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Messages - Madcrimson

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1
Wish list / Creating smart NPCs
« on: June 13, 2005, 09:49:42 am »
Maybe it\'s me, but I\'ve not been able to exchange more than a few sentences with ALICE before getting annoyed.

I guess to provide good natural language capacities there are several choices to look at:

1. The talking head experiments by Luc Steels et. al. showed very promising results. The main idea is to talk about things in view space during a guessing game. The agents build up discrimination trees during subsequent games and so come to a more and more sufficient understanding of each others utterances. What I most like about this approach is, that
a) the agents can be trained by the players so the devs don\'t have to do all the teaching, programming etc.,
b) the language will be the language used by the players and even multiple words (e.g. table, Tisch and mesa) can be used to reference the same thing and
c) synonyms, hyponyms etc. are sorted into a taxonomy naturally.

2. A (top level) ontology like DOLCE, WordNet, SUMO, OpenCyC, BFO etc. can be incorporated and fleshed out to look up the meaning of things. This will  definitively be a loooot of work but may provide the NSCs with a certain understanding of the players\' utterances.
I\'d prefer to use DOLCE+WordNet since DOLCE is a very clean structured ontology and provided in KIF and OWL. WordNet is quite large and there is an adaptation from WordNet to DOLCE provice, discussed in Gangemi et.al., \"Sweetening Ontologies with DOLCE\", 2002.
Also one should take a look at http://wonderweb.semanticweb.org where the deliverables D17  and D18 are about the same topic.
But enough reference spamming for now... ;)

Of course, the best would be to combine both approaches to make the NPCs really smart. AFAIK nobody has done this by now :-D
 
So much from me,
MC

2
Wish list /
« on: May 09, 2005, 04:21:37 pm »
Ok, some comments are due :)

1. Why use a spell if you have a skill? IMO a prospect spell is a very good idea. Albeit it shouldn\'t be needed to prospect but only offer another way of doing so.

2. Having a /prospect command would force me to walk around using the command over and over again which makes no sense to me. I think it should be a toggle like running.

Another suggestion towards spell based mining: Maybe one can use skill to find surface ore / resources and a spell to detect burried resources which have to excavated?
But of course in a real world there are cues pointing towards burried resoures like unearthed sample, special kinds of ground etc...

MC.

3
Newbie Help (Start Here) /
« on: May 09, 2005, 03:58:32 pm »
Ahem.. Brog, you don\'t have to buy two picks. You just have to wield it in the left hand - despite what the game tells you.

If you don\'t drag the pick to the right hand but instead over your body it will be placed in the appropriate han slot. Just keep it empty.

C.

4
General Discussion /
« on: May 09, 2005, 03:52:40 pm »
Seytra said most of the things I intended to say so thanks for sparing me the hassle :)
But...

Quote
Originally posted by Seytra
@ Xordan: The problem is that I have seen people challenge without holding any weapon, only to click a quickbutton (equip swords, attack) after the duel has been accepted. Even if not, the skill level makes the difference, not the weapon, and since weapons seem to be given out in great quantities to newbies, it isn\'t a real way to judge actual strength by. :)


I read with surprise that weapons are being given out. I had to kill quadrillion fantazillion rats to buy my equipment. Did this change during the last week?

But to stick to the topic: The random challenges are really anoying and I, too, turned auto-decline on. But I didn\'t have to read the forums first... because browsing the options is one of the first things I do when starting a new game. And once you saw that there is a built-in popup blocker in the game, one uses it naturally ;)

BTW, how can I assign buttons to things like equiping items or using skills?

C.

5
Wish list /
« on: April 26, 2005, 03:54:26 pm »
I like the ides of events. But I would like it more if the bandits would decide to attack an encampment on their own.

Think about this:
Create populations of monster like e.g. bandits. If this population has some basic rules that control the individual\'s behaviour, a group behaviour will emerge. The ideal case being, that the population behaves smart like avoiding to large groups of enemies or attacking an encampment when they collectivly think the target is weak enough.
That wouldn\'t even need a very powerful AI but only a few basic rules that need fine tuning to make the game still enjoyable. Because it would suck if the bandit raids allways killed the whole player population, razing the city... ;)

But just imagine how cool it would be to build a city together with all the other players, to pool money to hire mercs to guard it at night (when the players are offline), ot defend it against enemies, monsters etc...

Oh, and there is also a bright side for the devs on this coin: You don\'t have to spent so much time on building a large, empty city. Just give the players some empty terrain and some resources. Let them build their own city. And if you also enter structure decay into the game, abandoned cities will remove themselves from the game after a while by crumbling to dust, becoming homes for monsters, ghosts and bandits...

MC.

6
General Discussion /
« on: April 26, 2005, 03:34:47 pm »
Wow! No, man! Think about how far you could glide from the top of the watch tower! If course only if you\'re not stopped when zoning.... But anyway! Gliding! That would be reeeaaaaly great!
And maybe you don\'t die from falling two meters when you can glide! Gimme a glider anytime!

MC.

7
General Discussion /
« on: April 26, 2005, 03:23:44 pm »
I find all this election thingy very funny :)

*stumbles over some stange stick in picks it up*

Sticks... well sticks are quite an inspiration when it comes to ruling, aren\'t they?
Let me put down a few thoughts....

* Ethologists[1] say that up to a group size of about 160 no formal organisation is needed because humans (or races with a similar intelect) are able to organise the social system of relations well in such groups.

* If groups grow larger they seperate into subgroups (guilds, clans etc) which split the to-large group into manageable chunks.

* When more than one group is present the groups need some kind of representative fo group-group interaction. How this representative is chosen i group specific.

* When groups join into a larger conclomerate (like an alliance, a state etc.) they need some kind of government to organize all interaction.

So when do we need an octarch?
Of course when the population of PS demands for such an elevated position.

How is the octarch elected
This question can and should only be answered, when the groups that need to be organized are present. At that point the groups should have choosen representatives wihtin themselfes and those in turn should discuss how to choose an octarch.

But of course all this organisation and government and interaction will only be demanded for when there is any use for it! Why should we organize if the city is allwways there any anything can be accomplished by a small group?
The need for government occures when there are larger goals to go for. When large accomplishments like a temple need an upkeep, when the city needs to be sustained or detoriates otherwise.

So if you want the players of a game to develop some kind of government let buildings decay.
I wrote a lot more about such a game down but it\'s german. If somebody is interested in reading more about a self organizing city concept, tell me. I\'ll make the texts available.[2]

MC.

Footnotes:
[1] Very smart people who tell us hwo we behave and why we do so.

[2] Its written down in a wiki on the home server of a friend. The wiki is not running ATM.

8
Wish list /
« on: April 26, 2005, 02:59:37 pm »
I\'d guess you\'re wrong. To me it looks as if they just put down some ore from the char\'s inventory.
At least it looks this way when a lump of gold ore is on the ground... And if you see ore that way you only have to pick it up.

Hmmm.... *thinking* On the other hand this could signifiy that sometimes ore just pops up in areas where you could dig for it. IMHO that would be a great step in the right direction!

Devs? Any comment to that?

MC.

9
General Discussion / Modeling a population based eco system
« on: April 26, 2005, 12:14:20 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by Lyrah
Same thought can be carried to snakes, mice, and owls. If you kill off MOST of one, the population of one of the others spikes. For instance, kill all of the snakes, the Mice population spikes, and then...due to more food, so does the Owl population.


Would you describe here is described by the Lotka-Volterra equasion which models predator-prey relations.
I tried to set up a predator-prey relation system containing three species where population A was a small herbivor, B a small predator and C a large predator.

A was hunted by B and C, B was hunting A and hunted by C and C hunted both A and B. So the populations\' development was depended on a lot of dynamic factors... and I didn\'t manage to find a setting which tended towards a stable state. Most of the times the populations got extinct.

My point in telling you this is: It is very hard to model such a thing by hand. And it\'s getting tougher with more species.
BUT you can simply try to model you mobs in dynamic populations with some safe spawn places.  That way the species can slowly return after a near extinction and reenter the eco system.
The good side for this approach is, that you can model a quite realistic eco system.
The down side is that you wont be able to fully control the system. You can twiddle with the rule sets for the populations until you get an eco system you like but you will probably never get the exact system you want.

I wrote some more detailed things down about creating an online world based on  populations but its all in german.
If some of you are interested and able to read german I\'ll make those texts available again. They a written in a private wiki on a friends home server that is not running at the moment.
Maybe the devs like to browse trough it for them inspiration...


MC.

10
Newbie Help (Start Here) /
« on: April 26, 2005, 11:47:43 am »
I guess most people complain about not getting heap money in no time... it\'s about only getting money from one  kind of mob.

I bet the game testing would progress MUCH faster if the devs added some money to the loot tables of all monsters.

As you all like to point out: This is a test and not a real game. So please give the testers money so they can actually test the game engine. Because the game play itself is poor and we all found that out by now.

AFAIK content balancing -- like adjusting the prices so game play is fun -- is one of the last steps when building a game...

So please hand out money (and lower the prices) so we can actually test all the thing the game offers: magic, armor, different weapons. That way you, the DEVs, will get much more detailed and diverse feedback.

My two trias,
MC.

11
Wish list /
« on: April 26, 2005, 11:33:18 am »
Finding a mining place is a pain in the adendum. Can you give some pointers to where we can find different stuff?
I hate to walk around and do some random /dig foobar...

MC.

12
General Discussion /
« on: April 26, 2005, 11:04:18 am »
I found them easier to kill than rogue. They did less damage and took about as much hits as a gobble. I\'d rate them between gobble and rogue.

MC.

13
Newbie Help (Start Here) /
« on: April 25, 2005, 04:32:29 pm »
*scratchscratchscratch* Is there another nooby board but this one?

MC.

14
The Hydlaa Plaza /
« on: April 22, 2005, 02:44:41 pm »
Some of you had some impressive accidents... I myself did some stupid things and sometime fell really hard but somehow allways managed to get away in one piece... more or less. But lets see...

* At the age of about 2 years my ma left me in the car for a moment. Being a smart little guy I mimicked her behaviour: I pressed the cigarett lighter on, waited until it popped out and put it to my mouth... lacking a smoke I used the tongue. The circular scars vanished when I got 12.
* At the age of 5 I climbed one of the larger trees in the kindergarten. After climbing down really fast (9.81 m/s^2) the doctor simply put a full cover bandage over my back. No large scars left.
* At the age of 10 or 11 I decided to drive my bike near a fence that was directly built on a slope. And because one can\'t drive a bike on a slippery slope I of course slipped. My right forearm caught one of the fences v-profile metal posts and since than I have to perfectly parallel scars of 7 cms length on the forearm.
* At the age of 15 I once again climbed the wrong tree. This time I got much higher before a tree snapped. Going down the tree I broke several larger branches with my tigh and I\'m still thankful I allways missed the groin. Finally one of my feet caught on a branche and left me hanging upside down from the tree - 4 or 5 meters above concrete pavement plates. It seems that I must have been swinging when my feet lost hold because I did not hit the pavement but a car\'s hood that was standing on a parking lot a meter or two behind me. Nothing happend but my mom got me x-rayed anyway... you know how mothers are.
* At the age of 17 or 18 I went to spain with some friends for the sommer holidays. Great weather and such... and also a big rock thing at the beach you could try to climb up when the sun hit your head long enough. And because its not stupid enough to climb up a very steep and high rock I decided to access it from inside the sea. After finding out that waves tend to throw you into the mussels growing on the rock I had another nice gash nearly crossing the parallel scars... only 5 cm long but a deeper cut. But forearms don\'t seem to bleed much.
* For the last ten years I spared my body more accidents but falling down a stair when friends of mine moved. I saved the DVD player and the stereo and only had to wear a bandage around the ankle for 2 weeks :)

The only times I broke something it was caused by my f****** temper. Once I kicked a squash court wall for frustration (I\'m near blind on my left eye and simply can\'t hit small, fast moving things - but tell that to a 12 year old boy trying squash for the first time) and broke some small bones in my foot.
The other time I hit a public letter box after my girlfriend cheated on me, breaking my right hand. For some reason it didn\'t hurt so I simply let the swelling go away and found out about the broken bones more than half a year later. Now my right hand has a slight angle in the middle.


As I said before: Some accidents but mostly without much harm done.

Hope I didn\'t bore you after all the splatter and gore beforehand ;)

MC.

15
General Discussion /
« on: April 22, 2005, 02:13:44 pm »
You can mine down there? Nice to know...
But honestly I was a bit disappointed when I did the tour... Nothing there but mobs who - as usual - don\'t drop loot. And those Thugs are really tough when one hasn\'t spent any PP on weapon skills so far :)

I\'d really appreciate if the devs\'d put some stuff down there to do besides killing. I\'d even try to talk to Zak again but not even he\'s there :(

MC. in reminiscence of MB

PS: Why aren\'t there any crystals in Crystal Blue? Just because there where no molecules in MB either?

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