Inside F.E.A.R. 2's Engine and AI

Gamasutra sat down with software engineers from Monolith Productions to discuss the technology behind F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, due out in February. They provide insight into the development of the game's engine, and they discuss the goals and procedures behind creating entertaining AI. Quoting: "For instance, let's say that the AI wanted to kill the enemy. That would mean that there are a whole bunch of actions that satisfy the requirement for there being a dead enemy; let's say, 'Attack with ranged weapon,' right? ... Where the power comes from is the fact that those actions themselves can have conditions that they need to have met. So, 'attack with ranged weapon' may have conditions that say, 'I have to have a weapon, and I have to have it loaded. Go find me more actions that satisfy those requirements.' ... at that point, he may find another action, which is 'go to this weapon,' and then he may find another action which is 'reload your weapon.' So, that whole chain that I just described to you, of him doing three things in a row — which is going to pick up a weapon, loading a weapon, and then going to attack the player — that was not a directed thing that the level designer, nor that the AI engineer had to program; it was just the fact that we have these aggregate actions that the planner can pick from at will.

Re:Hype like Radiant AI?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are mods that "unlock" the Radiant AI in Oblivion and its not pretty. Since non-"essential" NPCs can be killed off and never respawn (obviously not counting guards and monsters) if you "wait" long enough out in the middle of nowhere, about 1/3rd of the population in Oblivion will kill itself off for SOME reason as dictated by its AI "goal".

AI like this DOES exist but because it'll take things to such extremes, developers have to dumb things down for gameplay purposes. A bot will never miss a sniper shot, so that has to be dumb down. A group of pistol wielding grunts will obviously lose to a machine-gun armed player, so they have to be programmed NOT to run away. An enemy tank will obviously win against a machine-gun armed player, so it has to be programmed in a way to NOT kill the player unless the player does the "wrong" thing. Etc.