[MUD-Dev] believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation)

[Amanda Walker]

<EdNote: Minor edits made, brunt not changed>

On May 27, 2004, at 11:34 AM, Freeman, Jeff wrote:
> From: Amanda Walker

>> This, I think, is one of the areas where the movie/blockbuster
>> model of the gaming industry misses the mark pretty severely.
>> MMO games aren't movies.  I would argue that, regardless of
>> Bartle type, they are closest to theme parks or clubs.

> They aren't movies, theme parks *or* clubs.  They are MMO games.

True.  However, human nature being what it is, I think that MMO
designers ignore to their peril other MM constructed environments
which are more profitable, and appeal to larger audiences, than
current MMO games (including EQ, still by far the most profitable of
the bunch).

>> How many people go to Disney World (or any amusement park) alone?

> ...and stand in front of the tea-cups shouting "Looking for
> group!"  See?  Different.

... because they come with a pre-existing group.  As do many, many
MMO gamers (hence the long recent discussion about grouping and
level catch-up).

>> Neither do I think (as the poster I was originally replying to
>> suggested) that employing actors is cost prohibitive by its very
>> nature.  Disney, smaller amusement parks, or even themed
>> restaurants are counterexamples to that claim.

> No, they are counterexamples to the claim that it is cost
> prohibitive to hire actors to work in Disney World, smaller
> amusement parks or even themed restaurants.

The claim was "hiring actors is a priori too expensive."  In many
contexts, which I argue are *more* analogous to MMOs than Hollywood
movies are, this claim is demonstrably false.  I am making no direct
claims about whether it would be similarly false for MMOs -- I am
suggesting that the issue is not as pat as it may seem, and that
it's interesting to think about how MMOs could be constructed with
larger (but cheaper per capita) staffs.

> It sounds like this business plan goes something like: "First,
> re-envision the industry and redefine the product from the ground
> up.  Second, hire some actors, and restructure your company!  Now,
> we're almost ready to begin making something, which we will sell
> for more money than other MMO games which do not have human
> actors... Like a theme park!  Oh, and I'll need to be in charge of
> what we're doing and how we're doing it, not the dev team."

Not at all.  I don't think any current MMO company is in any
position to try a different approach.  They're all locked into "a
couple dozen peoples' job is to keep a hundred thousand people
entertained enough to keep the cash register going kaching every
month."  And they all hit the same walls, as we've discussed here ad
nauseum.

I think that re-envisioning the industry is not necessarily a bad
idea. MMO games going broke left and right, ever-increasing player
expectations putting ever-increasing pressure on understaffed
support and live teams, developers spending years of sweat equity
building games it turns out few people want to play (but give great
demo screenshots at E3), and so on...

If that's the kind of MMO framework you think the world needs, more
power to you.

> And for *what* exactly?  In spite of what the commercials suggest,
> these days you stand in line to put your kid on Mickey's lap and
> you pay extra for the photo.

> Yeah, it's a human actor in the suit.  Wait in line for an hour or
> so, see an actor for 2 minutes and then it's NEXT! and you're back
> out on the lawn.

> Sorry, what is it we're supposed to learn from that?

Among other things, that Disney makes metric buttloads of money
doing so.  Bad actors still trump good animatronics.

Amanda Walker
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