Well, I''ve yet to go and find reviews of this game, and i''m not quite sure when it came out. However.. if you like strategy games, and MMOs, then go check this game out. I would have bought it.. but i had to pick up some other things to play through first, and an online game would only further waste my time. However, the game looks VERY good in deed. You set up your AI to do what you want, and the game plays while you''re not there.. finally someone impliments a good idea Anyways, go check it out, and if anyone finds some reviews of it, post links here. J

[No one liners, even if the original post may be a slight bit sarcastic
MKV]


Edited by - MadKeithV on January 11, 2001 3:26:25 AM

This reminds me of the good ole days of hot seated flaming fun. Aliens bless those days, they were cool.
*places rusting ole flamer back in its holster*
*twidles thumbs*
Ho hum

A designer doesnt need to know everything about code, they just have to have an appreciation for its limitations and how those limitations affect features they may wish to include in their design. - Drew

Maybe I can actually make a topic out of this...

What do people think about this AI automation concept for when you''re off-line from a MMO game? I play empire / strategy games to death, and don''t trust my AI managers when I''m at the computer!

If the AI can actual play just as well as you can when you''re off-line, then where''s the fun for you in playing? I''d actually get bummed knowing that

1) a machine could always play just as well or better (because if it couldn''t, then it''s not qualified to take over in your absence, and you have a serious balance problem)

2) all strategies are already known (for the AI to be able to implement them, the designers have to at least know them). People could simply watch the AI play, and due to inevitable predictability learn more than they would have playing against a human.

I''ve seen this proposed a lot for MMOs, but it doesn''t seem like a good idea. Thoughts?

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Why not use a system where you could program the AI yourself? using some sort of scripting language to respond to events, and to trigger other events in the game. While it might not be very good for formulating great battle plans, it could mean you could do all your "housekeeping" automatically. You could set it to build units every so often, or to replace ones that are killed, or maybe even to automatically go out and find new recources to mine. Other possible tasks could be construction management and research. By making it possible to edit your AI from in the game you could tweek it depending on how the game progresses and make sure it does what you want.

Good suggestion. But there may be a problem...

What happens if the scriptable AI is so good that you CAN use it to make great battle plans? What happens if the AI is so good that it can defeat other humans while you''re elsewhere?

That could mean that the most successful players would be the ones best able to put together AI scripts. They wouldn''t have to spend much time actually present at all!

Just a thought.

If the scripting language was so in depth that you could command every unit and formulate brilliant strategies tghen it would be horribly complex. If your playing a game you want to play the game not spend hours writing complex code. To implement it so that it was modifiable in the game it would have to be kept quite general and simple, that way your AI couldn''t win the game for you but it would be useful for helping you out with things like construction and recource gathering during the game and if used in a persistant online world it could just make sure that your empire doesnt fall apart or just grind to a halt but it doesn''t really need to advance your empire either.

Mankind is buggy and badly designed.
I was one of the beta testers, and in fact the game was never beta tested due to pressure form the publisher.

I went Mankind but the interface is awfull and the game buggy.
Some servers are down so colonies of player that are in the sectro covered by the closed servers aren''t available.

Game Design contains hundreds errors that make the game not very interesting, hopefully there was a strong community of players.
But many won''t continue to play the game after their 1st year because of the bugs.

I know several people having played it, and they all stopped.
I also know people who have created great Mankind support sites with forums... but they also stopped

Too bad I was so happy at it''s release but the dream turn to be a nightmare

I jope Mankind v2.0 will be what they promised the 1 to be.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Mankind?
Heh, just ask these guys what they think about it, they are paying to betatest this game.

http://www.delphi.com/MKO2/start/

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

[No one liners, even if the original post may be a slight bit sarcastic
MKV]

Edited by - MadKeithV on January 11, 2001 3:26:25 AM

Oh, why''d you have to delete the original post? If it was a slight bit sarcastic or humorous, you could have left it and just essentially smack anon''s wrist...
--


WNDCLASSEX Reality;
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Reality.lpfnWndProc=ComputerGames;
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RegisterClassEx(&Reality);


Unable to register Reality...what''s wrong?
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Dan Upton
Lead Designer
WolfHeart Software