Yet another RPG brainstorm: What if you weren''t the party leader? What if, instead, the whole quest mechanism came from a leader character in the party other than yourself. It seems that there are a lot of interesting situations with this and potential problems. AI is probably a murderous problem, but if it could be solved, would you even want to be second in command? Or rank & file? And what would gameplay be made of? Gameplay-wise, I was thinking from the perspective of your party memebers. They never know where they''re going, or what they''ll get into. They have no idea whether or not you''re a competent leader. And they have no idea how long their tour will last. So as I see it the player would have to evaluate certain leaders. His/her goal would be to adventure with really awesome leaders, but he''d have to spend time working his way up to that. Characterization would have to be really good for all NPCs as well as leaders. In fact, the story and gameworld would have to inspire the player to want to join with certain leaders. I''d like to see this combined with the traditional party mechanic, so that you could gain rank. You might start off as a grunt, but through skill and valour (heh, or treachery ) work your way up to the top of the party. It would certainly be a different role-playing experience! -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Wow, that would certainly make things interesting!
During your "learning experience" you''re just a grunt, and you gradually work your way up the ranks.
You could possibly break ranks and be an outlaw or freelance, or mercenary, if there''s a system of prestige with ranks.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

Wavinator, I think you should stick to the idea of your other post.

Creating a game where you are a party member and let the computer be the leader requires AI better than the state of art. Players are most certainly going to be annoyed by the decisions of such a leader. A better solution if to play multipley games such a Allegiance where you have to choose a commander a work under him/her. Humans are smarter than computers.

Jacob Marner

I was thinking about that last time you where talking about the leader and his role ... And the fact that being a simple grunt would be nice, as you wouldn''t have to do all the thinking, jsut the shooting. But one problem I was seeing is (in the context of a squad of soldiers), what if you decide to do like most llamas and run around instead of following orders of your squad leader ?? Or what if you have this genius idea and you want to rush forward rather than wait like your captain jsut told you to ? Or what if the formation must move forward, but you decide to stay there and camp ?
etc etc

How would you deal with this ? Would you courtmartial the playe at the end of the game ? Would you make your captain come to him, point the gun at his temples and say "another thing like that, and I''ll shoot you myself, I won''t let the enemy the chance to do it" ??

Well, maybe the captain won''t work anymore with the player, and as none of the other captains will, the player becomes a ronin of some sort...

quote: Original post by Wavinator

Yet another RPG brainstorm:

What if you weren''t the party leader? What if, instead, the whole quest mechanism came from a leader character in the party other than yourself. It seems that there are a lot of interesting situations with this and potential problems.

Sorry, reality alarm ringing in my head. I can''t seem to find any game where they have implemented a good AI for the "grunts" that follow the player, let alone letting the AI command you...

If you can implement that, then you''re in the wrong plane of existence

C''mon guys... your thinking in the box!!!
It''s not about can you code it, because eventually it will be possible.

I like the ideal. It''s fresh, new, and adds a sense of adventure never felt before in a computer game.

I know from my own experience in the military that people do not like taking orders and at the same time people enjoy giving them. Getting the player to do what the leader sez really is a mute point, if he doesn''t the rest of the party finds this character dis-loyal and will leave him out to dry in combat and in other situations.

Hmmm. I have to go to a meeting... but I will be back to this one.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Okay, here''s another way to think about this. The analogy of being a soldier in a company works well here, so I''ll use it.

Mission based games right now give you objectives to complete. I''m thinking, specifically, of Tie Fighter or Starcraft. So, what''s needed then is a real-time way of generating mission objectives: Secure this area, take out that guard, move to this zone, etc., etc.

Now, as far as AI goes, my thinking may be skewed, but try this: Normally, AI breaks down into things like movement and decisions. Intelligent action looks intelligent based on the picture that we have. This is probably why we scream at our NPCs when they take a wrong path when we can clearly see an easier way. AI particularly looks dumb when it can''t solve the same problems we can solve.

But all of this is based on a clear picture. As a hypothetical example, if you were limited to playing one unit in a strategy game, how would you know whether or not your AI leader was doing a good job? As a unit, you''d be busy managing your own hide.

Let''s apply this to an RPG party. If you didn''t have a perfect picture of the battle, how would you know how well the AI was doing?

Okay, but there''s still cause for concern AI-wise. How would the AI make the high level decisions that are so necessary to look intelligent. After all, it does such a sorry job in most games as an opponent, so how could it possibly work as a leader?

My recommendation: We cheat our a$$es off. We don''t give the player a clear view of everything (fog of war, line of site, etc.) We give the leader a rich and complex personality. Then we rig the battles like crazy.

The result? We play as a grunt, the leader gives us interesting and complex orders in real time, we succeed or fail at them, the results affect your standing and the team, and the cycle repeats. We cheat for dramatic affect. Normally this is evil for a strategy game, because it assumes an even contest. But in an RPG, this isn''t the case.

Thoughts?

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Just waiting for the mothership...