The goal of our work that Drama Princess needs to serve is to help give the spectator emotionally satisfying experiences. Such experiences often come from immersion in a virtual reality (a book, a movie, a game). To allow for such an emotional immersion, the spectator needs to willingly suspend his or her disbelief. As stated before, I think there is a lot that can be done to increase this willingness, rather than focussing all one’s attention on increasing the credibility. A comfortable interface and a pleasant environment will create a mood that will allow the willingness of the spectator to grow. The sympathy that the spectator feels for the characters in the game will do the rest.
Allowing this sympathy to happen becomes as important as making sure that the character is believable. And for artists like ourselves, the former seems a lot less daunting (and a lot more gratifying) a task than the latter.
Even hardcore A.I. scientists have realized that the flaws of an autonomous character can generate such sympathy in the spectator that these characters are perceived as much more believable than the ones that are intellectually superior or supposedly more realistic. The key is that people care about the characters.
Another important element in the emotional satisfaction that comes from fiction is empathy with the characters. If the spectator feels what the character feels, or at least is inclined to try to imagine so, the story will appear very believable and even relevant to the spectator’s own life. And when the spectator feels sympathy for the character, he or she will find it a lot easier to feel empathy. So again, sympathy is key.
A last piece of this puzzle has been suggested here before: it is easier to feel sympathy (and thus empathy) for someone who shows sympathy for you. Note that I said “show sympathy” and not “feel sympathy”. All we care about is how things appear to the spectator. So it becomes of utmost importance that our autonomous character displays behaviour that can be interpreted by the spectator as expressing sympathy for him or her. As we know from experience with 8, this can be as simple as recognizing that the player is there by making the character look into the camera from time to time. She’s so cute! 🙂
A few more questions remain. Since we are talking about a situation in which the spectator is represented in the game world by an avatar, we can ask ourselves whether we need to establish sympathy between the autonomous character and the player’s avatar, between the autonomous characters and the player (the camera) and/or between the avatar and the player.
Posted on May 17, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Care does not always come from returning sympathy. But when somebody cares for somebody or something that does not show any sympathy for him or her, it is often the result of having been the witness or even better the cause of the other’s growth or development.
This is why, I think, people care/feel sympathy for plants and babies.
This knowledge serves as an argument in favour of implementing a system that allows autonomous characters to (seem to) learn.