I think for the most part the Soulborn Engine will be a dynamic quest generator that sends you to do pretty basic things like "Kill X", "Go to Y", or "Find Z", stuff like that. I doubt it will be advanced enough to send you on tasks such as "Raid the Personal Store of Duke Dukeliness" or "Recover the Lost Treasure of Bandit King XxK1llY0uxX".

I know nothing of computer programming but to be able to create an AI advanced enough to do the dynamic quest involving players seems like it would be uber difficult. Although as a counter point I am wrong..a lot.

Posted By Vexirion at 11:02 PM - Sat Nov 26 2016

It's my understanding that the Soulbound Engine is designed to work around what the players are doing. In tabletop terms, I would call it a "wait and see" DM. Let the players do what they want and build a story around what they do, or drop a hook here or there if needed.

In your specific examples, if a Count were amassing money, some other player will find out and news will spread. If nobody finds out, the Engine may take note of the Count having a significantly higher "worth" than other counts in the area, and plant a rumor in an NPC.

On "shoot, I forgot where I buried my stash" it's highly unlikely the Engine will just poof a map into existence. It (and the local guards) will probably take note that Forde Getfool is frequently leaving town with a shovel and coming back late a night covered in dirt. It's obvious he's been digging, but why?

Basically, I think that the Engine is going to be subtle about the way it works, contrary to what Apaukolypse says.

As BumbleBear said, I don't know a whole lot about Computer Programming. But I do have some pretty basic knowledge about logic and all that stuff. I have dabbled in some Discrete Math/Boolean Algebra.

So I think for the AI to do what you are suggesting, it would have to be pretty goddang amazing.

Ok lets take the theoretical example of Count Scrouge being too rich for his own good.

First, the game would need to ascertain that he is rich. This may be more complicated than it sounds because people may not necessarily carry their riches on their person in this game, or even store them in their own facilities.

Secondly, the game would need to spread said news. It would need to devise a way to tell players that "Hey, this person be rich" or give the ability to Players to say "Hey, this person be rich" to an NPC and spread the news that way.

Thirdly if it was some kind of thing for story points or whatever, I would guess they would need to add some objective for the player to flag the quest as complete. This kinda is complicated for the same reason as the first step, as it would require the game engine to determine how successful you were in relieving them of their wealth, or if you failed.

For the second part,

First the Guards would A. While probably not important, the guards would have to identify Forde Getfool B. The Guards will have to have seen Forde Getfool C. Noted what he was carrying D. Noted his appearance. E. Identify a habit.

That means they would have to find a way to get the AI to identify all of that, then they would have to script the AI to act on that knowledge IE Talk about Forde Getfool

Stuff like that is complicated and takes alot of effort, and quests like that are probably going to be triggered very rarely. Once people realize what the conditions for it to trigger are, for example they figure out how the engine determines you are rich, they will find ways to avoid triggering it anyway.

I think for the most part they will go with more simple stuff like I said before, "Kill X", "Find Y", "Go to Z". Doing stuff like that is much easier to do. For example, the engine wants to determine if it should Kill X. First it checks if they meet certain Fame/Infamy/Whatever other requirements it wants, then the villagers start plotting the demise of X.

Again, as I said before, I have very limited knowledge about game design. SbS has people with much, much, much more knowledge on the subject than I do. I would reckon if it's doable, they could probably do it.

Double post

My idea how this systém is going to work is; NPC - every npc will be walking quest log/journal. It will remember date, place, people, action.

Ans the addition of behaviour systém/npc personalities will determine how to interact with it. So if a NPC is deviant, greedy and learns there is somewhere a huge stash of money, he might recruit other npc or players to help him.

I would say that is a pretty basic system in a smaller scale

Posted By Apaukolypse at 8:23 PM - Sat Nov 26 2016

I think for the most part the Soulborn Engine will be a dynamic quest generator that sends you to do pretty basic things like "Kill X", "Go to Y", or "Find Z", stuff like that. I doubt it will be advanced enough to send you on tasks such as "Raid the Personal Store of Duke Dukeliness" or "Recover the Lost Treasure of Bandit King XxK1llY0uxX".

It would be difficult to do just based off of algorithms and trying to implement adaptation and learning logic, but one thing they could do is foresee a bunch of different things that players may attempt to do on a large scale and implement things in the game logic which would respond to those types of trends/events.

ex: One person goes around killing all the NPC's Game recognizes this specific trend and has guards put up wanted posters in town for the killer and when someone kills them, the game has an NPC like a mayor or king reward that player for their bounty.

Another ex: One guild begins to take over huge amounts of the land in the game and is spreading unchecked. Game recognizes this fact and starts sending organized raiding parties of monsters to the various holds/towns that guild owns to challenge them.

These are things that would be relatively easy to code.

Posted By Apaukolypse at 02:51 AM - Mon Nov 28 2016

Posted By Vexirion at 11:02 PM - Sat Nov 26 2016

It's my understanding that the Soulbound Engine is designed to work around what the players are doing. In tabletop terms, I would call it a "wait and see" DM. Let the players do what they want and build a story around what they do, or drop a hook here or there if needed.

In your specific examples, if a Count were amassing money, some other player will find out and news will spread. If nobody finds out, the Engine may take note of the Count having a significantly higher "worth" than other counts in the area, and plant a rumor in an NPC.

On "shoot, I forgot where I buried my stash" it's highly unlikely the Engine will just poof a map into existence. It (and the local guards) will probably take note that Forde Getfool is frequently leaving town with a shovel and coming back late a night covered in dirt. It's obvious he's been digging, but why?

Basically, I think that the Engine is going to be subtle about the way it works, contrary to what Apaukolypse says.

As BumbleBear said, I don't know a whole lot about Computer Programming. But I do have some pretty basic knowledge about logic and all that stuff. I have dabbled in some Discrete Math/Boolean Algebra.

So I think for the AI to do what you are suggesting, it would have to be pretty goddang amazing.

Ok lets take the theoretical example of Count Scrouge being too rich for his own good.

First, the game would need to ascertain that he is rich. This may be more complicated than it sounds because people may not necessarily carry their riches on their person in this game, or even store them in their own facilities.

Secondly, the game would need to spread said news. It would need to devise a way to tell players that "Hey, this person be rich" or give the ability to Players to say "Hey, this person be rich" to an NPC and spread the news that way.

Thirdly if it was some kind of thing for story points or whatever, I would guess they would need to add some objective for the player to flag the quest as complete. This kinda is complicated for the same reason as the first step, as it would require the game engine to determine how successful you were in relieving them of their wealth, or if you failed.

For the second part,

First the Guards would A. While probably not important, the guards would have to identify Forde Getfool B. The Guards will have to have seen Forde Getfool C. Noted what he was carrying D. Noted his appearance. E. Identify a habit.

That means they would have to find a way to get the AI to identify all of that, then they would have to script the AI to act on that knowledge IE Talk about Forde Getfool

Stuff like that is complicated and takes alot of effort, and quests like that are probably going to be triggered very rarely. Once people realize what the conditions for it to trigger are, for example they figure out how the engine determines you are rich, they will find ways to avoid triggering it anyway.

I think for the most part they will go with more simple stuff like I said before, "Kill X", "Find Y", "Go to Z". Doing stuff like that is much easier to do. For example, the engine wants to determine if it should Kill X. First it checks if they meet certain Fame/Infamy/Whatever other requirements it wants, then the villagers start plotting the demise of X.

Again, as I said before, I have very limited knowledge about game design. SbS has people with much, much, much more knowledge on the subject than I do. I would reckon if it's doable, they could probably do it.

Definitely the type of post we need, but I feel like some parts are being over-thought.

First, I have to say that robbing a count wouldn't need a quest for motivation- the issue would be with NPC thieves to a point. I also don't believe you would need anything special to determine wealth- they're a count. They live in a mansion. That should be a hint enough. Any robbery quests, I would imagine as "steal X artifact from Y location"

As for the digging NPC, imagine the digger and guards working together- the engine wouldn't have guards watching the digger, but it would dispatch the digger before causing the guards to talk about it, without them actually observing anything.

This is coming from someone with no experience, but it seems like it could at least have fewer steps and calculations than you've given.

Posted By Scheneighnay at 9:15 PM - Sat Apr 15 2017

Posted By Apaukolypse at 02:51 AM - Mon Nov 28 2016

Posted By Vexirion at 11:02 PM - Sat Nov 26 2016

It's my understanding that the Soulbound Engine is designed to work around what the players are doing. In tabletop terms, I would call it a "wait and see" DM. Let the players do what they want and build a story around what they do, or drop a hook here or there if needed.

In your specific examples, if a Count were amassing money, some other player will find out and news will spread. If nobody finds out, the Engine may take note of the Count having a significantly higher "worth" than other counts in the area, and plant a rumor in an NPC.

On "shoot, I forgot where I buried my stash" it's highly unlikely the Engine will just poof a map into existence. It (and the local guards) will probably take note that Forde Getfool is frequently leaving town with a shovel and coming back late a night covered in dirt. It's obvious he's been digging, but why?

Basically, I think that the Engine is going to be subtle about the way it works, contrary to what Apaukolypse says.

As BumbleBear said, I don't know a whole lot about Computer Programming. But I do have some pretty basic knowledge about logic and all that stuff. I have dabbled in some Discrete Math/Boolean Algebra.

So I think for the AI to do what you are suggesting, it would have to be pretty goddang amazing.

Ok lets take the theoretical example of Count Scrouge being too rich for his own good.

First, the game would need to ascertain that he is rich. This may be more complicated than it sounds because people may not necessarily carry their riches on their person in this game, or even store them in their own facilities.

Secondly, the game would need to spread said news. It would need to devise a way to tell players that "Hey, this person be rich" or give the ability to Players to say "Hey, this person be rich" to an NPC and spread the news that way.

Thirdly if it was some kind of thing for story points or whatever, I would guess they would need to add some objective for the player to flag the quest as complete. This kinda is complicated for the same reason as the first step, as it would require the game engine to determine how successful you were in relieving them of their wealth, or if you failed.

For the second part,

First the Guards would A. While probably not important, the guards would have to identify Forde Getfool B. The Guards will have to have seen Forde Getfool C. Noted what he was carrying D. Noted his appearance. E. Identify a habit.

That means they would have to find a way to get the AI to identify all of that, then they would have to script the AI to act on that knowledge IE Talk about Forde Getfool

Stuff like that is complicated and takes alot of effort, and quests like that are probably going to be triggered very rarely. Once people realize what the conditions for it to trigger are, for example they figure out how the engine determines you are rich, they will find ways to avoid triggering it anyway.

I think for the most part they will go with more simple stuff like I said before, "Kill X", "Find Y", "Go to Z". Doing stuff like that is much easier to do. For example, the engine wants to determine if it should Kill X. First it checks if they meet certain Fame/Infamy/Whatever other requirements it wants, then the villagers start plotting the demise of X.

Again, as I said before, I have very limited knowledge about game design. SbS has people with much, much, much more knowledge on the subject than I do. I would reckon if it's doable, they could probably do it.

Definitely the type of post we need, but I feel like some parts are being over-thought.

First, I have to say that robbing a count wouldn't need a quest for motivation- the issue would be with NPC thieves to a point. I also don't believe you would need anything special to determine wealth- they're a count. They live in a mansion. That should be a hint enough. Any robbery quests, I would imagine as "steal X artifact from Y location"

As for the digging NPC, imagine the digger and guards working together- the engine wouldn't have guards watching the digger, but it would dispatch the digger before causing the guards to talk about it, without them actually observing anything.

This is coming from someone with no experience, but it seems like it could at least have fewer steps and calculations than you've given.

Well I was talking about the Engine guiding players to do things. Not all nobles are rich either. History is full of plenty of Nobles that went broke and had to rely on help from family.

The second part I was talking about a player. At least im pretty sure. Thats an old post.