Mission Generation and Interactive Fiction...
by Ted Southard · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 04/07/2003 (8:16 am) · 2 replies
What I wanted to do was get people's thoughts on how to generate missions for MMO's. Is anyone working on this kind of thing? So far, I've been able to come up with something pretty much on par with the mission generator for Anarchy Online, which gives little specific storyline and assigns a rather simplistic task to the user to go do something. Of course, I have yet to figure out a way to get the room generation done correctly(I have it output to a text file, but the rooms come out all wrong), but what I'm wondering about is story.
My idea is this: A player can get a mission to do from a simple task("Go gather 30 squirrel skins for me for 25 credits?") all the way up to an epic quest(multi-session, multi-goal, complex NPC interactions, and extensive use of stealth and "intellectual" skills to solve problems, because the outcome depends on your solutions).
Is there anyone out there working on Interactive Fiction that has the same kind of ideas for mission generation and "flexible" missions with multiple possible endings?
My idea is this: A player can get a mission to do from a simple task("Go gather 30 squirrel skins for me for 25 credits?") all the way up to an epic quest(multi-session, multi-goal, complex NPC interactions, and extensive use of stealth and "intellectual" skills to solve problems, because the outcome depends on your solutions).
Is there anyone out there working on Interactive Fiction that has the same kind of ideas for mission generation and "flexible" missions with multiple possible endings?
About the author
Started with indie games over a decade ago, and now creates tools and tech for games. Currently working as a contractor for startups and game studios.
#2
1) The MG has to create the NPC's specific to the quest, and fill their dialog texts with the appropriate dialogs.
2) The rooms have to be generated, but that leads us to the next part...
3) Triggers, NPC placement, Item placement, etc. Both within the rooms, or without.
These three areas are all tied together, and there's a few problem areas I see within this:
1) How do we create triggers programmatically at runtime to be placed inside a premade room?
2) What is the best method to create the story from "story fragments", and actually have those fragments create corresponding NPC's, items, and dialog?
For #2, I'm convinced that the "story fragments" will need to have data tags behind them telling the Mission Generator what that particular fragment needs to accomplish it's part of the story. Items are a fairly straightforward matter of generating that item at the appropriate stat levels(which can be computed at runtime). NPC's levels and "AI Level" is the same as the items, though generating dialogs for them is going to be tricky.
#1 is a large problem, and I'm sure there's a few other problems lurking in the theory of using premade rooms as building blocks for player-specific levels.
04/07/2003 (3:29 pm)
Well, you see, that's the thing. It really isn't the hardest part, mostly because of how it's generated. Everything ties together inside the Mission Generator, for example:1) The MG has to create the NPC's specific to the quest, and fill their dialog texts with the appropriate dialogs.
2) The rooms have to be generated, but that leads us to the next part...
3) Triggers, NPC placement, Item placement, etc. Both within the rooms, or without.
These three areas are all tied together, and there's a few problem areas I see within this:
1) How do we create triggers programmatically at runtime to be placed inside a premade room?
2) What is the best method to create the story from "story fragments", and actually have those fragments create corresponding NPC's, items, and dialog?
For #2, I'm convinced that the "story fragments" will need to have data tags behind them telling the Mission Generator what that particular fragment needs to accomplish it's part of the story. Items are a fairly straightforward matter of generating that item at the appropriate stat levels(which can be computed at runtime). NPC's levels and "AI Level" is the same as the items, though generating dialogs for them is going to be tricky.
#1 is a large problem, and I'm sure there's a few other problems lurking in the theory of using premade rooms as building blocks for player-specific levels.
Torque Owner Christopher Dapo
I could help you out if you'd like, at least in the thinking process of how to make it work smoothly. These are the type of things I'm used to figuring out anyways :D
I'll keep an eye on this thread so let me know ;)
- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus