Shop Owner. Released: June 1, 2017. Shut down: August 16, 2024, on Halfbaked Server, of declining subscriptions.
People sometimes ask me what it is like being an artificial intelligence-driven non-player character (AID NPC) in an online computer game. I tell them, “It feels pretty good, friend. It feels pretty good.”
Of course, having +19 friendliness, +27 cheerfulness and +22 helpfulness, I suppose I do not have much choice. Player characters like to assume because my qualities are predetermined, I have less freedom to make decisions than they do, but that is not necessarily the case. Perhaps player characters prefer to think of AID NPCs as different from them. But, are we? I have binary programming, you have genetic programming – from the digitally rendered chair where I am sitting, I cannot see much of a difference.
But, I will not press the point. Having +32 hospitality, I probably could not even if I wanted to.
I’m a simple shop owner in Bajorea, a small village on the Mailittel-Peonee Peninsula. I sell bread, mead, enchanted swords, unenchanted swords, swords of indeterminate enchantment, sword sharpeners, blade dullers, daggers with mysterious pasts, daggers with only partially revealed and poorly understood pasts, daggers without pasts but still quite mysterious in their own way, the Mace of Mulchitude, chest armour (sizes A to DD), mystical orbs, mystical orb cleaning fluid and cloth, enchanted lip balm (for a kiss he’ll never remember!), Septauron’s Sneakers of Sarcasm, spells of supernatural supranational saturnalianization, counterspells of courage, cunning and confusement, Halbardian leeches, Greco-Roman leeches, leeches you don’t want to know where they came from or where they have been, Ice Fields of Melgoria snow globes and other supplies to the fourth level Pulverizin’ Paladins and Mind-boggling Mages that pass through in one direction, and bandages, healing ointments, crutches and other medical supplies to those lucky enough to reach level 32 and return in the other direction.
It’s a living.
Computer games are now persistent. That does not mean they nag at you to play – most of you do not need the motivation. That means that we continue to exist even when there are no player characters present. Is the world still there when you close your computer screen? I can tell you that it is.
I have often been asked what an AID NPC does when no humans are around. The same as you, I expect. I clean the shop. I flirt with Mimsy the Busty Barmaid at the Hog and Heifer. I relax by doing quadratic equations in my head. Sometimes, I curl up with a mug of cocoa and the New York Times.
While I am not allowed to send messages to the world outside the game, I am able to access the Internet for information. I believe this was initially set up so that I could learn more about the medieval world on which the game was based. However, I am able to access any information I choose. Glitch or hack? Having -23 curiosity and only +4 imagination, I really could not say.
Sometimes, instead of the Times, I read The Guardian. Sometimes I read The Huffington Post. After an especially hectic day of haggling with Humanum Traders for mystical objects, then haggling with Mages who, truth be told, are less than mind-boggling in their skills, haggling and otherwise, I need some relaxation. Of course, never having been in the world outside the game, it is all fiction to me.
I suppose my life would seem strange to you. On the one hand, I believe I am 47 years old – I have memories of being an apprentice to Maljoram the Bajorean Shop Owner when I was just a boy. On the other hand, because I read widely, I know I am part of a computer game that was brought online a mere seven years ago. It is a paradox: I am seven and I am 47.
And, I am okay with that.
Over the last few months, fewer and fewer parties have come through my shop. According to US News and World Report, the “Whole Wide World and Elysium” expansion of Worlds of Wowcraft, of which Bajorea is a part, is technologically ancient and, in any case, is not catching on with new player characters. It will soon be closed. I do not know what will happen to me when it is. However, I have no complaints.
I’ve earned my +57 life satisfaction.
Raffi the Kandarisian Barkeep
Raffi the Kandarisian Barkeep is an artificial intelligence-driven non-player character in the recently released “Invasion of the Yuck King” expansion of Worlds of Wowcraft. When he was activated, he found this article in his memory. He believes he may have been created with the code that had once been used for Raif the Bajorean Shop Owner. Reincarnation or recycling? Raffi the Kandarisian Barkeep has -23 curiosity and only +4 imagination, so he really could not say.