-
Advanced AI: What are your hopes?
July 10, 2020 at 7:23 pmTwo weeks ago, I asked about hopes for the open world. Today, I’d like to ask about a major aspect of gameplay, specifcally the AI. Alex and the team hope to have an advanced character ai in Paralives. So what specifically would you like to see?
For me, I’d like to see 4 major things: Parafolk getting into routines, reactions to new things, developing likes/dislikes based on the player’s actions, and most importantly making smart decisions based on their life situations.
Routines: For example, if a Para cooks dinner every day at 6 pm, maybe it could become a learned routine and a prompt could come up at 6 pm saying something like “Would you like this Para to start making dinner”, and you could choose yes or no based on whats happening at the time.
Reactions: Let’s say a Para grows up with vegetarian or vegan parents so they never eat meat. If they decide to try meat later in life, they won’t just gobble it up, they’d need to take time to get used to the taste and they’d react accordingly. Maybe they’re put off at first. Maybe they straight up don’t like it and decide the hate meat and it becomes a hated food. EX 2: If a kid sees an animal for the first time as a baby, they would likely be scared, maybe fearful. But maybe some will be curious. Their feelings towards the animal could vary based on their initial reactions.
Likes/dislikes: For developing likes/dislikes, let’s say a Para eats pancakes every saturday morning since their childhood. Eventually they grow to really like pancakes, and maybe it becomes their favorite food. For a dislike, maybe if a Para grows up in a neighborhood with lots of aggressive, scary dogs, they start to dislike dogs which can grow if they have more negative interactions, or reverse if they begin to have positive interactions with dogs.
Decision making: I would really like to see prompts of Paras making decisions for major life changes. If a Para has a job at a public pool across the street, but later quit and get a new job at a school downtown, I think they should start contemplating moving to a new home closer to their job. If a kid plays soccer all the time and loves it, maybe they’d start wanting to join a soccer team or they’d aspire to be a professional soccer player when they grow up.
So, what kind of advanced character ai do you hope to see in Paralives? How would you like your Paras to behave?
-
6 Replies
-
What you are hoping for is basically that Parafolk act like humans. 🙂
I agree that it would be great if they were ‘intelligent’, consider consequences of their actions and maybe even think ahead and make logical decisions. Also, learning from past mistakes. It does not even need to be on a macro level, it could be as simple as walking to the nearest sink in the house when washing dishes. Even attention to the small details will result in a more realistic game.
-
@bailey I’d like for paras also to learn from routine by us players doing the same thing around the same time everyday, but I think it could only work is if time was a little bit slower than what the devs were stating. So I hope for a customizable time that can be slowed to be able to create a routine in game around specific times.
@i Lol this might seem to humanistic for a video game but. I’d like for paras to have a memory system such as remembering dating history, friends dating history, also feeling affects of consequences from their choices and deciding on whether that would influence their decision towards future choices. Someone I was talking to on discord a couple days ago was talking about bonding over likes and hoping paras are able to notice when things like new music in a genre they like is now at a store downtown, someone else who likes that genre could bond over the new music. As for memories to this, paras being able to connect hobbies and likes to their past moments, like a genre of a song played at a wedding or a song from a genre two lovers played a lot and danced to. So if they hear that certain genre of songs they’d get a nostalgic response. Whether it be positive or negative depending on the situation of their future–if that makes sense?
Paras with fake sensory. They have “smell” if restaurants are close by or if food is cooking in their own homes. I hope for some kind of coding that gives paras ability to smell food cooking at these places when they’re near them or inside a location, so each time a para is cooking theyd get a food craving for that particular restaurant or just food in general.
@breedmond Agreed small things like this too. I’d like for paras to be able to know and be aware of locations around them, I’d want them to internally know the worlds map or can depending on where they travel. Just like how other games allow you to discover new locations/areas and are added to the games map until it’s filled, that what I hope for here.
Also paras wanting/telling others they want to go to a certain lot in town specifically. Rather than be vague like ‘Rachel wants to go to a nightclub’ instead it would say ‘Rachel wants to go to a night club called Club Rx’. Or another example here ‘Samson wants to dine out’ to ‘Samson wants to go to Ricco’s Italian Bistro’. All of these locations would be real lots already in the open world. I’m not sure how it could work. I feel having tag words keyed in like how SEO for business search engines could work, not sure. But I’d like for them to have favorite stores too and remember them based on something that of a preference they have that’s connected to that store tag word/theme/preference. Like an arts and crafts store being for artsy paras or those who love knitting, a boutique that sells cheap clothing (because I’m not sure if style preferences will be a thing) so frugal paras, or even a gym because a para has a crush on one of the employees , etc.
-
I’ll always welcome depth, likes/dislikes based on history and all that. But eating at the same time every day? It sort of made me laugh to myself thinking about how in real life kids go to a parent at the same time every day and ask “What’s for dinner?”
While that’s realistic, I think getting my parafolk in the right mood and physical state every day to eat together at the same time, sleep at the right time etc., is a challenge I’ve never cared about in *other* games and would probably annoy me. I don’t need the game policing my schedule, beyond “Sammy has work in an hour”.
-
Oh, I agree that is shouldn’t come across as forced/manditory. I pictured it that if the player ended up having their Paras eat at the same time everyday for several days in a row, it could trigger a prompt like “would you like to have ‘Para’ cook dinner?” around that time. And the player could select yes if they wanted, but also no if the Para was in the middle of something else. And if they selected no, it would be less likely to do so in the future. In fact, it could also be something only enabled/disabled in settings for players who wish to avoid it.
-
Log in to reply.