#player interest

[l-1-z-a]

Emergent narrative in The Sims 2

Matt Brown at AIIDE 2006

Notes from Matt Brown's (EA/Maxis) invited talk at AIIDE 2006, entitled "The Power of Projection and Mass Hallucination (Practical AI in The Sims 2 and Beyond)".

The general gist of it is that The Sims 2 is a sandbox world that provides some small bits of narrative-promotion to try to encourage emergent narrative sequences to actually emerge, by matching them against pre-authored snippets that seem desirable. In general, Matt Brown has a very AI-minimalist style of AI design.

Some points and claims:

Perception is key: how to seem intelligent, not how to be intelligent ("Big A, little i")

Complicated behind-the-scenes computation is usually interpreted as random behavior by the player, so don't bother

Players have short memories and quickly move on, so your AI should too

Correlary to the above: Local intelligence is good enough, at least for something like The Sims. Just focus on making sure everything makes sense in relation to what comes immediately before and immediately after, and players will fill in appropriate long-term stories themselves.

Consistency leads to player storytelling and ascription of personality

Some randomness helps avoid brittleness; keeps you from getting stuck in repeated or easily exploitable weird behaviors

The Sims/NPCs react to player-driven momentum, rather than initiating much of anything

Much of the local behavior is organized around story trees

Story trees are explicitly authored bits of story, very short

In their experience, the important thing here was the authoring tools, not the AI: given good tools, a few human authors can quickly create and maintain lots and lots of story trees. Important features were sorting of story trees by roles, easy searching/comparison/etc., batch creation/edits, and variable bindings.

He was pretty adamant that it's much easier to write authoring tools to make writing extensional definitions of "good story" feasible than it is to build a generative system with an internal notion of good story, since you'd have to do a lot of manual fiddling on the latter anyway.

Events are matched against all tree prefixes simultaneously, and of high-matching trees, the events that that tree says would come next in its story snipped is scored against a model of player interest ("player likes [x] events") and personality of the NPC, etc.

Players find it easier to give specific outcomes rather than traits — answering "likes hiking (y/n)?" is easy, while "x/10 for extrovert?" isn't.

Focus the player on the details you will actually use; in character design and personalities, don't try to faithfully model things that don't matter very much to your game

Anecdote: They had a complicated model for which urinals Sims would use: if there's 3, and someone's at the leftmost one, the Sim is supposed to use the rightmost one, not the middle one, unless they have some sort of weird personality. It wasn't reliably getting the responses they wanted, so they ripped it out and replaced it with a random-number generator, which people were just as happy to make up stories about and ascribe personality to.

A bit of an admission in the conclusion: As a sort of aimless "sandbox game", The Sims only really needs to make sure something interesting happens, but it hardly matters what. The player is responsible for making up stories (this is their sandbox after all), so the story-AI part of The Sims is only intended to provide some prompts and play off what the player does. That might not be the case in other types of games.

Follow-up: Maxis ended up deviating significantly from this view of Sims narrative with The Sims 3, bringing in Richard Evans to do a less AI-lite version of the AI, which included longer-term planning rather than purely emergent narrative. Evans has given a number of talks on that, which I unfortunately don't have good notes on, but here (archived) is a brief writeup someone else did of his AIIDE 2007 talk.

Mark J. Nelson, 2006-06-21.

<Note index>

Comments welcome: mjn@anadrome.org

Many thanks to @andrevasims for searching in this post:

[akanemnon]

Despite everything, it's still you.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[cidnangarlond]

[choccy-milky]

@foundthatoldzeppelinshirt what did u do to me...what in the wattpad is this... i only planned to do a few doodles but then i kept getting more brainrotted and things got out of hand LMAOO (and ofc i HAD to draw hockey player seb at SOME POINT bc its my duty as a canadian citizen🫡🍁🍁 O CANADA!!!)

[datcravat]

It seems there's a new lawyer in town!!!

[sisaloofafump]

Trying to visualize an exy court

[starkidmunson]

glitter & crimson

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

“Marry.”

“What?”

“Marry. He’s hot, I’m not gonna kill him.”

“Eddie, we’re not playing FMK; you’re supposed to be telling me his name.”

“Oh. That’s…. Joe Jonas.”

“…he’s literally from Hawkins. And he’s holding a hockey stick.”

“Nobody from Hawkins is that hot, man, no way.”

~~~

Gareth posts the clip to his personal TikTok. Before he can get around to reposting it on Corroded Coffin’s band account, it has more than 100k views. Things only spiral from there, because once the band shares it, the video goes more viral and ends up on the screens of the right people.

chiblkhwks: harrington94 is social media challenged, but we’re going to make sure he sees this. Will keep you posted.

The comment is immediately overshadowed by a busy day of PR. A photoshoot to an interview to a radio show to the green room at the Fillmore in Boston, before an intimate pre-album release show for members of their fan club. Eddie has completely forgotten about the video entirely, but Gareth’s phone pings with a text notification.

“A response has been issued!” He declares to the room, still grinning down at the screen of his phone.

The rest of the band shares a collectively confused look, all seeming pleased to find they’re not alone in whatever they’ve missed.

“What?” Jeff asks for the group.

In lieu of an explanation, Gareth just flips the phone in his hand around to show a TikTok, stitched with the clip they’d made earlier that morning.

~~~

“Marry. He’s hot, I’m not gonna kill him.”

#Stitch

“Is… is that supposed to be a compliment?” Steve asks, making a pinched face as he laces up his skates.

“You watched the whole video. He compared you to Joe Jonas.” The girl behind the camera responds, but he levels her with an unimpressed look. She doesn’t respond, and after a beat, he sighs.

“Yeah, alright, I guess Joe Jonas is hot. I’ll take the compliment.” He huffs, standing to his feet and moving from the bench he’d been suiting up on toward the ice. The girl follows him, gliding toward the net once they're in the rink, never falling out of pace with him.

“Do you know who it is talking in the video?” She presses, and Steve looks unimpressed again.

“You mean the other hot guy?” He asks with a grin, then nods. “That was Eddie. I’m surprised you don’t know him, the Party listens to Corroded Coffin all the time.”

The video loops back to the stitched clip from Gareth’s initial TikTok then. Everyone in the room processes what just unfolded.

“The Party? Did… did Steve Harrington just make a reference to DnD? Or is that some sports thing I dont understand?” Jeff asks.

Freak raises his hand, indicating he’s next to speak. “Not only that, but his nerdy DnD friends listen to us all the time?”

“Did King Steve call Joe Jonas hot?” Eddie asks, visibly still trying to connect the wires in his brain that fried at Steve’s agreement. “Did he call me hot?”

All three turn toward Eddie, whose face is still reflecting the long form math equation his brain is trying to work out, and Jeff sighs.

“Well, boys. I think we’ve officially lost him.” He says, bowing his head. Freak and Gareth join him solemnly, making Eddie huff and cross his arms over his chest.

“You’re all so dramatic.”

“Gee, I wonder who encouraged us to be this way,” Freak exaggerates through a grin, before shoving a guitar into Eddie’s chest, just in time for Paige to open the door and summon them.

“We can have a meltdown over Harrington after the gig,” Gareth promises with a pat to Eddie’s back as everyone moves around him, exiting the green room and heading for the stage.

~~~

Riding his post-show high, Eddie makes a bold move in the CC band TikTok, commenting under the video Steve had stitched.

corrodedcoff!n: we’ll be in chicago 1/26 if harrington94 and ‘the party’ are free 🎫

He only gets about 20 minutes of peace before Gareth is jumping around, proclaiming himself the greatest wingman in history.

“It’s an offer for free concert tickets made over social media, and he hasn’t even answered, Gare Bear.” Eddie tries to get him to relax, but he, too, is eager to see how the other reacts to the offer.

He wakes up the next morning to the answer he’d been waiting on, and his stomach flips as he reads it over.

harrington94: only if you guys come to the home game 1/27 🏒

__________

Steve doesn’t even bat an eye when Max shoves her way into the locker room, b-lining straight for him.

“Can I help you?” He asks without looking up, unhooking the padding from his calf and letting it drop to the ground in front of his locker.

“Are you using TikTok to publicly flirt with Eddie Munson?” She asks, voice quieter than he’d typically expect from her, but he just scoffs.

“I’m just being friendly! You’re the one who started this in the first place! What, you didn’t expect me to log on and check if they’d responded?” He asks in response, freeing his foot from the skate, before placing a cover over the blade and letting the boot drop into the lower shelf beside his locker.

“I’m just confused because you’ve been super weird about coming out, and now you’re out here hitting on a rockstar all over social media, that’s all.” Max says, and Steve freezes for a moment.

“Do you…” he trails off, before closing his eyes and rubbing a thumb into his temple. “You really think I just accidentally came out?”

“You called Joe Jonas and Eddie Munson hot, encouraged this rockstar to come to your game when he’s in town and also accepted tickets to see him perform, Steve.” Max was monotone, and held her hands up defensively when he groaned. “I’m not starting anything, I’m just saying that this could get blown out of proportion now.”

They discuss a little further, deciding neither of them will publicly acknowledge anything that’s been posted to the account for now, until they actually come up with a plan.

Once he’s in his car heading home, Steve calls Robin.

“Dingus,” she greets, as always, and he lets out a grumble. “Uh oh. What happened?”

“I think I accidentally came out on the internet, and it’s Eddie Munson’s fault.” He’s met with several seconds of silence as he starts his car on the path to him and Robin’s shared apartment.

“Eddie, the drug dealer from high school?” Robin eventually asks, confused, and Steve groans again.

“Yeah. He uh, also is in a band?” He supplies, and Robin’s quiet for a moment as she processes. Then, he hears the tapping of a keyboard. “What are you doing?”

“Looking Eddie up, obviously.” Steve can practically see her eye roll, even though they’re not FaceTiming. “You’re nothing if not consistent, I guess. Doe-eyed curly brunet.”

Steve scoffs. “You say as though you’re not the one currently waking up beside Nance every morning.”

He’s met again by a short silence, before Robin lets out a little puff of air, in a small laugh. “Thank you again for being so cool about that, by the way.” She says, before he hears clicking on her end. “Apparently, Eddie is out as bi. Corroded Coffin does a charity show for the Trevor Project every year, and he’s been to a lot of Pride events.”

Steve’s stomach twists with each new bit of information she provides, because a part of him wants to be that out, wants to be like Robin or apparently Eddie, freely sharing that part of themselves with the world and having no one give a shit. But that’s not how it works on so many levels for Steve. Beside the shit he’d have to deal with on the ice from certain other players, he had no idea how it would impact the team overall. There’s no way to gauge how fans would react, when there’s never been an openly gay player in the NHL. And that didn't even begin to touch on how his parents would react.

“Hey,” Robin breaks him out of his spiral and he realizes he’s been chewing a hole into his cheek. “I can hear how loud you’re thinking right now. Do you need me to come home?” She asks, gently, and he sighs.

“Please.” He mumbles after a long pause, and is grateful when he hears the jingle of car keys from the other end of the phone.

~~~

Robin scrolls through article after article once she gets to their place, pulling Steve onto the sofa with her and laying his head in her lap. Her fingers twist through his hair, doing her best to keep him calm as she reads up on the situation playing out to try and help gauge how big of a hole he’s dug himself this time.

“I don’t think there’s really anyone who thinks you were flirting with him. Not seriously, at least.” She tries to assure him, but he’d already seen the twitter posts to contradict that before she came over. He sighs and rolls onto his back, so he’s looking up at her, and shrugs.

“I kind of don’t think there’s any avoiding it, at this point.” He mumbles. “I’m not… I’m not ready to come out, not like this. Not on this scale. I think the only thing I can do is carry on and hope it doesn’t get turned into any bigger of a deal.”

Robin hums down at him, and continues to brush his hair back out of his eyes. “Okay. So you don’t come out yet. But don’t overcompensate for it, okay?” He scrunches his face up at her, and she types something into her phone before turning it back into his face. He immediately pales, met with a photo of him out with Heidi last year. With a black eye on full display, he looks miserable behind a fake smile.

“Low blow,” he grumbles, pushing himself away from Robin to sit up beside her, and she raises her eyebrow at him, still holding the photo pointed in his direction.

“‘Maybe they won’t notice or ask why my literal teammate punched me in the face at practice if I take a fucking supermodel out to dinner.’” Robin’s imitation is a little too good, a sure sign of too much time spent together.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it!” He asks, taking the phone off of her and closing out of the image before locking it. He drops it back into her lap with a sigh. “I just don’t know how many times I can keep getting away with hiding it.”

“Well, it helps that Billy got traded out to LA. He would be insufferable about this, and would absolutely make everything 10 times worse.” Robin muses.

Steve sighs and hesitates for a moment before dropping his head back into her lap, curling into her. “I just want it to be on my terms, when I’m ready.”

“We’ll figure it out, and it’ll all be okay, no matter what. Okay?” She assures quietly, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek.

His phone dings with a new notification; Max texted him a screenshot from TikTok.

corrodedcoff!n: you’ve got yourself a deal 🤝🏻

[united-under-skyfall]

leverage is so fucking funny. man manages to find the most mentally ill and neurodivergent group of thieves on the market + an even more mentally ill guy whose literal job description was trying to chase all of them, and forces them into a found family speed-run by trying to blow them all up. they lowkey stage a full fucking country wide coup and are like eh 🤷 just another wednesday. this might be a fun place to vacation tho i guess. sophie shows up to her own funeral twice. they're so good at convincing people of their shit that they make a guy's body start reacting to an illness he doesn't have because it isn't real. go completely out on a limb and basically hand this one guy a new password for his computer so they can get into it and he goes with it. parker and hardison have straight up just "fake it 'till you make it"d into the fbi without even attempting to cover their tracks beyond just These Two Guys. half their clients never asked to be their clients and don't know they're their clients, and the other half are random people who find them who fuckin knows how, meanwhile no government agency can track them down without selling their soul to sterling. they make a point to have a dramatic scene w a Big Bad Shadowy Government Guy who doesn't actually get caught or brought to justice or anything telling them he's going to hunt them all down, and in any other show this would probably earn at least a minor arc later on but he literally never shows up again. an entire season finale hinged on a cake and a bunch of clams. they accidentally made eliot a celebrity not once, not twice, but three times. parker blew up her foster parents' house when she was like. nine. and it's hardly a footnote. hardison is just casually an artistic prodigy but it's only ever brought up for the most background of background gags. eliot's biggest beef with parker and hardison for like two and a half seasons is that they won't stop making weird food with lasers and refuse to realize they can't make a decent beer to save their lives. sophie's immediate response to being shot is to call her shooter a wanker. there's a character who has literally killed a man with a mop and they had the audacity to only put her in one episode.

[jubilost]

really liking fields of mistria's approach to romance so far. it's very reactive and reciprocal. i invited hayden to the star festival, now he flirts with and gets shy around my character. i expected there to be a few lines of flavor text the following day, the fact that whoever you invite develops a crush on your character is so cute. the game is tagged as a dating sim on steam, i'm glad the devs seem to be leaning into that.

[bastardlybonkers]

feetman

[braisedhoney]

fighting back? against who? they're so happy—they've been waiting for you.

you are wonderful. don't you know that?

bonus: they play sims together :)

[mollysunder]

There is a theory that the way children play serves as a means to simulate and prepare them for the tasks they'll take on as adults. So for all the narrative weight both Jinx and the story give the boxing machine at the arcade it would never have prepared her or the kids to take on Piltover.

What are the two things that Piltovans excel at over their Zaunite counterparts to keep the hierarchy? Weapons and technological development.

When you look at the way Piltovans invest in their children, they don't prioritize hand to hand/melee combat training. Piltovans focus on giving their children experiences in handling firearms, a pursuit that is both leisure sport for the wealthy and a key offense against dissenting Zaunites.

And from the show notes even Jayce, whose family occupies the upper middle class, was sent on educational excursions across Runeterra to explore the world and learn what it had to offer. Without Jayce's education abroad he would never have been inspired to pursue the concept hextech.

It's no wonder that the two figures that are set to be Piltover's biggest threats from Zaun are Jinx and Viktor, becasue they engaged in the same kinds of games and activities as their Piltovan counterparts.

Jinx didn't have an entire forest preserved to help her practice her sharpshooting like the high houses of Piltover, but she did excel in the few games at The Rift (the arcade) that built on her talents. She's the only Zaunite thus far who's long distance offensive is a strong counter to Piltover's forces.

Viktor couldn't travel the world like Jayce did, but for better or worse he managed to stumble into an opportunity to get real opportunity in research not offered to his peers through Singed. It was through that experience that Viktor knew to turn to Singed when he was at the end of his rope, and the consequences of that will be fully realized in season 2.

Ironically, the kind of skill the boxing game champions is only good for keeping other Zaunites in line. Vander's days of fighting Piltover were way behind him when we first met him, and Vi spends season 1 primarily fighting other Zaunites. It's no surprise the Zaunites who embody the old ideal of strength in Zaun that the game portrays, Vi and Vander, are largely at the mercy of Piltover and end up collaborating with them to avoid further harm.

Zaun's future as an independent city-state couldn't happen if they stuck to their old ideals. The people who stand a chance against Piltover are the ones that not only succeed but excel at playing Piltover's games against them.

[rosalie-starfall]

The Not Ready For Prime Time Players

Saturday Night / Saturday Night Live October 11th 1975

[tea-n-ink]

Homesickness is where the heart is

[sun-marie]

So the other day this post by @/carabas hit me like a truck, and I really wanted to explore how Lydia and Lucanis resolve that. I really like the idea that a part of her isn't fully convinced Lucanis being alive isn't more of Solas's mind magic, until Solas leaves after binding himself to the fade and Lucanis is still here. She'd braced herself to find that he was truly gone after defeating Solas, only to turn and see he's right by her side, still here <3

[glossc1]

ganymede, hebe and the eleventh hour

more ganymede🍎