MMORPGDot Comic: Adventures in Stupidity
Altre, 2003-12-19

This world of ours is relatively interesting - Goth depression and teen angst aside. A good portion of the fun in life lies in its random nature. Any person you meet is bound to be completely unique. Depending on how many times you bother them, they may reply with:

1. Hi.
2. What do you want?
3. That's interesting.
4. I don't have time to talk.
5. Please leave me alone.
6. Get the hell out of my face before I call the cops.
7. (the last response is more physical than said, generally involving a fast moving fist)


Even aside from the people, the environment of the Earth is quite surprising. You could get hit by a car, mugged, maimed by a rampaging deer, or struck by a meteor at any given moment.

Imagine if you will: The Earth you know becomes altered. Instead of the usual dynamic, interactive populace and environment, it becomes static. Any person you meet is likely to say three things at most. At the end of the conversation, the lines will loop continuously. If you're lucky, you will meet someone who will give you a quest. For instance:

Dad: "Son, it is time that you did more around the house."
1. I don't want to.
2. Eh.
3. What? (choose this one)


Dad: "Yes. You must take out the trash."
1. Sure. (Choose this one)
2. No.
3. What?

Dad: "The trash lies beyond the living room, in the depths of the kitchen. Beware your mother, who wields a spatula. Take this trash to the bin outside the house."
**20 minutes later you return to your Dad**
(Your unique response) The trashcan seems to be partially merged with the house, and I can't open the lid.

Dad: "The trash lies beyond the living room, in the depths of the kitchen. Beware your mother, who wields a spatula. Take this trash to the bin outside the house."

In this new environment, you can even dance around a police officer with flaming axes, and not even get so much as nervous flinch. You will never be mugged, hit by a car, or anything of that nature. What amounts to danger and surprise involves getting stuck between a rock and wall texture.

Sound silly? Of course it does. Yet we, as gamers, put up with it all the time. Take Final Fantasy XI for example. A fine game overall, but with npcs that make a mossy rock look like a rocket scientist. This isn't a specific spite against that game. This problem is common, in all titles. As players we don't usually make much of an issue of out it. As a gamer myself, I posses a tremendous lack of knowledge when it comes to actually making a piece of software. I merely know what I like. Personally, I can no longer stand the typical npc. The feeling is received that the world is no more than a cardboard cutout. Just as deep as your computer screen, and no further.

The solution? I don't believe that there is an easy one. The most promising avenues are Fuzzy Logic programming, and Artificial Intelligence. Fuzzy Logic dictates that you don't need to code every single aspect of a program. Rather, the program will have a set of basic instructions. From those, it will be able to adapt and grow to a small degree.

Genuine Artificial Intelligence is an obvious concept - a program that can think for itself. Imagine that every Npc you met online was, in fact, a self-realized, thinking, individual. This would give new meaning to the term "virtual world" and revolutionize gaming as we know it. Of course, all kinds of ethical issues would arise. Could we really end a Mmorpg once it got "old"? Would erasing a game be equivalent to murder?

In my opinion, it's not very likely. All of these concepts are silly, but fun to consider. Artificial Intelligence is far out there, and genuine fuzzy logic Npcs are still a work in progress. Until then, the solution to our problems is for the companies to lock some poor programmer in a dark room with a computer.