Thoughts about a different way for AI

[DeadTeddy]

well, I saw the devs posting several times the server stress would be tremendous if they tried to add more AI like wildlife and stuff. so I was thinking and had an idea.

why not let people run the AI on their PC's? so if you come to a continent with 3 people you will each run like 5 AI animals that will stay in your view distance.

now before you start flaming about CPU load and what happens if 400 people each run 5 AI's let me finish.

when there are like 20 people on a continent it could drop to 4 and slowly to 1 each, cause when there's 100 people they never walk alone so you can see other ppl's birds and giant girbels.

now in battles of 100+ ppl this would still be an amazing lagger, but the solution exists in the very nature of all animals, (no not dying) running away. an animal that hears gunshots will run away and go into hiding. so basiclly in battles the AI's will disappear into the trees, fly away, dig a whole and hide, and then you won't be running a bot anymore. this is true also for the 15 minute camp that 200 NC like to do in bases as the engine noise and TK's should be enough to scare off the animals.

what do you think?

p.s: I don't have a subscription right now cause my GFX card fried and I can't play but if someone can post this on the official forums and give the link it would be neat.

[Doppler]

Question:

Why?

Nevermind that this whouldnt work as it whould still tax the servers in co-ordinating all the whos running what and who sees it where.

[DeadTeddy]

why? because it's pretty damn boring when you go cross country or when you know the zerg is comming and you set an ambush and wait. and because wildlife makes the planet come to life.

my idea is very simple and will only take the little bit of bandwidth it takes for a bird to fly which I'm pretty sure that is less then the bandwidth of fighting takes. and when the fighting starts the AI's go away.

as for managing who's running who, that's very simple, takes less resources then a single wall turret. and it can be done client side. after all a place like oshur is likely to have snakes, hawks and mutant barnies. the client knows how many people are on the continent so it can know how many bots to run and it can just randomly choose 2 hawks, a snake and a barney.

adding "don't run AI" and "don't show wildlife" in the options dialog for slower PC's is possible.

[Fragmatic]

People with guns + Wildlife = Dead wildlife

Otherwise, its a pretty cool idea

[DeadTeddy]

well I kind of like that eqaution. hunting is a great way to pass the time

they could give a grief point for every animal you kill if people go everboard but I doubt 2 weeks after something like that is out people will concentrate on hunting, it gets real boring real fast.

they can have hunting days where you get XP for shooting them but that's my childish side talking

[STEALTHKILLER]

If this idea was implemented then i would have to say there will be more lag no matter where ever you are.

[FlakMan]

This should be implemented looong after PS's lag issues are all fixed

[DeadTeddy]

am I missing something? how can it lag if it's "turned off" in battles? yeah it will lag a bit more in small battles but those don't lag anyway.

[Bad Mojo]

So, let's say you have everyone with 5 little animals their computer is controlling. Now your client is sending 5 times the bandwidth on positional information. And guess what? Everyone else, in order to SEE these things in the same locations, has to have the positional information for every little animal they see sent to them every update slice from the server. The net result would be more bandwidth across the board.

But ... practical or not, why is having little animals in the game any different than watching TV or something in real life while you wait? Both distract you from being on-alert. Both help you pass the time. One doesn't eat into bandwidth.

[JetRaiden]

They should just make a very basic AI system where the animals have a fixed walking path, unless there is gunfire. I mean, how fun would it be to blow up goats with a boomer during a boring hack?

[Jagd]

Always blowing the goats, this one...

[DeadTeddy]

on the large multi continental scale it would take more bandwidth, however you won't be using more bandwidth then in big fights so it should be ok.

[sutserikeru]

forget AI animals, if anything add NPCs, not stupid animals

[Manitou]

Next thing people will want is bumper stickers on the vehicles that say "I brake for squirrels".

[Rayder]

Next thing people will want is bumper stickers on the vehicles that say "I brake for squirrels".

"How's my driving? Call 1-800-ROADKILL"