Hello out there,
I absolutely love the idea of Artificial Intelegence improving in games.
Right now A.I. implementation in games is in its infancy. NPCs, which are A.I. controlled characters, are not as smart as they could be.
I can’t wait for them to get smarter. Imagine a world filled with smart NPCs that remember you and your actions. Remember the games “Shadow of Mordor” and “Shadow of War”? The orcs remembered you and what you did to them. We need more of that!
Imagine if NPCs were even smarter, they would be able to pass information between players and other NPCs. The game itself could be an A.I. which would be smarter than the others combined. It could truly make dynamic quests.
What sparked this idea is Guild Wars 2 back when it first came out. They talked about “Dynamic Quests” and it sparked the idea for an actual dynamic experience. Guild Wars 2 dynamic quests were a good idea but the implementation was less than enjoyable. Sure I enjoyed listening to the voiced content and figuring out what triggered the event to happen. Other than that though they were usually pretty simplistic and boring. That’s not exactly the worst thing though. At least the quests have fail states.
Most quests in MMO’s before GW2 didn’t have fail states. Usually if you die you just start over or run to the end real quick and fight the boss again.
Most new games coming out have implemented lots of things from Guild Wars 2 actually. The fields on the ground warning you get out of the way were also in Guild Wars 2 first. More movement in combat. Dodging. Anyways this isn’t about GW2.
A.I. won’t only affect the quests you get it’ll also change how we interact with NPCs. Imagine actually being able to kill NPCs and they stay dead. The person who killed the NPC if seen would likely get a bounty on their head or something like that. Suddenly there’s a new set of skills where people or NPCs could be detectives. Maybe there was a magical scrying orb around recording what happened. You’ll have dozens of players examining the footage and trying to catch the killer. Maybe the killer had a disguise on so that people would think it was a certain person.
It’s a whole new dynamic all inspired by smarter A.I. in a game!
That big A.I. controlling the world could be helping the players or blocking them based on the narrative it wants the players to experience. That A.I. would likely be able to work with every single human playing simultaneously making sure everyone is enjoying themselves based on what they feel is fun.
The implications and possibilities are endless! Imagine if you wanted to be the bad guy and the game keeps pushing you in that direction and presenting opportunities to you. Maybe you take the opportunity and suddenly you have evil armies at your disposal. You character starts to change and become more deranged.
How would you play when the consequences for every action you make is being watched and affecting how the A.I. directs your game play? Imagine the experiences you might have!
I think this is what is wrong with MMORPG’s of today. They aren’t advancing! It’s like they stopped trying to improve the experience.
A few years back the developers of Everquest tried to do something new and unique but ran into problems. There were some pretty ambitious ideas they had for Everquest Next. It was sad to see them fail.
Another ambitious company was Soulbound Studios and their game Chronicles of Elyria.
One company is trying to push the limits of what an MMO can be. The game everyone loves to hate “Star Citizen.” I mean seriously take a look at what they have done over there it’s impressive.
Amazon has the upper-hand here. They have a half way decent A.I. and are now developing their own MMORPG called “New World.” Truthfully I haven’t had much time to check out their game and what they want to implement but I will be after this.
I think if businesses like Google and Amazon who are creating A.I. need to start thinking ahead or the MMORPG genre will die.
Anyways I hope you enjoyed my rambling today. If you have any ideas you think can help add to the discussion please post below!
Author Katherine Phillips 