Artificial Intelligence Depot
Visiting guest. Why not sign in?
News, knowledge and discussion for the AI enthusiast.
FEATURES COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE SEARCH  
Introduction to AI Robotics
Covers all the material needed to understand the principles behind the AI approach to robotics and to program an artificially intelligent robot for applications involving sensing, navigation, planning, and uncertainty.
More information at Amazon US UK

Reply to Message

Not registered yet?

The AI Depot has a focused community of friendly users. Rather than let anyone abuse the site at the brink of promiscuity, we prefer to let only those with an active interest participate... this simply requires registering.

Why not sign up!

Joining the site's community is completely free. You can then post messages freely, and customise your personal profile at will. Specific privileges will also be granted to you, like being able to access printer-friendly articles without restrictions. So, why not register?

Username:
Password:
Subject:
Email me when someone replies.
Body:

Parent Message

re

Hi William,

Although I agree with most of what you say I will question several points.

"- developing the learning solution should not take much more time than writing some standard behavior with a couple of variants (few players notice the difference)
- the learning AI should not consume a larger bite of the test budget (which is tough to achieve, because you now need to test against AI that grows undesired behavior)
- the learning AI should not be more difficult to debug (and understand);"

why not? If the AI makes the game a much better game it will make(if marketed correctly) more money. This is the bottom line after all. Creatures didn't sell a million copies because they were cute, it sold a million copies because people are able to interact in a meaningful way with the AI(and because they were cute ;0)). Same goes for the Sims... More revenue means you can afford to spend more time in development. But, I accept, there is a big risk to be taken initially.

The points you make seem to me to be more valid for traditional game formats and for working within a traditional development team. I see a future with new gaming experiences on the horizon.

ps. Great paper you did on terrain reasoning btw

51 posts.
Tuesday 16 April, 07:06
Reply
why not :)

There are two kinds of the "learning AI makes a better game".

The first kind is: the game design defines that the AI should learn. Think Creatures, Black & White, the Sims, a small part of the new Virtua Fighter 4.

The second kind is: the AI designer feels that by adding some 'learning' AI somewhere, he might achieve a more interesting AI. Sometimes this contradicts with the game design (the Kurt Warner or Ruud van Nistelrooij character should not adapt its way of playing football/soccer). In almost all cases, it should be balanced against the wishlists of the other team members (engine designers, level designers, etc.) whose ideas might have a larger impact on the overall game play.

Currently, I'm involved in an unannounced console game that features a large dose of AI. Maybe a tad too much AI to realize before the first milestone. On my planning, there are dozens of standard features that need to be realized in a "good enough" fashion. A few features have been earmarked as 'selling points' and require more attention. Then, there are features that require working together (and bargaining) with level designers and engine developers to get it right. Finally, there's my wish list (and the wish list of the full-time other AI developer) of things we'd like to add as well.
Both these wishlists happen to include some learning stuff. In my case, there's some reinforcement learning I'd love to see in the game. But I expect it will be difficult to convince the team/producer to add it, since it increases the testing effort. Perhaps I can find the time to just implement it, just show it, and see what happens.
The other learning item involves interpreting a complex situation. We don't have a good algorithm for that, and contemplate to use some GA/NN and player/tester feedback. Hopefully, that leads to more insight (and ideally a hard-wired algorithm for in the game).

I'm definitely not representive for other game AI developers, but perhaps this helps to understand why not every game includes learning AI. (Although more AI's were constructed with learning algorithms during production - for example, QuakeIII used GA's to tune the different AI personalities).

William

19 posts.
Tuesday 16 April, 09:55
Reply

Back to the Artificial Intelligence Depot.