Author Topic: Roaming mobs  (Read 705 times)

Offline Zen "ZenX" Star

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Roaming mobs
« on: January 07, 2014, 12:16:04 pm »
I think it would be cool if mobs roamed around the map, either all, or just some types.
It would reflect real life habits of many animals, picture a huge mob of Molesaurs or Mzaroids (forgive spelling plz) moving into a new territory like bison or buffalo roaming across the countryside.
Would make everything a bit more dynamic, random and unpredictable, which is always good in a sandpit MMO  :)

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Offline The "Fifth" Entity

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Re: Roaming mobs
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2014, 01:41:01 pm »
I think it would be cool if mobs roamed around the map, either all, or just some types.
It would reflect real life habits of many animals, picture a huge mob of Molesaurs or Mzaroids (forgive spelling plz) moving into a new territory like bison or buffalo roaming across the countryside.
Would make everything a bit more dynamic, random and unpredictable, which is always good in a sandpit MMO  :)

Zen
Damn yeah!


Every step towards more dynamic environment is a step in the right direction.
Pseudo-dynamic spawns have been present in some games for some time now. Even thou it's easy to see the spawn coords are changed manually it's still leaves much better impression than old-fashioned static spawn.
Somebody has to take the next step. Fully automatic system: spawn waypoints + script that manages the spawn movement over the map. Why not AW? It's not a rocket surgery afterall... or something. :)
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Offline Sifalio "Sifis" Kritikakis

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Re: Roaming mobs
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2014, 09:34:30 pm »
Another great idea!


Many have thought of it, but noone dared to say it :P
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Offline Jarod "Brickwit" McBrickerton

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Re: Roaming mobs
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2014, 04:57:46 am »
The current AI movement seems to be something like: 1) a mob spawns within a certain range within a certain time period after the same kind of mob dies in that area; 2) each mob's AI tells it to move a random distance within a certain range (so that it doesn't typically leave the spawn area), at a random speed within the mob's speed limitations, and in a random direction after a random amount of time within a certain time limit; 3) repeat 2) unless a player enters agro range, then attack the player 22 times and if the player doesn't die repeat 2) anyway.

Gamasutra has an interesting article (found here) on group movement aimed at RTS unit formations but it also includes example code on how to keep groups moving together in the same direction. It should be possible to modify the code so that the overall movement of the group follows the Gamasutra-described movements while also integrating some of the existing individual mob AI movements.
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Offline The "Fifth" Entity

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Re: Roaming mobs
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2014, 02:27:34 pm »
Gamasutra has an interesting article (found here) on group movement
Interesting articles indeed.
For those interested in general game theory Gamasutra seems to be a good place to go. For example, here's a random quote from another article (dealing with another type of roaming mobs, the players): :)


The Active User Trap: One common mistake is that developers assume that high active player numbers will result in robust multiplayer communities. However you really need to look at actual concurrent users since many game types have extreme concurrency ratios. A game may have 1000 players but when each of those logins last 5 minutes and are spread over a week, you’ll average 0.5 concurrent players. If your matchmaking system doesn’t deal well with these sporadic, tiny populations, the game dies.
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Offline BamboOo "La fille du Vent" DragoOon

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Re: Roaming mobs
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2014, 05:58:49 pm »
I really like that idea :) :) :)

It would be cool  8)
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