Bots in QW official?

(madness) #21

noobs…

(BrightSoul) #22

Don’t forget there are people who still have an analog connection. Even playing 6v6 could be impossible for them. Bots give them a reason to buy the game and enjoy its half-but-maybe-almost-full potential offline.
And, talking about 56k, I’d like to know how well the networking has been optimized because sighs I’m one of those people with no broadband.
I have it today, but I’m soon moving to a mountain town :frowning:

(DrGonzo) #23

Full potential? With bots? Hardly!

(BrightSoul) #24

you’re right… edited. Still the question remains. What’s the players limit with a 56k?

(jimb0) #25

Who the hell would want to fight against NPC’s when you could fight against people who are actually a challenge?

once again, someone who assumes everybody lives next to a lot of quality servers with a lot of players on it and is just 10ms away from the best human match ever.

it may surprise you, but the entire world isn’t like that.

(DG) #26

reaperbots got me playing online. Even on my first ever game online I wasnt totally crap either (considering). I probably wouldnt have tried an online game for years except that the bots had given me a taste - and some confidence. If I’d never played against bots and just joined, and been one of these people who stumble upon a half decent server at their first attempt, I’d have got owned so bad I doubt I’d have tried it again. Seriously, next time you see someone doing appalling on the scoretable, go spec them. They just spawn, trot about and then splat before they’ve had half a chance to figure things out.

There’s a huge disparity in skills required to complete a game on easy/normal and to do well against decent players who have even further advantage from having plenty experience. Bot’s arent a substiture for online multiplayer, but they are a stepping stone which bridges the gap significantly.

(Doeden) #27

it may surprise you, but the entire world isn’t like that.

Oh my god I am totally surprised :eek3:

Not.

I am not talking about connection issues, I was more so asking who the hell prefers bots over people. Now obviously if you have a terrible connection you have no choice in the matter.

(Joe999) #28

if you have a terrible connection then you don’t play fps online games. if you only have a horse with a carriage then you can’t drive on the highway either :moo:

(jimb0) #29

nobody in his sane mind would prefer bots over people in the long run. this is not the problem. but when you only have a few servers near you, or if these servers are empty, or if the few available servers are far away… that’s an entirely different matter. it’s not a simple choice between people and bots, but between playing with 3 people or playing with 16 bots (or maybe 3 people and 16 bots, coop, for an example that applies to other games).

also notice it’s not a problem of terrible connection or whatnots. it’s a more deep problem related to the availability of game servers and the spread/size of a game’s community, because smaller communities tend to vary in number of available players and servers greatly. there’s a whole instability of total online players on small communities. with some stability it can increase over time, but if everytime you want to play you only see 3 different people online expect for maybe saturdays, the game loses interest fairly quickly.

on cases like this, it’s either bots or doing what EA did around the world with BF2: sponsoring local servers and ISP support. activision doesn’t come even close to EA’s presence all over the world… so having ETQW servers out of huge gaming cities? next to impossible.

somebody who lives in the usa or europe can’t understand this, so feel free to point how much i suck just because i live somewhere else.

of course, no developer has the obligation to add bots. it’s their decision, let them do what they want and release the game in the state they want. but when people start complaining about the inclusion of bots, and start calling people who wants bots “noobs”, it’s just plain ignorance.

also, what DG said.

(Nothus) #30

Only about 50% of ppl in the USA have access (note that key word: ACCESS) to broadband (which is much worse then it is in Europe), so theres plenty of ppl out there who won’t have the choice, and who will welcome some kind of SP experience. Plenty more who just get tired of playing with spoiled 15 year old brats who live in mommas basement, and do nothing but play the game all day. Sometimes its just nice to play without being annoyed by some brat just because you don’t have enough time in the day to play as good as he does.

Some ppl seem to think that bots = less playing online. If your worried ppl will play the bots more then they play you - dont be such an ass, then maybe ppl will actually want to play with you. NOONE would rather play a bot then a human, but if your an ass, can you blame anyone?

Also remember - theres not a game out there that was ever ruined by a bot, no matter what you think. UT and CS:S are made all the stronger, because they have bots for ppl to play, when they just want to relax, or practice, or when they don’t have the choice. I’d like someone to name one great game, that was somehow ruined ONLY because the game also had bots.

As for the comment that 56k’ers dont play FPS online - you couldn’t be more wrong. I only got cable this past year, and I actually played FPS games online more BEFORE I got it. And theres plenty of FPS that have a good SP experience too. So I fail to see how your connection somehow determines what genre of game you like to play.

I think the myth of bots always being bad in games is just that: a myth. Most dev studios have neither the time or expertise to create any halfway decent AI. Or they just dont care, and want the bot to be a bullet point on the back of a box. If id/SD really give a crap, and give this a chance, I think we’ll see great things from this bot (if it even exists), because I saw a lot of great potential in Maleficus’ fritz bot - which was hands down the best mod bot I had ever seen.

My 2 cents.

(Joe999) #31

my 1st cent: if you want a single player game, then get a single player game.

my 2nd cent: if you want a game with a bunch of features where the one feature has 50% the other 30% the next one 20% or whatever instead of a game that has 100% on the whole game experience, then buy an EA game and keep on telling yourself that this game is good at least 3 times a day for the whole 2 weeks that you play that game.

those where my 2 cents :smiley:

(Lanz) #32

Joe999 you’re ruling out the fact that they might do a 100% solid game with bots added on since they actually hired a guy to supposedly work on bots seperatley over at id. I’ve always thought that bots is something you do if you have the rescources and the time needed for it without cutting back on the game, and this seems to be the case here. But as usual, it’s just speculation anyway.

(Joe999) #33

nope. as i said in a previous post: if they have balancing issues now, what do you think they’ll have with bots? they might add bots as frag food for target aiming, but etqw will never be a single player game.

maybe this image says it more clear for the people with the “slow connection” argument for bots:

this won’t be fun for long.

(Nothus) #34

LOL! So, I guess your a game programmer or something - and know all this info for a fact? Or maybe your working at SD, and are in disguise, but are letting us know the “inside scoop”?

Neither you nor I know the reasons why the game “needs balance”, for all we know they’re not even done yet. And to say that even if they had a guy dedicated to it, that it would somehow “unbalance” the game, is a logical fallacy - bots and gameplay are 2 different goals. I would think that the bots would have to conform to the gameplay, not the other way around.

And we’re not exactly getting straight answers from SD ATM, and unless your in the game industry, none of us knows whats going to happen.

BTW: why is a slow connection an arguement AGAINST bots? Wouldn’t you be agreeing with me by your funny picture ( i.e. the next picture in that series would read read “your too slow to take the fast lane Farmer Brown, so use bots!” ).

Maybe you are agreeing with me secretly, and just playing devils advocate. :smiley:

(Joe999) #35

all speculation, however i got another pic that fits into these “i want bots” threads:

:smiley:

(Nothus) #36

And I have a pic for those “we dont need bots!” threads.

Its funny how circular logic is easily exposed. :smiley:

Oh well, I don’t want this to turn into a flame war. Your opinion is yours, but thats all it is.

I retire from the field of battle.

(Joe999) #37

yeah, but a copied answer is just a cheap less meaningful copy of the original. find your own way :smiley:

(nUllSkillZ) #38

I think the more well done features are included the better.
As said in another thread about bots they could be used for a survival type mod or map.
Few human players against many AI controlled players.

(SniperSteve) #39

I’m fine with bots. Good for practice. But all multiplayer games that have stat tracking will need to have no bots.

On a lan game adding a few bots would be cool to spice it up some. And when the internet is down.

(evilsock) #40

The thing with 56k is that it kind of forces you to not only tweak settings, but it also gets you used to things like firing in front of an enemy player by maybe as much as an inch in order to ‘match’ what you’re seeing and where the game really is - that makes a huge difference in ‘balancing out’ the lag.

Also, it teaches you important things like the need to firefight at a reasonable distance to have a chance of winning a duel.

I think I was probably a better player on 56k than I am now on 2Mb broadband, the injustice of playing with an average ping of around 230ms vs. the guys with 50ms spurred me on to compensate and get better.