Notes

• motivation: predictable effects that combine and cascade to give fluid and deep gameplay
• started out thinking about actors as collections of four fuzzy variables - fear, anger, defensiveness and surprise
  • this causes actions to be generated from thresholds and decay rates of hidden variables that are driven by multiple inputs
  • hard for human players to make a mental picture, so we removed these
• most thought processes are driven by discrete events and stimuli, which is far more understandable
• we still retain an analog measure of perceived threat level, defensiveness
• it helps that halo is a very rich simulation. we don't need to add complexity to the AI, because there are many game world elements that are designed to be self-contained and interact well together. things can happen that we never dreamed of (jackal shooting elite with charged bolt, warthog jump movie, elite swinging sword and breaking glass causing him to leap through window)
• because the simulation is very flexible, group level just feeds down instructions in order to achieve coordination and leaves individuals to make their own decisions.
  • actors can always take time out to dive out of the way of a grenade, say hello to the player or whatever's appropriate based on their situation.