a new .map to improve AI?

[licker]

Not to belittle your efforts Gandalf, they are quite appreciated, but I have a little pet peeve

I don't think its accurate to characterize senerio design or map scripting as improvements to the AI. Merely giving the AI handouts (ala HI, forts, labs, ...) does nothing other than to add a handicap to the playing field. I'm not saying that these types of actions are not fun or interesting or useful, just that they do nothing to actually improve the AI directly. It makes for a more challenging experience, which is what many people (myself included) are after, but it reminds me of the old parable, "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime."

Without unfairly characterizing your (and Alex's) work as being band-aid solutions, that's what they are *when talking about improving the AI*. I think there is more to this AI issue than merely making a challenging senerio for people to enjoy.

Anyway, I enjoy and appreciate your work, it may just be an issue of semantics, but I see some danger in claming that AI weaknesses can be overcome by scripting map files. I fear that it can lead to an environment where not enough attention is paid to the underlying problems in the AI, the assertation being that all you need is a good user made map to find a challenge. There are more challenges to be had than simply that.

Again I don't mean to detract from what you are trying to do, hopefully it will prove valuable to the more general discussion of the AI, as well as entertaining to play. All I'm asking is that some care is taken when saying that these maps are fixes to AI problems, I just don't see how that can be the case.

Again, respectfully submitted