Intelligent Monsters?

[BelDragos]

How are you planning to use the intelligence of the creatures in the game? Can the tribe of monsters learn and use different tactics to keep themselves alive? I mean can the goblins use the swords they find to upgrade thier weapons? Will some monsters pick up some magic skills like healing or fireball after stealing a mages books or making him teach them the skills in order to be set free from captivity? If an encampment keeps being raided by PCs from a small village could they try to burn the village to prevent it from being a staging area for more PC invasions?
Those are some ideas where the INT of a monster can be used to make situations more interesting for the players who stir up a hornets nest.

[Slitherrr]

From what I've heard, the intelligence of critters will be a factor in their dealings with the PCs. The whole migrate to new area deal is a big part of that I believe, because it takes intelligence to leave when things get heavy. I would assume that they would show other signs of intelligence, i.e, grouping tactics, and the things to mentioned.

[Rolfe]

Yes, I admit we hadn't thought of all of the things Beldragos mentioned, but we did think of several of them. Monsters WILL pick up weapons they find and will equip them. Since we haven't decided for sure how player death is going to work, I really can't say yet whether or not monsters will pick up weapons from players they kill. All I know so far is that just from the things we've figured out so far, monsters will be a good deal more intelligent than monsters in other games. More than that though, the specifics of added intelligence will contribute to the FUN of the game. Making monsters smarter isn't easy and we're only making them smarter in areas that will make the game noticeably more fun.

For now, like Slitherrr said, it's safe to assume that we'll add several of many AI traits to the monsters, like grouping (ie goblins group to ambush travelers on a country road).

One thing that I don't believe has been mentioned yet is that traditionally very intelligent creatures, like dragons for instance, will often be extremely intelligent. We've devised a method where these types of creatures will be able to actually hold an intelligent conversation with players. They'll determine what your business is in their dwelling and decide whether to kill you or help you or just ignore you.

There will also be constant participation in the world by the Campaign Managers. It won't be unusual for a goblin raid to be led by a couple of CM's.

[BelDragos]

I think that sounds very cool!!
How would you volunteer to be a CM if the campaign doesn't have anything to do with your actions in the game?

Also, what do you think of monsters taking hostages and ransoming them to get treasure and/or skills tought to them like magic for thier witchdoctor or shaman or fighting skills for thier warriors. How about bribing the monsters with said examples?

[fredrick]

I think monsters taking hostages would be very cool... as a RPG event.. but let me just say, I would be pretty high up on the annoyed scale if my character was taken hostage for even 10 minutes.
(Great.. I was logging off, but now I'm a hostage and have to get free! So much for making that job interview on time.. gotta have my priorities!)
If a monster group did a raid or ambush, to take a specific NPC hostage and then learn something from them/have them perform a service, that would be cool though. Then said monsters could aquire skills which you wouldn't attribute to that race normaly.
(Maybe monsters need trainers to advance in skill as well.. but goblins are only trained in basic skills for all weapons. A crafty goblin might be able to get a hostage NPC trainer to teach them that skill)
Of course, if you hear about the plan somehow.. or arrive before the trainer's done teaching them and they kill him, I'm sure he'd be quite grateful for your efforts. (Chances are they'd have him for at least a couple weeks in-game as he probably has more than 1 skill to teach.)

Just please; don't let me be taken hostage :) Or if you do, at least let me have an out of body experience.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

I have to agree, while its nice to think of the AI being smart enough to learn to take hostages to learn things, its not practical to the player. Who would ransom you? Also, as
Fredrick stated, I would be pretty pissed if just before I logged I was ambushed. I know many people who play right up to the minute before they gotta walk out the door. Having ransom scenaro's that involve NPC's would be fine. How would you as a player react to coming into town and finding out that your favorite NPC merchant/guildmate was being held hostage?

[UBIK]

what about... oh damn i forgot......

[UBIK]

now i remember, ai should be not only smart but very smart, which everyone else has really already said.....

[fredrick]

Maybe make it a factor of race... dark elves would be very smart.. others maybe not quite so much.

"/e watches as the ogres lay an elaborate trap the scope of which he can hardly conceive."

[fredrick]

My own post made me wonder... will there be inter-race cooperation in the form of treaties/slaves/what-not possibly? i.e. a dark elf either employes mercenary ogres... or takes them as slaves (the dreaded dark elf scares them into working for them)

That would be cool... could have a bunch of ogres/goblins/orcs working together as they usualy would not.. and after a while track down their dark elf leader.

Speaking of which; will their be a tracking/stalking skill? After routing the group, 1 escapes; your ranger stalks/tracks it (stalks so it doesn't know it's followed), and then is able to spy on the group and see where it came from.
That would add a lot of fun if there could be well hidden enemy camps. (Maybe let them dig underground; or use caves or something?)

An abadoned dwarven mine which became inhabited by a monster of some sort could be a good source of raids.

[Wrentia]

It has been mentioned there will be a tracking skill. Usually the types of warriors that are more hunters than battle masters will have easier access to learning the tracking skill. Ack's are especially good trackers.

I should also mention that it may be possible that NPC's can track as well. If you so some random murdering in a lawful town, the ruler may decide to send some mercanary's out after you that would be able to track your whereabouts...



-Wrentia

[fredrick]

I read there would be tracking... I just hope it's not like the tracking methods in other games (EQ). Of course that's hard to do considering it is a computer game, so you can only go so far into realism for something like tracking. Maybe integrate tracking with a mystical theme, and make it so you can see glowing footprints or something? A more advanced tracker may even be able to see after-images of whatever creature they're tracking? Of course, then the game would have to keep track of where mosters went and what they did... probably too much for the servers to handle. (Assuming there are thousands of monsters)

If most monsters group together, it might be implimentable, as the proximity of so many monsters would obliterate tracks of any individual monster, and all a tracker would be able to do is see there are monsters in the area and possibly estimate a number as to how many.
Then if the catactlysm resulted in changed weather patterns, and now there's more rain/sandstorms/other track obliterating events, it could be set up so the game only has to keep track of where a monster's been within the last couple of hours or something.

Of course, probably the closest to the above that would be implimented is glowing footprints leading in the direction of the monster... if the monster changes course, it could just change the upcoming tracks to point toward the monster.

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Stalking I think would also be very cool if it wasn't like sneak in other games. (i.e. psuedo invisibility) You could rush from tree to tree and all stalking would do is help you blend in with the tree when you're there, move more fluidly as you go from tree to tree, and not step on loud twigs as you do so. Also, when your stalking skill gets more advanced, you could use smaller objects (small trees/rocks) to hide behind as well as hiding in shadows.
Then it might be worth considering making stalking be effected by what you're wearing. That crown of illumination may not work to your advantage as you try to conceal yourself in a shadow :)

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Mostly though, I'd just really like to see tracking/stalking used in a roll playing fashion instead of as a method to get close to a monster before hack-and-slashing. If more events have a story tied to them (like it sounds the programmers are all for), the game is much cooler... and likely to create a community instead of a bunch of gamers. (i.e. 80% of the online RPGs I've played... there were some communities, but not to that great of a degree, and not overly global)

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That would be very cool on the tracking to investigate murders. You could have a whacko king in the area who never has them investigated... and there's a bounty on his head by some of the citizens :)
Also, that might be the best way to work out PvP bounties which are unwittnessed. Before you're able to place a bounty on them, you have to have a tracker verify the event. Of course, you'd have to hire the tracker right away.. but once it's on file that the event occured, you might place the bounty some time later. (If you can't afford a bounty expensive enough for whoever killed you or some-such)

[BelDragos]

Remember that the monsters will be able to track us too!!!

[Dyson]

On the subject of tracking- will our ranks in hiding (or whatever thief-like skills) cut down on monster's abilities for such things passively, or will we have to actively conceal ourselves?

[BelDragos]

I believe most skills will not be automatic and involve concious effort to activate. Spellcasters cannot cast spells spontainiously, they have to consiously direct the energies. The rest of the skills will probably work in a simular way.

Thiefs will have to try to open locked doors, They won't open for them automatically.

[Dyson]

That's really not what I asked. Theives working to open doors is something of a given, I'd think. The sort of thing I mean is "wilderness expertise." Ie, if you're a high-level druid and walk through the forest, you shouldn't have to constantly invoke a "pass without trace" skill every five minutes. It's just something you get better at after a while. Now, I don't mean every thief should be able to move silently at will, or anything- it just should be naturally harder for an orc to track some powerful forest adventurer who makes her living by the woods then a newbie knight tramping along in the scrub brush. That sort of thing.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Aye, I have to agree with Dyson on this one, If the type of charactor you have is a druid, huntsman, scout, etc., their natural abilities should make tracking them more difficult. A scout for example would naturally move through the woods carefully so as not to be easily discovered by the enemy,so it should be a skill that is worked up in a skill class that does not constantly need to be activated to work. If someone has a skill in resisting magic they do not need to activate it when being attacked by magic, they just naturally resist the magic.

[fredrick]

(Has the web site been down for a while? This is the first time I've been able to access it in a while.)

I agree on this one completely. Of course, there are some actions you could take logicaly to increase/decrease your trackability... for example, if you take off running you're going to become much easier to track unless you're awsome at the way of the woods. Then again, if you know someone is likely to try to follow you, and want to take it slow covering your tracks as you go, it will be much harder for something to track you than if you're just walking at your normal pace.

[Rolfe]

Ya, that's a good idea. I never thought of "Non Trackability" as a skill, but I suppose it should be. Like Kith Khanan in the elven nations learned to move through the forest nearly unheard and unseen. But who would want to waste skill points on that? I suppose it would have to be part of an existing skill, eh? Like maybe it comes with tracking? Covering your tracks in the forest also seems a bit different than moving silently in a dungeon? Give me ideas on those two things.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Exactly Rolfe when you learn to track in real life you are also learing how not to leave tracks. Whether your tracking a person or game you learn how to move through the woods without making a sound or how to still your self so animals or people a few feet away don't even know your there.

[fredrick]

I think sneaking/covering tracks/tracking in a dungeon would be the same skill; just figured out differently. Tom Brown says he can track an ant over granite.... I've never seen it, and would REALLY like to; but I could believe he can track a goat over granite without seeing it.

Dungeons would probably be along the same line.... in a dungeon chances are you'd be tracking by scuffs, dust, and other trace elements. This might add a neat variation to dungeons where in a well maintained dungeon tracking is very difficult while in a poorly maintained dungeon (dusty with dirt/mud going through it) tracking would be much easier. It seems to me sneaking/hide tracks would just be a lot easier in a dungeon than in a forest. On the other hand, tracking would be much more difficult.

Of course, in a forest there are a lot more factors to take into consideration... so I'd think it likely that a very dusty dungeon with little traffic would be much easier to track through than a forest.. but logic could apply.

I would see an interesting/annoying factor to this from a programing perspective... different floor textures would need to actualy be a factor with this skill. Maybe if you actualy do assign attributes to landscape beyond which pixies load on them, it could effect fighting with different weapons and such as well. That would be really cool! :-)

(Imagine the guy skilled in a broadsword having a really hard time against the kid only moderately skilled with a dagger as he has to avoid hitting the dense foilage around him.)