presentation - towards emergent gameplay: a framework for realistic psychosocial behaviour in npcs

7/28/2019 Presentation - Towards Emergent Gameplay: A Framework for Realistic Psychosocial Behaviour in NPCs

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Towards Emergent Gameplay:A Framework for Realistic

Psychosocial Behaviour in NPCs

Thesis by Christine Bailey


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Outline Motivation

Previous research Problem statement

Solution

Contributions Future work


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Motivation Video gamesa challenging area of AI

Characters becoming more important ingamesBully &Assassins Creed


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Previous Research Psychology

Cognition, Emotion, Personality

Social behaviour

Current NPC architectures

Emergent Gameplay


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Emergence A.K.A. Emergent Gameplay

Stimulus-Response in components (no

system-level algorithms)

Typically used in simple behaviours


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Emergent Gameplay Simple component-level behaviours

(Mechanics)

+

Interaction between those behaviours

(Dynamics)

=>

Complex system-level behaviour (Aesthetics)


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Emergent Gameplay in Thief Simple concrete components

Torch + Water => Torch extinguished

Candle + Oil => Fire

Fire + Barrel => Ashes


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Emergent Gameplay But, what does all this emergence stuff

have to do with psychology or sociology?


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Emergent Psychosocial

Behaviour Emergent Gameplay concepts can be used

to create more believable characters

Using non-concrete components:

Instead of candles, oil, and guards as

components, we use psychosocial objects and

concepts


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Problem Statement A framework for emergent psychosocial

behaviour in NPCs

Flexible

Real-time interactive performance

Handles undefined circumstances Supports designer


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Elements of a Social Psychology Situation

Internal state

Social information


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Situation Environmental situation affects how people

act

Examples:

Coffee vs. Earthquake

Presentation stress


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Internal State Trait hierarchy

Examples:

Personality

Personality Traits

Emotional Range

Emotions Values, worldview

Anything the designer wants


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Social Information Who is around?

What is my social standing in relation to them?

Queen of England Drinking buddies

Are they friends? Enemies? Strangers?

What can we model?

Peer pressure, conformity, groupthink?

Mobbing/Panic?

Social loafing?


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Elements of Social Psychology Summary

Situation

Internal state

Social information

Next:

Mechanics

Defining NPC responses


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Mechanics of an Emergent

Psychosocial System Recall, Emergent Gameplay:

Simple component-level behaviours

+

Interaction between those behaviours

=>

Complex system-level behaviour


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MechanicsEmergent Gameplay So how is this done?

Stimulus-Responses

We must define how each object reacts to

GENERAL stimuli in the environment


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MechanicsEmergent Gameplay But

These are concrete objects

Arrows, candles, gas barrels,

This has nothing to do with psychology,

sociology,


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MechanicsEmergent Gameplay An abstraction:


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Mechanics of an Emergent Social

Psychology


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Mechanics of an Emergent Social

Psychology Psychosocial actors:

Anything that creates a psychological or social

stimulus i.e. people, emotional events, possessions

Psychosocial stimuli:

Emotional stimuli, social stimuli

i.e. joy, fear, hostile environment, panic Psychosocial reactors:

Anything that can react

Namely NPCs


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MechanicsEmergent Gameplay Stimulus messages carry information about

the stimulus:

Stimulus type (i.e. joy, panic)

Magnitude

Propagation method (by contact, by range,)

Fall off (can model social phenomena?)

Social relevancewho is affected?


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Defining NPC Responses Data-driven

Mapping stimuli to actions

Designer defines data to map:

Psychosocial stimulus to appropriate

reactions

Reactions to associated internal traits


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High-level Design Summary

Elements of a social psychology

Mechanics of an emergent social psychology

Defining NPC Responses

Next:

Software design


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Software Design Use an event listener and message passing

to broadcast stimulus messages

Psychosocial actors broadcast

Psychosocial reactors listen


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NPC Architecture


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NPC Architecture


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Prototype A simple proof-of-concept prototype was

implemented

Hard-coded, not data-driven Dynamic emotional range:

joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust

Static personality:

agreeableness/dominance

Static symmetric social ties

Behaviours: Hug, Greet, Snub, Attack


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Prototype Evaluations were done:

Efficiency and resource usage

No significant increase in resource usage up to 10

NPCs

Scenarios to examine realistic psychosocial

behaviour


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Scenarios One hostile, everyone else happy

One happy, everyone else unhappy

Antagonistic groups


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One hostile, everyone else happy One angry/hostile individual (Brona) who

hates everyone else

Everyone else happy

Those with dominance matching Bronas

responded with anger Those with dominance lower than Bronas

responded with fear/sadness


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One happy, everyone else

unhappy One happy person who liked everyone,

everyone else unhappy (angry, sad,

disgusted, fearful)

The happy persons joy spread through

everyone eventually resulting in a steady-

state utopia


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One happy, Note: no negative feedback

Joy was set up to spread

Nobody strongly disliked anybody else, so a

steady-state utopia was reached

The one negative social tie present is too weak to

cause a behavioural effect


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Antagonistic groups Two distinct groups who dislike each other


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Antagonistic groups


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Something Interesting: Responses depended on current moods/sequence

of interactions

i.e. Hermione felt disgust in response to Goylesending snub

Goyle would send snub only when not angry

Goyle would send attack if angry

Hermione felt anger in response to attack

No steady state was reached: because of

antagonism present


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Scenarios - Conclusion Overall realistic and emergent behaviour

Some tweaking may be required to get

desirable responses

Should be careful of steady-states:

Be careful of positive feedback (i.e. joy in

response to joy)

Put in a mixture of people who like and

dislike each other


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Contributions Emergent psychosocial behaviour/interactions

A variety of social concepts are supported by the

framework Resource usage results encouraging

Handles undefined circumstances without

designer intervention Supports designer-defined traits

Supports player-authored experience


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Future Work Implement more traits & social concepts

Social roles, group memberships, social influences,

peer pressure, values, individual worldviews Dynamic social ties

Implement data-driven traits

Integration with fully-functional game User studies (realistic, gameplay experience?)

Splintering of social groups


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Any questions?

presentation - towards emergent gameplay: a framework for realistic psychosocial behaviour in npcs

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