08-21-2009, 12:03 PM
I don't think anyone is improving AI. Gains in computing power are being spent entirely on lowering the cost-per-player rather than increasing the CPU-available-per-player.
That is, when computing speed doubles, they cram twice as many people onto a server rather than making the NPC AI twice as smart. I actually think NPCs may be dumber now than they were in original EQ (am I misremembering the early days of EQ when NPCs would blind you and then run around behind you? I think they actually dumbed the AI down over time to make it easier.)
Granted you can't have 1 game that makes everyone happy but as far as I can tell we have about 592 games that involved structured multiplayer and about...4...that allow pure open world combat.
Also, in my opinion, if you have to do instancing it means your world is too small.
IMO, instancing is done moreso to save development effort than to create good gameplay. When you have 2000 players on a server and your battleground is the size of a football field, you have to instance it. If the whole world is a battleground then you probably don't need instancing but that requires a good deal more development effort to create a "battleground" that size.
And in a two-team system you will always run up against the same problem:
Even if your world is perfectly structured and instanced and fair and every fight is exactly 20 vs 20, you still may have 2000 players on one team and 500 on the other and 1500 people are going to be bored.
So I'm not sure that instancing really solves more problems than it creates anyway.
That is, when computing speed doubles, they cram twice as many people onto a server rather than making the NPC AI twice as smart. I actually think NPCs may be dumber now than they were in original EQ (am I misremembering the early days of EQ when NPCs would blind you and then run around behind you? I think they actually dumbed the AI down over time to make it easier.)
Granted you can't have 1 game that makes everyone happy but as far as I can tell we have about 592 games that involved structured multiplayer and about...4...that allow pure open world combat.
Also, in my opinion, if you have to do instancing it means your world is too small.
IMO, instancing is done moreso to save development effort than to create good gameplay. When you have 2000 players on a server and your battleground is the size of a football field, you have to instance it. If the whole world is a battleground then you probably don't need instancing but that requires a good deal more development effort to create a "battleground" that size.
And in a two-team system you will always run up against the same problem:
Even if your world is perfectly structured and instanced and fair and every fight is exactly 20 vs 20, you still may have 2000 players on one team and 500 on the other and 1500 people are going to be bored.
So I'm not sure that instancing really solves more problems than it creates anyway.