01/03/01

GrinBot Tribute Song !!

Jim Marlowe has written a song called Grin and bare it, which describes his affair with a bot called Alice :) This really made me Grin. You can download the song in .mp3 format, and read the lyrics here.
Very cool.

04/02/01

GrinBots MKII are in development

GrinBots MKII are coming along nicely. They are not an upgrade or enhancement to the original GrinBots, but are a new project started from scratch. They do not fight yet, but are available in their present state from the GrinBots MKII web site. Everything is in place to allow people to create routes for maps, and watch the bots run around and think.

04/12/00

Grinbots Have Learnt InstaGib !!

I finally found the time to combine my InstaGib mod with GrinBots v09. After a lot of tweaking with their aiming routines, they are finally playing it pretty well.

Visit my InstaGib page to find out some more and download it.

02/12/00

DominationH2 is here !

I've had this mod almost done for a while now, but only got around to finishing things off recently. From the testing that's been done, this should be a lot of fun.

The mod uses a new model, new hud icons and modified maps, so there is a client download needed (2.4 Meg). Go to the DominationH2 page to download and find out some more.

There is no bot support yet, but I'm working on it.

17/11/00

Things have been pretty busy recently, as I'm in the process of writing my PhD thesis, and this is taking up a lot of time. Hopefully, it should be finished by the end of Jan 2001, and I'll be able to spend some more time tinkering again.

I've done some more work on the DM map I've been toying with recently, and you can find some preview screenies in the maps section.

I've been working on a H2 version of UT's domination. This is almost done, and from the testing I've done, promises to be a lot of fun. Hopefully, I will release it with bot support, once I've got the little ones thinking more tactically. They can play it at the moment, but don't really understand the intricacies of team based attack and defense.

Also, as you may have noticed, Rune is out. I admit to being more than a little disappointed with the lack of player-mobility and the very limited attack system, but I think that it has great potential for modding with. I'm looking at the various ways that bot support could be implemented at the moment, with the aim of porting the Grinbots to it.

7/10/2000

Iron Grin Bot Launcher Released !

]7[ Faethor has released an awesome launcher for the GrinBots. It allows you to specify all configurable parameters about the bots and server from an easy to use Windows front-end. You can go for a quick-launch bot game, or configure a dedicated server. Also, it allows you design and save custom sets of bots which can be easily edited and tweaked. This is definately a cool utility.

If you like the launcher, contact Faethor and say thanks :)

Also, I did an interview with Bot Epidemic this week. This is mainly just chit-chat about the bots, some background behind them and some thoughts on mutiplayer gaming. If you want to read the interview, you can find it here

16/9/2000

Grinbots Version 0.9 is ready !!!

Mainly small tweaks in this version. Added some support for ropes, tweaked their navigation and improved their blade skills.

To download the latest version, and to find out about some more of the new stuff, go here.

If you are having problems running the bots, check out the setup guide

To see which maps are currently supported, and for a list of known bugs go here

If you want to find out some stuff about my relationship with the bots go here

Also, I have finally got round to combining the bots with another mod. The result of this is Skull Hunters - Grinbot Edition. I'm quite pleased with the way this worked out with the minimum of effort.

1/9/2000

Grinbots Version 0.8 is ready !!!

All sorts of little tweaks in this version, better navigation, improved realism, 'personality' and better weapons usage to name a few.

I think they are finally past their beta stage, and they are now fairly decent bots. They are not the toughest bots, and experienced players can probably beat them most of the time, but I don't think that really matters. It would not be much fun if they were invincible. Besides, I've been playing Q3 and UT recently, which contain bots that are accepted as 'the best', and these bots are beatable too.

I could make the bots tougher, but to do this I would have to make them cheat. For example, I could increase the damage inflicted by their weapons, or decrease the damage taken by the bots. I know from my recent research that there are bots for other games that use this method, but I don't really think that method is good.