Yeah, I know, I know…Halo is to Ultima what apples are to flamethrowers, which is to say that the two series couldn’t really be more different or unrelated. I get that, I grant that, and I’m continuing with the article now.

One of the key goals I have for Aiera, in the medium- and long-term senses, is to provide a kind of support base for would-be developers of Ultima-inspired games, which will include encouragement to use standalone engines like Unity and Torque when developing said games. Of course, one issue with using such engines is that, unlike using established game-based toolkits, there are no rulesets in place; things like enemy AI (the behaviour of opponents in encounters and battles) have to be built essentially from scratch.

Which is why things like this are so darned interesting, and worthy of mention at Aiera. A lot of what’s said in the article, and a lot of the tricks discussed, are very general, and easily move beyond Halo. Actually, it’s surprising to think of just how much the “AI” of enemies in a first-rate shooter like Halo really isn’t “intelligence” at all, but is instead a series of card tricks that the developers are playing against the player…like ramping up enemy shot accuracy the longer the player stays out of cover.

Anyhow, do read the whole thing. It’s pretty technical, but highly interesting.