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My personal take on this is that if your game is going to suffer because of bots (assuming that they're not cheating bots, and are bound by the same rules as th

My personal take on this is that if your game is going to suffer because of bots (assuming that they're not cheating bots, and are bound by the same rules as the players) then your game is broken and/or stupid, and the choices that your players are making are too simple. Remember the Sid Meier quote about games being about making interesting choices? EDIT: Since I'm getting up and downvoted willy-nilly, here's my blog entry where I go into more detail (using Farmville as the example): http://blog.oarsum.com/post/255516489/cheating-and-game-design http://blog.oarsum.com/post/255516489/cheating-and-game-desi...

antiterra 15y ago
Too simple for what? Plenty of first person shooters are enjoyable and serve their purpose as entertainment, and any added complexity to hand-eye coordination would give a bot an advantage. Even an example of the genre that allowed for extensive team-based strategy would be unbalanced by a bot that automatically aimed and fired (even in a non-cheating way.) Basketball can be a very cerebral game, with a ton of so-called interesting choices. Yet, if the opposing team is made up of simple minded players that never miss a shot, you've got your work cut out for you.
reitzensteinm 15y ago
That's an incredibly broad statement, even leaving aside FPS games. MMOs NEED the filler content that can be botted through because otherwise they just wouldn't have the content level to sustain hundreds of hours of gameplay. It's all about pacing, like a feature film versus a TV show. To be honest, I think you're starting from Farmville, which basically isn't a game, and extrapolating from there.
- anthonyb 15y ago
  It's not especially broad, and you can apply the same line of thinking to other games like Starcraft. APS uber alles and all that... FPSes are somewhat different, but they tend not to have bot problems because FPSes are fun to play, and don't involve grinding. Even then, most of the modern FPSes have some randomness and you can't shoot with pixel perfect precision, so bots wouldn't necessarily have an advantage there. But yeah -- filler content? botted through? Why would you pay money for a "game" like that? I certainly wouldn't. Even the free-to-play WoW clones are too tedious to play.
  - reitzensteinm 15y ago
    The alternative to filler content isn't a better game, it's no game at all. You couldn't make a game like World of Warcraft where the content was all too interesting and varied, so that bots wouldn't work and you wouldn't want them to anyway. WoW is already one of the most complex pieces of engineering in the world. It's the gaming equivalent of arguing for the Sufficiently Smart Compiler. Strictly speaking games would be better off without it, sure. But you might as well be arguing in favor of fusion power - free energy! No nuclear waste! Etc. Bots absolutely devastate FPS games. They have bot problems and they're not solved by the games being fun, they're solved by policing by admins. Even if the game has randomness, by god, have you ever seen a bot play? Take a look at this (jump half way through). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huz5ZROt0j8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huz5ZROt0j8 A single slice has Headshot! Avenger! Longshot! Execution! Longshot! Headshot! One Shot Kill! Headshot! as quickly as they can come on the screen. A newbie is lucky to get one of those every couple of minutes. An experienced player would not be able to defeat that bot. And this is typical of FPS bots. And what about chess? If computers get much better, one of the most interesting games the world has ever known is going to be ruined (in places where bot detection is not possible). Maybe other people are learning from your insights, but I've been a full time independent game developer for 7 years (and by that I mean, if the games aren't fun, I don't eat) and I'm left scratching my head.
    - anthonyb 15y ago
      That's really just wallhacking and aimbotting - not really an AI as such. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a human doing the pathfinding with a 'shoot them in the head' button. If your FPS allows you to shoot with pixel perfect precision from across the map, rather than a more realistic 'in a general area', or if it's sending information that you shouldn't be allowed to have, then of course people are going to bot it. That's a hack/cheating, and should be banned, but it's more effective to make your game unbottable and not sending information that the player shouldn't know. WoW is not really that complex or difficult - maybe from a scaling point of view, but you just have to look at all of the clones that have sprung up to realise that it's not that hard. Botting there derives from wanting a shiny sword of whatever like my friend Bruce, but I can't be bothered grinding the same mob over and over for three months hoping that it'll drop. I play a game called World of Tanks which has a cone of fire mechanism (as you hold the gun still your accuracy improves), along with needing to take cover, work with teammates, help spot enemies, etc. Movement is also pretty slow, especially for the larger tanks. Bots in that game routinely get spotted and reported, not because they're headshotting people from across the map, but because they're shit - they're just not capable of the strategy or tactics required (eg. they'll leave fields of fire open, won't move when spotted, won't take advantage of terrain, will be out of position, etc.) It's a far more interesting game than "run around like an olympic sprinter and headshot people from the hip".

antiterra 15y ago

Too simple for what? Plenty of first person shooters are enjoyable and serve their purpose as entertainment, and any added complexity to hand-eye coordination would give a bot an advantage. Even an example of the genre that allowed for extensive team-based strategy would be unbalanced by a bot that automatically aimed and fired (even in a non-cheating way.) Basketball can be a very cerebral game, with a ton of so-called interesting choices. Yet, if the opposing team is made up of simple minded players that never miss a shot, you've got your work cut out for you.

reitzensteinm 15y ago

That's an incredibly broad statement, even leaving aside FPS games. MMOs NEED the filler content that can be botted through because otherwise they just wouldn't have the content level to sustain hundreds of hours of gameplay. It's all about pacing, like a feature film versus a TV show. To be honest, I think you're starting from Farmville, which basically isn't a game, and extrapolating from there.

anthonyb 15y ago
It's not especially broad, and you can apply the same line of thinking to other games like Starcraft. APS uber alles and all that... FPSes are somewhat different, but they tend not to have bot problems because FPSes are fun to play, and don't involve grinding. Even then, most of the modern FPSes have some randomness and you can't shoot with pixel perfect precision, so bots wouldn't necessarily have an advantage there. But yeah -- filler content? botted through? Why would you pay money for a "game" like that? I certainly wouldn't. Even the free-to-play WoW clones are too tedious to play.
- reitzensteinm 15y ago
  The alternative to filler content isn't a better game, it's no game at all. You couldn't make a game like World of Warcraft where the content was all too interesting and varied, so that bots wouldn't work and you wouldn't want them to anyway. WoW is already one of the most complex pieces of engineering in the world. It's the gaming equivalent of arguing for the Sufficiently Smart Compiler. Strictly speaking games would be better off without it, sure. But you might as well be arguing in favor of fusion power - free energy! No nuclear waste! Etc. Bots absolutely devastate FPS games. They have bot problems and they're not solved by the games being fun, they're solved by policing by admins. Even if the game has randomness, by god, have you ever seen a bot play? Take a look at this (jump half way through). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huz5ZROt0j8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huz5ZROt0j8 A single slice has Headshot! Avenger! Longshot! Execution! Longshot! Headshot! One Shot Kill! Headshot! as quickly as they can come on the screen. A newbie is lucky to get one of those every couple of minutes. An experienced player would not be able to defeat that bot. And this is typical of FPS bots. And what about chess? If computers get much better, one of the most interesting games the world has ever known is going to be ruined (in places where bot detection is not possible). Maybe other people are learning from your insights, but I've been a full time independent game developer for 7 years (and by that I mean, if the games aren't fun, I don't eat) and I'm left scratching my head.
  - anthonyb 15y ago
    That's really just wallhacking and aimbotting - not really an AI as such. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a human doing the pathfinding with a 'shoot them in the head' button. If your FPS allows you to shoot with pixel perfect precision from across the map, rather than a more realistic 'in a general area', or if it's sending information that you shouldn't be allowed to have, then of course people are going to bot it. That's a hack/cheating, and should be banned, but it's more effective to make your game unbottable and not sending information that the player shouldn't know. WoW is not really that complex or difficult - maybe from a scaling point of view, but you just have to look at all of the clones that have sprung up to realise that it's not that hard. Botting there derives from wanting a shiny sword of whatever like my friend Bruce, but I can't be bothered grinding the same mob over and over for three months hoping that it'll drop. I play a game called World of Tanks which has a cone of fire mechanism (as you hold the gun still your accuracy improves), along with needing to take cover, work with teammates, help spot enemies, etc. Movement is also pretty slow, especially for the larger tanks. Bots in that game routinely get spotted and reported, not because they're headshotting people from across the map, but because they're shit - they're just not capable of the strategy or tactics required (eg. they'll leave fields of fire open, won't move when spotted, won't take advantage of terrain, will be out of position, etc.) It's a far more interesting game than "run around like an olympic sprinter and headshot people from the hip".