[MUD-Dev] Solutions for smarter NPCs

[Kirinyaga]

From: Bjorn Moren [mailto:bjoernen at hotmail.com]

> I'm curious about what technical solutions you have tried in order
> to get NPCs act more interactively and smart. Better AI to support
> a more vivid world. Both regarding combat behavior for NPC
> monsters and conversation behavior for NPC merchant / quest
> assignment types.

> Have anyone found it fruitful to use a functional/logic
> programming language like Prolog or Mercury? I guess most use a
> state machine abstraction in regular C/C++? I also guess a lot has
> been done by scripting (Python, Lua, Javascript), but how far can
> you get with that? What about neural nets? Fuzzy logic?

I found the mobs of Ryzom (currently in beta) to be particularly
vivids.  They express curiosity, group movement, hunger, ... It is
really impressive.  Their AI is designed by an university IA
lab. You can find some infos in english here:

  "Classifier systems as 'Animat' architectures for action selection
  in MMORPG", some technical details about the Ryzom AI

    http://animatlab.lip6.fr/papers/gameon.pdf

  "MHiCS, A Modular And Hierarchical Classifier Systems Architecture
  For Bots", more details about another implementation of half-life
  bots

    http://animatlab.lip6.fr/papers/Robert_Game-on2003_16.pdf

More info in french on the animatlab page:

  http://animatlab.lip6.fr/Robert/index.fr.html
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