Dave Mark's Expert Blogs
Usually, the technique of rubber-banding dynamically adjusts AI players to the player's skill and performance level in order to "keep things competitive". Sometimes, however, a game's core selling point requires rubber-banding to even exist in the game.
The 2nd year of the AI Summit at GDC promises to be just as amazing as the first. If you are involved in game AI as a programmer, designer, or even as a student, the AI Summit is the most important event of the year. Take a look at all 12 sessions inside!
There have been numerous posts on Gamasutra lately discussing various aspects of MMOs and how better AI can help. Coincidentally, this is the topic of my lecture at GDC Austin next week. As a sort of "coming attraction" I weigh in on these issues.
Why is it the arguably single most important element of many interactive games isn't prominently rated, judged, or given awards?
Providing non-linear, non-calculatable choices for players is all well and good. However, if we are going to achieve depth in gameplay we need to provide that same depth of choice to our AI NPCs as well.
Why the members of the AI Game Programmers Guild, presenters of the AI Summit at GDC, would be quite happy presenting to each other, even if no one else showed up to watch.
By gradually changing the number of words with odd letters that are in the Scrabble dictionary, the scoring system gradually became unbalanced. This sort of math juggling is something that game designers and AI Programmers deal with all the time.
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