Reason #8: It’s too hard to get good AI

he truth of the matter, it seems to me, is that programmers just don’t have the skills or the budget to get good AI. It is apparently a lot simpler to get a long series of scripted events right than getting individual and group behaviours set up so that they can act relatively independently from their environment, adapting to it and including it in their actions.

I must say that it is indeed a serious limitation.

However, bots have been around at least since Quake 2, if I remember correctly…
And I am positive that the bots from SWAT 3 know what they were doing (those bastards!). If anyone has tried Far Cry they also know that bots can be bad (in a good way) and do some pretty mean stuff, including flushing you out with a grenade, and flanking you, or finding back ways to get to you. That is the right stuff. In Far Cry, they go as far as shouting orders at each other, that makes it really real. (Even though, now that I think of it, good soldiers would use some sign language and trained special ops would use subvocal radios probably).

A complaint you see frequently on modders’ sites is that the games are not designed to support bots (MOHAA) and that sometimes getting the bots programmed is just too hard for the non-dedicated programmer (Hello Battlefield 1942!). That’s a shame, because it’s all about the replayability. And bots that go only one way are bound to be easily shot… boring.

By the way, bots with varying levels of intelligence and skills is a good idea (congrats on UT 2004)

To sum it up, get working on the AI, I can wait for graphics, now that we have reached Far Cry, but I want to see more and way better bots in action. And giving them perfect shooting capability and seeing through walls is NOT FUN.