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Original post by coreman2200 ... But come on, isn't the goal to attain full realism in games? ...

No.

It is a very common misconception among inexperienced game designers that the level of entertainment in a game is proportional to the realism. This is not the case.

You have to look at each game and find a balance between realism and imagination.

For example in an RTS, if the computer plays flawlessly the game won't be very fun because you will be beaten all the time. You'll have to balance the difficulty some way, for example by simulating reaction time, mouse movement speed and field of view for the computer, plus allowing the computer to make bad decisions sometimes. If such cases were to be included in a standardized AI-package along with all the realistic and "intelligent" behaviours, such a package would become infinitely huge to make.

In the design phase of a game the designers must take into account all the parameters that affect the difficulty level of the game and balance them. During this they (at least this is how we work) precisely define how the AI should make decisions in all known situations. Once all this is defined in detail, and it has to be done to get the difficulty balanced right, the implementations of the AI in code is quite a simple task.

What I mean to say is that there are to many special cases of AI that can't realistically be covered in a standard AI system, so developers will end up writing their own specific AI anyway.

Better realistic than done entirely for fun.
It's very common misconception that game should be for fun, they aren't. They might be interesting, funny, educational, better alternative to watching a TV, but that doesn't mean they must be entirely for entertaiment. It's better to view them as a books, not every book is a Bunny suicides, and not every country alows distribution of any book.

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Original post by Raghar Better realistic than done entirely for fun. It's very common misconception that game should be for fun, they aren't. They might be interesting, funny, educational, better alternative to watching a TV, but that doesn't mean they must be entirely for entertaiment. It's better to view them as a books, not every book is a Bunny suicides, and not every country alows distribution of any book.

Games are, by definition, supposed to be entertaining.

I agree with them being more entertaining than realistic. I don't think games should be entirely realistic. But realism does, in my opinion, add fun to some games, especially with AI. I couldn't count how many times I've said in my gaming career how much better this or that would be if it had been more realistic. Besides, whether or not we want it to, games are turning more and more realistic -- those are the ones that make the most money. The creative, entertaining stuff is too kiddy for some and not realistic enough for others.

Realism can be a design goal. If it is, what should be made more 'real' and what should not needs to be explicitly defined. Realism for the sake of 'making it more real' is dangerous -- it doesn't consider what should be real, nor how it serves the games design. If making the AIs responses more 'real' serves the design, then by definition the game should be more entertaining -- otherwise the design goals may need re-adjusting. ;)

Perhaps a more open question; as an AI programmer, who is your client?

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Original post by Raghar Better realistic than done entirely for fun. It's very common misconception that game should be for fun, they aren't. They might be interesting, funny, educational, better alternative to watching a TV, but that doesn't mean they must be entirely for entertaiment. It's better to view them as a books, not every book is a Bunny suicides, and not every country alows distribution of any book.

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Original post by coreman2200 I agree with them being more entertaining than realistic. I don't think games should be entirely realistic. But realism does, in my opinion, add fun to some games, especially with AI. I couldn't count how many times I've said in my gaming career how much better this or that would be if it had been more realistic. Besides, whether or not we want it to, games are turning more and more realistic -- those are the ones that make the most money. The creative, entertaining stuff is too kiddy for some and not realistic enough for others.

I'll answer both by quoting my previous post.

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Original post by staaf You have to look at each game and find a balance between realism and imagination.

Of course realism up to a certain level is entertaining, but that level must be carefully defined during design. If realism was everything in a game then why not turn off the computer (or console) and go out and spend your time in the real world instead; it's even more realistic than any game ever could be (since it defines the word realism).