Monster Ecology in GW

i read this article on Monster Ecology and thought it was cute. it mentioned games i have played and ones i have watched being played and i understood where they were coming from until i saw the GW mention and that NPCs dont fight eachother in GW and i was like "what?" then what was happening in Factions? On more than one occasion i have witnessed NPC battles and waited to finished off the already injured survivors. it really bothers me when people take the time to write something and are just wrong cause they are too lazy to finish up their research.

I've seen that happen in NF and did the same thing

Different models were tried in MMOs. Mobs with love/hate patterns, food dependancy, migrations, flocks, reproduction, ...

They failed. Big time.

Such concepts sound great on paper, but have some severe issues when implemented in MMOs, since the small size of the world doesn't allow for enough buffer or inertia, and is quickly (in a matter of minutes or hours) completely destroyed by a handful of players.

This is why without different combat and game design, mobs are destined to stay statically spawned xp bags.

And yes, in some areas mobs do fight each others, but allowing that is by far too exploitable. It happened when a bug occured and all mobs attacked each other. The loot exploits were so severe, the bug was fixed in a matter of hours, before it could affect the economy.

You are simplifying one line of the article. Now I've been speaking to people who have played Oblivion and the AI of the NPC's is "massively" different to quote one. Yes there is some infighting in Guild wars with NPC's/monsters but I think the point was a comparison and not an end-all statement.

It's on different levels, in Guild Wars you have mobs that will simply attack each other if they get into agro range because... they just do. In Oblivion it makes sense, it is an ecology, there is a reason behind it and it's done in a realistic way. In GW, if you lure monsters into NPCs, they'll fight, or else it's mostly scripted. In Oblivion, if a random NPC steals a loaf of bread, the guards might chase him. I think that's the point of this article. It's not inaccurate so much as it was just a general statement. The AI of Oblivion's NPC's are much more advanced then Guild Wars. (Thanks to JR and Akuma for clarifying it to me as well!)

greenchylde is talking about places such as Nebu Terrace in Kryta, where the Ettins get into it with the Tengu or Shing Jea Island where the naga fight with the pirates, etc.

@ greenchylde - But I also think that the article is talking more about human NPC fighting.

ANet doesn't allow you to gain loot or xp from battles between AI (except during a bug from an update).

Ecology as meant in the article is pointless in Guild Wars until there are options other than killing monsters, killing monsters, killing monsters and killing monsters in an explorable area (sure, you can chest run/run too, but meh you are running from monsters, and avoiding meeting any). When they add non-combat ocupations in GW, ecology might become viable.

I dont agree with this

as early as 1st mission, gargoyles and grawl are squared off in water

who remembers the white mantle / centaur fights?

or Afflicted killing any green npc


in Factions and NF, the slaying becomes more meaningful
- necros kill the roaming lvl 5 critters to make minions
- ranger classes tame nearby pets

no it doesnt compare to Oblivion

but its certainly not cooperative as this claim...

Random observation: There's griffons fighting other griffons near the mountain troll collector in snake dance X.x

I was fighting kournans when suddenly some veldt beetles popped up. Thay started fighting eachother =D

I like how if a monster is chasing you in the desert...and you see a salving cactus....they'd kill it first, then chase you again.

I swear I once saw Margonites in Nightfallen Garden turn on and kill a Graven Effigy (the profession-changers) that was traveling with them...

I saw somthing similer in the nightfallen garden I saw a group of margonites turn nasty and smash up a group of Menzies shadow army.

I was like. "arn't they supposed to be friends?" Drinking game in the barrack gone bad I guess.

It's a well known and commonly used tactic to intentionally start scrimmages between the zombies and Menzies armies to thin out the numbers before attacking and retaking the temple of war.

I also remeber battering up a group of frozen titans by dragging them into a group of Avricarda and having them Obliterate the titians.

The article was talking about NPCs fighting each other as part of a simulated realistic environment or ecosystem. Not the way GW does it. In GW a NPC is either programmed to attack another NPC as in the Northern Wall mission eg, or they will attack a NPC that they are tagged to be hostile against.

In games like Oblivion that attempt to create lifelike or realistic interactions between NPCs, they attack or aid or devour another NPC because of a specific need or tendancy programmed into that character. Not because they attack any NPC the designers tag as an enemy.

as I mentioned earlier,
what about necros killing and creating minions from roaming level 5 critters


those level 5s certainly dont do anything to warrant being attacked


they are killed as a "minion need" even if nothing is being fought

Dunham hates the roaming animals in the explorable areas, lol.

I wish that they would fight eachother more. I see monsters attack me that passed up the weaker, more ill defended and tastier Collectors and other NPCs. I can see why they dont want that but even SUNSPEAR SCOUTS wont fight. It can get rediculous. I remember in Factions I'd be beside myself with glee standing outside aggro range spamming /cheer, /clap and /goteam as my Kurzick NPCs slaughtered the Luxon NPCs. Even if we lost it was easy pickings!

And even in the places they do go at it things are so uneven I cant get a moment to sit back and cheer from the sidelines. lvl 10 Deldrimor's vs lvl 24 Stone Summit... come on.

The Afflicted fight everything too as seen between the Vasburg armoury and The unwaking waters, im sure ive seen several other species fight all around the place in all 3 campaigns but i cant remember most of them i just rememeber seeing lots of infighting

I think what the article is about is that the mobs themselves fight each other as soon as one of their 'allies' triggers the hit.
Seeing as 'teamfire' is off in a game as GW makes it work from out-of-party- enemies only.

While it's true that there is some monster vs monster combat in gw, it's for the most part contained to limited scripted events. For example, one might logically gleen from watching the trolls fight the avicara that the two species are natural enemies. This person could then go anywhere else where the two species are found together to find that trolls and avicara are content to stand within each others agro patiently waiting for PCs to come around.

true but dont forget within guildwars several of the species are sentient like the avicara and also there are several groups amongst the species, some groups could be inherently more agressive to other species than others, such as the Avicara near droks hunting the trolls as food since there hungery since there is little nearby food

hehe i had almost forgotten about the grawl gargolye fight, thats a classic

I do think guildwars could do with a little more natural infighting thats not predetermined like most of the infighting that does occur

I don't understand why so few get the point of the Monster Ecology article and since there are 2 threads about the article, I'll just copy the post I made in the first one.

The article was talking about NPCs fighting each other as part of a simulated realistic environment or ecosystem. Not the way GW does it. In GW a NPC is either programmed to attack another NPC as in the Northern Wall mission eg, or they will attack a NPC that they are tagged to be hostile against.

In games like Oblivion that attempt to create lifelike or realistic interactions between NPCs, they attack or aid or devour another NPC because of a specific need or tendancy programmed into that character. Not because they attack any NPC the designers tag as an enemy.

copying my reply too ...

in Guildwars
- necro monsters kill the roaming lvl 5 critters to make minions
- rangers tame nearby critters

it doesnt compare to oblivion, but some monsters do interact with their environment -- due to their "class needs"

I merged these 2 threads and took out the similar content matter and irrelevant topic matter (concerning myself ) please go back through and read the first page of this thread where some of us try to explain about the infighting and the comparison being made to Oblivion.

The article is about a pc-generated ecology, and not whether monster a fights NPC b in Guild Wars. Its not even aimed specifically at Guild Wars.

Infighting in all games is scripted, no matter which way you turn. There is a little difference between the scripting (say, a fight staged to occur when the player arrives versus a fight occuring regardless of whether the player arrives) but everything is staged none the less. However, some games attempt to emulate real life, whilst others don't bother, and that's an interesting point. Take a look at Spore and you'll see what I mean by the difference between attempting or not attempting to emulate real life.

I think that in Oblivion, they add some randomness to the NPC's activities which adds a little more realism. The NPCs have a certain path/routine that they follow which is scripted, but some of the things they do seem to be random. I would say this is part of the ai described in the article that makes it at least partially unscripted. (unless I misunderstand the meaning of the term "scripted" )

The paths that the animal NPCs take in Oblivion often seem to be completly at random except that they are contained within a certain area.

Since I wrote the article, I can tell you you are correct, good sir ^_^

The level of ecology that exists in Oblivion isn't needed in Guild Wars. A big part of GW is PVP, of which there is virtually no ecology. Every time you enter a mission or explorable area from an outpost, that area's creatures are "reset", so I think more of an area monster ecology could exist. That being said, I think the infighting in GW could be tweeked a little bit to show a more realistic ecology. There are many instances where you think, "Those two groups of monsters should be natural enemies. Why arn't they fighting?" I would find it interesting if GW used infighting between hostiles as part of a stratagy for solo farming bosses that are almost impossible to get to without a full or partial group. Say for example there is a boss you can't solo farm because he is surrounded by too large a group of his loyal soldiers. What if you could lure a group of the soldiers out to fight some nearby monsters? You could thin the numbers enough to make the boss fight managable. It could be challanging as well. There is the chance you might not get to a safe distance before both groups engage each other, killing you in the process. It's also very difficult to use an ecosystem like this as a loot exploit because this game, like many other MMOs, require a group or player to do a certain amount of damage for the player to get credit for the kill and for loot to drop. I think if you've been following GW for a while you are seeing the ecosystem develop a little more with each game that is released. There are PvE weapon mods that add damage vs. Plants, Dragons, Undead, ect. with the first GW. In Factions, we have Kurz Vs. Lux, which affects greatly how well you perform in certain environs, based on who you are aligned with, and if you can talk to a Kurz or Lux priest in certain areas. And finally, in Nightfall, we recieve an XP bonus and bounties for hunting certain types of monsters. I think in the next episode of GW we will see an even more evolved ecosystem, with NPC's and monsters that can react more with each other as well as the player, perhaps even a level of randomness that may help keep explorable areas and missions fresh and more realistic. It is the next logical step.

@ Baranor: My apologies, I was under the impression that Inde had written it.

Great article btw. Thx

EDIT: Wouldn't the Hopper, Grabber and Snatcher scenario you described be unscripted? Mind you I'm thinking that scripted means preplanned or that said occurrence will happen every time you go to a certain area to trigger an event, or x will happen every time a monster meets b monster. Maybe scripted means something different when it pertains to game programing?

In the Hopper, Grabber, snatcher scenario the hopper or Grabber would only be devoured if their predator hasn't met it's daily allowance of food. It would be amazing to be exploring somewhere and see a Hopper running for it's life from a Grabber and be saved at the last second when a Snatcher bursts from the bushes and attacks the Grabber.

Anyway, I think that the simulated ecology you described, put on a much larger scale would greatly enrich the realism to any game. It doesn't seem like it would be very hard to program.