This is a refinement of the decision making process suggested in Consumerism.
All opportunities offered by all objects in the world (including characters and environments) are published to a global list of opportunities. The character will choose one of these opportunities as its goal. To reduce the list to a single opportunity, a set of filters is used.
Each filter
- orders the opportunities according to a certain value
- reduces the size of the list to a fixed number starting from the top
The filters are executed in a specific sequence.
Every ordering includes some randomness that allows for a small chance that inappropriate items are included in the top of the list.
Happiness has been replaced by Comfort. The difference is that while Happiness made the character choose the opportunity that promises the most happiness, Comfort makes the character choose the opportunity that fits the relationship best.
Situation is a new parameter that is used for making sure that the character is in the capacity to execute an opportunity.
1. Filter of Situation: possible opportunities only
- removes the opportunities that the character cannot choose, due to its situation
- reduces the list to possible opportunities only
2. Filter of Distance: near objects first
- orders the remaining opportunities according to distance modified by object type (characters can be further away than objects)
- reduces the list to a maximum of 30 items
3. Filter of Relationship: loved objects first
- orders the remaining opportunities according to relationship modified by attention span
- reduces the list to a maximum of 15 items
4. Filter of Comfort: appropriate opportunities first
- orders the remaining opportunities according to match of relationship & promise modified by fascination
- reduces the list to a single goal
Thanks to Comfort, relationships can evolve more dynamically as a result of achieving a goal. Instead of simply improving, the difference between promise and relationship can be added to relationship. If the promise was larger than the relationship, it improves. If it was smaller, it decreases.
Posted on June 10, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Perhaps Happiness and Comfort can co-exist, perhaps with a gliding scale between them. It would be a way to define personality: some characters will seek happiness, others comfort, most something in between.
Seeking happiness should perhaps come at a higher risk. Those characters could be described as passionate.
Posted on June 10, 2006 at 10:38 pm
This seems like it’d be more of a romantic model than a consumerist one. Conflict is primarily about the uncertainty of getting what you truly want, or staying comfortable but unfulfilled. In a way, this is the challenge to consumerism that The Sims failed to pose.
Posted on June 13, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Perhaps the factor that defines how “passionate” a character is, is the same as the one that defines its attention span. Maybe we can call it enthusiasm.
Posted on June 15, 2006 at 8:01 am
[…] This is basically a new version of Consumerism, named after a suggestion by Patrick. I’ll try to be brief for the sake of clarity. The details can be dealt with in seperate posts. […]
Posted on June 20, 2006 at 10:55 am
[…] This is an updated and elaborated version of Decision filters. It deals with the way in which the global list of opportunities advertised by all objects is reduced to a single goal by an actor. This time, rather than ordering the list, we simply remove the items we don’t want until a single opportunity remains. […]