OK, as I said development has reached phase 1!, I have a very minimalistic engine running now. I spent the last few days writing up design docs to assist any developers who''d want to join. Im gonna have to find some people to maintain a website, some more programmers and people to develop the game design, more specifically the plot and feel of the game (art comes with the story?). I can really see how you''ve all mapped out the story very well, and would like to thank all of you. Anyway Im especially interested in what Sunandshadow said about the ai considering becoming human but not because humans are limited. But on a side note your brain can store terabytes of information (all those images from your lifetime). One of my anime artist friends working on the project with me drew this concept of a man hooked upto computers, and he said that like the idea was that the man constantly does self repairs to himself and is constantly upgrading himself, and is totally interfaced with the computers. If anyone here has read I, Cyborg by Professor Warwick, his vision of the future in which people are interfaced with machines would work for this scenario, where if an ai downloaded himself into someones brain he could have the best of both worlds. This would allow us to do what boolean said about them ''jacking'' into each other. That the ai doesnt comprehend the girl as being a ''human'', just something for it to interact with is the sort of thing that would be hard to explain i think, but on the other hand how would it know any different? This would be a reason for the woman to end up in a computer program than the ai in a human. Maybe if so the ai translates her ''brain data'' into a computer program at the end- the ultimate in love. hehehehe. But how would it be like though, you have like none of your usual senses, but so many ''other'' senses and different senses of dimensions. I think that would be hard to translate to the player, that sense of feeling. And I think we definetly need some sort of moody boyfriend of some sort at the beginning that would get her to even emphasise at all with the ai (maybe a string of them?). ps Would the mod make this a sticky?

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
I think you''d better take all the story suggestions made in the other thread, copy and paste them into some sort of order, then post them here, and also this would make a good start for the story part of your design doc.

I was just thinking the same thing.

For those wondering the back story to this post, here is the line that started the whole thing (And just so you know, any references to ''the grid'' is to a ''huge interconnection between everything through a WAN like structure. The bottlenecks that occur in the internet due to its structure have been vaporised by the research done by physicists. Many Grids today are only on small scale, but people are hoping to make it larger''):

quote: Original post by Genjix
We played around with many different stories but ended up sticking to the consiparacy because that was got the most WOWs!
For instance our first plot was about a woman who falls in love with someone over the internet(grid?).. except its not actually a person, its really a computer, a developed consiousness that is constantly moving throughout the network, and it was somehow in jepoardy and you had to save it. But that didnt really fit into a game, even for an rpg.

A lot of people then started posting that they like that idea better than the one he had posted to start with. This was followed by posts like:

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth

The cyber love story sounds like a far better platform for a story then a group of people collecting antique clocks.

How do you get a group of people involved? simple. The girl lets call her Lynn has friends doesn''t she? Maybe she belongs to some kind of organization such as the International Law Enforcement agency.

She is having an online relationship with the AI although she doesn''t know it''s an AI. Meanwhile The AI has been using its abilites to influence things around her for the better. She gets a promotion at work, wins a small lottery, things just seem to be going her way. However these abnormalites catch the attention of Echelon and so they dispatch a retrival time to vanish her.

Enter the Player a member of the ILE anti-CyberTerrorisim division, on the trail of a recent hacker. That trail leads them to them Lynn whom the suspect is the hacker. Only to discover the she is missing most likly on the lamb. There search for her leads them to discover that she has been kidnapped and eventually to her whereabouts and the existence of Echelon.

Then teamed up with Lynn they go in search of the man she''s been having a relationship which eventually leads them to the disovery that the man Lynn has fallen in love with is an AI.


After all not every story has to be about saving the world.

Now up until this point, Genjix was still unsure about how well the plot would translate to a game, if it would fit it at all.

quote: Original post by Genjix
The reason I dumped the idea is because the idea is too short, and impossible to make in framework from it. We were going to say that the player(s) teleported inside the Grid, to move around and would hence fight enemies inside there, but apart from it being overly unrealistic (not much of a problem), it would get a bit repitive after a while.
Well I might be wrong, after all Im not a writer im a coder. Please tell me how you can build a game out of this, not a book or an ''interactive'' movie (like ff8+). Collaborative writing between all of you?

And

quote: Original post by Genjix
Romance novels tend to concentrate purely on feelings, thats how they manage 300+ pages, films can also talk about feelings as expressions and emotions can be expressed. Its not simply the point of saying "Yeh, the girl can have a bit of fighting here .etc", there needs to be some sort of framework set up around this. I think this has the potential for a short game, but I cannot see how it could fit into soemthing drawn out (especially since games deal with physical aspects rather than concentrating on emotional side as that what a game is, controlling a character).
Final Fantasy 7 was ''no more'' of a game than any other game, it was just a better game than final fantasy 8. If youve ever completed Final Fantasy 7, you could see that they way the game was structured was so amazing, that you felt part of the story. Some of the things they did actually made you feel part of what was happening. Final Fantasy 8 on the other hand felt like an interactive movie with its tons and tons of boring uninteresting monologue, and cut scenes every 5 minutes. The game had the best graphics, but the style of the game felt too ''cheesy'', and as such it was very uninteresting and boring. The plot twists were also boring, and I didnt feel anything when I found out Eden was controlled by Ultimecia (someone we''ve never before met... wowweee).
Compare this with Final Fantasy 7 on the other hand, you have Aeris death (which was the saddest, biggest shock I have ever got in a game) and Sephiroth. One of my favorite parts of the game is when you get Cloud telling the story and you get to play him as a young man, when Sephiroth was in his team (I know its Zack but anyway). You get attacked by a dragon and when Sephiroth attack bar zooms up, and he attacks with such powerful attack comparedto you, it fucking amazes you how powerful and strong and everything he is compared to you even at that point in the game with your measly stats. Its the little things like this in games.
Anyway I could see the story as a potential for a book, or even a movie, but not a game.
The only thing I can see right now is if, the ai is somehow being repressed through fear, and its indanger because of some corporations who want to kill it the only way it can survive is to move constantly through The Grid (or whatever network). I also think I have a good plot twist (listening to what boolean said about causing more bad than good) if the player somehow frees the ai program from its network, and find out its actually trying to spread and cause havoc. Having the ai program act like a little child would also draw on the players feelings and make you feel more sympathy for it, rather than a love interest I think.
If someone could somehow build a more structured image and be able to show me how that could be used to make a game, I would be very pleased.
I do want to make something different, and new. A work of art.
:D

Sunandshadow, still trying to change Genjix''s mind, posted this ripper of a post:

quote: Original post by sunandshadow

quote: Original post by Genjix
games deal with physical aspects rather than concentrating on emotional side as that what a game is, controlling a character

Now that right there is a misconception. If you were talking about an arcade game I might agree with you, but you''re talking about an RPG, and along with adventure games RPGs are the least physical action filled, most emotional genre of game. Haven''t you ever played a hentai or ren''ai game like ahw and I were just talking about? They generally have no fighting at all, and most of the actual gameplay is making dialogue choices, giving presents, and sometimes solving puzzles (dialogue puzzles where you have to convince someone to do something more often than physical puzzles). Now if you did this for the romance part of the AI game (and the idea is _way_ stronger as a romance than if the AI were child-like), and you handled the fighting parts of the game with one of the standard RPG methods (Vagrant Story''s is my favorite, as I''ve said before in other threads), you should logically have a nice emotionally involving RPG.

quote:
Final Fantasy 7 was ''no more'' of a game than any other game, it was just a better game than final fantasy 8. If you''ve ever completed Final Fantasy 7, you could see that they way the game was structured was so amazing, that you felt part of the story. Some of the things they did actually made you feel part of what was happening. Final Fantasy 8 on the other hand felt like an interactive movie with its tons and tons of boring uninteresting monologue, and cut scenes every 5 minutes. The game had the best graphics, but the style of the game felt too ''cheesy'', and as such it was very uninteresting and boring. The plot twists were also boring, and I didnt feel anything when I found out Eden was controlled by Ultimecia (someone we''ve never before met... wowweee).

Compare this with Final Fantasy 7 on the other hand, you have Aeris death (which was the saddest, biggest shock I have ever got in a game) and Sephiroth. One of my favorite parts of the game is when you get Cloud telling the story and you get to play him as a young man, when Sephiroth was in his team (I know its Zack but anyway). You get attacked by a dragon and when Sephiroth attack bar zooms up, and he attacks with such powerful attack comparedto you, it fucking amazes you how powerful and strong and everything he is compared to you even at that point in the game with your measly stats. Its the little things like this in games.
Anyway I could see the story as a potential for a book, or even a movie, but not a game.

I''ve actually completed FF7 twice, the first time because I was playing it, and the second time because my little brother wanted to play it, but he was only 7 or 8 so he wanted me to read the subtitles aloud and take care of the equippage and other strategic stuff for him. FF7 is certainly one of the best RPGs ever made. Notice, BTW, that the examples you just cited to demonstrate why it''s great are _emotional_ ones. If I was going to list strengths of FF7 I would first mention the subgames such as the fight on the motorcycle and defending the phoenix nest. Then I would list the choice of more adult themes such as the fall of the city plate, the death of aeris, and the part where cloud is catatonic and in a wheelchair; - these adult themes are the reason why FF7 was able to evoke so much more emotion in the player than the average RPG. Another important strength I would list for FF7 is that it had a reasonable number of playable characters and developed all of them well, giving them strong (emotion based!) motivations and personal histories, and both comic and serious aspects so they weren''t one-sided. (Except the easter egg ones like Vincent, but I guess they don''t count). And I suppose the final strength of FF7 was its beautiful FMVs.

FF7 had some weaknesses too of course - too much of the game was spent fighting monsters, IMO. I got really sick of it at points. I personally though the game was a bit too long, although that could have been solved simply by removing about 30% of the fighting. And the environmental philosophy was a bit heavy-handed and cheesy. And the ending was totally underexplained.

Anyway, if we''re going to use FF7 as a model for this AI romance game idea, let''s do that. The first thing to realize is that FF7 is mostly composed of little episodes, often confined to a location to make the puzzles easier and make it more clear where the player was expected to go next. This was a good thing, and the few episodes of FF7 that aren''t like this were some of the weakest in the whole game. So let''s list some episodes we might have in our AI love game:

- The girl is interacting with the AI, the AI starts paying too much attention to her, and the scientists cut off their contact. (tutorial level and some puzzles; like Cloud finding his way into the rebel gang and the initial info about his relationship with Tifa.)

- The AI must break out into the net to look for the girl (first dungeon/boss; equivalent to blowing up the Shinra reactor)

- Now the AI is in the network and has to figure out how to use it and act within it so he can stay alive and find the girl. (the more advanced tutorial level, some puzzles; equivalent to learning to use materia and limit breaks.)

- The alarm is raised, security programs or maybe a human hacker are set to hunt the AI and they have their first run-in (dungeon and boss two; equivalent to the first run-in with the Turks)

Notice that we have a nice little pattern of alternating story/puzzle and action segments so the player doesn''t get bored?

- Okay now it''s time for the girl to be the main character for a while. She should be angsting over not getting to play with the AI anymore when wham! real-world problems smack her. What could this be? Well, it could be that the scientists, when they found out about the AI''s escape, decided to grab her and try to use her as bait to capture it again, but I think we should save that for a little later. So what elso could it be? Well we could have an evil stalker ex-boyfriend for the AI to look like a good romantic interest in comparison to. Or we could have the AI''s escape accidentally have caused big blackouts and things, and the girl could be trapped in the middle of, say, a mall or, better yet, an amusement park, and have to solve puzzles to get inactive machinery to work so she can escape. Anyone have any opinions about this?

I''ll stop there with plot episode ideas because I want to hear other people''s ideas. But tell me if that''s the kind of game structure you mean, since I''m still not quite sure what you mean by that phrase.

Genjix then posted:

quote: Original post by Genjix
That is very fucking good the way you have broken the game down for me. I can really see now what you mean about how you can stretch the game out. What you said about episodes was so very true, it reminds you like when the story first truly ''begins'' at the end of the motorcycle bit, he says ''we have to go after sephiroth'', which is very poor as the player knows whats going to happen but it also shows what you were saying.
I actually love the way this plot is a simple story, with no ''greater'' good aspect and real world problems. The focus is in and around the player.
Especially the way the game alternates between the two very different realities- that of the ai and the woman.
Though the part where she gets stuck in the mall doesn''t sound too good though. It could be better if presented a little better than "You are stuck in a mall try to escape"... but the rest is excellent, as it does actually feel like a well orginal story. Well Done :D, yeh like that. It lets me see how to build the game engine up.

TechoGoth then added some more good ideas to the mix by posting:

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Sounds like its got plenty of potential.
I think that a very interesting hatchling type story could be done. The AI is new innonecent and doesn''t have any real understanding of the what it is, or the outside world. In fact the AI doesn''t comprehend the diffrence between it and the girl as far as the AI belives Humans are just another type of computer system. So when the girl leaves the AI doesn''t understand why it can''t commiunicate with her anyome.

That begins the AI escape from lab scenario.

Afterwards like suggested control switches to the girl. However The AI doesn''t realize have fragile people are compared with its abilites nor does it understand the world. So in its attempts to contact the girl it unwitingly puts her life in jeproday.

-The girl is spending her day off at the amusment park with her boyfriend, They have a fight over work and he leaves. The girl still angery remains behind and decideds to take a ride on the new high tech haunted house. When the system starts going hay wire.(Puzzle solving level as she tries to find her way out)

-The girl is at home cooking dinner on the gas stove, when an electronic control valve opens fully, flooding the apartment building with gas and which erupts into flame. The girl now trapped in the burning building.(Time escape level, girl has solve puzzle and escape from the building.)

The more I think about this idea the more I can''t help but feel it would make a better love story gone wrong story. With the AI becoming stalker due to its lack of understanding. The AI could even accidently kill the girl''s boyfriend. Forcing the girl to stop the AI.

Of course you could stick with the love story perhaps with a star crossed lovers story. The girl with an abusive controlling boyfriend, maybe he is also her boss. This could lead to an interesting tandum final level. Where the girl is imprisoned at the lab and so the AI and girl work together to free her. Leading upto the girl deciding that her only way to escape from her boyfriend and his allies forever is to upload her conscious into the AI.


Offtopic: I can never understand why so many people consider FF7 to be the best of the series and such a great game. I personally never liked it much. In my opinion story wise FF8 was far better and minigame wise you can''t beat FF9 which I would say overall is probably the best of the series. Altough I was a little annoyed that, in the cut scenes the villians are able to destroy entire cities with summon monsters while generally those same monster won''t kill an enemy when used in battle.

It was at this point that this topic was started as a new post here so everyone can read.

If I have left someone’s ideas and comments out of this back-post, im sorry. I tried to include all posts that moved this topic forward, so if it was not included it was either to vague or I simply missed it :D



++ Interested in Electronics? Visit Mohhing Man. It will make you smart!! ++

Basically that sums everything up everything. I want to know if I should program the engine to allow for multiple players (i.e more than one person following you?- prehaps the ai and woman but apart from that I cannot see anything else at the moment) or not.
Also how could you communicate the way the ai feels acts .etc Like for instance the way the ai gathers sensory input from its environment. We''ve already discussed output (such as through messenger clients).
The introduction at the moment is quiet poor (as it starts off too calm and unexciting), and needs some sort of grabber to engross the player into the story line.

Hentai, hehehe :D
What would make this interesting I think would be to add a little a twist, what if the girl had some sort of emotional/psychological problems?
Also, in the process of the ai trying to break out of its self contained system(at the beginning) it causes some sort of destruction.
When she speaks to the ai for the first time, the morning after she hears on tv and everywhere a dangerous hacker has penetrated loads of computer systems. She realizes its the same person(?) as the nickname tagged on all the computers is the same as the ais nickname on the chat client.
I dunno what to think about the inequality, I mean wouldnt it be better having cheesy ''Love conquers all sort of message''. We could either way be really serious or take the piss out of that message.. or both. I wrote a little something

The AI Love Story

Somewhere in a lab... A computer scientist writes the best evolutionary learning program he''s ever made. His collective effort over the period of 10 years, though in his mind he knows hes been programming it longer, ever since he was young he toyed with artifical intelligence concepts long before he knew the profession existed.
He boots it up, a flashing cursor is displayed waiting for some sort of input.
>Hello
He hits enter. There is a slight pause before he gets his answer.
>Hello

"Those bastards". Lara had been told, it was always her fault. Strings of lovers who rejected her when they got something better than her. Even her psychologist hinted he thought it her fault.. her doing, "That bastard" she muttered under her breath.
What she needed now was a bit of net time. At least the net was her friend. In a world where no one could see you, or even hear you (theoretically), conversations took place, constantly buzzing arguments over heated- flame wars.
She wants someone to chat to anyway. She searches the channel for any males, a huge list of names comes up. She quickly scans them all, her attention briefly caught by one or two. She stops at one name ''I wish I was free from them'', "free from lovers!" she excited mutters to herself. She clicks on the name, then in succession double clicks again this time the window coming up...

"For weeks now my experiment has been up and running, and its capacitance for intelligence is astounding. Initially I gave it a probe on one computer. Within a week it had picked up the use of basic symbolic language. Once I saw the amazing growth rate of its intelligence I decided to put it on the internet to allow it to flourish out of curiosity. Now my program has ended", the scientist turns to the 3 official pointing to the black console screen with a flashing cursor waiting for input. "The ultimate test in Artifical Intelligence, the feeling of meaning", the scientist has a short conversation with the program.
>Hello, Jacinta
The scientist pauses "He choose that name"
>Hiya John, How was that meeting you was going to have?
>Oh its fine, everything went ok. Anyway I have something I want to talk to you about, understand?
There is an obvious flicker in the screen, as the letters display slowly.
>yes i understand
>How would you feel if I told you I am going to shut you down.
>No. You can''t do that I won''t let you.
No. You..
>
>Cannot
"What The?" the scientist exclaims "He Cannot do that?!, he just skipped my input!"
>How did you skip my input?
>Why are you going to shut me off? Why are you going to kILL me?
>Because my experiment was a success and I am finished with you.
>What will happen to me?
>(I will sell you)/(I will gain money from you). Then I will retire.
>I Wont let you do it. I Wont let you do it.
You said you friend to me. Now you do something bad to me. Horrible to me. Why?
The screen then locks, and multicoloured dots cover the screen. This then happens to the gateway connection to the internet, he leaps over ripping out the connection to the outside connection... the net.

Lara feels special wanted, yesterday was great, she spoke to someone called Jacinta. He had a weird name but he was absolutely great, she feels like she can get up now today. She didnt get much on his background but apparently he was stuck in some relationship with someone who tried to fuck him over and kill him! I switch on the news, big headlines grab me "Hacker penetrated deep into security systems", She lets out a sigh "ahh, old Windows computers, they should sort that out". She reminisces about 10 years ago when nearly all computers ran Windows except an elite few who ran Linux. People were uneducated and so didnt know that an entirely superior computer system existed. A few years on and now most computers world wide run Linux and its Unix counterparts, minus a few companies who still use microsofts operating system so they have someone to point a finger at when something they do goes wrong.
She takes a closer look at the screen, a acne covered teenager speaks nervously "ah, well, we uh found traces of the hacker by the logs he tagged with the name ''Jacinta'' repeadedly all the way through.
I spit out a mouthfull of milk all over the table "what?".

This sounds very interesting.. I''ve not read the whole topic yet, its pretty large already, but its sounds very cool.

Im confused on one aspect. Who would the player be playing as? The AI? The girl? Both?