プレイヤ適応型混合主導によるNPC との対話意欲の維持

抄録

In most role-playing games (RPGs), non-player characters (NPCs) tend to have most initiative in conversation between the players and the NPCs. The NPCs are mainly talking to lead the players along the storylines of games, and sometimes ask the player to answer simple questions. Such a unilateral conversation is unnatural and unrealistic, and consequently, it is concerned that the player’s sense of immersion into the game will decrease. In order to improve the reality of the conversation, this study proposed a conversation method whereby an NPC adaptively switch the initiative according to the players’ preference of which of the player and the NPC has the initiative. To confirm the effect of this method, we conducted an experiment in which the participants talked with an NPC in a game scenario. This experiment compared the proposed method with the existing method that an NPC has the most initiative and the method that an NPC randomly switches the initiative. The result of the experiment suggested that the proposed method can decrease the unilateral impression compared with the existing method. Furthermore, the result also showed a probability that the proposed method motivates the players to talk to the NPC.