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Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Btw, do you know what I think is the closest thing to a role-playing game
> > among computer games? The Sims, and its sequels.
> Is there any actual game involved there? Everything I've always seen made it
> look like there's no goal other than to create people you then beat up.
At least in the original The Sims 2 you decide what type of life your sim
will have, and the core goal is to get to the top in that. For example, if
your life orientation is political, the ultimate goal is to become the
president. Similar goals for other orientations. (You always start from
the very bottom of the heap.)
Of course one common goal to all is to become rich and build yourself
a huge mansion. :)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> At least in the original The Sims 2 you decide what type of life your sim
> will have, and the core goal is to get to the top in that.
I see. So there's a level of competition, so to speak, from NPCs (or
non-present characters or something), not unlike SimCity or some such. OK.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New wrote:
> I see. So there's a level of competition, so to speak, from NPCs (or
> non-present characters or something), not unlike SimCity or some such. OK.
Not really. Characters all have short-term wants (things like buying a
couch, or having sex in public), and their lifetime aspiration is
basically a really big one of those (becoming Pres, etc). Still, it's
completely optional.
Sims is actually a great example of pure role-play, because there is no
meaning or value except what you assign to it. Your goal could be to
make everyone happy, or to torture and torment them until they're all
insane or dead. The game doesn't reward either method, or any other,
but rather permits and facilitates you in your quest for whatever it is
you're after.
--
Chambers
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Warp <war### [at] tag povray org> wrote:
> Btw, do you know what I think is the closest thing to a role-playing game
> among computer games? The Sims, and its sequels.
>
> The only thing it doesn't have is dungeon crawling and monster fighting,
> but otherwise it's difficult to get any closer to actual role-playing in
> a computer game.
I'd rather watch a virtual aquarium all day long or even play Wii Sports than
watch this virtual soap.
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nemesis <nam### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> [-- text/plain, encoding 8bit, charset: iso-8859-1, 13 lines --]
> Warp <war### [at] tag povray org> wrote:
> > Btw, do you know what I think is the closest thing to a role-playing game
> > among computer games? The Sims, and its sequels.
> >
> > The only thing it doesn't have is dungeon crawling and monster fighting,
> > but otherwise it's difficult to get any closer to actual role-playing in
> > a computer game.
> I'd rather watch a virtual aquarium all day long or even play Wii Sports than
> watch this virtual soap.
You don't have to watch it. You can play it! :)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> You don't have to watch it. You can play it! :)
Soaps would be a lot more fun if you had the ability to punish the
characters involved ;)
--
Chambers
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Warp wrote:
> clipka <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>> The irony about this all is that what most computer players consider
>> "role-playing elements" was actually adapted by D&D from the older "fantasy
>> wargames" genre to combine with *actual* role-playing - of which the majority
>> of computer games have virtually *nothing*.
>
> I wouldn't say "nothing". While it's technically too difficult to have
> the same kind of freedom as a tabletop game run by a human DM, some computer
> RPGs do have some variation depending on your choices.
>
> The most typical variation in computer games is based on your "karma"
> (for the lack of a better name): If you do good things and make choices
> which show compassion and empathy, NPCs will behave differently towards
> you than if you act in evil and selfish ways and act like a bully. In the
> worst extreme you will be a wanted criminal who can't even enter cities
> (unless using stealth) because all the guards will immediately attack you.
>
Think most games have this to "some" extent now. EQ1 didn't, EQ2 does.
You can change cities without too much trouble, if they are "allied"
cities. Some are neutral and stay hostile only until you gain enough
faction that they start to ignore you. If you go from a Qeynos faction
city to one allied with Freeport, you have to use stealth, enter via the
sewers, and dodge city guards. You "can" gain some limited faction in
the outer guards, that protect Commonlands and Antonica, and this avoid
being killed on sight by "those" guards, but you have to betray your
home city, be exiled to Haven, then regain faction in your new city
(which loses you faction in the opposite ones in the process). Its
nearly impossible to gain faction with the guard in an apposing city (or
at least enough to matter), but, you can do some quests for a few places
like the mage guild, and others in those cities, and stop them from
attacking you on site, once you get "into" the city.
Even the new Neverwinter Nights releases include new things, like
building and maintaining keeps and guilds, which means hiring people,
and keeping them, etc. Its likely to get more and more complex as AI
goes from simpler scripting to more detailed stuff. So far, that is just
in how they act in fights, and the like, but, at some point, its likely
to find its way into NPC interaction too.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcable com> wrote:
> Its likely to get more and more complex as AI
> goes from simpler scripting to more detailed stuff.
It's rather telling how difficult good AI programming is (especially for
real-time games, where you have a small slice of a 20-millisecond time
period to calculate all the AI of all the NPCs currently interacting with
something in the game) when some games boast about having new and innovative
AI, but when you play the game, it's nothing impressive, really. Might be
slightly better than in older games, but you can still notice the patterns
and the "artificial stupidity".
What is really happening is that the developers took some time and effort
to get a few steps forward in game AI programming, which was really difficult
and required a lot of work. Thus they themselves see it as a huge effort and
a big step forward, so they naturally use it to advertise the game. However,
the players cannot see the amount of effort and code put into it, they only
see the noticeable patterns and stupidity of the AI, and thus they are usually
not very impressed.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> real-time games, where you have a small slice of a 20-millisecond time
> period to calculate all the AI of all the NPCs currently interacting with
How does one normally handle this? I would think it might be best to cycle
through (say) three sets of nearby AI, evaluating a third of the AIs and
taking up the whole amount of time. It's not like real humans don't have a
60ms delay in their reaction times. :-)
I've been amused when I noticed (for example) that the AIs in the older
thief games keep moving when they're far away, but they stop walking. As in,
they'll just skate back and forth until you get close. There's only a couple
places in the game with line of sight straight enough to see it, tho.
And in bioshock, it's not unusual to hack a turret, walk away, come back 20
minutes later, and find a big pile of bodies and a half-broken turret,
indicating that the game at least *seems* to keep running all the AIs and
spawning enemies even in areas where you aren't.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Warp <war### [at] tag povray org> wrote:
> Btw, do you know what I think is the closest thing to a role-playing game
> among computer games? The Sims, and its sequels.
I guess so, yes.
> The only thing it doesn't have is dungeon crawling and monster fighting,
> but otherwise it's difficult to get any closer to actual role-playing in
> a computer game.
Well, in that case it would even qualify as *fantasy* role-playing. But even
without the fantasy part, it still constitutes role-playing.
That's some other strange association people have: RPG == fantasy.
SciFi-RGBs have proven this connotation to be wrong.
This reminds me of a German point-and-click adventure, "The Book of Unwritten
Tales". Set in a fantasy world, one scene to encounter in the course of the
storyline is a magician and a merchant busying themselves with a role-play game
called "WoB: World of Bureaucracy" :D
(I don't know if there's an English version out there, but in case there is: If
you loved stuff like the famous Monkey Island series, then this is definitely
one to go and get!)
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