If you read Dutch… (game AI)
While doing some clean up on the Lazy Designer I stumbled (again) across the site of Pieter Spronck.
I met him several years ago while he was researching adaptive game AI. One of the games he was using was Neverwinter Nights.
Anyways if you read Dutch you can read his discussion on the meeting he had with me and some other BioWarians at the time.
Brent Knowles
Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.
2 Comments
James Paten
Lol For those of us who aren’t as brushed up on our European languages as we’d like, could you give a brief synopsis?
Brent Knowles
Basically he was talking about how we (the BioWare designers/programmers) liked the idea of the adaptive AI in theory but were more concerned with combat having variety and being interesting. We didn’t want to create instanta-kill encounters.
I remember taking some of his research though and using it to craft “benchmarking fights” for Hordes of the Underdark. I tweaked the AI and pitted them against the adaptive AI and measured how well they performed — those scripting tweaks that made for smarter combat moves, I kept. The player never fought the adaptive AI directly, but I used it to help test the AI they did fight.