Heh heh, good points as usual Roop. The problem with the AI seeming so bad
is that the situations that have to be considered are so complex. I imagine
it will continue to evolve as everything else does. I can hardly wait for
the day mob's start to notice their fellows are no longer around and start
roaming to find the intruders. Or when after 3 critters are chasing you the
other just go on guard duty until they realize their friends did not return.
-----Original Message-----
From: Roop Dirump [mailto:
roop@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 2:37 PM
To:
eqbards@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [eqbards] Bard Petition
From: "Roop Dirump" <
roop@...>
Personally, I think there's quite a bit of balance in the classes. Well,
individually. I think magic users are much more powerful than melee types,
if there's any imblalance it is in this manner. It's all design I suppose,
but I always felt the battlefield should be for the warriors, while the
mages stayed back home in their towers (casting spells fropm there!) or
perhaps stood on hills overlooking the battles.
In EverQuest the mages are very hardy, and exremely powerful--in this world
the mages are the true masters of the battlefield, and the warriors are
theoir helpers. For my tastes, a mage should be a little old man or woman,
complete weakling, easily slaughtered with a gigantic axe... That is if one
could get close to them. Of course, how could they ever survive in
Everquest? So mages can survive battlefields, but they still have all the
good without the bad (or not enough of it).
Personally, if I could see anything changed in this game.... it would be the
AI! The parser NPCs use for the quests is technologically backward. The
original Zork games had a more complex parser, and these games are twenty
years old!! In fact, EQ really doesn't parse for a damn. It is highly
simplistic for a game so recent.
But that's not the worse of it. You know, one can always tell how poor a
game's AI is by looking at how the game is designed. In the first
Civilization, the AI was given a chance against the player by letting the
computer cheat. In Alpha Centauri, the computer does not cheat at all!
The AI in EverQuest is so poor, the NPCs cheat blatantly. Camping is not
something people do just for items. People camp everywhere! Groups don't
roam around together, fighting as they go! They camp, and send out scouts
to pull. The AI is very dumb and can be tricked this way. I have never
played a game where trains are a way of life, never even played a game where
Train becomes part of the vocabulary, and I think it's a problem. All this
stems from poor MOB AI. If anything needs tweaked, it's not the PCs but the
NPCs!!! It inspired me to write a poem.
I wanna be an npc
But not some stupid orc
I wanna be an npc
And be a piece o work
I wanna backstab with me fists and feet
Dirk don't need it see
I'd know and cast and memorize every spell there is
Mana don't need it see
I'd cast and fight and kill with ease
I'd be a magic monk
I wanna know just everything
But a bard would be too hard
See those aren't good at everything
Npcs are never bards!
I wanna chase you to the zone so far
And laugh at all you cowards
I wanna chase you if you come to close
And make you camp in corners
Hah ha ha Hah ha ha
I would not be pulled you see
Npcs are are fools you see
But I would be too smart
I wanna cheat like the computer
And get stuck in a corner
I wanna cheat like the computer
In a group I'd be a horror
Roop
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