Quest for the Perfect Gaming AI

I look back on my life and I realize I was actually very lucky when it came to computers and video-games. One of my earliest memories in fact is playing Pong, widely held as the first video game of all time. Years later I played games on the Mac at school, and then in 1997 acquired my very first laptop, a Toshiba brick that could have been used as artillery in the most recent Gulf War if necessary. I played Duke Nukem, Doom 2 and Wolfenstein.

So I can say with real authority that gaming has come a long way. But apparently not far enough, according to an article in the Boston Globe which discusses the state of Artificial Intelligence within computer games at the moment.

The main problem facing developers in Scott Kirsner’s opinion, the author of the article, are the MMORPG and Virtual Reality games being propagated throughout the internet. Games like World of Warcraft and Second Life present developers a level of interactivity out of their reach.

The AI within computer games at the moment is, at best, restrictive and predictable. If you play the game for long enough, you will begin to identify patterns that the opposition takes; the game loses its interest. And when compared to World of Warcraft where sections of the opposition are intelligent humans on the other end, rather than a programmed intelligence, you realize just what you are missing.

And while some games such as Empire Earth III are beginning to make steps towards ‘learning’ intelligence, that takes in to account not just what you are doing, but what you might do, there is still a long way to go before World of Warcraft is beaten.

One erroneous position taken in the article though is the belief that games with human opponents do not present a sustainable storyline has me struggling to understand. Being a regular visitor to the world of World of Warcraft, I can tell you that human intervention does not preclude the ability to have a continuing storyline. I find myself fulfilling quests and storylines from beginning to end – and am currently in the middle of what is turning out to be an interesting mystery.

For developers of the future, it will be a balancing act between providing conversing characters and flowing storylines, but maintaining the intensity and challenge of a human versus human battle. But for the moment, I’m more than willing to keep playing World of Warcraft; for the Alliance!

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