intriguing

#1 It does seem true that the number of ppl interested in actually working on AI is fairly small. IIRC, at the AI round table at this years GDC is was mentioned that most development teams finally have a whole ONE dedicated AI programmer. The great AI coming out now is a true testament to their skill and dedication.

Maybe would should start our own ongoing round table. Someone could throw a topic out for discussion, and afterwords a summary is written up and added as a resource. But what would be even better (hint hint) would be some code going around *gasp* Maybe not as formal as the previously mentioned AI arena, but just some examples that others could play with.

Once enough interest is gathered we could start a challenge of the week (ok, month), like the GL challenge: hand out a basic framework (ie. a simple 2d battlefield) and ppl add some AI based on the challenge, then submit it. Winners have to explain their code ;)

#2 AI is very neglected and by coincidence :) it is my personal forte. I think one of the problems is that so far AI code has been very particular to each game and so people wait until their game is coming along nicely before starting to work on the AI code. A lot of people never get that far, so a lot of people never talk about AI.

I like the round table idea more than a coding competition or whatever since the first takes less time. I had a discussion about LOS calculations for NPCs on another forum and wouldn't mind hearing more ideas here... probably best to start another thread if anyones interested.

#3 I love AI, so I'm also interested in how this is going to go...