We all know that MMO mobs have poor eyesight and hearing, or perhaps they simply don’t care when you kill their friends ten meters away. I realized the second part of the aggro radius question: a lack of object permanence.
Like small children, mobs lack the brain structure to know that something out of sight still exists. And they’re extremely nearsighted. If you can outrun them for five seconds, you are out of sight and out of mind.
Platformers frequently have enemies with perfect vision and absolutely no object permanence awareness. If they can see you, they will follow you endless and inerrantly. If you duck behind a waist-high block, they will go back to their standard patrol patterns. I also used to wonder about enemies who would shoot at your character with inerrant precision, only to have their shots blocked by walls or giant pipes. How did they even know you were there to shoot at you? Obviously they can see through objects, perhaps only able to see living creatures. And being able to see nothing except naked Marios and goombas is what fuels their rage to spit fireballs.
: Zubon
I think it was Thief 2 where the guards would notice torches being put out or objects being stolen by our sticky-fingered protagonist. What they did lack was the will to do anything about other than to search for a couple of minutes. If an entire wing of a mansion went dark and their coworkers missing, they should have been able to raise hell and wake everyone else up before it was too late. Can we teach the buddy system to an AI?
I remember that in FFXI mobs had smell! You had to drink/eat certain items to go unnoticed. It was highly interesting.
also – the classic MGS approach of “OMG I’ve just be shot in the neck!! Quickly, set off the alarm and search for approx 30 seconds before returning to your normal schedule”
Truth is beauty and beauty truth.