Could it go beyond the Nemesis system? For example, if you're chasing a bounty target, they could negotiate or plead with you, and if you accept their plea it could open a secret quest chain. And could it apply not just to targets but also to employer NPCs and other NPCs?
TL;DRRoberts and Zurovec say this is pretty much in their plans: higher-level NPC AI with goals like ambition and greed, applying to merchants and others, would eventually be added on top of the low-level NPC AI.
Well, I think Tony can answer a bit more of this, because his background was writing the AI for Ultima 7 a long time ago, and he's got a huge amount of AI experience. In Shadow of Mordor, they're all orcs, so they basically all want to kill you, and there's not really a lot of discussion that goes into that, right? It's basically, I killed you or you killed me. They're kind of all nemeses. But we talked about having the idea of meta AI. So beyond just the typical AI in most games, like, OK, I'm a grunt and I know how to tactically deal with this situation, he's my enemy, I'll start shooting at him, I'll duck behind cover. I think we've already talked a little bit about what we're doing with the AI, but people have their own goals. It's not just what they're doing at this instant. It's not even what they're doing that day. They'll have full day cycles, but it'll be what their goal is. I'm a pirate lord, and I want to take over this area of space or something. That concept applies to more than just someone that you would be in opposition with. It could also be an NPC that's a merchant prince, and he's hiring people. I think what you're asking for is pretty much what we have in our plans.
It's very similar to the conversation we had a while back, and extended email exchanges. Everything we've described to date has been more NPC logic at a microscopic level. And so it sounds like what you're saying, and certainly what Chris has told me in the past that he wants, is another macroscopic component on top of that, where you can have NPC concepts of things like ambition and greed, and those would effectively allow these NPCs to evolve over time. And not only that, but they would actually understand how to pull levers other than just the simplistic, well, I'm going to shoot you or I'm going to help you. They would actually understand the value of blockading ore from getting to one system, because they know that will cause the assets that they have under their control to skyrocket in value. And so it's a more advanced, higher-level NPC AI that will inevitably wind up getting bolted onto the low-level stuff that we're developing now.