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Next Gen Artifical Intelligence |
Listed in: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii Tags: artificial intelligence
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With all the hooplah over next gen graphics, physics, high definition signals, network services and controller innovation, one element seems to have been largely overlooked by many, an aspect that for me will truly herald the coming of the next generation... intelligent artificial intelligence.
Developers would argue, and with good reason that character A.I has come an awfully long way since the days of Quake and Doom, and in some respects it has, but the end result is still largely the same - the enemies pop out, we shoot at them, they duck/hide behind some cover, wash, rinse, repeat. We've occasionally heard devs talking about their enemies using true squad AI to flank you, force you out in the open, surround you and basically perform all sorts of dastardly clever military tactics. To this day the only game that's really come close to delivering on this promise is F.E.A.R. (on the PC).
The truth is that current generation A.I is tremendously simple, rigid and predictable. Consider that the most lasting impression made by a game is how the player experiences and interacts with the world (profound, I know). For the most part game worlds have been painfully static, and only recently have we truly begun to breathe life into them with detail and physical simulations. It's time we started doing the same to the characters that inhabit these worlds as well, if we can see real intelligence and genuine malice behind the face of the bad guy who kidnapped our gal, we're more likely to invest in the game, if we understand and respect a defenseless enemy soldier we're more likely to feel the pang of guilt that comes with shooting him.
This thinking doesn't just apply to first person shooters, but all genres across the board, if I play a team at soccer, I want to feel like each individual player has his own tendencies, idiosyncrasies and strengths, not just the hive mind mentality we're currently seeing. If I play an RPG I want to invest in the characters emotionally because of who they are and how they react to situations spontaneously, not prescripted events. If I'm playing Splinter Cell I want to feel bad for having killed that innocent because I killed an innocent, not because you'll terminate my mission. And how awesome would be to play multiplayer Lumines against HAL 9000!?
For the most part we've been playing through worlds populated by puppets on strings, and worse, we hold those strings, maybe with the second and third generation of next gen games we'll start to see all that horsepower put to good use. What say you guys, are you satisfied with where are right now, or would you like to see more?
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Comments
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Tootles
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Oh and to Chris about the Lumines Vs. Hal 9000, maybe it's just me, but by the fifth level on versus play I have so much trouble that I don't want to even imagine having to fight a super computer at that awesome game.
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i know it may go over the heads of some people but this amount of data which will need to be produced.
this type of thinking has nothing to do with difficulty, in games raising the difficulty means increasing the accuracy ratio buy a good percentage, and also increasing the damage taking buy a weapon, those are the only aspects looked upon by increasing difficulty, raising the A.I. lvl each difficulty would help better i believe.
dont get me wrong i would love to witness this concept but i have a ferm understanding that this is not going to be brought to our games in a good while, i mean the soul and looping and infinite data part.
if they get that well developed it may be possible to actually kill a person and consider it murder with them haveing their own thoughts and ideas which in turn make a soul.
think about it carefully.
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basically, an enemy soldier is given tasks. the primary task being to kill the PC. *but*, they also have the secondary task of self preservation, and there is scripting implemented so the soldier will use cover and corners as a means of that self preservation, and that manifests itself ingame as the soldier hiding around the corner (protecting himself), but reaching around said corner to shoot at the PC (primary task: kill PC). to us, as gamers, we view that as intelligence, because it's like, "Holy crap! that dude just rolled across the floor, hid behind a chair, and started shooting at me! awesome!" with the horsepower of the two new Next Gen systems, they could take that simple concept of self preservation against prime directives like killing the PC, and expand upon it, and also implement it differently per NPC in the game.
just like film being individual frames strung together to give the illusion of movement, clever developers could use some mathematical tricks and coding to give an even further illusion of intelligence and thinking.
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i mean... WHAT'S WITH THAT?!?
when my bullet hits the wall, right that instant I am hurt(high difficulty, I even forgot the name). I don't think that's good AI...
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I have a question, what ever happened to death animations, I mean like on the original Turok when you shot a guy in his neck he would stagger around and blood would squirt out of his neck. Now I understand that bodies go limp when they are dead but there is definately a point of fatal injury where he's not quite dead yet, but when he hits the ground he ain't getting back up. With Euphoria and rag-doll physics I would really like to see enemies really react to getting shot sometimes. Like in Medal of Honor when a guy grabs his crotch after your M1 Carbine stole his jewels.
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