h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Two other interesting games I can think of in relation to AI are Starship Titanic and The Sims. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call these AI in truth, but they provide an interesting perspective on where computers are headed in this arena.

Starship Titanic allows the player to type words into a text field, and the various robot characters in the game will reply. They must attempt to understand what you are talking to them about, and then attempt to choose the best response. Also interesting, these characters have a mood indicator that helps determine how they will interact with the player. A robot in a bad mood will be less helpful, and may refuse to respond at all.

The Sims is a game where you construct characters and their habitats. This includes choosing various personality factors, picking the character's appearance, designing their house, choosing their careers, and guiding their social interactions. The characters will respond differently to instructions depending on how happy, tired, hungry, and bored they are. The Sims speak in their own intelligible language, and you intuit their meaning through word and though bubbles above their heads.

Both these games are taking a step closer to the Turing test, by immitating human speech patterns and human lifestyles. In the future, game programmers may use these methods instead of prescripted dialogues and plots.

The quake series of games has an AI built in to control the enemies, and in quake 3, the bots. Also, AI was created by coders for Quake 1 & 2. Of course, these aren't a full AI-in-truth, but then that hasn't been achieved yet.

Of course other games have bots and AIs, but out of all of the ones I've played the Quake series AI seems to be the best (don't even start talking about UT - it crap, especially the AI). Although it is hard to compare it to the RTS AI's of the C&C series & TA, since they are a lot different.

Athon Solo

Quake II wasn't that impressive in terms of AI... the bots in Quake III, though, are pretty cool, it has to be said...

In terms of computer opponent AI, Half-Life was impressive... the idea that maps ought to have paths built in to make things easier on the AI was a good idea indeed...

Hopefully things'll continue to improve, and we'll have genuine AI in computer games before anyone notices

26199

Quake III's bot AI really annoys me! Not only do they have a lovely time cheating, seeing behind them, and totally unhuman like responses(Jumping over a rocket less than a fraction of a second after it was launched)... the dm AI aint that good. AND DO NOT!!! UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET ME STARTED ABOUT THE Q3 AI IN CTF MODE!!! OH LORD WHAT HAPPENED THERE!? both the ctf levels and the AI was rushed clearly. UT however displays a clear AI lead over Q3. The BOTS play very well and the order system now works brilliantly. The BOT AI routines are needed not only for deathmatch, ctf, domination, Assult (Where actual mission objectives must be compleated), but also for the many weapon modes avaliable. These bots display a much greater degree of AI coding than the Q3 bots and this is reflected very much in the enjoyment of the game. Q3 is only fun because it is fast and has a boring rocket launcher. UT is just a very clever, neat, well designed game.

Ooh, them's fighting words

I'd never noticed the Q3 bots cheating... okay, they have impossibly fast reactions, but it's possible to view things from the bot's point of view (I forget how), and I'm fairly sure they don't look behind them...

As for UT... hmmm... I've heard all sorts of criticisms levelled at the UT bots, as well, but personally I quite like 'em. Although they do have impossibly fast reactions on Godlike mode

If you really want to see some bots worth insulting, try some of the CS bots available... 'extremely stupid' isn't quite the right phrase, but it's close

26199

Ah, the poor CS bots. Tis true they have still got a long way to go. I found some of the pathnode collections to help more than others. Hopefully the bots in TF2 will be quite cool...

AI programming seems to be getting harder and harder. As the code routines develop to improve realistic responses and co-operative teamplay, the programmers are fighting a constant battle against what I call...... "Options".....

Q3 has good bot AI. This is because it has one play type (DM) and only a few weapons. AI like this has been written since the dawn of DOOM (albeit a lot of enhancements but the idea remains the same). However, taking a game like UT or(For the sake of no argument) CS, the basic DM AI scripting is suddenly faced with more "Options": Loads of guns
Guns with different functions
Team orders
Environment effects (Fog restricting Bot vision - Q3 take note...)
Mission objectives
Active/Dynamic environments/switches
etc....etc....

As games try to be more and more innovative and offer better styles of play and imaginative missions, the AI code gets incredably more complicated (As im sure anyone whose coded H-L bots will know). So I find great sympathy with the current CS bot coders out there, trying their damnedest to help us enjoy a great game - with a daughting amount of options.
(Lets just hope our processors dont keel over trying to run more than 4 bots at a time.....!)

Black and White (www.bwgame.com/)is supposed to have REALLY good AI for the creatures in the game. And black and white 2 is suppoesd to be even better.

So I've heard, AK. I haven't been able to buy Black & White, because my computer is a bit too ancient and past the point of upgrading. Now that I hear an even better sequel is on the way, I'm even more annoyed that I can't afford a new one.

I do have a friend who played the game, and she was very impressed indeed by the AI. Based on their behaviour, she quickly began to have feelings for them like sympathy and frustration. And these were not feelings about the game itself, which she remained neutral about.

AI in first person shooting games is also improving considerably. More and more thought is going towards giving the villains smart tactics. And in many cases, the tactics match the "personality" of the baddie.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see a game that randomly assigns personality characteristics to stock bad guys and then has them act accordingly. Now *that* would be interesting.

Well the nyou should be VERY interested by black and white 2 when it comes out! Lionhead, the creators, seems to enjoy making the absolutely MOST COMPLICATED games of the time that completely tax your computer. I have 1 bw game that takes 15 minutes to load and save... it is about 10000 objects on one map, but...
in Black and White 2, each individual villager is going to have stats, skills, "intelligience" and such. Also, the game is supposed to have up to 1000 person armies. (In bw2 your civs go to war with other civs) In BW1 200 people was good. And in thoe armies, EVERY SINGLE PERSON FOLLOWS THEIR OWN AI. I can't wait for bw 3, 4, 5, and Next Generation. (Which theyve already planned on making) The person who came up with the game is very ambitous. Plus they're supposed to have 35 soundtracks, 5 civs, and 5 or so lands, but that's something else.
If it matters, bw2's release date is "DEC 03 is very optimistic."

That does indeed sound interesting. If I'm not able to buy it myself, I'll likely want to bug someone to let me watch them play.

The other good thing about bw1 is that after you get bored with the game you can easily edit the land scripts and give yourself all the best miracles and everyhing- its very easy.

I personally don't see how any computer will be able to run later sequels to bw because they'e just getting more complicated (and moving up through time. The last ones supposed to be near- present day civ)

Hope you don't mind me chiming in. I'll just say this and be gone...

Fellas at work have been trying to get me interested in playing a game, that they can participate in from their individual homes, that sounds as if it has an incredible AI.

It's called 'Ghost Recon', a military excursion game with a team of men being handled by each player. The leaders control the team, but the individual soldiers act independently, too. And, the enemy has various levels of aggressiveness, tactics, skills, etc., depending on the site and level chosen.

Not my kind of game, but the interactive component has me interested in seeing it in action.

Hmmm...