NPC AI Features

[redacted various things sent to team]

Summary: Track the interactions with the NPC on an individual level, and have that information be used to modify the game quests, dialogue, and other things.

• You could also add in some extra things, such as knowledge, skill, humour, love, or anything you can think of.

• The assistant would be given instructions, and part of it would be explaining the various affinity values, and what they mean. You would pull them from the database each time.

• During the conversation (each message), or after each convo ends. You would use another assistant to analyze the conversation, and assess how it went. That assistant would then return a new integer on the affinity values, either + , minus or 0. There would be a limit on the max and min it could deduct at once (per convo) or per period (day/week/month), that prevents people quickly changing or levelling up (or down) the stats. I.e these are long term relationships. This assistant would also create a summary of the conversation with a max character limit, and save that to the database.

• Each time a conversation starts, it would also pass in the previous conversation summary, so it has long term context. As above, it would append to that, again only instructed to include important things that could be relevant to future conversations, and again with a max limit (which maybe could increase over time to take into account super long term history).

• You can then start building in things such as better or worse prices for NPCs based on the affinity values.

• You could have quests that are either different or totally unavailable if you are too low on the values.

• Where NPCs are friends/family with each other (say father and daughter), it would also make sense that there would also be a flow on effect in some circumstances too, so if you have very low affinity with the daughter, the dad may not like you either (although it may be possible to change it still). They could also share information between each other (I heard from ‘x’ that you were ‘y’.

• Now, imagine there is a cut scene, and you see someone steal something, he runs into you. He says ‘Please, it’s for my daughter, she is starving, don’t tell them where I went’.

• Either a bit after, Guard riken comes (OR, you seek him out), and you have the chance to either say you have no idea/didn’t see anything, OR you tell him where he went, OR you tell him the wrong direction. In this case, if you reveal the true direction, guard rickan likes you more, plus the other guy may go to jail (he hates u), and his daughter might die or go to orphanage (she also doesn’t like u). If u say u don’t know, it’s small negative for rickan, and positive (but less) for the thief. This would be implemented as it’s own assistant, with instructions to just ask about the thief, where it went, etc, and again, the true direction is known, so it can process and return the correct affinity modification. However, given he survived, u may then later find him and he gives u quest. Later on, I mean months or a year down the track, this guy is out of jail (or never was), and again there is a significant difference in the game for you.

• You can also do things with the aggregate affinity. If the average affinity is >=X across the entire user base, it may then change the plot of where the game goes. This could help with elections, voting, how popular someone is, and whatever else u can think of.

• You could also store base things about the player, such if they are a ‘good/friendly’ person, vs ‘mean/ruthless’, in addition to their stats and achievements (stored elsewhere, which could also be fed into the input.

• You could also keep track of what players are friends, based on how often they party, are near each other, visit each others apt etc. In that case, there could be some small affinity modification, or references to other players in the conversations with NPCs.

• Overall, the game should follow an overarching story, which is shaped by the players. You have said this of course. Use the AI to take in inputs, and generate quest lines and story arcs (both minor, and permanent changes).

• The game should play out like a story, and let the players guide it, rather than the traditional studio driven story. Of course, u guide it, but the pathways can be decided by the players through conversations, actions, gameplay, and economy.

Pay NPCs for hints on various things (some free for new players/basic info).

• In general, build randomness and unpredictability into the game, in terms of events, quests etc.

• Could also track the last time the NPC saw the player, and key stats about the player at that time, can help with opening message. Could also reference if the player has achieved something big since last seen, or they are wearing something different (“Woah, nice new cloak!”.

• The player could enter their age and/or interests/experience, so the NPCs could tailor their dialogue to match the player's knowledge and interest (this could either be from interactions with NPC’s, or adding to the users settings).
  Also, imagine an NPC asks your favourite colour. Again, they are building up a profile of you. Later on, if they buy you a present, or throw you a party, they could make the balloons or the present that colour.