AI helps gamers keep on playing
Life goes on in Ballerium even if you are not playing
By Mark Ward
BBC News Online technology correspondent
Every computer game player knows that real life can intrude at the most inopportune moments. Just when you are completing a tricky flanking manoeuvre, or have got to the darkest point of a dungeon, the phone will ring, a partner will want to talk or your dinner will be on the table.
But Israeli game maker Majorem could have a solution to this problem, at least for players of its forthcoming Ballerium online game. The company has developed an artificial intelligence system that learns a gamer's style of play and can take over and play for them if they have to spend time away from the game.
Ballerium is an online real-time strategy game in which players create empires by controlling and creating groups of creatures, building cities and castles and gathering money and magical items. Urgency is lent to their task because the world is gradually decaying and the only way off it is to create a gate that will let a player's followers escape their doom. The world is populated by a series of bizarre races including the warlike Chiki-Kah, the Olligar, who are artisans, and the scheming Nee.
He said many players of online games become frustrated because their lifestyle limited their interaction with a game world. But he said the AI system in Ballerium could help players take part even when they were not sat in front of their computer. "The AI is based on genetic algorithms and can learn a player's style," Mr Gaash told the BBC programme Go Digital.
Obviously, these folks have never heard of Progress Quest. But now you have.
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