Quote:
Originally Posted by XaXa
Aloha ~
I have a little argument with some people if Yui is a NPC or not. They all claim she is an AI - which I agree with. But does that mean she is not a NPC?
I say:
She is not a Player so she is automatically a NPC.
They all think that there is an “in between”
Player – AI – NPC… NO?!
Character controlled by human = Player
Character controlled by script = NPC
Of course you can call her an AI – but that doesn't mean she is not a NPC.
Was Pinoccio a real boy because he could think and talk? no.. he was still a wooden puppet. The fairy had to make him into a real boy. ( sounds dirty :3 )
And I'm not saying it would be stupid to have an emotional connection to her because she is not a human. A cat is also no human - does that mean you shouldn't give a sh*t about cats? hell no!
They say:
Yui is not NPC final answer…. *YOU JUST WON A MILLION DOLLARS*
... -.-
What do you think?
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While I'm not pursuing a profession in computer science currently, I did major in AI and Machine Learning in the past (which is one of the reasons why I don't enjoy some parts of the setting, because I feel Kawahara didn't do enough research on the subject matter, but nevermind that). My paper was in fact a paper on Centralized Cooperative Intelligence vs Distributed Cooperative Intelligence in games and simulations. For the record, I also played pencil-and-paper D&D for more than 10 years since elementary 5, though I've also stopped playing for almost 10 years.
An NPC is merely a Non-Player Character, ie. a character that cannot be played. I agree with
kyp275's and some other members' replies, and I think the confusion comes because
you have not properly defined the difference between AI and NPC, or rather you might be confused about the definition of NPC and AI in my humble opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by XaXa
But an AI who plays a game = NPC.
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There is nothing further than the truth in that line of thought. But before we can further talk about that, we have to go back to how you define PCs and NPCs.
Quote:
Character controlled by human = Player
Character controlled by script = NPC
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This is not entirely accurate in my opinion. A Character is a Character. It does not equate to the Player. The Player is the one controlling the PC (Player Character). A PC is defined by its appearance, traits, abilities/skills. The Player is the mind behind the PC. The Player receives feedback through the available senses and skills of the PC (like sight, hearing, detect evil, infravision, detect traps), and makes decisions and carries out actions that are available to the PC (as limited by his skills in the game and the rules of the game environment). A Player may be able to swim in real life, but his Player Character may not be able to in the game. Hence, we should not equate Player to Player Character. The Player is just the mind and the PC is just the "fake body/avatar" (in other words, the PC forms the set of sensors and actuators available to the Player in the game environment). What I'm seeing here is that you are attempting to 'identify', rather than 'define'.
In the same way, NPCs in games are controlled by Agents (this is what we call them in the field of Artificial Intelligence), which can be non-intelligent Agents (like scripts as you've mentioned) or Intelligent Agents (which exhibit some semblance of cognitive behavior). In any environment, a well-defined relatively complex, Intelligent Agent is given goals. An Agent gets feedback/information through the sensors available to it, makes autonomous decisions within the limits of its intelligence, and carries out actions through its actuators to achieve its goals. In the case of games, the NPC (or mob) is the entity through which the Agent senses and acts. While you can map 1 Agent to 1 NPC (each Agent being autonomous and independent from another in decision making, whether they are non-Intelligent or Intelligent Agents), it is possible to have 1 Agent controlling multiple NPCs (just like a Dungeon Master controlling all the NPCs in a game session). This is especially true if we want to exhibit group/hive/collective/centralized intelligence in the NPCs. Thus, just like a Player should be distinguished from a Player Character, an Agent should be distinguished from a Non-Player Character it controls.
Next, we come to the question of labeling 'Yui' as an Agent or an NPC. While strictly speaking, 'Yui' can merely be used as a label for the NPC avatar in SAO, just like Kirito being the name of the avatar/character that the Player, Kirigaya Kazuto, is controlling, it is common that in the case of a game environment when the Player can strongly identify with the Character he is playing (whether that kind of identification is done by the Player himself or by his friends), the identity of the Character gets carried over to the Player himself. Which is why Asuna and the rest still calls him Kirito in Real Life. That is not to say that Kazuto equates to the Player Character and has the same abilities. You are trying to equate them by 'identification', rather than by 'definition', which is what most of us are doing.
So, now that we have distinguished Agent from NPC (that is, if y'all agree with me up till this point) this is merely a subjective matter of whether you or your friends (as readers of the story) are identifying Yui as the Agent (ie. that mind) or the NPC avatar. Clearly, to me, in the story, Kirito and the rest are identifying Yui as the Agent and not the NPC. And also, clearly to me again,
you seem to be identifying Yui as the Agent as well but trying to define the controlling Agent as an aggregate part of an NPC, which should not be done in my opinion and based on the points I've made. If say, the Intelligent-Agent Yui is given access to control multiple NPCs (which are merely sensors and actuators for Yui in the environment) in the game, will you now call Yui a group of NPCs rather than an NPC? Or is it better not to define her as NPC at all?