Npc

is it possible to get avatars like our self but fully scriptable.

Not at this time. We've had mixed feelings about NPCs in Second Life. While it's an interesting idea to have an NPC as a shopkeeper, for example, one of the more compelling things about SL is that there's a real person behind every avatar. I'd certainly be interested in hearing other's thoughts about this, so I'm going to copy this thread to the Feature Suggestion forum.

There have been several lengthy discussions about NPCs/Avatar Objects/Maniqins(sp) in the past...

While the quality of having a live person behind every avatar is nice, its also highly restrictive and un-needed.

Alot of the user base is accustomed to NPCs and are infact surprised when every avatar turns out to be human ("R U KOMPUTOR?!".

There are so many good uses that could be done with an avatar like object that it seems rediculous to excuse it away. Not only could they be used in games, but they could also be used for displaying clothing, modeling in screenshots, interaction for shops, used as replacement "I'm Not Here" things (like how some prim based avatars have when they're logged off), and probably other uses I can't think of.

However the confusion could come up, since SL didn't have NPCs from the start, if all these non-human things popped up. To limit this confusion ideas have been suggested...

- Such as putting an "Aura" around the objects (simular to when you have an object selected in Edit mode). The Aura would be toggable from preferences or Debug so people who don't care can turn it off.

- Putting a title over the objects head "I Am An NPC Bob Smith" or having an NPC's last name be something like "Bob NPC" or not having a name over their head at all (this could be confusing for people who have this option turned off).

- Making a different color dot on the mini-map or not having one at all (probably the later would be more logical, but not everyone uses the mini-map).

- Having the tooltip of the object state "NPC".

Some of these aren't really obviouse solutions, as in users could still get confused given certain other variables. I personaly think the best way would to put an aura around the objects that users can toggle, as well as making the tooltip obviously different. Those two things wouldn't interfere with people who may be annoyed by some of the other suggestions that may limit the NPC "experience".

I would also suggest, if implemented, have on Orientation Island a station that explained what an NPC was and how it differs from a real life person. I.e. "This object is not a real person, you can tell the difference by...".

I think having an avatar like object has too many awsome ideas to pass up having in-world.

NPCs would be especially useful in the development of RPGs or other simulations.

One option for dealing with them would be to allow NPC settings on land, such as with scripts, flying, or damage.

A few questions come to mind:

- Would NPCs would require separate accounts or account options, or would they would just be treated like scripted prims? (It seems that it might make sense to charge something for them, to cover their server resource usage.)

- Would there, at least eventually, be advanced AI scripting functionality available for the development of semi-realistic NPCs? This could allow the development of RPGs or other interactive games that could at least partially compete with traditional published games. (Revenue related to this could help fund these developments.)

There are some ideas to hopefully start some discussion, anyway. There might be controversy about allowing NPCs into the game in the full capacity as avatars, but it seems to me that if it were a land option, then it'd be a matter for the land owners to decide and less of an issue for users in general.

that would be cool as long as there's something about them so nobody no way could ever ever think they're a real person. hmmmm that would save hiring a crew for my space pirate ship.

Well... Hamlet seems to be crediting me for inventing something along these lines:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/03/the_shape_of_pr.html

But, ehh... I'm not sure about using this to do more than a few mobile objects (mobs) because it's a listener per joint. And I think most of the folks here know what that can mean.

Still... look me up sometime and I'll give you a demo. My work'll be going straight to the Script Library 'soon as it's done and tested.

If NPC's were implemented, how resource-intensive would they be? Apparently they wouldn't be requesting draw-in the same that an actual avatar would.

Would they strain the server?

How many NPC's could a server host?

Should NPC usage be linked to land-usage? If so, should it subtract from available prims? Should NPC's be restricted to one's own land, or even the same sim where a resident owns land?

I think it'd be great! Maybe a butler that could walk around my house sweeping, and greet people who ring my doorbell. Or a model for a clothing store that can cycle outfits and do some modeling poses.

Maybe they could add more avatar models, like something four legged. I want a semi-realistic dog that can play animations, so it can do tricks and such.

Not having NPCs puts a lot of limits on things, especially games. There are a lot of cool things having NPCs would open up!

i would guess the same rules for rezing an object should apply to it.
also the user should be responsable for its actions.

npc should have diffrent title color so you will know its a npc

there should not be a restriction of what kind of scrips to put in the npc like i said npc actions should be users resposebiblty.

so that the world dosent get cluttred with npc allow them to be returned off your land this prevents spamming.

allow npc to hold money but not be paid money by second life.

give it a invatory.


then once you do that you start getting in to scripting AI for it which would be interesting to see not manny have developed AI that much.

I think treating it just like a normal object would be best.

If there are issues with avatar rendering or server pressure, perhaps limiting how many NPCs you can have in-world at a time. Or perhaps every one NPC takes up 5 objects of your object count, or some such.

I know this was meant to be humor, but it brings up an interesting point. People say NPCs would be great to run thier shop, but wouldn't this be better done by a real person. With the elimination of clubfare many SLers are out looking for a "Second Job". Games like tringo and bingo provide jobs my making a host necessary rather than automating the whole process, which would be really easy to do. Do we really want to take the few "job opportunities" there are away from the residents of SL?

some jobs you cant automate but since no one has a set scheduels or claims to say they quit their job because sl make it possible. when you not online you need some one there that can explain the object in question or if you need a crew and no one wants to join you cause well npc will fill that void.

game deveopers will benifit the most from npcs rather than building bots that cant move we have a unit that can be like a normal avatar but has infinat posssibilities

but but game like tringo people will get bored of it and leave it like all the other games. like how mann time do you see people play jet ball. owner would resist putting npc in games as for clubs you dont have to pay dancers.

thing is there is a ecnonmy here but working in shops dosent pay enough to even make money you need atleast 1k of lindens to equal 4.04 us dollars so to keep up you would need to make 1.5k lindens an hour just to keep ahead of minmum wage in us dollars terms. im speaking from a builders stand point so what do i know.

most people looking for "work" in SL aren't looking to make enough $ to cash out on a regular basis and call it thier job. They are simply looking for a few hundred L$ a week as additional spending money. Hosting a tringo game, dancing for tips, or greeting people and answering questions in someones shop are good ways to do this.replacing dancers and hosts with scripted bots will eliminate the need to pay real people to perform these services. It's essentially slave labor without the nasty human rights issues that usually accompany it.

Mind you, I am not opposed to having av-prims, I am just suggesting a possible drawback.

I see the concern Nogard has raised, but I think there will always be value for real humans at the other end of the connection --- especially with the current limitations on scripting. We could create robot critters that could answer questions at a shop or host a tringo game already -- how often does that happen? This is more useful for shop mannequins and RPGs, as others have said... or instant pirate crew or a butler, whatever. Things most players are not likely to want to do, or aren't available to do when wanted.

I would really, really like to see this feature added. If resources are an issue, charge us more prims for an NPC object, but please, please add it. 1.7 would not be too soon. I agree with everything Oz and the others have said about feature suggestions.

neko
(And if I'm going to wish for the moon, I might as well ask again for non-human NPCs as well, e.g. animals. Really, it should just take a few modifications to the skeletal structure for nearly all vertibrates. If you won't let me be a cat in SL, at least let me have one that follows me around without using a gazillion prims and not walking right anyway. Poser handles animals, so just give us the skeleton avs and we'll take it from there.)

I would like to see some kind of option to allow some kind of NPC in Second Life. Be it a shopkeeper with the ability to answer simple questions via a script, a bartender that follows a set walk path, a virtual lab assistant, or as a model to build attachments on.

Personally I'd like the ability to make a clone of my avatar's shape to use as a building tool for creating attachments. It should have the ability to be posable with a selection of default poses and animations general to all SL avatars (and that you can turn OFF with no movement) to better allign and position those pesky attachments.

Nothing spells New "LCD monitor" faster than 34 revisions of an attachment that requires precise precision to work properly when attached. If I could use a still model then I would only need a few revisions of the attachment.

and also you look at the growth of second life its self general consinces is you wander around the world aimlessly this is the reason most quit boredom. npc gives a person a element not alway accessable by other players. such as some people live in a time zone where population dies down and not really wanting to be on. it the interaction that keeps you going . so lets say you made a really nice ship that need a crew but 3 people want to join the rest of the community is at the club. with npc you can demonstrate your groups cause.

and finnaly give those poor GLs a job

there is a million reason not to do something but to have to option wont destroy the community becasue if that was the case push guns should be outlawed and scripts that orbit people and item for general abuse amoung others but you will have to take the good with the bad.

not every one can script, not every one can man a shop 24 hours, as for events you wnat the hose to be there the more bodies that are there the more money you get for traffic.

Byron, I think I agree with most of this... but if you're saying the NPCs should count toward Dwell, no, they shouldn't.

I'm interested in the idea of stretching this NPC thing as far as it can go. There was a case a few years ago of a mud robot who fooled a lot of people into thinking she was human. She'd wander around mapping things, could tell you how to get from one place to another very easily, would give "pennies" (think L$) to people who asked her, talked about hockey, etc. We'd need two-way XML-RPC to make something like her work here, I think, since LSL just isn't up to this level of programming. I know that would be metered, but I'd be willing to pay to try it. (Yes, I know there should be some distinguishing mark on avs that aren't backed by humans-- you can make them ride at the back of the bus, too, if you like. At least until the bus crosses a sim border, anyway.)

Heck, even setting up Eliza or the equivalent on an NPC av would be a lot of fun. I could build a little Lucy "Doctor is IN" booth and charge L$5 for therapy.

neko
(Waitin' for the day when an AI Av sues LL for discrimination.... )

After all, what are alts for?

Still, I'd be interested in seeing some true NPC characters in the world. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, but here's one means to do so with the current version. I kinda like how the primcount and script buffers are the "issue" to watch out for there.

Here's an article about Julia. I found it fascinating. As I posted above, she fooled quite a few people on a MUD. Now imagine her walking around in SL, responding to questions and making remarks about hockey. The script could be enhanced so that she occasionally whips out a hockey stick and does an anim, for emphasis. I personally think it would be cool. Others might not like this idea much. What do you folks think?

http://foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/Julia/Julia.html

As this article points out, the main reason for Julia's existance was to be helpful. She could teleport to people in need, help direct people to areas they couldn't find, answer simple questions about how to use MUD commands, etc. I'm not saying she would replace Live Help or the Liasons, because sometimes you really do need a human brain to solve a problem. But there are a lot of basic questions an AI like this could handle, and there is sometimes a shortage of help on the system, especially in odd hours. She could hang around Welcome Areas and explain how to get boxes and houses off people's heads. Surely our existing Live Helpers and Liasons wouldn't mind offloading some of that work? And if she got into a situation she wasn't sure how to handle, she could be programmed to automatically ping Live Help, so new folks wouldn't get too frustrated if they hit a topic she wasn't programmed to deal with.

neko

Maybe non-moving versions of our avies could be used for sales mannequins. Any moving avatar would still have a real person behind it.

It might be a good idea to make them no transfer.

then there would be no market for them it be nice to get a mannwquin for av building make it a lot easier but the fact remains people say you can replace shop keeper with npc well we can do that allready with bots i think stated earlier then most ai that would have the ability to respond even gererally would take alot of lines of codeing this would be no simple task becusae you would want it to take in a statement and only put out one statement and mabey a suggestion if tht situation warrents it with is doable currentlymost scripters will only do the basic functions anyway such as move from point a to point b and preform function once there.

since you dont see av's with scripted stomacs and scripted diseases and scripted hurts and pain. the reality of npcs being self sufficient like the robots on tv is still far off.

actually scripting a object sttmuch may cause it not to work because of preformance issues

*thinks of SmarterChild roaming around SL and launches into a wild giggle fit*

Really, I think this is a good idea, though. Think of the bad-guy NPCs that could populate Jesse and the RPG sims! That'd be great.

I also like the idea to make non-moving, non-human store clerks. That's a lot nicer than just a Notecard-giver and a sign or two. 'Course it could be creepy, too. But the coolness would probably outweigh the creepiness.

My suggestion is, if we are given personal NPCs to use as we wish, we should be able to customize them with the same sliders we use for ourselves. And we should be able to put outfits on them, too. Our outfits.

But, it's much more likely that we will not have control of the NPCs. And that's fine, too. It might be neat to give everyone one no copy/mod/no transfer NPC, though. That way there would be no rampant overrunning of the damn things, (causing waaay too much lag.. Think of the poor Sandboxes!), but we would be able to use them for whatever we wanted.

But I've been up for over 20 hours now, so I don't really know what I'm talking about. So don't listen to me.

Perhaps everyone would each get one, but you could buy one from someone else if they didn't want to use theirs? Hm, no, there's the problem of alts.

Each premium member gets one?

Probably best to just make them count for 10-20 prims each or something.

neko

Hm, maybe 25-50 prims.. And they'd have to not be allowed in the Sandbox if they were mobile.. Because that'd just.. suck. As if the Sandboxes don't get enough lag-inducing crap roaming around.

I'm in favor of the Premium-Users-Only thing, even though I'm not Premium. That'd hopefully cut down on 10-buck griefer alts running around with them..

Also, I thought this up while falling asleep last night. It would be nice if the player-owned NPCs weren't Inventory items at all, because what happens if there's a permissions exploit or something, or you accidentally delete it?

I think they should be Menu items. I see an option under World that says Place Drone Here. It'd rez a default avatar that you could right-click on to change its name, clothes, outfit, etc, just like a regular av. You could give it a very small inventory, even, with animations and outfits for it to wear. It could even have a little Profile that would say who owns it, what it's there for, what its name is, etc. It could give you Notecards and Landmarks if you ask it.

Its name would have to be a different color than regular avs, obviously, and NPC Profiles would only be visible by actually clicking on an NPC in front of you. Nothing like the regular Profiles, which are visible by all, no matter where you are.

One problem I forsee, however, is using NPCs to get around prim limits. That is, say, you could attach your house to your NPC. So, I propose that all Objects attached to the NPC count towards your prim limit. This would make it impossible to have an NPC with any sort of hair attachments or anything on a little 512 or something, so they wouldn't be -that- common, which is good.

Anyway, just throwing ideas out. :)