Will AI Supplment Real Players Online

Ok Purists, non-believers, we've had a little bit of this fight before. But now, I'm certain! I hate being right all the damn time.

Profitable games are expensive to make. Every vendor is spending more and more money trying to grow and lock in the fanbase. Fanbases are growing loyalty because of expense and cognitve dissonance. There are a finite number of gamers. Those gamers can't be everywhere online at the same time. That's a problem.

Who wants to get online to play their favorite game, just to find out that nobody's online, or everybody's online but they are playin somethin else, or they are online, but just in a different time zone,etc. When that happens enough, you move on to a different game. Whatever game, everybody else is playin.

Game companies cannot afford this, hell no! They just spent 25 million making this game! Socom 4 cannot afford its players to jump ship when the next shooter comes down the line. How many ppl will Mass Effect 3 take away from everybody?

The only way, to make sure the gamer is happy is for online to be vibrant full of players. But where can I find players says the game producer., It is mathematically inevitable that at least some of the players online will have to be AI

You have a room of 6 to 8 players, maybe 2 or 3 are human, the rest AI, but you don't know they're AI, because that text in the chat box, their win/loss ratio changes daily and they play pretty realistic now. Yes! the fighting game AI now knows how to spam cheap moves, knows which moves are cheap, and knows how to play hurt 1/2 a round, or a match or two, and then dominate you. Point in chief, Look at the quick battle for SC5! There are some bonafide spammers in that AI, and if I didn't know I was playin against AI, I would swear that its some (almost intermediate level noob) spammin the shit out of me. Nope its the damn AI!

I'm telling you boys and girls, that we are quickly approaching
a day and time when you will be online playin against AI and you will not know it. (You might suspect) but you will never be sure.

In my real job right now, I'm working on a computational linguistics project. Basically it has a computer program that is participating with a group of other ppl in a chat room, user's are un able to tell its a program. And the conversations are pretty involved.

It would be even easier in a fighting game to pull that off imagine this text in the chat log

Human: Yo reaper, WTF? spam?

AI(Reaper) learn to blok byatch

Human: More cheap moves = Kick

AI(Reaper) Ur Moms liked my cheap moves last nite

Human: Yo fast-eddy01 kick Reaper

fast-eddy01 caint do, thats my nigga

Human: aight I gonna teach lil punk some manners.

AI(Reaper) bring it byatch

that's nothin to program, in computational linguistics that would be child's play. What's worse is fast-eddy01 is also an
AI, damn the room is actually being hosted by an AI and the human does not know it.

Folks we are very very very close to this, because there are just too many good games to play, the games cost too much money to make, and there are not enough gamers to go around. Will SF x Tekken take away players from the new SC5? Namco I hope not...

The only choice the vendor's have is to make human(stand ins) AI. Make the AI believable, give the room text chat, set up a chat agent, and there's no way your going to know.

Because some ppl give dumb ass answers in the text chat, so even if the AI makes a mistake, you'll just think its some dumb little kid, or there a language barrier, of the punk must be high, you are not going to assume its an AI

I been tellin you cats this for years now, you'll see what I've been posting about LOL.

My prediction is within 3-5 years 1/3 to 1/2 of the opponents you face online will be AI.


VF 6 online unlimited players come one come all......

 

It's a nice idea but i'm not sure AI will ever mimic human players well enough, it might be possible in the future but right now we are far from it. I see this kind of AI being more plausible for simple games like shooters but I feel fighting games have far to many metagames and advanced techniques, SC5 as you mentioned isn't really any different from fighting games we played in the 90's as far as AI goes.

 

@Feck, @Tengu

my friends, my friends, my friends, Oh if you only knew like I know. Its not about you, its not about what you did 20 years ago. It's not about some AI fantasy that master po has. Its about games being bigger business than movies, costing more than movies, its about investors, shareholders, stock reports. Its about intellectual property. Its about preventing piracy. Its about marketshare vs mindshare. I know you know that video games are now a multibillion dollar industry. You've got to know that right?

There is just too much money at stake my friends. Its really is that simple. Think about the dollars that have gone into MW, or Socom. If Red dead redemption decides to put out a nother multimillion dollar project, they can't afford the new players going online and finding no one to play, because everybody's play MW6 or Mass Effect 5 (online) or whatever the latest fad is. It just to big of an investment. They've got to make sure that when you get online somebody else is online too. If not they worry that you'll leave to go play the game everybody else is playing.

My friends, this is about locking in a fanbase. It has nothing to do with the AI you played 20 years ago, or whether AI is good enough to give you a real challenge. NOPE! Its about is Ai good enough to fool you. You could beleive its a noob, or a foreigner, or an asshole. Just as long as you think it is someone else online.

And the fact of the matter with these games that are allowing 32 players in a room(eg. Socom 4,MAG,etc) you have no idea whether 3 or 4 of the players are AI that is being used to fill in the numbers. You really don't.

For example I'm a socom player. In socom 4 we have up to I think 32 players. Sure I may know a few of the ppl in the room, but not all of them. And i really don't care whether I know all of them, as long as when I shoot them they die, and I get credit for the kill. Also in Socom 4 we have the ability to customize missions to play against the AI. Its my team, two members are AI, against the computer's team, all members are AI. The AI flanks, it uses decoys, it runs and guns. And many of a day me and my team have had our asses kicked. During those missions it feels no different than when I'm playing with a bunch of strangers in online coop mode.

So for some games its already happened. @Feck, I beg to differ on SC5. The AI in the Quick battle mode, especially once you get to the B1's and up, play very much like real online assholes. I'm not doubting that you've played SC5. Perhaps maybe you haven't gone far enough in the quick battles. There are some real assholes among those AI players. NO! I'm not talking about the computer being on hard and blocking everything you do, etc. I'm talking about the AI using cheap moves, spamming cheap moves, or zoning you or poking you to death. Is it perfect? No! Is it good enough to make you think you're online playing some asshole yep!!!!

You guys don't get it. The publisher is not obligated to tell you that you're playing an AI. you search for a player match, in the beginner's only rooms, andyou find a room that's being hosted by some cat named Purple Haze. He's a
E5. You look at his license he's got 12 games online, 9 of which he lost. Also there are other Es in the room. Well as it turn out the host is an AI, the other 4 ppl are real.
@FECK @TENGU you have no fucking way of knowing that the host is AI! No fucking way at all. He's using text chat, throws out a few regular comments, uses a little harmless profanity, and play's like a scrub. Well, the room did say beginners only! Sure the other E's offer you a little more competition and maybe one of them actually has a mike so you can't hurl insults back and forth over the heads set, but you have no fucking way of knowing the host is AI. You might not like that idea, but I have a very good reason for posting this.

You might leave that beginner's room because the competition just wasn't there. But dude! Think about all the noobs that are going to come in that room and beat each other up and spam the host to death, they'll just think they're that much better than the host. It would never, ever, ever occur to them that the host is a computer AI.

And for that reason they'll keep loggin on, because their's always someone to play, and if there's always someone to play that means Brand Loyalty. That means ppl will purchase my DLC. (Who wants to purchase DLC)for a game that low to no online traffic?

This time, you cats are on naive side of the argument. Mw is now an institution. It has to remain so. It cannot afford to have ppl looking for matches with no matches found, and if it means putting AI in rooms to keep them full, that's what they'll do. In fact its fucking easy to do , and would fool you all day.

If infinity ward put a Major BigLongDong into the game, there would be no reason for you to think its an AI. Even if the AI got shot all the time, you would just believe its some scrub playing the game.

Sometimes I think you cats just take the opposing point because its MasterPO. On this one you cats are both dead wrong and naive. The stakes are now simply to high to leave it up to chance!

Look, I'll put it like this. If ppl are online playing the game, then ppl will be online playing the game Its a simple chicken and the egg thing. Kind-a-like the bank will only loan you money if you already have money. The more ppl there are online playing the game the more ppl want to get online to play the game. If there's nobody online playing the game, then nobody wants to get online to play the game. Some of these games costs hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to make. The game producers/publishers cant risk the possibility that no one wants to play tonight.

I'm almost certain i was online playin AI in Need for speed the other night! I can't prove it, but the mutha fucka was taking some curves at high speeds way to easy. Maybe he was just good, but if it was not AI, that guy was a monster player. Racing games (you would never know), online shooters with 32 or more in the matches you would never know, Fighting games that lobbies with 6 or more players (you could be fooled if one or two were AI and the rest were human)

I have insider knowledge on this one. So don't waste your time trying to tell me it aint so

 

Nigga gears of war 3 does this flawlessly... You need to play more games bruh.

 

A.I standing in for online players in the way you describe is not something I care for, probably why I didn't eleborate on that in my first post. Anyway we've been seeing AI behave like that for a while now, games like Quake 3, SC5, VF5 etc. They have single player modes that try to replicate the online experience or in VF's case the arcade experience, in Quake 3 the bots would even make a remark in the chat log whenever they owned you. Then we have recent fighting games simulating lag in single player modes.

My first post was strictly talking about the play level of AI, SCV behaves like every other fighting game, it reads what the player inputs and that's about it. Some games manage this better than others but we're still nowhere near the AI acting like human players.

 

@overfiend LOL I assume you're using term nigga as a term of endearment, so it is accepted LOL, I'm glad you don'thave a problem playing AI online, as far as me playing more games, friend me on PSN, compare my trophies to yours and my completition rates to yours, and then post an apology. LOL
Dude, although Fighting games are my main love, I am a fucking gamer freak. And because I'm well paid for what I do, I have virtually an unlimited budget for gaming. Friend me,
and do the trophy comparison. LOL


@Tengu

I apologize for the use of term naive, I didn't mean it in a derogative manner. I am naive in many matters and I admit it.
Anyway, not trying to cut you down.

Also, I'm not trying to suggest there is any kind of consipracy with the companies using AI to fill in. I'm not trying to say they are hiding anything. I am saying they are not obligated to tell you if they are using AI. They don't advertise when they use or the fact that many are planning to use AI. I am saying, rather than have empty player rooms, or non existant player rooms they will put up AI hosts, and AI members without advertising the fact that its AI. I'm not suggesting that they're trying to fool you or hide anything from you. I am saying that the AI is so good it can fool you. You would never know. You might suspect, but you would never know and the companies are not obligated to tell you.

I am saying there are more good games than there are ppl to play them and that gaming has become such a big business that
leaving online traffic up to chance will soon simply not be an option. Any body knows that throws lots of parties, or gatherings, you've got to make sure ppl are there or you won't have ppl there LOL. populating ranked mode, or player mode with AI's will be a company's way of guaranteeing that "there's always someone online willing to play you and therefore you will continue brand loyalty"

Why do any of this online? Why not just sell single player with good AI. Because in the long run online software helps to prevent piracy and helps a company control its IP(hence saving millions perhaps billions of dollars). I can monitor you if your online, I can do all kinds of data mining if you're online that will inform my marketing strategies the next time I produce a game. Its why many companies have dropped two player. With Two player, the gamer can buy one disk, invite a 25 friends over for a tournament, and every body plays, but only one game has been purchased. If I force you online, well, every online connection has to have at least one game. I may not be able to control how many ppl are at that one location, but I know they are not playing each other! Companies can track piracy online. So
online they have control. They want you to play games online!. If they had it completely their way, they would not even make disks! you would have to login in to your paid account and only then could you play games even if they were only single player!

I know, I know, another PO wall of text But really this post is a follow up on something I said years ago. Prior to when VF had online and online features still a rumor or when XBL had just only received VF online. At that time, I admitted that I would rather have an good, flexible , adaptable AI in single player, than online feature. Of course I was Flamed to high heaven as always. But here we are not even a decade later, and AI is or soon will be online as your opponent. So for all my h8ters out there that eschew human players vs AI and how much better the online experience is than the singple player experience with AI, you now have to deal with the online experience with AI

The joke is not on me, now you've got lag and AI opponents LOL. At least in my argument there was no lag. And game producer couldn't data mine every thing I was doing and playing.

In case anybody has been watching and really paying attention to game development in general. The game producers are blurring the differences between single player and multiplayer online. More and more single player coop with AI partners, online coop with AI or human parters, single player lag, so that you can't tell whether you're online or offline, online AI that plays at least as good as noobs filling in for human players. Two player mode is being dropped or deemphasized because companies can't control profit with two player modes.

I'm just sayin.....

 

I remember a friend saying this on Dreamcast online games, haha.

"How do you know your playing someone and not AI, with automatic responses?"

PS2 fanboys were the best, lol!

 

If AI were to be that solid to replace people, it would have to be on Watson's level... It would have to know all the best punishes, strongest combos, best setups, and everything in between...

...But then again, even Watson wasn't "perfect", so in a sense there's still the guessing game aspect, training your opponent to do things, layered strategies, and so on, so I think even then there would still be points at which you can tell it's AI, or possibly be able to "trick" it a la SF2 & MK2...

Even Watson didn't know everything:

 

Man when I was reading the A.I. comments I was imagining it sounded automated... I bust out laughing at this man

On topic... It would be cool if they can pull it off... Correctly?
Also the Fighting game should collect player data or players can upload their ghost for online play?

Example, I'm on VF playing against an AI with data collected from both JINX and Mackfactor or I play against SDS ghost he uploaded online because hes too busy playing Gears 3 or something?
I would go for this idea but, only in player matches not rank matches.

And it would be cool to practice against rivals or other good players data... Like me I suck at VF5 but, I Love the game. Most you if not all of you can beat me with little to no effort I remember playing SDS and he said I was TOO predictable and he right I got nothing but, due to time zones and scheduling I cant play you guys when I want but, If I could practice against your ghosts I could get used to your playstyles and give a better match.