Semi-Autonomous Avatars in World of Minds A Case Study of AI-based Game Design ACE 2008 ACE 2008 Yokohama, Japan Thursday, Dec 4, D1, 9.00 Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari Gotland University, Sweden Michael Mateas University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Introduction Round Characters
Characters in MMOs • Majority of characters in MMORPGs are player characters/avatars. • Most character interaction take place between avatars. avatars. • NPC’s in MMORPGs mainly give quests, sell items or give information about the world.
Round and Flat • A flat character consist of only a few traits and usually have a single, static aim, transparent to the audience. • A round character is complex and capable of contradiction, surprise and change. Round characters have a multitude of contradictory traits. (Forster, Aspects of the Novel, 1927)
Chatman on Round Characters “Round characters […] possess a variety of traits, some of them conflicting or even contradictory [...] We remember them as real people. They seem strangely familiar. Like real-life friends and enemies it is hard to real-life friends and enemies it is hard to describe what they are exactly like. “ (Chatman,Story and Discourse, 1978) In MMORPGs, the player characters ARE real
Round and Flat • A flat character consist of only a NPCs few traits and usually have a single, static aim, transparent to the audience. • A round character is complex and capable of contradiction, surprise Avatars and change. Round characters have a multitude of contradictory traits. (Forster, Aspects of the Novel, 1927)
Where MMO’s fail Despite the focus on player-to-player interaction, current MMORPG designs fail to provide explicit designs fail to provide explicit support for helping players to roleplay and fail to incorporate such social interaction and roleplay into the game mechanics themselves.
Our goal • To develop an AI-based game mechanic that brings round characters into MMORPGs to support the player in roleplaying through their avatar. avatar. • Find ways to utilize the richness of the present human intelligence in virtual game worlds and via, the right triggers, enrich the game experience in terms of characterdriven drama woven into the virtual world through its rulesystem.
Outline and summary One of the most exciting possibilities in game AI research is for AI to open up new game design possibilities. New AI will suggest new design possibilities while design will push back on AI requirements. This paper provides: • A concrete case study of AI-centric game design, specifically describing how AI can be powerfully and effectively used in an describing how AI can be powerfully and effectively used in an MMORPG design. • The Mind Module, a technical framework for modeling personality and emotion for both player and non-player characters. The World of Minds (WoM), an MMORPG that employs an AI-based • game mechanic designed around the MM. • Lessons learned from a paper prototype playtest of the mechanic.
Mind Module overview
Mind Module (MM) Overview a semi-autonomous agent architecture • built to be used in a multiplayer environment as a part of the • player's avatar. The MM models the avatar's personality as a collection of traits • inspired by the FFM inspired by the FFM • maintains dynamic emotion state as a function of interactions with objects in the environment and trait values, and summarizes the avatar's current emotional state as an inner and outer mood • Spreading Activation Network (SAN)
Deconstruction and reconstruction • In psychlogy and neuropsychology the complexity of the human mind is made more comprehensible by deconstruction into subsystems. subsystems. • As builders of virtual humans we need to reconstruct agents that can function in way that is believable and useful to the users in the contexts and systems we devise.
Node types Weighted network of interconnected nodes
Two-dimensional affect plane • Emotions: brief and focused (ie. directed at an intentional object) disposition Sentiments: permanent and focused disposition • Mood: brief and global disposition • • Personality: permanent and global disposition
Personality • Plethora of personality theories; psychoanalytic, behaviorist, cognitive and biophysiological theories. • Trait theory pioneered by Allport (1930ies) • Trait theory pioneered by Allport (1930ies) where the most prominent personality assessment is called the Five Factor Model. • (also used by Guoliang, Klesen, Khirsagar, El Jed, etc)
Five Factor Model NEO PI-R (also called OCEAN)
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Emotions in MM Emotion Weight to Weight to Inner Mood Outer Mood Amusement +2 Interest Excitement +1.5 Enjoyment/Joy +2 +2 13 ”basic Relief +1.5 +1.5 emotions”, Satisfaction Satisfaction +2 +2 common to common to primates, as Surprise +1.5 described by Confusion -1.5 Ekman, Tomkins, Distress/Anguish Nathansson -2 -1.5 Fear/Terror -2 Anger -2 Shame/Humiliation -1.5 Sadness -2 Guilt -1.5
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Mood In everyday sense: An overall state or quality of feeling at a particular time Changes slower than emotions Temporary Temporary Highly contextual Lingers even if the context changes Becomes part of the next context Individual – ”same” type of event result in differents moods for different people.
extroverted side of the mood, how the character "���� emotionally is relating to the game world and to other characters. private, inner mood
Inner and Outer Mood • The inner mood is the private sense of harmony that can be present even if the character is in an environment where events lead to a parallel mood of annoyance. • The nature of the outer mood is social , and as such tied to emotions that are typically not only directed towards emotions that are typically not only directed towards another entity but also often expressed toward an entity, such as anger or amusement. • The two scales for the mood nodes open up the possibility of more complex states of mind than a single binary axis of moods that cancel each other out.
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Sentiments – Emotional attachements • MM allows several sentiments ie, of different emotions, to be attached toward an other entity, thus creating a compound set of sentiment. • emergent sentiments origin from interactions with other entities in the world, thus creating with other entities in the world, thus creating emotional memories. • authored sentiment sets have certain pre-set combinations. For example ``infatuation" is a combination of interest/excitement/amusement and joy toward another character.
Player might realize it is a good idea to RUN! RUN!
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Node types Weighted network of interconnected nodes
MM Summary • The MM thus provides the player with information about the avatars feelings toward other entities in the world. • Proximity to objects or characters affect the • Proximity to objects or characters affect the emotions, and thus the mood of an avatar, functioning as information the player can use to form an agenda for game play.
World of Minds Game Play Game Play
World of Minds Summary • Prototype mutiplayer game world where the personalities of the inhabitants are the base for the game mechanics. • When interacting with other characters, the • When interacting with other characters, the action potential depend upon the player character's current mood and personality
Basic Game Play of WoM Players need to defeat physical manifestations of negative mental states by using - Spells - Affective actions - Affective actions The spells available to the character depends on personality The affective actions available to the character depends on the current mood.
Spells and mind energy • Spells cost Mind Energy to use (”mana”) • Attacks reduce Mind Resistanse (”health”) • The amount of Mind Energy is tied to Outer • The amount of Mind Energy is tied to Outer Mood • The amount of Mind Resistanse is tied to Inner Mood
Fluctuations of Energy and Resistanse
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