1. Job for milkshape modeller
If any of you know a skinning tool well enough to help me out with a small task (for pay), let me know

2. AI in your design docs Hand-to-hand combat: Lemmings: Old West RPG:
Does NPC combatant have AI?
Lemmings:
lemmings have some individual agency and individualized goals/utility function
Do they improve over time?
Old West RPG:
Are there townsfolk or highwaymen NPCs?
Is there a designated ‘ai’ member of each team, or are you thinking about it as a group?

3. Brainstorming What intelligent behavior do you like in existing games?
How can you make the game world into a smarter opponent?

4. Typical AI plan Add some randomness to NPC strategy
Variation can be context-sensitive or just randomized
Smart path planning/locomotion using waypoints/grabpoints built into the world

5. AI possibilities AI techniques used for:
Navigation and route-finding, path planning intelligent hiding
Chat with an NPC
Learn better behavior over time
Adapt to a particular adversary
Infer unobservables, like the adversary’s overall strategy
Cooperation among NPCs, emergent group behaviors like flocking, maneuvers
Planning, goal-directed behavior

6. Ideas from AI/entertainment
Don’t let the NPCs have perfect knowledge: they have to operate in the environment like the players do
Perhaps they can communicate what they learn

7. Things to think about Don’t get in the way of story exposition
How much of a challenge do you want NPCs to present? Should it be as smart as you can make it?
Real AI often slow
Precompute everything: navigation mesh, offline learning