|
Some interesting ideas here.
To address the initial post the main problem I see is that you are mixing fairly high level thought with simple basics. Sure you can teach navigation and give NPCs a way to look for similar creatures but beyond that it gets a lot more complicated. Simulating high level thought is just not an easy thing.
My approach to NPC AI has been to give them a set of base needs (food, water, sleep, play, etc) and to teach them how to fulfill those needs. From these simple things you get more complex behavior that is somewhat realistic. If they get hungry they go to look for food, if they do not need to eat or sleep they head out to work. Add in some speech so they can communicate what they need/are doing and you have a NPC that seems to be alive.
One thing to consider for the person working on the new Mud is that NPCs are active 24 hours a day while the players are not. If you give the NPCs the ability to damage the player economy it is very likely that the world will become a wasteland very quickly, and all the NPCs will die out. Once that happens you do not have much of a world anymore.
What is needed for this sort of system is an overall control system that monitors conditions and keeps things running smoothly. If the NPCs and players need food, then some sort of monitoring is needed to make sure the level of damage is not critical unless the players are available to handle the attacks.
A.T
(-)
|