Greetings to one and all. It has been a long long time since I have written anything on this list. Yet I am drawn back to my work, and once again refreshed and invigorated with new found hope.
I have been working almost 24/7 for the past 2 weeks now developing a new engine that will drop nicely into stock ROM 24b6. This new engine is for a serious, modifiable, and totally open ended AI. It has taken a lot out of me and the 2 other people working on it, and is only now beginning to show signs of practicality. The reason I write here, is to see if any at all would be interested in actually using our work after the completion. Perhaps even put it aside for beta testing ( eta on beta is Feb 15th 2k2). If there is a great interest fo rit, I will put up a small web site that will display our work, log files, and news! (yeah the standard stuff)If there is more interest than us three can handle, we may even open source it before we release it, so that everyone may get their hands dirty with it. To shoot out some brief statements about our goals.. the AI will "hopefully" look like this. ==================================== Mobs will have a random set of character actions, pulled from a database, so.. you may have a mob run up to one of your players.. (at random) and drop a package into their hands .. whispering to them that they are to deliver this package to such and such before this other such and such finds them. Mobs will not only speak to players but will interact with them in totality, almost as if there was another human at the end (there are limits though ya know). For example, joe walks into the grocery store, and wants to purchase some bread for the trip he has to make to this other person .. that some how mysteriously got placed upon his shoulders. Maybe the mob in the store KNOWS about this package and Joe's task.. so 1) Maybe he is an ally and will load joe up for half cost or free, and tell Joe to not tarry around - 2) Maybe this guy is one of the bad guys, and smiles at joe while he silently sends his errand boy to inform him the perp is at his counter and will be holding him as long as possible. or 3)The mob is neutral and wont do anything. Another example of the engine will be this - You attack a random mob in the wilderness, it runs back to it's friends(if it passes the flee check) and calls them on you, They will then .. make plans to attack you (If players are in the vicinity of this planning they will over hear the mobs plans, if in the same room they may even ask the other player to join them!) From there on out, those mobs will hunt down the player, until one the player has died by those mobs.. or two all those mobs have been killed. Well.. there ya have it. It is going to be quite a complex task to develop, but we are steadily working on it, and again hope to have some sort of beta by 1st quarter 2k2. This is not all we plan on doin with this engine, it will have many more game enhancing ideas, I am just giving people a taste to see if the interest is there. UGHH! Ok, this got a bit long and I apologize for it. Thanks for reading though and any feedback would be appreciated. Necro __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com
