----- Original Message -----
From: John Max Skaller <skaller@ozemail.com.au>
To: Jonathan Coupe <jonathan@meanwhile.freeserve.co.uk>
Cc: <caml-list@inria.fr>
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: Games (Re: [Caml-list] Caml productivity.)


> >>Chatting with game/CG professionals around me _strengthened_ this
> >>impression: the symbolic parts seem even more non-trivial in realistic
> >>applications.

> >I am a games and realtime 3D professional - and I have to tell you, in
the
> >nicest way (I hope) this really isn't how things are. I'd suggest that
your
> >conversations have naturally reflected your own interests. If you want to
> >make a balanced assessment of what people do in the real world, try
looking
> >at some representative books and collections of conference papers - the
> >Graphics Gems and Game Gems series would be good starting points.
> >
> The issue isn't what is done in the real world, by companies that don't
> really know
> how to develop a game, but what *ought* to be done.

It might be your issue; it wasn't *the* one Eijiro and I were discussing.
Eijiro was under the mistaken impression that symbolic problems are dominant
in the graphics industry.

>
> It would be nice, for example, if a military game had some small
> resemblance to
> actual warfare. Military units have intelligence. They operate with
> stranding orders
> with some reason to believe the orders are effective. They move from
> point A to
> point B with some kind of common sense.
>
> Now look at the utterly abysmal routing in most military games,
> the totally absurd actions units take, etc.

Yes, routing is often poor. It's possible to vastly improve on it. Language
change isn't necessary, it's purely a matter of algorithms. People just
don't bother. It's easily done with a few heuristics and possibly some
stochastic evaluation.

- Jonathan


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