Hello All –

I was doing a bit of casual wiki reading and stumbled across this paragraph under Ultima Online’s entry:


“Artificial Life Engine

Starr Long, the game's associate producer, explained in 1996:

"Nearly everything in the world, from grass to goblins, has a purpose, and not just as cannon fodder either. The 'virtual ecology' affects nearly every aspect of the game world, from the very small to the very large. If the rabbit population suddenly drops (because some gung-ho adventurer was trying out his new mace) then wolves may have to find different food sources - say, deer. When the deer population drops as a result, the local dragon, unable to find the food he’s accustomed to, may head into a local village and attack. Since all of this happens automatically, it generates numerous adventure possibilities."

However, this feature never went into production. Because of several hurdles and concerns (like performance issues), the whole artificial life idea was considered a boondoggle.”


I find this article interesting, both because I think it’s a cool concept and because it bears at least superficial resemblance to the mini-champ system and void demons that populate the Abyss and Ter Mur.

For those of you who missed some development notes or who simply haven’t noticed, there is a subtle difference in the way some creature AI is implemented with UOSA. Typically, creatures and monsters in Sosaria only interact with each other or the environment when a player character is present. If there is no player within a certain range, action is suspended to preserve server load. Case in point: If you can’t recall into a dungeon using your favorite rune for an extended period of time, it is possible that a lizardman is standing on that spot. The spot will remain blocked until that pile of animate spined leather is triggered to move by another player or until server maintenance (I think).

Contrast this with the void demons and mini-champ areas that have been implemented in UOSA: Mobs in the Tomb of Kings move about on their own; Fairy Dragons battle Wyverns near the Stygian Dragon’s lair; Void Demons combine to form Devestator - and all this happens with or without a player present. While I can’t actually *prove* the first two statements through observation, the new AI is empirically demonstrated by the existence of any void critter above Korpe.

I give this new feature two enthusiastic thumbs up, and I fervently hope some more aspects of the original ‘virtual ecology’ can be brought to life.

Another kudo to the dev team under the heading of ‘Stygian Abyss.’

~M

What many people forget when they think back to the good old days of UO were the tremendous lag spikes. I would love to see a retro shard complete with those lag spikes and see how players react to them in this day and age.

Having said that, improving performance was why I figured this feature fell by the wayside. It would be nice to see it implemented if the servers could handle it.

I would love to play in a sandbox with a realistic virtual ecology - predator and prey animals, seasons, natural breeding.. imagine killing off all the cats in an area and the rat population spiking - over time and naturally, causing a plague in a city. It would be an interesting environment. Farmers losing crops to pests... losing chickens (GASP!) to fox populations, all in real-game-time, right before your eyes.

The server hardware has improve so very much in the last 12 years, maybe the time is right for this. But unfortunalety this probably would be a lot of work for the devs. Not only figuring out all the possible interactions and consequences but also re-writing massive amounts of decade old server code. Plus it would "only" add to the immersiveness of UO and not give the Players new artis and stuff. And that's what keeps most of them happy. I would love to see this, but as long as it isn't combined with any type of reward and made exploit-prove, I fear we won't see it about, except for minor changes like the void creatures - which are cool!

So thumbs up from me too, but I won't get my hopes up.

most of it was ditched because they thinned out the populations to reduce lag =/

What are you talking about? I'm getting those lag spikes in UOSA

~M

The lag on the 2d client has recently dropped significantly for me.

I seem to have..er...accidentally deleted UOSA.


I am excited to know [not see, as I'm not chasing the early buy gifts this time] that the "Artificial Life Engine", whether it be the inspiration, has arrived in some form.

The Tomb of Kings also has some interesting AI from its undead denizens, not quite evolution, but an ability to seek players in the hallway out

Great post, Magister - I enthusiastically agree!

Hah, true that. They got me in beta, I'm too accustomed to abusing the pathfinding AI to my advantage