[MUD-Dev] AI not worth doing in our games?

[Sasha Hart]

It sure sounds that way to me. In fact, it sounds like dumb is the
only game in town...

[Jeff Freeman]:

> They like the AI to be a bit stupid.

[Amanda Walker]:

> Indeed.  They want opponents to be challenging but generally
> beatable.

[Damion Schubert]:

> Players themselves use all sorts of nasty tricks in order to get a
> leg up - sneaking up on monsters, fearing or paralyzing the
> monster's healer buddies, attacking monsters when they're wounded,
> teleporting out if they get hurt, etc.  While some monster AIs
> exhibit some of these techniques periodically, if an AI made use
> of all of these tendencies, I predict that that game would lose
> population very quickly.

[Shren]:

> Bots, like the brooms in the Magician's Apprentice, are more than
> capable of taking over a game.

.. But there's nothing that says attempts at more intelligence in
players' computerized opponents (be they so humble as 'recognizing'
a face, knowing night from day, or trying a different path after 10s
running straight into the wall) must necessarily make opponents
harder. Or increase frustration or decrease xp gain rate, for
example.

More broadly, there's nothing saying that our attempts to
incorporate better intelligence in our games (whatever those are)
need be used to make opponents at all, easy or hard. I don't just
mean that they can be for cooperative bots. They can be for
training-robots, automated underlings, futuristic computers,
simulated nations, shopkeepers, pigeons in the park.

Do we really want to say that dumber is better? Or is it just that
some 'smarts' are poorly constructed or poorly situated?


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