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

[Freeman]

From: Sasha Hart

> 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?

I want to say: In most cases we don't need smarter AI.  We can
achieve the same or better results with more diverse AI and/or some
slight-of-hand.

e.g. A "real" AI for pigeons in the park would be big, complex, and
result in flocks of pigeons wandering around the park.  We can make
pigeons do that without a big, complex AI, though.  So if that's the
desired result, we should just do that.

I think in most cases, the desired behavior we want to see winds up
being just like that: Easily accomplished from a top-down approach
(where you just make the mob do what you want it to), and much more
difficult to accomplish from a bottom-up approach (where you make
the mob 'smart' and then try to convince it that it wants to do
whatever it is you wanted it to do).  It doesn't matter if the
pigeons aren't really looking for food, as long as it looks like
they're looking for food.

The areas in which faking it just won't do are areas of competition
with players.  But even in those areas, the players don't want the
AI to be competitive anyway.

Nothing wrong with making smarter AI just for the sake of making
smarter AI, though.

Well, depending on your deadlines, I suppose.

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