[Adonthell-devel] sematic web engine for dialogs

[Alexander Hupfer]

I don't think this will ever be implemented, but it's an idea we could
at least talk about:

Last time I did some reading about semantic webs as a friend of mine
writes his diploma thesis about this subject.

A semantic web is data structure that saves logical relations of the
system it describes. This system might be the real world as most
semantic webs try to describe or in our case the game world. For example
you safe the relation that Germany is a part of Europe and Europe is a
part of the earth. With that knowledge the semantic engine can tell you,
that Germany is a part of the world. Or a apple is a fruit and fruits
grow on trees. So apples grow on trees.

A very interesting project ist the www.ontoworld.org. They have wiki
that can be extended by semantic relations.

Now you maybe wonder what this all has to do with RPGs.

I think this could greatly be used for automatic content an dialog
generation. For example you could let the player ask "what kingdoms are
in the world of Adonthell" and the NPCs consults the semantic engine
that searches for countries that feature a "part of" relation to "World
of Adonthell" and gives his answer.

Even more interesting is that the system is dynamic. For example if a
kingdom would be destroyed you wouldn't need to have tons of dialogs in
mind that had a reference to the kingdom.

so... that's what I have been thinking about. I appreciate you comments
and suggestions.

- sonium