E-mail to CS - Nation

[stefanhendriks]

In the past few (5) years, since the coming of Half-Life and especially Counter-Strike. Bots have made their entry (thanks to Botman for his template), they extended the life of Counter-Strike for sure, and if possible even extended its popularity because it became playable for those with no internet connection at the time.

After several years, bot developers joined and Bots-United was born. It is almost a year ago that Bots-United was born. Perhaps an article about the bots, in history , the creators, the official bot and such would be a nice addition to the site. Kind of like:

AI in Half-Life

Bots in CS

The official bot in CS

The AI in HL 2

Bots for HL 2? The future?

Chronoligal seen, the bots in CS made by 3rd party programmers have been cut out of attention ever since any official bot (CS CZ) joined. Even though some bots are still in development.

Perhaps an idea.

-Stefan

Bots-United Council member

We have our comfy place on the internet, where we can meet, greet, etc. We have our own share of fans and people who make this place even better to visit. One thing is missing in my opinion, regocnition to all those who put effort in the past years to make HL (and its mods) more fun to play with. I am thinking off:

- bot coders
- bot testers
- waypointers
- those who PLAY with the bots

Ever since Valve came up with their 'official Bot', i have the feeling we at Bots-United ar somesort of 'cut off' this entire scene. The new HL2 SDK comes, and what now? Wait till the official CS bot comes and makes our work useless? Look at Q3. The official bots in there, killed most (if not all) 3rd party bots written for it.

All the mods get their attention, but those who keep the mods alive.... nope.

Anyway, do you think this is a good idea? Do you think i am right? Or am i over-reacting?

[KWo]

The work here will be not useless if You can show to the people Your bot is better (or at least the same good) as offical CSBOT. About 1 month ago I've asked sPlOrYgOn to make tests POBOT-CSBOT on some maps of CZERO (because he almost lost all the motivation to wotk on podbot). I guess the results wasn't bad, but there is something to do and there are some possibility to improve podbot to be better than official CSBOT.
But look also at the world around - CZERO released, CS:Sources released (or almost - don't have the valid info) - but there are still a ot of servers with CS1.6 and they will be not closed yet for long time, I think, and for them the official CSBOT will not work (or I'm wrong?). In this case the Valve's political is good for You guys - because the poeple don't like to pay for new games so fast (need new codes for new games - need pay for them) - that's why CS1.6 will be alive for long time, I think and for it more of bots here can be useful.
I was also thinking about making some competition at BU - some server with HLTV to make some turnament between bots (like fotball championships - some games in groups and after some quartelfinals, semifinals and final). The competition always improve the product. But after speaking with some people - they told me - it could start after some hating discussions like - why this bot was a winner and this one a loser or something - so I've decided to don't start the topic about this - since You are united - maybe competition could not be good for this "united".

[TruB]

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

- bot coders
- bot testers
- waypointers
- those who PLAY with the bots

and me.. 9_9

good idea.. hope they go for it..

[Rifleman]

well , theres only one to say :

3RD Party Bots Forever !

[stefanhendriks]

Originally Posted by KWo

The work here will be not useless if You can show to the people Your bot is better (or at least the same good) as offical CSBOT. About 1 month ago I've asked sPlOrYgOn to make tests POBOT-CSBOT on some maps of CZERO (because he almost lost all the motivation to wotk on podbot). I guess the results wasn't bad, but there is something to do and there are some possibility to improve podbot to be better than official CSBOT.
But look also at the world around - CZERO released, CS:Sources released (or almost - don't have the valid info) - but there are still a ot of servers with CS1.6 and they will be not closed yet for long time, I think, and for them the official CSBOT will not work (or I'm wrong?). In this case the Valve's political is good for You guys - because the poeple don't like to pay for new games so fast (need new codes for new games - need pay for them) - that's why CS1.6 will be alive for long time, I think and for it more of bots here can be useful.
I was also thinking about making some competition at BU - some server with HLTV to make some turnament between bots (like fotball championships - some games in groups and after some quartelfinals, semifinals and final). The competition always improve the product. But after speaking with some people - they told me - it could start after some hating discussions like - why this bot was a winner and this one a loser or something - so I've decided to don't start the topic about this - since You are united - maybe competition could not be good for this "united".

If you want to compare bots, you better do that on a LOT of fields. Because a simple win/lose ratio will not do. Most people do not want to go through the hassle of installing new 3rd party bots, even if they are better... and with broadband connections getting more affordable...

anyway, most authors code for themselves, ie, they like coding. I think thats practicly the most biggest reason for most authors here.

[sfx1999]

I'd say just make your bot universal and have .xml files describing how weapons work in each mod, but that's just me.

Then you could always add C-script like AMX has.

[KWo]

Maybe I didn't write this clear, but I focused at this what You wrote:

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

Ever since Valve came up with their 'official Bot', i have the feeling we at Bots-United ar somesort of 'cut off' this entire scene. The new HL2 SDK comes, and what now? Wait till the official CS bot comes and makes our work useless? Look at Q3. The official bots in there, killed most (if not all) 3rd party bots written for it.

And to this was my reply-opinion.

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

If you want to compare bots, you better do that on a LOT of fields. Because a simple win/lose ratio will not do. Most people do not want to go through the hassle of installing new 3rd party bots, even if they are better... and with broadband connections getting more affordable...

I was thinking about this competition also because a lot of people still are asking us at BU which bot they should take and which one is the best. And for this moment nobody knows what we can answer them.
And yes - the people are simply too lazy to install some better program, if they have already some another one on the install CD for some game they buy. This is a problem - probably need write some universal smart installer for every bot. Smart - I mean - some installer ont overwritting some files (like plugins.ini in metamod directory), but reading them and eventually adding something to them (if needs do this). Then - maybe if it will be not too big effort install a bot from BU - the people will use them more often.

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

anyway, most authors code for themselves, ie, they like coding. I think thats practicly the most biggest reason for most authors here.

You propably are right, but if You will know - nobody will want to use Your program (because the poeple will use some other program) - will You be motivated to code and improve Your program and still develope it?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

You still think in terms of HL/HL2 exclusively... my opinion is that our future is to be open to more games. I can't see it otherwise, actually. This changes the problem quite a bit, doesn't it ?

but anything that can draw interest is welcome. Your letter is fine, if you except the typos

[Huntkillaz]

stefan,

could you also in a "ps:" tell em that podbot MM is a majorly upgraded version of podbot.

it might help all those podbot user's still playing 1.5 n pb2.5


it would be apprecitated

/explain it better than this though.

[stefanhendriks]

lol @ pmb, yes the BU view is not on HL only, though that is what's most presented here. And... as a matter of fact, most of these bots have made HL's future like it is today imo.

I'd wait for a reaction, if i don't get one, i will not pursue this issue and let them.