Smuggler Archive
Thread: A chuckle for the smuggler
for something wholly unrelated to game mechanics!!! *****'s if I could give it again... 
WillburWright wrote:
RED ALERT: Extreme Laughter Ahead On Sensors:RED ALERT
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And so I turned my attention toward robots! Longtime readers may remember when I subtly and successfully used a robot to write my column while I camped in a mall waiting for Diablo II to come out. A similar process could easily play online games for me. After all, I minored in computer science at a prestigious Liberal Arts institution. The hardest part of any project such as this is figuring out the algorithm, but here it is, in its entirety:
The Autocamp 2000 Plays Online RPGs with the following rules:
1. Join any group that invites you
2. When in a group, follow behind the leader
3. Attack any monster you see
4. Accept all trade requests from other players, then give them a melon
Well, that takes care of 90% of online play. All I would need to do is stick my character -- Farglik the Mon Calamari -- in a cantina with a backpack full of melons (ah, sweet delicious fruit!). When I checked on him a week later he'd be what they call "über." But before I got started I had to tackle the tricky part: interaction with other players. If my automated Farglik didn't respond to players who talked to him in a meaningful way, the proverbial jig would be up.
One option was to have my robot randomly bark at people in Mandarin Chinese. But I opted for a much more graceful algorithm:
The Autocamp 2000 talks to other players with following rules:
1. If someone says something ending in a question mark, respond by saying "Dude?"
2. If someone says something ending in an exclamation point, respond by saying "Dude!"
3. If someone says something ending with a period, respond by randomly saying one of three things: "Okie," "Sure," or "Right on."
4. EXCEPTION: If someone says something directly to you by mentioning your name, respond by saying "Lag."
5. (And remember to accept all trade requests from other players by giving them a melon.)
My robot was programmed and ready to go. Hell, if I programmed it to randomly shout "Gimmie buffs!" it would probably pass the turing test. Satisfied, I sat it in front of the keyboard, made sure my character had at least fifty melons in his backpack, and then trudged off to leave it alone for the night.
My character, Farglik the Mon Calamari, waited around in the Cantina for some adventurers. The following is a log of what transpired:
KillSwitch: [Shouting] Does anyone want to join our hunting party?
Farglik: [Powered by the Autocamp 2000] Dude?
[KillSwitch invites Farglik to join the group.]
[Farglik joins the group]
KillSwitch: We're gonna go hunt wrixes.
Farglik: Right on.
[The group of players runs out of the Cantina, Farglik following close behind. Farglik shoots at every little monster they pass.]
KillSwitch: Why are you attacking the durneys?
Farglik: Dude?
KillSwitch: The durneys, the little bunny things -- why do you keep shooting at them?
Farglik: Dude?
Troobacca: [A wookie in the party] My weapon powerup expired, I need a new one.
Farglik: Sure.
[Troobacca opens a trade with Farglik.]
[Farglik hands him a melon.]
Troobacca: ...what's this?
Farglik: Dude?
Troobacca: You handed me a melon!
Farglik: Dude!
KillSwitch: Knock it off guys, I see some wrixes up ahead. Let's do this.
Farglik: Right on.
So we have a decent group in the mos eisley alleys. Guy comes along and declines our group several times. Well seeing how everyone there as in one group (which if you dont know helps afk combat macroing) except for this guy I thought it very rude of him. So I started using specials on his targets thus he didnt have any targets as I decided not too loot them. He got upset and left. All was good and we continued. Well he came back and our medic had left. So our group slowly dwindled. Well he continued to decline our group. I also noticed he was buffed so these thugs were pancakes to him. So I went back to using specials on his target and racked up a good 8 corpses around him. Then when my group was mostly out of the area I decided to loot - them all. Then a large amount of mobs spawned. I clicked the FD and watch him take them all. And there were alot of them. So what did he forget to do, keep his mind full and he was down for the count. The good thing about thugs is they like you to see the cloning facility. SO I had my revenge!! We did strike up a good conversation about it and left on good terms. I just love it when a plan comes together!!
I remember that, hahaha.
Flyinion wrote:
WillburWright wrote:
RED ALERT: Extreme Laughter Ahead On Sensors:RED ALERT
And so I turned my attention toward robots! Longtime readers may remember when I subtly and successfully used a robot to write my column while I camped in a mall waiting for Diablo II to come out. A similar process could easily play online games for me. After all, I minored in computer science at a prestigious Liberal Arts institution. The hardest part of any project such as this is figuring out the algorithm, but here it is, in its entirety:
The Autocamp 2000 Plays Online RPGs with the following rules:
1. Join any group that invites you
2. When in a group, follow behind the leader
3. Attack any monster you see
4. Accept all trade requests from other players, then give them a melon
Well, that takes care of 90% of online play. All I would need to do is stick my character -- Farglik the Mon Calamari -- in a cantina with a backpack full of melons (ah, sweet delicious fruit!). When I checked on him a week later he'd be what they call "über." But before I got started I had to tackle the tricky part: interaction with other players. If my automated Farglik didn't respond to players who talked to him in a meaningful way, the proverbial jig would be up.
One option was to have my robot randomly bark at people in Mandarin Chinese. But I opted for a much more graceful algorithm:
The Autocamp 2000 talks to other players with following rules:
1. If someone says something ending in a question mark, respond by saying "Dude?"
2. If someone says something ending in an exclamation point, respond by saying "Dude!"
3. If someone says something ending with a period, respond by randomly saying one of three things: "Okie," "Sure," or "Right on."
4. EXCEPTION: If someone says something directly to you by mentioning your name, respond by saying "Lag."
5. (And remember to accept all trade requests from other players by giving them a melon.)
My robot was programmed and ready to go. Hell, if I programmed it to randomly shout "Gimmie buffs!" it would probably pass the turing test. Satisfied, I sat it in front of the keyboard, made sure my character had at least fifty melons in his backpack, and then trudged off to leave it alone for the night.
My character, Farglik the Mon Calamari, waited around in the Cantina for some adventurers. The following is a log of what transpired:
KillSwitch: [Shouting] Does anyone want to join our hunting party?
Farglik: [Powered by the Autocamp 2000] Dude?
[KillSwitch invites Farglik to join the group.]
[Farglik joins the group]
KillSwitch: We're gonna go hunt wrixes.
Farglik: Right on.
[The group of players runs out of the Cantina, Farglik following close behind. Farglik shoots at every little monster they pass.]
KillSwitch: Why are you attacking the durneys?
Farglik: Dude?
KillSwitch: The durneys, the little bunny things -- why do you keep shooting at them?
Farglik: Dude?
Troobacca: [A wookie in the party] My weapon powerup expired, I need a new one.
Farglik: Sure.
[Troobacca opens a trade with Farglik.]
[Farglik hands him a melon.]
Troobacca: ...what's this?
Farglik: Dude?
Troobacca: You handed me a melon!
Farglik: Dude!
KillSwitch: Knock it off guys, I see some wrixes up ahead. Let's do this.
Farglik: Right on.
Well, I clipped a good portion of this because it was soooo huge but even though it's old (page 30 if you haven't read it and want to) I just wanted to resurrect this entry because while lot of these stories have had me quietly laughing to myself at work, this one I had a really hard time not bursting out laughing a number of times. I know the chat transcript can't be real because of stuff he mentions later on about devs and Darth Vader and getting force powers but it's still funny.
