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The State of AI In Games

Posted by simoniker on from the gottle-of-geer dept.

CowboyRobot writes "Carnegie Mellon researcher Alexander Nareyek has an article at ACM Queue describing how the role of graphics as the leading technology in gaming is being replaced by advancements in artificial intelligence. The author targets some game AI: 'Early milestone demonstrations for the publisher, press presentations, and other hype-generating events do not promote inclusion of a globally/consistently good AI, but instead focus on one or two 'absolutely unexpected but genius outcomes of revolutionary new and complex AI procedures' (did you spot the ironic tone?) that provide the necessary 'wows'.' He concludes by suggesting: 'we need to see more effort to make AI functionality available for the designers/artists.'"

3 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Playing experience by Osmosis_Garett · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just to reply to your mention of Half Life 2 (a title which isnt even available yet), if you're going by the games history, most of the events which gave the original its 'wow' were scripted events. The non scripted AI was unremarkable.

  2. Re:Playing experience by Shadeborn · · Score: 5, Informative
    most of the events which gave the original its 'wow' were scripted events.

    True, but Half-Life does also have team-based AI for some monsters (most notably the marines, the black ops and and the alien dogs). For example, the level designer could designate one of the monsters as a leader and the others would follow its lead. If the player killed the leader first, the rest would disperse and stop fighting as effectively.

    Also, the monsters could use the terrain for their advantage, if the level designer put "hint" entities at corners, doorways, bunkers, around obstacles and such. For example, the marines do take cover behind obstacles and try to draw the player into a crossfire.

    The most "intelligent" monsters of Half-Life are the female black ops with stealth gear. They did require a lot of hint entities to fight effectively, but could lure the player into an ambush by using one of them as bait while the others circled around the player.

  3. Speaking of game AI... by WWWWolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Memetic AI for Neverwinter Nights. This stuff is pretty innovative, at least in theory, and I hope they eventually get to the 1.0 phase with more than just the groundwork done. The approach it takes might be an interesting, even intuitive, way for building the NPC/creature behavior from ground up.