wegten

Not necessarily a bad demon-thing.

Or it becomes a demon-thing. Glowy horns, after all.

FEAR actually uses a different technique for its AI than is typical for an FPS - it's called goal-oriented action planning. Essentially, most FPS games use finite state machines (for example, Halo 2) where the AI idles/attacks/retreats, etc. where each state has a set of actions it will attempt, and triggers that will transition itself from state to state. Goal oriented AIs instead have a specific result they aim for (say, the player's death) and then path-find backwards through their possibility space to their current state, forming a chain of actions that it thinks might achieve the result it wants. My understanding is that the major reason why this sort of AI system isn't more widely used is that it's a huge hassle to debug or sculpt for specific encounters. Also, it's very hard to see the effect in most games, as there needs to be a wide, high-dimensional, interesting possibility space.

I'll never join! (because i'm already in)

That was excellent! I didn't realize my mic wasn't working until an hour in though

I'd also love to join in again!

Little Big Planet.

Man, I love the heck out of the stuff that goes to Siggraph. I assume that everyone who cares about this stuff knows about this site, but in case you don't, here's an extensive list of the papers and associated videos and everything: http://kesen.realtim...om/sig2012.html

I'm also Wegten there.

Awesome, awesome, awesome…

I've been wanting to play some. And, preferably, with a couple people per team to disguise my terribleness.

Oh man, this game is pretty sweet. Why can't more games have cutscenes that you want to see more of?

I'll be there.

Oh, Toblix.

The downside to next Tuesday is that it's Brütal Legend's North American release date. WHAT WILL I DO?

Hey! I'd only played the boss-subtype before, and hadn't been the boss! I… I didn't know how it worked!

The starting Necromancer wand has +1 to your Raise Skeleton skill, so you can't change that (without changing your equipment, of course) but you can assign your own skill points whenever you level up… and then never be able to reassign them.

Oh man, Magic. I have to say, I never liked playing magic – the fun was always in the deckbuilding. Not that I was ever any good at that. Damn it, this means I'm going to have to look at my Thallids again.

I don't think the terribleness of achievements is inherent in their design - it's just that most games have them implemented terribly. The only games that have achievements that I've been impressed by are Civilization Revolution and Left 4 Dead. A decent number of the achievements for those games are there to get players to try new tactics, versus just hitting some arbitrary bar. I guess the real problem is that achievements are required across the board.

It was really, really fun! I have to say that I'm inordinately proud of the wild goose chase I led the police on toward the end.

Ahh, that's alright. I'll just carry a deep, burning resentment within me for the rest of my life.

Dhwty - and i'm still upset about losing that race. I would've won if those bastards hadn't destroyed my precious, precious firetruck! You mean where I realized that you guys were coming in a car, and I could pick up an RPG? It really wasn't planned, unfortunately. We were pretty desperately trying to get to the escape vehicle. Good fun all around!

Yeah, you know you want to stay out of Toblix's way when he breaks out one of Vinnie Connare's faces. SCARY!

Yes, there was actually an appropriate amount of robber-murdering, generally – except when James and I teamed up. Sorry for doubting your directional sense!