Anyone care to speculate on what happened here?

[rogueusmc]

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: herwin


OK, here's what to do:

No, here's what you need to do. Contact Joe Wilkerson with your proposals if you really wish to have your ideas implemented. Since you seem unwilling to do this simple thing, I can only conclude that your all talk...no action.

Like i said....talk is cheap.

My answer is that I lack the most important ingredient--time. I can provide $125/hour consulting gratis, but I can't cut a large chunk out of my few remaining years for just this project.

Soooo, you are expecting someone else to do what you don't wanna do but tell them how to do it?

[herwin]

How to handle a game AI?

We're just beginning to understand how the will works. There seem to be three mechanisms for assessing the value of possible actions--one involves planning ahead (goal-directed behaviour), a second consults prior experience of outcomes (habit), and the third relies on immediate feedback (ouch!). The choice of action reflects a combination; which combination depends dynamically on how reliable the various assessments are thought to be. A human-like AI needs to do the same thing.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: Nikademus




No, here's what you need to do. Contact Joe Wilkerson with your proposals if you really wish to have your ideas implemented. Since you seem unwilling to do this simple thing, I can only conclude that your all talk...no action.

Like i said....talk is cheap.

My answer is that I lack the most important ingredient--time. I can provide $125/hour consulting gratis, but I can't cut a large chunk out of my few remaining years for just this project.

Soooo, you are expecting someone else to do what you don't wanna do but tell them how to do it?

What do you think a stakeholder does? I've been a requirements analyst for 35 years. Here are some requirements...

[moses]

ORIGINAL: herwin

How to handle a game AI?

We're just beginning to understand how the will works. There seem to be three mechanisms for assessing the value of possible actions--one involves planning ahead (goal-directed behaviour), a second consults prior experience of outcomes (habit), and the third relies on immediate feedback (ouch!). The choice of action reflects a combination; which combination depends dynamically on how reliable the various assessments are thought to be. A human-like AI needs to do the same thing.

Yes of course. All we need is to program WITP so that it has a will. Once we do that, the damm thing can program istself from there on in. All this time these Matrix guys have been programming this a.... non-will thingy which obviously has no feedback habits or goal directed behaiviors.

The bad news is that Herwin is only beginning to understand how the will works. And believe me, for $125/hour I expect someone to understand how the thing works.

But I got an A in Psychology and once even read two books by Skinner just for fun!! So I'm off to the community college for a C++ refreasher and I'm on it. How hard can it be to program a will.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: herwin

My answer is that I lack the most important ingredient--time. I can provide $125/hour consulting gratis, but I can't cut a large chunk out of my few remaining years for just this project.

of course! you lack time!......yet you have enough time to continually submit condescending posts about how badly designed this game is.....and you have time to tell the current programmers who are working on the game how they should do it and how easy it is without having ever seen the code hmmm....convenient .....not to mention totally lacking of accountability, nor having to risk having your opinions proven wrong by said devs. Damn we sure could have used you a couple years ago....yes indeed. [8|]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: moses

So I'm off to the community college for a C++ refreasher and I'm on it. How hard can it be to program a will.

I hope Mike Wood sees this one.....not to mention Joe / Don / Michealm. [:D]
[:D] [:D] [:D]

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: herwin

My answer is that I lack the most important ingredient--time. I can provide $125/hour consulting gratis, but I can't cut a large chunk out of my few remaining years for just this project.

of course! you lack time!......yet you have enough time to continually submit condescending posts about how badly designed this game is.....and you have time to tell the current programmers who are working on the game how they should do it and how easy it is without having ever seen the code hmmm....convenient .....not to mention totally lacking of accountability, nor having to risk having your opinions proven wrong by said devs. Damn we sure could have used you a couple years ago....yes indeed. [8|]

Let me give you an estimate of what my recommendations would take. First assume programmer productivity of about 10 function points a month (1000 SLOC/month) for final finished delivered code (direct costs). For a programmer making $80,000/year including benefits and overhead+cost of money+profit of 125%, we're talking $1500/function point or $15/SLOC.

The introduction of way points is fairly simple. Not knowing the WitP code base, my WAG is 3 function points or $4500.

Introduction of sorties into the air operations order is a bit more complicated--perhaps 5 FPs or $7500.

Changing the naval clock to tick three times a day is probably similar--$7500.

Logistics changes and base logic changes--about the same--$7500.

Fixing ground combat--based on experience doing something similar, about 10 FPs--$15000.

Introducing a real AI--expensive--a PhD studentship for three years or $200,000-$250,000. (This would be an extension of our current research direction, so I've thought about it already.)

So there you have it. $42,000 (about 3 man-months) to make some incremental changes to the game and $250,000 more to fix the AI. Those kinds of costs suggest these things will have to wait until the next game, but they also suggest the next game should incorporate at least the incremental changes.

Does this help?

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: herwin
So there you have it. $42,000 (about 3 man-months) to make some incremental changes to the game and $250,000 more to fix the AI. Those kinds of costs suggest these things will have to wait until the next game, but they also suggest the next game should incorporate at least the incremental changes.

Does this help?

Yes indeed. You have submitted a figure that Matrix in their right minds would never be able to afford much less would agree too. As i said...a convenient excuse for you not having to put up. (you can't afford me!) You've been a great help. [8|]

(PS....i've heard the "You can't afford me" line before too)

[aztez]

[8|]... hmmm.. hmmm... what is this thread doing in AAR forum anyway? [&:]

I doubt this is the correct forum anyway.

As for the help.. pretty much agree with NIK. If you have ideas and you say you can help than just do it. Simple.

[treespider]

So if I follow this correctly ....If Matrix starts today ....4 years from now Matrix will have a game that they will
have to sell at $99 a pop... and sell 2950 copies of said game just to break even on Herwin's development costs ($292,000)...just so Matrix has a game that everytime they plug in the same variables the same result occurs everytime.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: treespider

So if I follow this correctly ....If Matrix starts today ....4 years from now Matrix will have a game that they will
have to sell at $99 a pop... and sell 2950 copies of said game just to break even on Herwin's development costs ($292,000)...just so Matrix has a game that everytime they plug in the same variables the same result occurs everytime.

Well, you've ignored costs for sales & marketing, etc. [:D]

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: treespider

So if I follow this correctly ....If Matrix starts today ....4 years from now Matrix will have a game that they will
have to sell at $99 a pop... and sell 2950 copies of said game just to break even on Herwin's development costs ($292,000)...just so Matrix has a game that everytime they plug in the same variables the same result occurs everytime.

Well, you've ignored costs for sales & marketing, etc. [:D]

...no I pointed out that this is just to break even on Herwin's develpoment cost.

[moses]

Not to worry, I only plan to charge you $1000 and the cost of my college class. Once WITP is sentinant you can fire Joe and we'll just give WITP verbal instructions for what we want.

So how are you supposed to do Goto and Gosub statements if there are no line numbers??? What the heck??[:'(]

P.S don't tell Joe.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: treespider

So if I follow this correctly ....If Matrix starts today ....4 years from now Matrix will have a game that they will
have to sell at $99 a pop... and sell 2950 copies of said game just to break even on Herwin's development costs ($292,000)...just so Matrix has a game that everytime they plug in the same variables the same result occurs everytime.

Granted, the AI work is out of the question. The rest ($42,000) is the cost in industry of three man-months. I found it eye-opening, too. Every little fix we ask for adds up...

[Feinder]

Why do I have the tune from the Wizard of Oz playing in my head...?
 
"If I only had a will..."
 
Of course, the flaw in the plan is that $242,000 later, WitP would have a fabulous will, but the ground model would still be lacking.  Even the AI would be p1ssed off when his division got cut off by a couple of air-dropped support squads and then surrendered.
 
I can see a nightmare scenario unfolding if Harry gives WitP a will.  Rise of the machines and all that terrifying stuff, except this time the d_mn terminators would respawn after 525 days, so we'd be gonners for sure.
 
Best to just well enough alone I think.
 
-F-

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Why do I have the tune from the Wizard of Oz playing in my head...?

"If I only had a will..."

Of course, the flaw in the plan is that $242,000 later, WitP would have a fabulous will, but the ground model would still be lacking.  Even the AI would be p1ssed off when his division got cut off by a couple of air-dropped support squads and then surrendered.

I can see a nightmare scenario unfolding if Harry gives WitP a will.  Rise of the machines and all that terrifying stuff, except this time the d_mn terminators would respawn after 525 days, so we'd be gonners for sure.

Best to just well enough alone I think.

-F-

Oh, I will give it a will, eventually. That's why I did this PhD. I'd like to finance my own game development, though.

[Naskra]

Give it a rest, herwin. They keep mocking you, and you keep giving them ammunition.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Naskra

Give it a rest, herwin. They keep mocking you, and you keep giving them ammunition.

Spent six years as chief engineer for a $186,000,000 command and control system. Sometimes I forget how hand-to-mouth the games industry is. I ought to add that it had a simulation component, which I designed a couple of years before I was chief engineer. About 18 man-years of work, which today would run about three million dollars. What could Matrix Games do for three mil?