Comments on: The Non Interactive Sequence

By: LBD

LBD — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:18:07 +0000

You’d need advent of ‘strong AI’ to be able to achive this sort of effect. The limiting is because people will break the belief if given the option… In games, people are more likely to do something totally out of their character. So, in a mediaeval setting, someone might say ‘why the hell are you acting like elvis’. A weak AI would wind up with a lot of ‘huh, what?’ responses, especially to popular culture references.

There is only one strong AI in the world, currently. Us.

By: Maph

Maph — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:51:13 +0000

This is why I play D&D.

Seriously, all of you previous posters and readers out there. You should try it sometime.

By: aandnota

aandnota — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:02:22 +0000

ps.

i like the suffix -esque. :)

By: aandnota

aandnota — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:01:40 +0000

i think the core question we need to ask ourselves is this: do we want games to be linear, author-written stories (novels/movies) (reactive games) or do we want them to be chance-based systems in “sandbox” worlds (interactive games)? i think there is room for both kinds of games and that we’ve seen them already, without kubrick-esque AI. the linear-novel-esque story-games are so numerous i need hardly point them out. the “interactive” games, it seems, are best represented by MMOs. there’s no need for advance ai when all the players/characters in the game world are separate, actual, meat-players. it’s almost like…*gasp* real life. online-community-based games are fully interactive. some more than others (WoW vs. Second Life), but they provide open-ended game play with a story line.

By: mister k

mister k — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:55:25 +0000

i’m not necessarily sure interactive stories are all they are cracked up to be. Looking at Chivalry is Not Dead, a recent short experiment in the sort of thing you’re talking about, the game and endings were dramatically altered by player choice, mostly by dint of having a very short game.

Yet I found myself frustrated because I could not find all the paths, and without a guide, I had no way of locating them. Essential bits of gameplay were lost to me.

If Fallout 3 has hundreds of endings, it’s going to be difficult to find them all, and boring to do so- I doubt most of the gameplay along the way will be altered. So to see extra snippets I’m going to have to basically do the same thing again and again.

If there is juicy story goodness, I want to see it all, not to have it hidden from me….

By: Press A to Go Back to Enjoying the Gameplay.

Press A to Go Back to Enjoying the Gameplay. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:08:15 +0000

[...] Sure, there’s some things that need to be QTEs. Technically things like reloading a gun are typically QTE events: you pretty much can’t do anything besides move while reloading in most games. Dialog events in games are almost always a QTE. “Press A to talk to the mission giver.” These game-isms are going to be tough to change or improve upon (although Gears nailed the reloading mini-game nicely), especially the cinematic QTEs. [...]

By: Ace

Ace — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:44:53 +0000

Bioshock had three alternate endings

http://youtube.com/watch?v=f3nBbo-uyZo

By: i speak to zebras

i speak to zebras — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:48:17 +0000

Fallout 1. There were a few cutscenes, but without them, there would be no story at all. You were briefed on the objectives, and the ending slightly differed based on what happened to the towns you went to, but still – clearly an interactive story. Was “Junktown” destined to be run by a corrupt casino owner or a sheriff who has a general store? Did you catch the fat lying bastard on tape and collect the reward or did you just shoot him up in his office? Or did you ignore the town altogether? The entire story was what you made it – and the dialogue and character’s actions followed. You advanced solely on the decisions you made. If you decided to wipe out a certain group of people – that was it – no more people – no respawns, no broken story, but also no more trading with those people. How you reached the end wasn’t like following a trail of bread crumbs in current what-claim-to-be “sandbox” RPG’s: the places you absolutely had to go and things you had to do were down to three things at three locations – the hardest part (and the most fun) was finding them. The question is, can you still accomplish a feat this broad in a game that abides by today’s standards of graphics and of “immersion”? Personally, I think the problem with game AI is that developers today are trying to simulate a specific, contextual form of intelligence, like you said: with a limited amount of resources, in real-time. It might be quite simpler turn-based (read: Deep Blue vs. Kasparov).