If NPCs Were Sentient

[nothingspringstomind]

What would you do if, all of a sudden, the people in your videogame of choice started to interact with you? You The Player?

Say you're playing a game like GTA and it was proven that all the NPCs in the game were actually aware of their own existence and feared death.

Would you carry on playing as normal? Knowing that your actiions within the game actually affected the "lives" of it's digital occupants?

Personally, i'd have to stop shooting and actually consider what i was doing.

(And, yes, i am aware of the Terry Pratchett novel "Only You Can Save Mankind". It's kind of what gave me the idea for the thread. That and Tron. I love Tron.)

 

[Furioso]

Assuming this would eliminate AI bugs I would (In a GTA universe by the way) instantly recruit my own army and set out to, what else, RULE THE WORLD, or city

 

[Versuvius]

It would increase Video Game Cruelty Potential and drive me to even greater lengths to be a massive dick in every way i can be on one or two playthroughs. (Afterall, what white knight only ever does 'good' playthroughs? Oohboy Evil necromancer on Arcanum. Kill and interrogate the corpses of quest givers for the location of shinies!)

 

[Stall]

If it happened all of a sudden? I'd probably piss myself, and then consider getting myself committed.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

I'd be a bit more personal with my kills after I found out. Get to know them whilst I disembowel them. It's fun making new friends.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't think I could continue if I was ending sentient life.

It depends on how this worked, though. And how noticable it was. The NPCs in many games are already programmed to act scared. How do I know it's not just good programming? Do they break the fourth wall and beg "The User" to spare them?

 

[Something Amyss]

If it happened all of a sudden? I'd probably piss myself, and then consider getting myself committed.

Oh, the insanity defense won't work. The NPCs are coming. And there will be no trial.

 

[Zaik]

At 3:30 AM one morning when I was playing the second Assassin's creed, when that...thing totally ignores Ezio and stares straight at you and starts talking I thought that was actually happening for a second.

then there was some rambling about the sun destroying everything or something, and I realized it was just talking to Desmond.

 

[Versuvius]

This reminds me. Some 'bugs' in the new Dwarf Fortress development blog on the front page mentions zombies being asleep, but since they don't sleep they were pretending to be asleep in the tower. I think another year of interesting bugs and Dwarf Fortress will become the first world sim full of sentient beings. Which makes it all the more fun to FLOOD THE WORLD WITH MAGMA. Or possibly a bearded alcoholic Skynet will arise.

 

[nothingspringstomind]

I don't think I could continue if I was ending sentient life.

It depends on how this worked, though. And how noticable it was. The NPCs in many games are already programmed to act scared. How do I know it's not just good programming? Do they break the fourth wall and beg "The User" to spare them?

I was thinking of the fourth wall breaking thing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'd hope that yelling "Police, get down" at them would have more effect. You can either surrender and get out alive, get tasered or teargassed or flashback and surrender and get out alive, or you can try something and get splattered.

Also, I could give my AI team-mates better instructions, and yelling at them for being stupid might accomplish something.

 

[Don Savik]

Amnesia and Killing Floor being the last games I played........


DEAR LORD TO THE BOMB SHELTERS D:

 

[Sarah Frazier]

I'd feel really bad for all the people and animals I end up killing for the sake of quests, but eventually learn to ignore their pleas for mercy and all the life stories. I'm supposed to be the savior of the world in some way! How can I be a hero if I let everyone with a sad story get away to keep helping the big bad? They had their chance, right? I'm the only one who shows any ability to fight for the greater good, so killing a few bad apples could save the good ones or get the other bad ones to reconsider their choices. Right?

 

[Dr. wonderful]

If they know I was there. They would runs alls the way to the ends of the earth.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

It'd be a bit more interesting in Infamous 2 and GTAIV to say the least...

 

[Tselis]

I would start carving out my ideal life. =)

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I would stop playing video games.

 

[Caine Master]

Punching the reporter in Mass Effect would be so much more fun .

 

[Mafoobula]

I'm going to ignore the nit-picky difference between sentience (anything with a complex brain has sentience) and sapience (humans).

World of Warcraft. Rally the armies of Azeroth in ways no quest line could and annihilate everything that looks at us funny.

Mass Effect. I don't like playing renegade anyway, and sapience would make it that much more difficult to be an unforgiving jerk-ass.

Any game with squad NPCs (Mass Effect, Half-Life 2 leap to mind) will be easier since my squadmates will hopefully stop derping into the gunfire. Also, losing a comrade, even if they can be brought back with a dose of first-aid kit (or whatever equivalent there may be in a given game) in a minute.

Half-Life 2. Tell Alyx Vance how I feel about her. I mean, it's so blindingly obvious that she wants to get into the HEV suit with Gordon - if memory serves, she says something very much like that in one of the episodes - and it'd satisfy the romantic in me, certainly.


Captcha: (C6H5)2CO gembiic. I looked it up, that first bit is the chemical formula for Benzophenone. Oh well, at least it has yet to ask me to enter calculus symbols or something equally asinine.