Quote:Original post by jollyjeffers
As others have said, it's going to be a while before AI takes center stage - but with the advent of these multi-processor/multi-core systems, and the inevitable switch to multi-programming, I reckon AI will get a chance at the big time.... [smile]. Fingers crossed the argument that processing resources are limited will become null and void.
I submit that this has alrady been done a couple of times with some games, where the marketing made a huge deal about how amazing the AI was going to be...and then players were pretty much let down hard when the game hit the market (I'm thinking UT Online and various RTS games here). That put a bit of a crimp into making claims that were perhaps over the top.
At the GDC roundtables we've occasionally had folks asking what to do if they built their AIs too smart and/or too hard. We've always told them they should be so lucky...
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If a couple (or more!) big name games take the time to put some truly powerful AI into things, the sort of stuff that gets people going [oh] at how damn impressive it is, then they'll raise the bar. Raise the bar and others will almost certainly follow...
This is absolutely the case, and I think we've seen it slowly come true across genres. Games that don't do something in particular that has become widespread quickly get slammed by the reviews.
At this year's GDC we saw an incredible number of design walkthroughs that had a huge amount (I thought) in common with each other. Lots of different games but the basic AI engine designs were very similar, as if developers have been trying lots of things and slowly settling on a small handful of approaches that give them the design flexibility they need, which raising the bar another notch.
