Next Level Immersion

leamese

Hi,

What am i talking about? Ways to interact with the world that feel authentic, unique, grounded, and the technology now allows it. Think BIG.

1. NPC In-Game awareness. The NPC sees/knows what you are carrying, sees what type class you are, sees you are holding a sword or book, aware off the weather, current state off the surroundings, the level of the node, possible siege or triggered events, what kind of monsters are out there and respond containing all that info. It is more immersive because the text will differ more. as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCjosz1vOA
2. Talking (trough your mic) to NPC's and get a well-tought out response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQq8M88s3BU
3. PvE monster movement. The creatures themselves could learn to walk. Have a sense their limbs, feet, hands, torso, their abilities, use their wings, tail.. and play with the reward/punishment to create sets of 'modus operandi'. Seems like an impossible task for every monster, but imagine a legendary boss. it could be trained to avoid damage, live long, do a lot of dmg, use the environment, who will it target first? who last?.. and no fight will ever be the same. Kinda, depending on the level the boss is trained at, you can scale in difficulty. you could have the same monster trained in different ways to suit a lvl 5 dungeon, spicing things up. basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_4BPjLBF4E
   Who knows, a group of boars might migrate with the changing of the seasons. they have a will of their own now.

So the development is shifting more to molding the AI to suit the purpose. This is only a short list. I believe using AI is the future of gaming, and those who do not implement it.. stay behind. AI is till in its baby shoes but the tech is advancing. If ashes is successful, maybe in 5-8 years?

What does the future of gaming look like for you guys? Regarding immersion & MMO's?

Azherae

It looks like MineCraft + Monster Hunter.

Looking forward to MMORPGs catching up soon.

Ludullu

Yes, good AI would always be great. Sooner or later it will be.

Depraved

leamese wrote: »

Hi,

What am i talking about? Ways to interact with the world that feel authentic, unique, grounded, and the technology now allows it. Think BIG.

1. NPC In-Game awareness. The NPC sees/knows what you are carrying, sees what type class you are, sees you are holding a sword or book, aware off the weather, current state off the surroundings, the level of the node, possible siege or triggered events, what kind of monsters are out there and respond containing all that info. It is more immersive because the text will differ more. as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCjosz1vOA
2. Talking (trough your mic) to NPC's and get a well-tought out response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQq8M88s3BU
3. PvE monster movement. The creatures themselves could learn to walk. Have a sense their limbs, feet, hands, torso, their abilities, use their wings, tail.. and play with the reward/punishment to create sets of 'modus operandi'. Seems like an impossible task for every monster, but imagine a legendary boss. it could be trained to avoid damage, live long, do a lot of dmg, use the environment, who will it target first? who last?.. and no fight will ever be the same. Kinda, depending on the level the boss is trained at, you can scale in difficulty. you could have the same monster trained in different ways to suit a lvl 5 dungeon, spicing things up. basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_4BPjLBF4E
   Who knows, a group of boars might migrate with the changing of the seasons. they have a will of their own now.

So the development is shifting more to molding the AI to suit the purpose. This is only a short list. I believe using AI is the future of gaming, and those who do not implement it.. stay behind. AI is till in its baby shoes but the tech is advancing. If ashes is successful, maybe in 5-8 years?

What does the future of gaming look like for you guys? Regarding immersion & MMO's?

you dont even need ai to do all that. "regular" programming can do it

Ace1234

Agreed, there is a lot that can be done with npc interactions.

CROW3

You can spend (or waste) hours in RDR2 following NPCs through their day & night cycle. They have jobs, preferences, and plenty of proximity interactions. It’s a master class in immersive NPC scripting.

Sunboy

Jumping from one game to a different game with the same avatar but not going to Windows. Progress is made and saved from all games.

Fantmx

This is the next leap. Utility based AI was all the rage with EQNext.

leamese

Ace1234 wrote: »

Agreed, there is a lot that can be done with npc interactions.

Why would you waste all the time doing it manually specific for each NPC, when u can train a 'brain' and let it loose.

Ace1234

@leamese

Why would you waste all the time doing it manually specific for each NPC, when u can train a 'brain' and let it loose.

I wasn't really implying that. Either way, those 2 things aren't really mutually exclusive. Its important to set perameters and establish some kind of structure for how you want the gameplay to feel, which could be included in the design of the "brain", potentially resulting in those specific curated npc interactions that are intended. The "brain" could potentially just enhance these intended interactions and experiences. I pretty much agree with you in the end, for this topic.

PherPhur

So I sort of lurked in on a reddit thread about this with a bunch of programmers. From what I gathered its FAR too resource intensive to train AI in 3D environments, its much more reasonable to just make decision trees and make custom animations.

Apparently there's an incredible amount of issues that happen when training AI too, it's very prone to bugs. Either way I'm all for Intrepid devoting a lot of time and resources into really making the AI spectacular. If mobs were to move about the world "intelligently" in regards to seasons, nearby players, other mobs, triggers, ect would be really really great.

daveywavey

leamese wrote: »

Talking (trough your mic) to NPC's and get a well-tought out response

Ohhh man, I hope not. That'd be creepy.

leamese

PherPhur wrote: »

So I sort of lurked in on a reddit thread about this with a bunch of programmers. From what I gathered its FAR too resource intensive to train AI in 3D environments, its much more reasonable to just make decision trees and make custom animations.

Apparently there's an incredible amount of issues that happen when training AI too, it's very prone to bugs. Either way I'm all for Intrepid devoting a lot of time and resources into really making the AI spectacular. If mobs were to move about the world "intelligently" in regards to seasons, nearby players, other mobs, triggers, ect would be really really great.

Interesting. Maybe it is too soon to train an AI in 3D environments. But the tech will improve, and GPU's(systems) should get cheaper, with newer releases. Someday!

Azherae

leamese wrote: »

PherPhur wrote: »

So I sort of lurked in on a reddit thread about this with a bunch of programmers. From what I gathered its FAR too resource intensive to train AI in 3D environments, its much more reasonable to just make decision trees and make custom animations.

Apparently there's an incredible amount of issues that happen when training AI too, it's very prone to bugs. Either way I'm all for Intrepid devoting a lot of time and resources into really making the AI spectacular. If mobs were to move about the world "intelligently" in regards to seasons, nearby players, other mobs, triggers, ect would be really really great.

Interesting. Maybe it is too soon to train an AI in 3D environments. But the tech will improve, and GPU's(systems) should get cheaper, with newer releases. Someday!

As one of that type of programmer, this tech is old.

Games don't make good AI behaviours for mobs moreso because players complain about it than because they can't do it.

Modeling realistic behaviour doesn't require much AI because the AI's job is to match or come up with a new survival strategy. Around 80% of the time, its strategy ruins gameplay for an MMO for the sort of person who can't keep up with the AI's decision making.

Training AI on modeled behaviours of the other type isn't necessary, you can just build them, and at most you'd get some benefit from putting them up against players, but at that point you already gathered your dataset from the players themselves.

TheDarkSorcerer

I like these ideas. I would like to see more of this in AOC. The current state of AOC feels very static. Beautiful environments, but enemies looks pretty dead to me. Watching today's livestream, the enemies barely react to Steven standing 5ft away. I like what they did in Hogwarts Legacy, if you attack an enemy in a camp, the enemy will shout to the rest of the camp they have an invader which will cause everyone to come out and defend against you.