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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by ro9ue View Post
    One of the reasons I was so sad to see EQN die.

    But there's still hope, other developers (prominent ones) are interested in stuff like this as well. This may be of interest to this thread - and one of my favorite GDC talks of all time:
    Wow, that was wonderful. Something like that combined with something like Left 4 Dead's Director (in essence a sort of gatekeeper to keep too many things from resolving at once, in this instance a dragon attack, the orcs deciding to go to war with the elves, and an undead invasion all resolving at the same time due to the line up of multiple breakpoints triggered simultaneously) could create an insanely replayable experience. A mix of preset character archetypes mixed with "randomized" story happenings and different personality quirks... that sounds amazing. I hope he can get it to work out.

  2. #22
    Part of the challenge is that story is inherently structured. From a design point of view, one would have to figure out what kind of gameplay is used to deliver plot in service of a story that has not necessary tie to that plot. Otherwise, the story wouldn't necessarily or truly be procedurally generated.

    It would kinda just end up being a 'choose your own adventure'-style story at best.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Part of the challenge is that story is inherently structured. From a design point of view, one would have to figure out what kind of gameplay is used to deliver plot in service of a story that has not necessary tie to that plot. Otherwise, the story wouldn't necessarily or truly be procedurally generated.

    It would kinda just end up being a 'choose your own adventure'-style story at best.
    For MMOs, it works best in a sandbox setting. Take EverQuest for example. There was an overarching story, but actual story events happened rather spread out and not everyone in the game experienced everything first hand. Some experienced parts of it, others experienced other parts, some only heard about it, and some discovered things seemingly connected and fueled debate and speculation of what was going on behind the scenes between the leaders in different cities. Often most everyone eventually felt the after effects of major events, though. Plague spreading through zones affecting NPCs, a once friendly NPC turned into a corrupt death machine, an entire zone turned from a low level zone to a high level zone depending on time of day in game. All of these as results of major story events.

    The real problem with these events is word spreads, everyone flocks to the zone to participate, and the servers crash. We'd have to addrss a lot of tech issues even beyond just the procedural AI problems.

    Combine more directed grand scale stories that can pop up with smaller procedurally generated activity, along with just things to go out and do if you please, and the sandbox "live in a world" can work quite well instead of the amusement park "maximize efficiency to minimize time to skip as much content as possible for PHAT LEWT UBER L33T GEAR OMG I'M BETTER THANYOU NOOB" gameplay.
    Last edited by Faroth; 2016-07-21 at 01:05 PM.

  4. #24
    Purely procedurally generated quests I see as (previously stated) little better than madlibs.

    In certain examples, I could see partial procedural generation being good for a game's replayability or changing world. Say, whether the invading armies are goblins, orcs, or demons. Or who the identity of the noble/merchant/soldier is you have to rescue.

    But I'd rather see more developments in what I'd distinguish from procedural quests by calling them...

    1. Organic Quests: Long long ago, in an MMO far far away... it advertised its "ecology". If you kill too many wolves, the rabbit population will skyrocket... if you kill too many rabbits, the wolf population will starve or turn towards human prey, or somesuch. So basically... left to its own devices, the world may decay and quests might arise that need player intervention to remedy the situation. Procedural generation can be used to support the nature, description, and rewards of these quests... but their formation is largely based on other factors.

    2. Emergent Quests: These too could be procedurally generated, but as a logical response to player action (or inaction). Yeah, a mission was posted to stop a thief, but the player chose not to act. The dice rolled and this thief is now a leader of a brigand group harrassing caravans outside the village you originally hailed from. The fallout franchise does a good job of simulating these in its "faction choices", but there's little actual procedural development as a result of your actions other then what mobs default to hostile with you, etc. This is similar to organic quests, but unlike those simply being a result of weeds being left uncut too long, emergent quests result more from player action.... say... players attack and weaken a nearby undead kingdom... well, the other nearby kingdoms move in to invade and supporting quests are generated. or the reverse... if too few players move against a kingdom, the nearby kingdoms must defend.

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