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Neoptolemus · **Wannabe bot author -** 12-04-2012

Hi everyone,

Quick intro as I'm new...

I have been interested in AI since I first fired up Zeusbot in the original Quake so I could play some coop (this being when a dial-up connection was expensive and tied up the phone line), and was intrigued by its technical cleverness. I then moved on to Quake 2 and the Eraser bot, counter-strike and PODbot etc. Despite this interest, until recently programming was very much a spectator sport for me.

Over the last year I've become more seriously interested in actually learning programming, and I've built up a reasonably solid grasp of the principals of object-orientated programming and how a program is put together, along with a decent knowledge of java and C++. I'm at a stage where I feel I can start dabbling in developing a bot and actually make some kind of progress rather than sit there looking blankly at reams of code.

I would like to try making a client-side bot for Quake 2, the main reason being partially due to nostalgia, and mostly being due to the fact that I'm using my work laptop and I'm not supposed to have games on it (so ssshhh!). Quake 2 is small enough to not matter too much, but a steam installation and HL1 is probably not the best idea. It would also be interesting to create a bot that mimics a human as closely as possible, hence client-side rather than server-side.

The problem is getting started, since I'll need a good grasp of the client/server architecture in Quake 2. I heard of the Q2BotCore which was a simple program that could connect to a server, spawn a bot, say something then disconnect. This would be perfect for me since I can look through and see how it's done, but alas I cannot find a working link for the source anywhere.

It's a bit of a long shot, but I was hoping somebody here might be able to point me in the right direction, or offer some advice to help me get started. Any help would be much appreciated!

	(#1)
Neoptolemus Member Status: Offline Posts: 93 Join Date: Apr 2012	Wannabe bot author - 12-04-2012 Hi everyone, Quick intro as I'm new... I have been interested in AI since I first fired up Zeusbot in the original Quake so I could play some coop (this being when a dial-up connection was expensive and tied up the phone line), and was intrigued by its technical cleverness. I then moved on to Quake 2 and the Eraser bot, counter-strike and PODbot etc. Despite this interest, until recently programming was very much a spectator sport for me. Over the last year I've become more seriously interested in actually learning programming, and I've built up a reasonably solid grasp of the principals of object-orientated programming and how a program is put together, along with a decent knowledge of java and C++. I'm at a stage where I feel I can start dabbling in developing a bot and actually make some kind of progress rather than sit there looking blankly at reams of code. I would like to try making a client-side bot for Quake 2, the main reason being partially due to nostalgia, and mostly being due to the fact that I'm using my work laptop and I'm not supposed to have games on it (so ssshhh!). Quake 2 is small enough to not matter too much, but a steam installation and HL1 is probably not the best idea. It would also be interesting to create a bot that mimics a human as closely as possible, hence client-side rather than server-side. The problem is getting started, since I'll need a good grasp of the client/server architecture in Quake 2. I heard of the Q2BotCore which was a simple program that could connect to a server, spawn a bot, say something then disconnect. This would be perfect for me since I can look through and see how it's done, but alas I cannot find a working link for the source anywhere. It's a bit of a long shot, but I was hoping somebody here might be able to point me in the right direction, or offer some advice to help me get started. Any help would be much appreciated!