Chris talks in detail about these things in his book. Also, here’s a (slightly stale) list of links to various activity in advancing the state of the art for interactive characters and story, in both academia and industry.

Speaking of imperfections, this reminds me to link this post and discussion from last May, that goes further to describe what I’m talking about here, that suggests virtual characters should have irrational wants.

In our almost-completed interactive drama project (we’re in a final debugging and polishing phase now), we have implemented some of these ideas, at least in simple ways. The characters have a lot of backstory and baggage, they have tendencies, they certainly mishear words!, both from accidental technical limitations and from author-intended slanted interpretations of what the player is saying and doing. To get more info about Facade I encourage you to check out the papers listed on the website, particularly the GDC 03 paper. There’s much, much further to go in this direction, of course; Facade achieves barely more than a minimal level of the important personality features we’re talking about here.

well, our posts and comments tend to link back to older posts and comments, which link further… it’s a tangled web we’re weaving on GTxA I suppose.

in a game or virtual heritage environment (which is what Iresearch) agency is not actually the component but _perceived_ agency. You can keep calling it agency but really the fact it is an illusion (but the 2d squirrel really _does_ like me!) does not mean it is not important, for we as pattern matchers assume agency to anything we can, God, inkblots, good looking cars, images of newsreaders.

Interactive art/entertainment experiences that purport to give players agency almost always offer a blend of real agency and the illusion of agency. By real agency, I mean the actions that the player takes truly alter the internal state of the simulated world, and that change is clearly expressed back to the player. That is, real effects, short-term (local) and/or long-term (global). By the illusion of agency, we mean when people “read in” effects they’re having on the world, either purely serendipitously, or because the system gives enough (fake) cues that people are fooled — the Eliza effect. As you say, this happens a lot in people’s lives in general.

But Erik, faking it can only go so far. Interactive art/entertainment will stagnate in its current premature stage forever unless we make progress to build much more real agency into the experiences. This is at the core of what Chris and other advocates of agency, including me, are trying to say.

I’m leaning towards getting more purist about this all — building experiences that rely less and less on the Eliza effect, and are more truly generative, offering more real agency.

This issue parallels the ludology vs. narratology debate (a dangerous link!) — in pure ludology, everything is fully simulated, which should allow for the most player agency. When narrative is represented shallowly (e.g. as canned text, images, videos, etc.) and not generated from a live simulation, it diminishes player agency. The more of an interactive experience that is shallowly represented and not simulated, the less agency that is offered. (It’s interesting, I don’t recall proponents of ludology arguing in these pro-agency terms exactly, but I think it’s an effective angle to take.)

Note this is by no means a suggestion to abandon narrative! Instead, it’s a push to make simulations that generate narrative.

This also doesn’t mean solving Artificial Intelligence, or taking a strictly cognitive science approach to simulating human minds! It does however mean building systems that are heavily process-oriented and have rich knowledge representation. They will be minds, but not necessarily mimicking human minds.

Chris Crawford really came close a long time ago to the idea of interactivity so if his new book is even better it is a must-read IMHO.

Yes, I think his new book is a must-read, however it gets more focused and technical than his previous ones, nor is it as well-written. It’s probably not going to be as generally useful for people as his previous books. But it’s his most ambitious. At a minimum, it should illuminate for people the issues involved in creating simulations that generate narrative, and help people realize there is no silver bullet to cracking this nut. Interactive story is truly a Big Hard Problem.

A few suggestions:
in a game or virtual heritage environment (which is what I research) agency is not actually the component but _perceived_ agency. You can keep calling it agency but really the fact it is an illusion (but the 2d squirrel really _does_ like me!) does not mean it is not important, for we as pattern matchers assume agency to anything we can, God, inkblots, good looking cars, images of newsreaders.
Once I sat in the front row of a cinema and this guy (drugs drinks or some other condition) started having a conversation with characters on the screen-he honestly thought they were real. Fascinating, well to me not the others in the cinema.

Dialogue-it does not mean assymmetry, it means in ancient Greek parlance two people trying to reach a conclusion (Socrates via Plato). Gadamer wrote a wonderful definition of democracy/dialogue: entering a conversation with the tacit acknowledgement one could have one’s mind changed.
Anything less is not a true dialogue.

Story telling: story making? story sharing? story playing? It depends on the audience. The Kalevala is a story remembered, a play is a story interpreted and the nuances affected, theatre games are stories directed by the audience. All are slowly remade over time (nobody notices we have modified/semi-standardised Shakespeare’s spelling when he himself/themselves kept changing it).
Making stories and (spatial narrative in 3D games) is more fun because we are continually surprised by possibly meaningful forks in the narrative path and intrigued by its possible psychological effect on the audience/gamer:
Immanuel Kant nearly stumbled on this with his talk of aesthetic ideas, and Pynchon had an idea in the crying of lot 49.

Sharing meaning: when you can produce this in a virtual environment (game) I think it is hermeneutic. So far we have it in 2D (a href=”http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/various/Towell_et_al.1997.Presence_in_MUDs.htm”>MUDS etc) but I don’t think we have it in 3D due to lack of personalisation or truly unique identification (ok so I can build a house in ActiveWorlds that looks like any other house in ActiveWorlds).

Sorry regards length, the thread re-awoke what I should be writing about, and reminds me what I should have said: Chris Crawford really came close a long time ago to the idea of interactivity so if his new book is even better it is a must-read IMHO.
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