I got just message that told that paper Gameplay design patterns for believable non-player characters written by Staffan Björk and me was accepted to Digra 2007: Situated Play Conference (Tokyo, September 24–28). Now I need to organize funding for the trip to conference.
Here is abstract:
Descriptions of humans require several qualities for people to experience them as believable: human body; self-awareness, intentional states, and self impelled actions; expression of emotions; ability to use natural language; and persistent traits. Based on these we analyze non-player character Claudette Perrick in The Elders Scroll IV: Oblivion to detect how these qualities can be created in the interactive environment of a game. We derive the gameplay design patterns Awareness of Surrounding, Visual Body Damage, Dissectible Bodies, Initiative, Own Agenda, Sense of Self, Emotional Attachment, Contextual Conversational Responses, and Goal-Driven Personal Development, which point to design choices that can be made when designing believable non-player characters in games.
Petri Lankoski 