Allright, this has done before more then likely, but hear me out please:
Pretty much anyone that's hopped online know we got like three or four AI systems currently in the work: Botevents for making your own, RotCo's recent one (Aka Left 4 Block due to it's original release based off Left 4 Dead, which was popular at the time), ZAPT (Zombies Are People Too, which relys a lot more on PVP and infection gamemodes), and Rot's Zombies pre-V8, which as far as I know has no public port but was the most basic but still pretty awesome. And now NARG is working on a AI system using waves (he's inspired by Gears of War's Hoard mode, but similar gamestyles can be seen in Killing Floor and Castle Defense servers.)
So why keep arguing over which is best when they can just as easily pool resources and make a generalistic bot system?
Over a lot of deliberation, I've figured out the things that would make pretty much almost everyone happy about a bot system:
1. The AIs don't have to rely on a 'director' system all the time, as in they can be spawned via events.
2. The AIs can be 'programmed' to do simple tasks, such as walk around, shoot a weapon, patrol a area, or persue players, via events or scripted as such.
3. AIs can be set up to teams, both via script (RotCo-based AIs have a system setting them to various default teams, such as 'zombie', 'player', 'national socialist', etc.) and even perhaps by a team deathmatch vehicle spawn (or even a TDM AI spawn).
4. AIs that defaultly come with the pack should be 'generic' and not be based off of any system in general (People probably would complain less about Left 4 Block if the L4D zombies were a plugin, leaving the Normal, Fast, and Slow as the standard zombies)
5. A AI 'Director' can be included on the side, but should be configurable. What can the director spawn, and how often? Will the Director scale bot HP? Will it ignore certain spawns for it to spawn stuff, so we can use a Rowboat without worrying about them turning into a Shark?
6. A secondary gamemode with a 'wave' system, configured at the start. Players survive to the end of a wave, then get a brief respite to rearm and recover, before the next onslaught. These waves can be configured elsewhere, as can the recovery time and if people revive at the end of a survived wave or not. Kinda a mix of Killing Floor, Hoard Mode, and Dawn of War 2's Last Stand. Add in events that work similar to 'OnWaveRecovery' and 'OnWaveStart', and this could turn interesting.
7. A third gamemode, Infection, to corispond with ZAPT's PVP system. Players wouldl be able to take the role of predetermined AIs (perhaps with a way to make each AI's inventory different, as some AIs are also designed dfor playertypes [BugMod]). As a human player falls, they are turned into the infected team, and so on until either the survivors are overwhelmed or a predetermined goal.
8. Compatability with common add-ons, such as Tier-Tactical, Slayer, TDM, JVS, etc. etc. etc.
Thoughts/Comments/Ideas/Flame below please.
