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Applying Agent Modeling to Behaviour Patterns of Characters in Story-Based Games

Most story-based games today have manually-scripted non-player characters (NPCs) and the scripts are usually simple and repetitive since it is time-consuming for game developers to script each character individually. ScriptEase, a publicly-available author-oriented developer tool, attempts to solve this problem by generating script code from high-level design patterns, for BioWare Corp.'s role-playing game Neverwinter Nights. The ALeRT algorithm uses reinforcement learning (RL) to automatically generate NPC behaviours that change over time as the NPCs learn from the successes or failures of their own actions. This thesis aims to provide a new learning mechanism to game agents so they are capable of adapting to new behaviours based on the actions of other agents. The new on-line RL algorithm, ALeRT-AM, which includes an agent-modeling mechanism, is applied in a series of combat experiments in Neverwinter Nights and integrated into ScriptEase to produce adaptive behaviour patterns for NPCs.

Citation

R. Zhao. "Applying Agent Modeling to Behaviour Patterns of Characters in Story-Based Games". MSc Thesis, University of Alberta, August 2009.

Keywords: agent modeling, behaviour, ALeRT, Sarsa, ScriptEase
Category: MSc Thesis
Web Links: DSpace link
Related Publication(s): Learning Character Behaviors using Agent Modeling in Games

BibTeX

@mastersthesis{Zhao:09,
  author = {Richard Zhao},
  title = {Applying Agent Modeling to Behaviour Patterns of Characters in
    Story-Based Games},
  School = {University of Alberta},
  year = 2009,
}

Last Updated: January 18, 2010
Submitted by Richard Zhao

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