20 replies to this topic

[Zuka]

I'm developing a game that will require a bot to take a players place if that player is absent. Do you think it would be possible to teach that bot to perform things like that player, like teaching it habits? Maybe it can track the player's activities, then store that data, and call upon it when its needed?

[monjardin]

I guess that would depend on the game...

[STLDude]

and your skills.

[Sol_HSA]

and the license agreement of said game =)

[Mihail121]

And your skill in AI in the first place :) Believe me, it's NOT an easy task! Aside from that I find it a nice idea.

[onyxthedog]

He said that he/she were developing the game so that takes care of the end user license agreement problem. If you are developing the game then why don't you just put it straight in the game? Then you could make it behave like wise after acessing the data.

I see what you mean now, as an opponent. That make more sense. Just ask about this with starstrutter. ;)

[starstutter]

If you're talking about a first person shooter, I think it's entirley possible. I am having a hard time coming up with the specific reason for implementation, but it is a good idea to keep players that are AFK from being useless blobs of lag.

I think that this would actually be easier than it sounds. According to Valve's observation of players in multi-player games, most will not only stick to 1 specific map, but also take similar (if not the same) attack paths most of the time. It may become a bit less predictable with more complex games such as Team Fortess, but for something like BF2 or Counter Strike, I think it would really be just a matter of tracking the players movements, their KD ratio, their accuracy, and patterns of movement/reaction time.

With these combine together, you could take a bot AI template and modify it according to the players skill.

Actually I think you may have something here. Better hurry up and make it before I do. ;)

EDIT: Oh, and as an extra advanced piece if you feel so inclined, the skills of players can increase and fall in certain areas of the map, so it would be good to track their accuracy/kill rate in different zones.

[karligula]

I'm sure I read a few years back that Peter Molyneux had the same idea for dealing with drop outs in networked games... the AI learns how you like to play, then if your network goes down or you want to pop off for a bit and get a coffee or whatever the AI can fill in for you.

[starstutter]

karligula said:

I'm sure I read a few years back that Peter Molyneux had the same idea for dealing with drop outs in networked games...

Yeah, but... doesn't he kind of have the tendancy to be... for lack of a better phrase, full of it? I respect the guys ideas and all, but the past shows his ambitions become so large they kind of collapse on themselves.

Not that this idea is unnatainable or anything, I would say it's probably more the kind of context you want to put it in. CSS, BF2 or other simpler shooters, aboslutley. MMO's or more complex shooters, highly unlikley.

[onyxthedog]

starstutter said:

Yeah, but... doesn't he kind of have the tendancy to be... for lack of a better phrase, full of it? I respect the guys ideas and all, but the past shows his ambitions become so large they kind of collapse on themselves.

Not that this idea is unnatainable or anything, I would say it's probably more the kind of context you want to put it in. CSS, BF2 or other simpler shooters, aboslutley. MMO's or more complex shooters, highly unlikley.

If you have seen MMOGlider then I am sure that something evolved off that and an imperfect aiming proxy could do the trick. The one thing is that you would have to change the packet scanner to take into account human's imperfect vision, and their imperfect aim. (One more would be its field of sight.) But unattainable? No. Hard? Quite certain that this is obvious, but yes.

[Zuka]

I mean like something that would act as a human, when the human is gone. Like, take their place on the bridge of a starship.

[onyxthedog]

Is it online? If so why not just have them log-out? One thing that I see about this what if someone wonders up on the logged out player in the bridge and kills them, that brings up their death-count without reason! But if it is for like, say, an online FPS and if they log out during a match it takes their place. That would be an excellent idea.


But you are leaving out many important details! A) "I am developing a game..." that is a very wide spectrum. We need to know what type (i.e. RPG, FPS, RTS, TBS, etc...).

B) Is it going to be online? MMO (almost certainly out of the question.), MO, or offline?

C) What is your programming experience with AI? From the looks of your posts not much to nothing would be my guess. You need to take BABY steps if you want to accomplish such a thing. Another thing would be to have a team and in this team have an experienced AI developer.

D) Is your game already out on paper? If not then you need to start there!

Answer these questions and your responses will be much more helpful. If we get annoyed because you are not giving the details we need to help, then read this

[rouncer]

I agree with onyx, it would just make the players angry more than it would help them.

Its not such a good idea i dont think. And noone would know if they are
talking to the player or the bot of the player. Are you going to let the player fill in a form for his "bot one liners"?

[EDIT]
woops, he thinks its a good idea. sorry... i think its not so good. :)
[/EDIT]

[onyxthedog]

That shows how much you read!:p jk

I am not necessarily for it. It depends on how he wants to implement it.

[Zuka]

Well, it's going to be an MOFPS, and you can walk around inside starships, stations, and on the ground, and yes, I know how to make a random terrain generator, and you can basically 'live a second life'. You could buy your own ship, or just join the crew of an existing ship. You can choose to stray down the path of the engineer and build/design your own ship.

There's a problem, however. Whenever a player is gone, the ship might and more likely, will need them. This is the main reason I'm considering this. Sure, they will be able to fight, sure, they will be able to walk around, but the main thing is decision-making. Should they vent the atmosphere to prevent a fire, possibly killing most of the crew? Or should they just risk sending a fire control team?

[onyxthedog]

These decisions sound like they either need to be story based or player based, not AI based. My solution is to just have a ranking system and if a higher ranked person leaves then you could just promote everyone up a step. Then the grunt work could be AI, but needs some player interaction in the work as well. But hey that is just me. The reason I say that is because I would hate to bring my death count up solely because a stupid AI agent made a bad choice.

[Zuka]

I don't mean really gone, just offline or not available.

And the AI's survival would depend on the rest of the bridge crew.

I don't think all of you really get it. The purpose of this AI idea is to mask the absence of a player.

[onyxthedog]

I know, but I would much rather know that a player was gone and make my own stupid decisions, being that my ranking solution was only temporary until they are back online.

[Zuka]

There's not going to be a recorded death count, so it doesn't really matter.

[Reedbeta]

Btw, Zuka, please learn to use the edit button instead of posting three times in a row.