Organizational Gameplay: The Player as Designer of Character Organizations

Luciano R. Coutinho,Antônio de Abreu Batista,Bruno Roberto S. Moraes,Márcio Regis M. Fraga,Victor M. Galvão

doi:10.1155/2015/731031

Luciano R. Coutinho, Antônio de Abreu Batista + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/731031

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Abstract

Looking at the ways in which players interact with computer games (thegameplays), we perceive predominance of character-centered and/or microcontrolled modes of interaction. Despite being well established, these gameplays tend to structure the games in terms of challenges to be fulfilled on an individual basis, or by thinking collectively but having to microcontrol several characters at the same time. From this observation, the paper presents a complementary gameplay in which the player is urged to face collective challenges by designingcharacter organizations. The basic idea is to make the player structure and control group of characters by definingorganizational specifications(i.e., definitions of roles, collective strategies, and social norms). During the game, commanded by the player, artificial agents are then instantiated to play the roles and to follow the strategies and norms as defined in the organizational specification. To turn the idea into practice, the paper proposes an abstract architecture comprising three components or layers. This architecture is materialized in a proof of concept prototype that combines the Minecraft game server, JADE agent platform, and MOISE+ organizational model. Variations and possibilities are discussed and the proposal is compared to related work in the literature.

Highlights

Much of the fun involved in modern computer games is due to their extraordinary capacity of simulating aspects of our reality and/or imagination
We propose the use of agent organizations as a design and implementation technology for more realistic and challenging nonplayer characters (NPCs), and as a form of interaction between human players and the virtual world, a form of interaction that enables the user to explicitly perceive and reason about social/collective challenges rather than focusing only on individual skills
In this paper we have argued for an organizational interface for playing computer games as a enhancement to the existing gameplay

Summary

Introduction

Much of the fun involved in modern computer games is due to their extraordinary capacity of simulating aspects of our reality and/or imagination. Sonic), twoplayer fighting/sports games (e.g., Fight Night Round and FIFA Soccer), racing games (e.g., Midnight Club and Need for Speed), real-time strategy games (e.g., Age of Empires and Command & Conquer), open world/sandbox games (e.g., Minecraft and The Sims), and massively multiplayer online game (e.g., World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies), we can cite games in which the player gets the illusion of being immersed in a detailed and verisimilar virtual world In these simulated worlds the player assumes the control of a character (his/hers avatar) and interacts with diverse nonplayer characters (NPCs) or other playercontrolled characters (other players’ avatars in multiplayer games). In principle, an autonomous agent should be capable of choosing by itself what to look at and what to do in its environment or of refusing to perform some action when asked, in order to accomplish some goals it was designed for

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