For those interested in the actual game and not the classic forum drama about it ~~A short and direct video that explains Subsumption, one of the main pitches and a pillar of SC and SQ42, this deeply relates to AI, economy, and missions, it's a system releasing its first iteration in the next 3.0 update. The AI of SC is more like The Sims, with a system
"whose purpose is to define behavior based on sensory input, goals and rules", unlike the NPCs on rails continuously it in a loop that never changes you normally find in MMO's.
Wouldn't you agree more MMO's should have a more dynamic "The Sims" like AI for NPCs?
edit - In another more recent bit but related and a good example of how it drives some game systems, this on the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) where the NPCs provide that service themselves:
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Though I meant the question more related to "the sims" like AI, I'll edit that bit.
Don't get me wrong Max, I'm hugely disappointed in the lack of AI progression in MMORPGs and would love to see leaps in that department, but we all know it's a tough and tricky road that requires massive amounts of resources to pull off. If SC releases in a stable PU state with this kind of system being successfully implemented, I'll be a huge fan for that single feature. But it's easier said than done, and by done, I think it's fair for me to say "we" mean included as a system within a working MMORPG game as a whole.
It's resource-costly to simulate AI like that. It's not really "can it be done?", it's more it's by nature complex what adds up to the fact it needs to play out in the MP environment of the game.
The more costly the game-servers get to the run, fewer profits there are, that alone would be a reason to why avoid simulation (AI/Physics) of relevant complexity.
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In terms of multi-layered NPCs with complex decision-making, I think this doesn't really make sense in the context of Star Citizen. The "meta server" approach makes perfect sense, but making decisions on the fly is a whole different story. The resources to pull that off would be quite extensive, especially if it is able to respond to a variety of situations.
I'm saying it doesn't make sense because of the relatively low player numbers within an instance. To run a detailed simulation of a space station's inhabitants for 50 people in an instance would be very costly. I think this makes more sense for non-instanced games, where you are getting a bit more bang for your buck. Having John, the fruit seller in Station X, instanced over 50 different variations of Station X is fairly inefficient, especially if he is to make complex unique decisions (based on what the players do) in each one of them.
I would believe they add this on SC because multi-crew ships, even if you have a player crew you'll still need AI crew and that AI is stated to be just like SQ42, so your crew will need that sort of simulation to react all sorts of situations.
What you are talking about I think was that old design when the game was fully instanced the "Universe Servers" to handle AI, interacting with all the instances. They seem to have been changing that to localize processing of areas of space per server instead of instancing the same place multiple times, I think we may end up with multiple "master regions" instead of copies of the same instance, that's to be seen.
But props to them for trying. Just be realistic about it. There is a reason many other games have started work on similar systems, yet ended up with something more predictable.
Ultimately the game has to be worth playing, everything else is just window dressing. Sure the graphics are stunning... but the game is boring as hell. Sure the combat feels glorious... but the game is totally unbalanced. Sure the story is outstanding... but there's no replayablity.
This stuff is all window dressing to disguise the fact that the game itself, lacks something at it's core. Back in the day you played games for hours on end, not because of the quality of the graphics, dynamic events, et al... but because it was entertaining. Some of the simplest designs and implementations are far more engaging than the most detailed designs.
As my professor used to say, God is in the design, the Devil is in the details. Details don't make the design and the design doesn't make the details. It's a careful balance between the two. Your brain filters out a lot of the details, to get to the root design. Spending an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money on something the brain will treat as background noise, doesn't make it better.
Hence why some games don't seem to change the formula up... they already know you're going to filter it out in short order.
AI has to be calculated server side because if its calculated client side then it can(and will) be easily hacked to pieces.
Now, with anything thats done server side you cant calculate it once then send it out to everyone, no, you have to calculate it separately for everyone.
Lets say 10 people are looking at 1 mob. That means the server has to calculate the AI for that 1 mob 10 times. If you have 10 people looking at 10 mobs then the server has to calculate the AI for those 10 mobs 100 times.
So, it has never been a matter of companies not wanting or being unable to make better AI, it has always been a matter of having to send millions complex AI calculations to hundreds of thousands of people over the internet every second.
A couple MMOs have tried complex AI for mobs. Namely, Project Titan by Blizzard and Everquest Next by SOE. Now, who can tell me what happened to them?
But I think we've been having very VERY basic AI in MMO's, and that AI is very core to the game and its content, seeing GW2 in that aspect shown that (even though fully scripted in a loop) AI meant to create a believable dynamic world created one of the best PvE Gameworld experience I've had in MMO's.
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I'll use the example of Guild Wars 2 here, one of the selling points of the game was the claimed dynamic world/events, and that system runs under a fully scripted loop that never changes.
Even so, it was the best approach I've seen on it in one MMO to date, but then...
What about turning those scripts in a loop into actual AI simulation so say fights, invasions, events, etc... are driven by simulation leading to dynamic chains of events triggered by that simulation and/or players?
I would find that amazing because then it would not be the same thing in a loop until the end of the times and there would exist an actual dynamic to it that would make it feel like far more like a living world, instead of make-believe.
Would it cost more to have that simulation on servers? Sure. Would it be more complex for the developers to work in the colossus of logic necessary to ensure the simulation plays like the script would? Sure. But I think that would create one experience that adds far more replayability and longevity to the gameplay per area.
So yeah. Pretty comparable actually.
Of course they where up against the fact that reading faces is a thing we humans are very good at, so small deviations seem huge to us. We are much less likely to spot "silly faces" in a mission configuration as we do not have a natural frame of reference for that.
For those who are interested in how the AI solutions mentioned above work:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021848/Building-a-Better-Centaur-AI
GW2's HoT is emergent AI? I Don't think so, not on that tier of what drives the events and the content generation that comes from their AI, that's the scripted chain that runs in a loop, perhaps something more related to combat?
The AI is really what will make or break SC; the core of the game lies on it to ensure the dynamic of the game world and the generation of content that is all to run under this system.
One of the things I most like of the approach is that if you are stranded in Space/Planet and put out one emergency beacon, the whole system needs to translate that call for help into a mission someone (or AI itself) will take, creating important game loops.
When I was reading up on the Stalker game series, the devs there talked about putting an advanced AI in for all the NPCs, with the same general goals as the player. Problem came up that the AI would do everything better and faster than the human player, so they had to dumb it down.
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What makes AI so hard in general is making AI that is smart but not too smart, AI that can be beat and be fun.
When Naughty Dog was making The Last of Us their first attempt at the AI was completely unbeatable. The enemies would seek cover, flank and support each other. They had to dumb it way down.
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Means simply it costs more on servers so they have to assume one higher upkeep to be able to deal with both the complex AI and also physics that are heavy on processing.
MMO's do this stuff very cheap because the cheaper it is the less of the money earnt will go to pay upkeep costs, and when it comes to MMO companies choosing between profit or better game AI/Physics I think we all know what the decision is,
I don't think the challenge comes with making it too smart/balanced, it's its cost, Subsumption is a global system for it so they perhaps can optimize that as most as possible to smartly manage big numbers of AI.
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You can link all the screenshot's you like of the 3.0 production schedule, nothing in it has ever been wrong.....
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Judging by the contents of the video you linked SC's decision making process works based on a very similar if not identical AI solution to what GW2's NPCs have been using in the expansion content. Game AI is not something that grows on trees or at least it's not something anyone can develop from scratch within 5-6 years so I guess CIG've been contracting a third party AI specialist to have a working solution in SC and SQ42.