind of thing goes down to villages, shrines, natural wonders (perhaps that cave really DOES want to eat you?), tribes of goblins, etc. A tribe of goblins might have the primary goal of getting metal weapons and armour which they lack the ability to forge themselves. They may set up a camp near a trade road to try and steal such things, or kill travellers and take them. If they grow larger and become well armed, they may move closer to a village to increase their chances of looting. If they are attacked and driven out, they may move further out into the wilds to recover.
Then you have the individual NPCs, each of which should have some role to play. A plain old villager isn't really. Some may be traders, some might be builders, blacksmiths, scholars, adventurers, farmers.... every NPC has some simple goal for getting through the day. If the fishing is poor, fisherman AI would force them to wander further away from town, and the consequences for the players are higher prices for fish, a more difficult time finding a teacher should they wish to learn fishing, and perhaps additional opportunities for questing. If fisherman are wandering further out of town, they have a higher chance of being killed (find out what happened to Bob quest), or of seeing things which get whispered in the taverns (I saw a black horseman on the road, tall as a tree and faster than Ted drinks beer! -- quest).
Of course, as Tyche says, we don't NEED to model the AI for all those things. We can cheat. I'm just pointing out that the potential complexity of your world isn't limited in the way chess is. There are no fixed rules that the pieces have to follow, and if you wanted to put the time and CPU horsepower to it, even a single item sale to a vendor in one town might affect the odds of a war happening.
EDIT: I should probably also say that I'm coming at this from the perspective of a MUD which maintains state. Obviously, you lose a LOT of complexity and opportunity if your world has a giant reset button that goes off every few hours.
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Last edited Oct 21, 2009, 7:11 pm by quixadhal
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