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July Round Table ‘07: Updated 8/08
By Corvus | August 8, 2007
When I announced last month’s Round Table topic, Stories and Games, I could hear people rolling their eyes. “We’ve already written all we have to say on the topic,” was an opinion voiced privately to me by a few people. Ultimately, however, some good discussion ensued and the highlight seemed to be when Chris and I donned masks, took up batons, and put on a bit of an impromptu Punch and Judy show over the efficiency of games as a storytelling medium.
This month’s topic is going to turn away from the esoteric design, creative, and social topics of month’s past. Instead, it shall proudly display an esoteric technological theme. Not, of course, that your approach to the topic won’t be focused on stories, goals, multiplayer games, friends, home, addiction, or any other topic the Round Table has addressed previously. In fact, I challenge you to take this tech toy topic and go home with it…
July ‘07 Round Table
AI: Beauty or Beast? This month’s topic is artificial intelligence. What does it mean to current games? What should it mean? How far have we come? How far do we have to go? Does what we call AI in games bear any resemblance to AI as understood by other industries? Should it? Are we currently using AI to its fullest advantage? Are we using it for the right things? No matter your approach, whether technical, historical, tragical, comical, artisical, musical, tragi-comical, or techno-tragi-comi-arti-musical, use this month’s topic (artificial intelligence if you’ve forgotten already) to grab AI by the lapels and shake until you just can’t shake anymore.
So there you have it! Anyone and everyone with something to say on the topic is welcome to submit an entry. The deadline is midnight, Wednesday, August 8th. If you have questions, be sure to check the FAQ (link) or contact me directly (link).
Participants:
After a month or two of intending to join us, Caroline of All Right All Ready! is making her Round Table debut with a post that asks some interesting questions about the role of AI and the player’s reactions to it. Please stop by and welcome her to the Round Table and see if she if her thought spark a post in you (link)!
Troy has posted an entry on the ever-excellent Flash of Steel. He explores the true role of AI in a game and his conclusion might challenge your notion of the strategy game enthusiast (link).
Over on the GB Games’ Blog, Gianfranco has posed the question, “What is artificial intelligence,” and explored it a bit, brushing up against any number of ideas as he writes (link).
Chris has his entry up over at Only a Game. His post cuts to the quick of the general themes explored this month as he examines the subject of clockwork soldiers and clockwork toys through a play-theory lens (link).
I posted my rather scattered entry on Friday, touching on my plans for the HoneyComb Engine (link).
Patrick has added his entry at King Lud IC, discussing the application of AI in Storytron as something of a patchwork quilt (link).
Travis, of Verse Studios, muses about the actual relevance of AI to a MMO (link).
[UPDATE]
Alex, who could submit his entire blog as an entry, has favored us with a post written specifically for our humble monthly event. It’s a great read and contains a single sentence which sums up this month’s topic very nicely:
If complexity is the beast, beauty lies in solving small problems perfectly.
Go give him a read (link)!
Today is the last day to get an entry in for the July Round Table’s AI topic. The August Round Table launches tomorrow morning with a topic (which I’m pretty excited about) inspired by our friends at Verse Studios (link).
Tagged:Round Table. |
July 19th, 2007 at 2:33 am
[...] makes you believe now I am just talking nonsense? The theme of Corvus Elrod’s Round Table for this month (which I may as a tendency take as a general monthly theme) is the role of [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
“explored it a bit, brushing up against any number of ideas as he writes” That’s a nice way to say that it was a rambly, incoherent mess. B-) This is a great topic, and I’ve enjoyed the articles so far. I can’t wait for more!
July 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I’ve drafted a short piece… it should go up tomorrow. It doesn’t add much to the debate, but it does actively invite further discussion.
August 4th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
First time I’ve found this roundtalbe stuff excellent reading material
Not in the industry, but my interest is in game AI, although I can see any of my current academic studies won’t help a great deal with it (modding AI however, is quite fun, although its always limited by the developers original plans
).
I wish I could contribute something as good as these posts, I feel ashamed at not having something in mind even if I mod AI and am looking into writing a game engine with it in mind, especially since some of the points I might have brought up (randomness, what bad AI is, and strong vs. fun AI) have been voiced very well!
If the authors of each article read this; they were all very interesting! I might comment on a few of them. I’ll also keep an eye on these roundtables. I never have found a good way to find new stuff to read (because I never have the time to read everything anyway) so it was good I randomly came across this from an Escapist comment.
August 8th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Game AI: Beauty and the Beast…
Artificial intelligence has come a long way, but yet it’s still far off from meeting our expectations. This is most visible in modern video games, which suggests game AI is not an easy problem to solve either — regardless of whether we …