Job for milkshape modeller If any of you know a skinning tool well enough to help me out with a small task (for pay), let me know

AI in your design docs Hand-to-hand combat: Lemmings: Old West RPG: Does NPC combatant have AI? Lemmings: lemmings have some individual agency and individualized goals/utility function Do they improve over time? Old West RPG: Are there townsfolk or highwaymen NPCs? Is there a designated ‘ai’ member of each team, or are you thinking about it as a group?

Brainstorming What intelligent behavior do you like in existing games? How can you make the game world into a smarter opponent?

Typical AI plan Add some randomness to NPC strategy Variation can be context-sensitive or just randomized Smart path planning/locomotion using waypoints/grabpoints built into the world

AI possibilities AI techniques used for: Navigation and route-finding, path planning intelligent hiding Chat with an NPC Learn better behavior over time Adapt to a particular adversary Infer unobservables, like the adversary’s overall strategy Cooperation among NPCs, emergent group behaviors like flocking, maneuvers Planning, goal-directed behavior

Ideas from AI/entertainment Don’t let the NPCs have perfect knowledge: they have to operate in the environment like the players do Perhaps they can communicate what they learn

Things to think about Don’t get in the way of story exposition How much of a challenge do you want NPCs to present? Should it be as smart as you can make it? Real AI often slow Precompute everything: navigation mesh, offline learning