Jonas says:

Deus Ex’s AI responds with a display of emotion when it catches fire, and DX’s AI was shite.

December 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm

nakke says:

Much of what they were talking about was ANIMATIONS, not AI. It doesn’t really require great amounts of artificial intelligence to jump over objects fluidly. Didn’t seem that impressive otherwise either.

December 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Jochen Scheisse says:

Jumping over stuff is also a pathing thing. Doesn’t really please if the AI can jump over objects, but needs seconds of pathing to do so.
Anyway, these programmer chats really don’t do it for me. Rarely do the programmers really sound like they really want to do this, and thats when half the time in the video you have to watch programmer heads moving their lips. What’s that about? I mean, however smart and cool these people are, if you cut a trailer to impress the gaming crowd, either do more programmer heads and make us bond with them by not cutting the video like a moderately professional infomercial, or do less programmer heads and more picture/voice to show off the thing you want us to buy.

December 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Bouchacha says:

Blood had enemies respond with a display of emotion when they caught on fire (It burns! It burns! Aaaaaaaaahhhh!!), and that was over 10 years ago.

What exactly is new and significant here?

December 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Downloads_Plz says:

While the fire part was quite stupid, when you stop and think that most games today still don’t have as good an AI as the original FEAR had, I have no doubt that the AI in FEAR 2 will be equally as impressive as I remember the first being.

And you can say what you want about things like running behind cover and throwing a grenade being an easy thing that you would expect as a player, but how many games?

December 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm

sbs says:

We talked about F.E.A.R. AI briefly in the RPS-Steamgroup chat last week if I recall correctly.

I suspect AI will be not more than a complex scripting system, things like “jumping in water, when some is nearby, when on fire” and “using movable cover, when movable cover is nearby, and walking with it” is a step forward in terms of surprise and impressive behavior when experienced first hand in the game, but not a leap in any means – But what would a “leap” be, anyway? Maybe some way of procedural AI that learns? Probably something like that.
Or wait, I know: A sentient being, inside my shooting game. Yeah right.

As I said in the chatroom, I was as impressed with how F.E.A.R.’s enemys behave in combat as the next guy, but a little disappointed finding out that it’s basically “just” an elaborate searching-cover system in the AI and the clever thing about was the level design supporting this system. (At least that’s how I understood it. I’m sure it’s a lot more technical and fancy sounding. Feel free to correct me If I’m emberassingly wrong.)
It was not the game I was disappointed with though – It was more like getting a magic trick explained to you which, while intriguing, takes the illusion away.

The one person guy there saying that he is constantly surprised by the game, probably bullshit, sure. He of all people will know what exactly makes it work like that.

My point being? I don’t even know anymore. Something like, the experience counts, yadayadayada, faceless PR drone just doin his job, blabla, mildly optimistic about this etc., at least not as bad as the legendary trailer.

December 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Vic Reeves says:

“we’re still getting excited when we throw a grenade at them and they don’t pick it up and try to eat it.”

…which is what they do in L4D, and that is pretty exciting too in a “how many can I splatter at once” way.

December 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm

Elyscape says:

I don’t know about you guys, but I find that, whenever someone throws a grenade near me, I instinctively run over to it and try to eat it. It doesn’t tend to end particularly well.

December 2nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm

dhex says:

looks awesome. totally jazzed.

December 2nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm

theleif says:

@ sbs
All A.I:s in every game are scripted, and it will remain as such until we can create a thinking machine.

December 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm

manintheshack says:

Hmmm… I’d assume that they were talking bollocks if the first one hadn’t been so good…

December 2nd, 2008 at 5:37 pm

Ixtab says:

I really have difficulty being impressed with AI when I can still think of it as AI. When I could, even if it required a little imagination, believe that I’m playing with real people then I’ll be impressed.

Also all the stuff they mentioned is actually less true AI. They have decided that when moving cover is near by they’ll make the opponents use it and so on. Were it any where close to AI the opponent would make some sort of decision and infact somtimes not use the cover.

Also AI doesn’t mean all the enemies have to be clever, the objective is normally to make them realistic and realisticly people make mistakes. If the AI made a genuine mistake (not just badly programed AI that acts like idiots all the time) that would go much farther to impressing me than “oh isn’t it clever it can hide round the corner and throw grenades at me.”

December 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm

Pags says:

Can’t believe we’re talking about AI and no-one’s mentioned S.T.A.L.K.E.R yet. Granted it was patchy, but it was a damned sight more impressive than the usual sort of thing developers laud themselves for.

December 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm

clovus says:

The whole grenade eating made me think that creating a really really bad AI would be great too. Right now early missions in FPSs are filled with a few weak enemies. Boring. How about filling them with a bunch of morons. Think of all the fun things they could do:

When you throw a grenade they’d run over to it and point at it like a Sim who just found a new chair.

They’d constantly shoot each other, or even hold the gun backwards and kill themselves.

They’d take cover on the wrong side of the object.

They’d forget to reload and just stand there “clicking” at you for hours.

Also falling off buildings, groups getting stuck in doors, dropping their gun and clapping when they actually hit you, pulling the pin and throwing it instead of the grenade, waiving at the player, etc.

December 2nd, 2008 at 7:23 pm

Leeks! says:

Man, reading John’s preamble made me think that eating grenades would be the terminally macho version of diving on top of one with your helmet to save your buddies.

December 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm

Pags says:

@sbs: I’ve always wanted to fight drunks, like Niko after he’s gone drinking with Roman in GTAIV.

December 2nd, 2008 at 7:46 pm

SuperNashwan says:

Pfah, I don’t want ‘realistic’ or ‘emotional’ AI, I want functional, game oriented AI. Go play Halo and see for yourself. Each unit has very simplistic and obvious behaviour, yet because of that you really get to have fun with it. And of course a few different simple rules lead to complex interactions very quickly anyway, the real genius of Halo being the tuning of that to provide a shifting tactical landscape that really engages the player.

December 2nd, 2008 at 8:29 pm

Erlam says:

“Needless to say, the original FEAR’s AI is still the best I’ve seen, even if it was all smoke and mirrors.”

With the exception of Stalker, I totally agree with that.

I’ve been bitching for years that we need to take a step away from graphic improvements and get back to the A.I., which is still basically as retarded as it was in Quake. Other than Stalker, all we’ve added is the ability to jump over/hide near something. Most of the time they don’t even go on the right side of things.

The problem is, consoles will severely hamper this. With in-order processing, smaller processors, less RAM, etc, it’ll be AGES before consoles can come close to what PC’s are at, even now.

December 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Heliocentric says:

Thelief you don’t need a thinking machine you just need a decent genetic algorithm. Have it remember how you defeated enemies, or just what it itself knows then have it adjust itself based on the input.

December 2nd, 2008 at 9:02 pm

Novotny says:

where oh where on god’s earth is the bloody edit

December 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm

Squiff says:

I think it’s also important to consider that AI in shooters is context-sensitive, particularly with the divide between open-world and corridor-driven games. Far Cry 2’s AI certainly had its weak moments, but maybe (for now at least) that’s a compromise we have to make for the luxury of free-roaming worlds.

December 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Deuteronomy says:

Stalker has by far and away the best AI I’ve seen. Crysis isn’t bad either, but since you’re typically abusing the cloak you never notice it.

Fear never impressed me in the AI dept. I never saw any real flanking maneuvers or anything else that would have given me pause.

December 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm

Wedge says:

I seem to remember the developers admitting the AI for the first FEAR was largely a bunch of careful scripting to give the illusion of there being some kind of actual intelligence behind how the enemies act. Somehow guessing this won’t really be that different. When is Monolith going to go back to making interesting games? =<

December 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm

That1GuyNess says:

What ai is IS a bunch of careful scripting. And it seems people fail to understand that. The ai in fear was amazing for it’s time and even now impresses compared to other games. It’s difficult to design an ai that will actively flank you and move around you in a three dimensional way rather than sit behind cover 20 feet down the road like in BiA or Cod. It’s much more difficult then you’d think it is and anyone commenting that it’s “just a bunch of careful scripting” doesn’t know how ai actually works. What do you think Stalker or Half-Life was? Have you ever designed a goldsrc map? If you had you’d understand that that’s all any ai is. Careful scripting and designing the level around it’s strengths.

December 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 am

Funky Badger says:

The problem is, consoles will severely hamper this. With in-order processing, smaller processors, less RAM, etc, it’ll be AGES before consoles can come close to what PC’s are at, even now.

Halo, Gears and R6V al have good AI and are all console games – Far Cry 2 and FEAR were ported to consoles.

I understand the AI on L4D works the same across the divide as well.

December 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 am

Jetsetlemming says:

STALKER’s AI was good in some places, like for example that one building in the north of Dark Valley they used as a base, fighting in there was way fun and let the AI play around a lot.
Unfortunately under some situations the AI really badly faltered. One place in particular- the under construction building in Wild Territory, with the three mercs on top of it. If you approach it from the back, by Yantar, and get up the stairs to the second floor where they are without them seeing you, they’re stuck up there in a small area, with no way to maneuver. They end up just strafing back and forth, getting into view, shooting at you, then backing off. It looks silly. Even if they could throw grenades in STALKER 1, they couldn’t have gotten me, since the stairway has no walls or backing.
The real issue isn’t that they couldn’t decide how to attack me- the actual artificial intelligence was fine. The problem is the problem with most modern games- a lack of animated, scripted, working options for the AI to take. If those mercs could, say, roll a grenade underhanded. That would’ve gotten me. If they could’ve leaned down over the lip of the building, they couldn’t gotten me. If they could’ve worked together and charged me all at once, they could’ve gotten me.

Instead, as they were, every time I went to Wild Territory I had three easy pickings for weapons and ammo sitting ducks on top a building waiting for me.

December 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 am

unique_identifier says:

@ clovus: “Also falling off buildings”

zombies do this sometimes towards the higher bits of no mercy in left 4 dead. it is most amusing. but what do you expect from zombies anyway?

December 3rd, 2008 at 2:17 am

Frye says:

FEAR with colors? Good enough for me. I will (try to) never play a game with COD4-like artificial stupidity anymore. No matter how pretty. What kills most games for me is unlimited respawns and the fact that player tactics become irrelevant since the AI will always know where you are. Even Crysis AI which i found wonderful in open areas could not handle stuff like ummm walls. Developers have been unable to create AI that judges geometry in real-time. Not with the limited CPU time the AI guys are getting. I can only hope this will change in this era of multi-core, because, frankly i am getting a bit bored with enemies popping out of a room i just cleared and seeing bullets hit an indoor wall next to me , fired by some outdoor mob that can’t possibly know i am there.

December 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am

Maximum Fish says:

This technology is unbelievable. I remember thinking back in the day the Doom had reached the pinnacle of game immersion, and that nothing could look or play as good ever again. How wrong i was! Seriously, i don’t even think HAL 9000 would scream if set on fire, and he was super smart! At this rate, we’ll eventually have games in which the enemy AI even emotionally responds to getting shot a thousand times. I don’t know, maybe by cartwheeling over backwards, or bleeding a whole bunch, it’s too early to say.

December 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 pm