What Your Archmage Build Says About You

[Michael Cook]

Hi all! I like to get involved in the comments threads here, but I'm afraid I missed the air date on this one so I'm a little late. In case any of you ever check back, here's a few points I wanted to make:

Some of these choices could already be done today - imagine an action/adventure RPG - some action, some mistery solving, some stealth... a little bit of everything, actually.

Indeed. Why can't they just put the "tailored" stuff in the game in the first place and then let you choose how you want to play it?

And think of how BUGGY this would be.

This has all the earmarks of being a bad gimmick and not a worthwhile growth area.

You both make valid points, but you're missing out on what is being worked towards here. Firstly, yes this tailored content could exist, but having the player laboriously choose isn't a perfect solution. It's also pretty imprecise. For instance, in Skyrim I enjoy the game in 'Thief Mode', but I don't want to play in what the game might consider Thief Mode. I want some elements of the action, some elements of the RPG numbers game, some elements of the sneakery. Adaptive games will hopefully be able to understand what things you want, and how much you want of them.

Regarding bugginess - this is the cutting edge of research here. This stuff was presented at a research conference just a few months ago. Technology advances through buggy, terrible, crappy prototypes that are refined, polished and perfected. Everything we take for granted in modern gaming started in a terrible form. That's progress.

This is kind of redundant, it's obvious we make our choices according to our personalities be it which book to read, which game to play, which movie to watch, interacting with other people and playing a game that simulates interaction with other people. I just don't see why this wasn't already clear and PRETTY OBVIOUS before this study.

Giel was quite open about this. After all, the reason he started the research was because he knew we make choices according to our personalities! But now he knows what choices, and when. He can quantify them in some cases, and that makes a real difference to how we build a game. We don't just know general 'angry people like violence' sweeping statements. We can home in on a particular variable - like how long a quest takes to complete - and adjust it to be better-suited to the player. That sounds pretty cool, to me.

I really dislike this trend towards "personalisation" - there's a difference between using technology to make our lives and hobbies less stressful and more productive, and it isolating us from new experiences. When I play a game, I don't want it to adapt to me, I want it to challenge me to adapt to it.

I'm actually with you here, I wouldn't want all my games to tailor themselves to me. But plenty of people would, and it could certainly benefit a lot of gamers and a lot of different genres. While a game like Shinobi is all about mastery of a skillset, I wouldn't mind if Skyrim knew not to send me on murder quests when I'm all about the sleight of hand and the thievery. So some adaptivity in the right place could make all the difference.

---

Once again, thanks for all the great feedback and commentary. I just want to extend my thanks again to Giel who gave a terrific series of interviews, as well as a great talk at CIG. I hope we see the fruits of his labour in future games!

 

[llyrnion]

Hi all! I like to get involved in the comments threads here, but I'm afraid I missed the air date on this one so I'm a little late. In case any of you ever check back, here's a few points I wanted to make:

(...)

You both make valid points, but you're missing out on what is being worked towards here. Firstly, yes this tailored content could exist, but having the player laboriously choose isn't a perfect solution. It's also pretty imprecise. For instance, in Skyrim I enjoy the game in 'Thief Mode', but I don't want to play in what the game might consider Thief Mode. I want some elements of the action, some elements of the RPG numbers game, some elements of the sneakery. Adaptive games will hopefully be able to understand what things you want, and how much you want of them.

There's a 2004 game called "Divine Divinity". One of its tips of the day was something like "If you're having problems with an encounter, go to game options and lower the game difficulty settings. You can increase it again, afterwards". It's a simple example that illustrates what I'm talking about - the game puts the decision in the hands of the player, throughout the entire game (not just at the beginning).

There are workarounds to keep the player from "laboriously choosing" his experience, option by option. The game could have "playstyle templates", for a simple selection process (e.g., the Realistic/Adventure/Action in my post). The player could then customize these templates when needed, changing one or more options (e.g., yeah, I wanna play realistically, but I'm really tired of running around chasing quest givers, let me select "Automatic quest giving" and "Automatic quest reward after completion"). And you could allow for community-published templates. From what I've read about the Elder Scrolls community, you'd have plenty of quality templates to help your tailor the game.

All this is possible today, and there is a panoply of options to keep it from becoming a chore to the player.

Oh, and if you tune the game yourself, you'll have a higher degree of control over what exactly is "Thief Mode", as opposed to relying on the game engine to understand what you want. But both are valid options. It's up to the player to decide whether he wants control or convenience.

I'm actually with you here, I wouldn't want all my games to tailor themselves to me. But plenty of people would, and it could certainly benefit a lot of gamers and a lot of different genres. While a game like Shinobi is all about mastery of a skillset, I wouldn't mind if Skyrim knew not to send me on murder quests when I'm all about the sleight of hand and the thievery. So some adaptivity in the right place could make all the difference.

I believe the real issue here is player's choice. Each player should be free to choose his own experience, i.e., tailor the game to his heart's content. If you don't want the game to adapt to you, then it's simple - don't mess with the options.

I'm not against this research. I see it merely as just another option to give players something they could already have today. And anything that brings more player choice is positive.

 

[Ridley1987]

wow a Xbox gamer can't do anything but shoot whats in front of themselves? A PC gamer has more depth and intrigue?

 

[Frotality]

yeah, im not sure focusing on automated scripts is the way to go in the INTERACTIVE medium.

why does science continue to develop gaming technology in the wrong direction? the whole god-damn point of playing games over watching movies or something is that you have control over what happens, not the game. if a player likes stealth, he will bloody well figure out how to stealth, he doesnt need some AI director to foster that. players need a degree of freedom, of NOT being guided at all in a game. THAT IS THE POINT. the player having some kind of power, some kind of real effect on the action outside the game's control.

this is the simplest friggin thing in the world to do, and one of the most basic elements of an interactive art. gaming needs to stop this hand-holding bullshit and get back to creating an environment where the player is free to fuck around at there own discretion and not concerned with how their every action is going to influence the universe-shifting AI god in tailoring the next level.

people play games because THEY control what happens. the devs make it, and that is the extent of their role. once the controller/keyboard is in our hands, sit the fuck down and stay out of the way.

 

[PlasticTree]

Heh. First I was like, "Hey, this sounds exactly like what they're doing on my university!" ..Until I found out that it actually was.

I'm pretty sure I even participated in his experiments. I got 1 hour to do some quests in NN2, which took me 15 minutes, as that time frame was clearly to for people who actually played the game. Still one of the most interesting experiments I've participated in. Thanks, Giel.