Due to the recent discussions about bots in Uru, I figured I'd get started on a topic here.

Many have suggested they don't mind 'bots, but would prefer that there be some way to easily distinguish them, visually. A standard appearance which tells explorers that the avatar with whom they're speaking isn't a real person.

Now, standardizing all possible bot avatars may seem rather limiting, but I think we can have our cake and eat it too.

Let's say that bots like OHBot are holographic Lattice interfaces recently re-discovered or re-activated. It's the easiest IC explanation, I think. A solution presents itself: if an avatar is flagged as a bot, it should appear semi-transparent and covered in static, like Yeesha's hologram in the Cleft.

This way, bot creators can customize their appearance but still have them look consistently different, signalling they're artificial in a manner obvious to anyone who has seen Yeesha in the Cleft.

Thoughts? Other suggestions?

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I think this would be good. Have bots be holographic recordings. We know the D'ni had similar things, so that works.

I'm not against bots. Ever since the IM bots in Majestic (not that anyone remembers Majestic) I've been a fan, and been endlessly fascinated as they've developed over the years into better representations of people. But they need to stay IC.

As noted in the other thread, you can't just put bots on ignore because people constantly play with them when they're around. So I think they should probably be restricted from the public IC areas (except for hoods.) In hoods, of course, set up the bots as you like. It's your hood.

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DocOlanA wrote:

So I think they should probably be restricted from the public IC areas snip... .

Where are the public IC areas?

The last time I looked there were only public joint use IC & OOC areas.

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I had posted a couple ideas about how he could integrate OHBot into the story in another thread, of course there are hundreds of ways to do it.

I like the hologram idea better than what I came up with though.

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DocOlanA wrote:

As noted in the other thread, you can't just put bots on ignore because people constantly play with them when they're around. So I think they should probably be restricted from the public IC areas (except for hoods.) In hoods, of course, set up the bots as you like. It's your hood.

In public areas, they should follow the normal rules for IRC bots, i.e. only respond to private messages, and respond privately. IRC usually has an exception for stuff like @find so that you can find the bots in the first place; I don't know whether we would need that.

Also, having the chat window full of bot-chat would be less of an issue if there was some way to make the window larger. And if there was a way to ignore any message matching a given pattern regardless of the origin.

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semplerfi wrote:

DocOlanA wrote:

So I think they should probably be restricted from the public IC areas snip... .

Where are the public IC areas?

The last time I looked there were only public joint use IC & OOC areas.

What semplerfi said -- there are no public IC areas. Now, you may want or not want bots in the city, but the city is not IC. Some players choose to play IC in the city, some don't. Player choice, always.

What I'd like is to know that an AI character or bot is an AI thing, in a clearly visible but not intrusive way. I'm open to different ways to do that.

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I still maintain it's impossible not to be IC in the city, since the game was designed to be us in the city, and since the Myst games and books appear in game. Including, the way I've been playing it, Uru. And lots of people in the cavern play Uru (not me. I see no reason to electronically simulate what I actually do each day. But then I never really enjoyed playing "The Sims" either, so it's not like I'm the expert.)

But seriously. Because of the design of the game there are only two real ways to violate IC. The first is by talking about technical problems with the game, which is generally an exception because I (and I hope everyone) will help with technical problems. The second is because you're intentionally being a jerk and trying to spoil the experience for others, and why would you do that? Otherwise... you can talk about anything. Uru is us, in the real world. Heck, Sharper goes on and on about the Patriots. All IC means is that we're not mentioning the fact that Uru is a video game. And who runs around mentioning that they're playing a video game within the video game they're playing?

But yes, I meant the main cavern. Hoods I don't have too much of a problem with, though you should respect hoods whose members say they don't want bots around. But until we can come to an IC consensus on what bots are (D'ni holograms, Japanese robots, etc.,) and make their avatars accordingly (as I noted above), I know I'd prefer not to run into them in Ae'gura or K'veer.

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Most of the people I know play as if the game was real and not real at the some time. It's a complicated, wonderful way to play. So they might talk about what they have seen in the game, talk about other things in their lives, and even talk about things such as their monitor, their interface, technical issues, textures, all that stuff. Yup, the people I've talked to sometimes talk about playing the game as a game. It's fluid. It's my preferrred style of play in any online world.

You can't impose a playing style -- well, I guess you could try, but do you think all of our players are going to listen?

I'd like bots in the city -- but it's not up to me. I'm happy to express my views, but If this is on a Cyan server, Cyan might have some guidelines on no bots in the city. On other servers, it might be different. The good news -- assuming we get open source and we get different servers, it will all work out in the end. I plan to go to a sever that has good groups of people and the most interesting stuff, also where my friends are playing.

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You could always explain it in a Red Dwarf hologram style. There, the holograms are projected by a "Light bee", a small device that floats around "inside" the hologram, projecting the image.

I'm sure a miniaturised imager (like the one in the Ki) combined with a small floating craft (A micro helicopter-type thing) could be used as explanation for how these "Holograms" are created and move around freely. And the "l'ight b'ee" would provide enough of a physical presence to be able to press and activate buttons and the like.

The only issue then is how a hologram "Links".

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If one can't tell its a bot when talking to it, why does it matter if you know?

If you can tell, then isn't it already pretty well marked?

Since the current bot is just an AV run by software, how is the MOULa/Open Uru software going to know to treat it differently?

If the server operator creates a special avatar class for bots, what happens if someone just signs up a bot, doesn't tell them, and just runs it?

Are we going to implement Asimov's 3 laws of robotics?

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Having a standardized way of knowing a player is a bot is something I don't like. You've got things that fall into different categories.

There's bots that don't chat and perform functions alone. They'd be great under devices.

There's bots that chat to you but are meant to be known as bots. They'd be great with "Bot" in their name.

There's bots that chat to you and are not meant to be known as bots...and they shouldn't be identifiable as bots.They should act like humans and talk like humans. HOWEVER, there should be a command that can be given to them that is a requirement to identify themselves as a bot and list their owner's name and contact info should something go oddly awry. Something like "LIST IDENTIFICATION". bla bla bla.

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Thumbs up for the holographic bots idea! :D (at least for those that could, e.g., help newcomers)

Has anyone seen "I, Robot" (the movie)? It reminds me of the interactive hologram... "I'm sorry. My responses are limited. You have to ask the right questions."

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Sounds like an interesting idea, though I seem to remember that the static yeesha wasn't an overlaying effect but a separate avatar so it could be a pain to implement. Still seems like a decent idea.
p.s. Anaerin because of the Red Dwarf reference I now consider you to be awesome!

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OHB wrote:

Having a standardized way of knowing a player is a bot is something I don't like. You've got things that fall into different categories.

There's bots that don't chat and perform functions alone. They'd be great under devices.

There's bots that chat to you but are meant to be known as bots. They'd be great with "Bot" in their name.

There's bots that chat to you and are not meant to be known as bots...and they shouldn't be identifiable as bots.They should act like humans and talk like humans. HOWEVER, there should be a command that can be given to them that is a requirement to identify themselves as a bot and list their owner's name and contact info should something go oddly awry. Something like "LIST IDENTIFICATION". bla bla bla.

I agree with OHB on this topic.

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