DESIGNER NAME:  Dorphen COUNTRY:  New Zealand DATE OF INTERVIEW:  August 7 2001 DAILY GRIND:   Software Engineer Congratulations on winning the last Profession Tournament, did you feel confident with Ultairior Motives or was it a nail biting finish? Confident is probably a bit too strong a term for it...I'd rather say I was reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting near to the semis. In my stable, I had bots which were either exact copies of previous pro tournament winners (like the kindly donated Red Hot Poker) or else they were my own designs which were very similar to them (like my Robin series which is very similar to OCC's Slice N Dice). In the testing I had done, the latest version of Ultairior Motives had got some A.I. tweaks so it could do a better job, and indeed it beat all my other bots. It was a close call to decide whether to go with Ultairior Motives, or my other reasonably effective Robin. In the end, sentiment drove me to put the extra time into giving Ultairior Motives a little more brain. You must have been one of the first Beta testers, what was it like as a player back in the early days, coming to grips with the raw concept, and how much do you feel you and the other beta testers have shaped the final product? I joined back in Phase 2 of the beta, which was around December 2000. My first claim to fame was that I won the first Beta Bot Battle with DawdleBot who was (one of) the first 'Death-From-Above' style hammer bots, making good use of gravity. Unfortunately back then I was not careful about keeping successful designs otherwise he'd be available for download on the site. Getting back to the question :) I guess it is a little hard to say how much we shaped the product given that I have no idea how things would have turned out without our input, but the dev team were certainly responsive to suggestions and even when they did not take them on board, I felt they at least gave consideration to the points put forward. In my opinion, one of the biggest impacts of the beta testing was the rewrite of the A.I. interface. Although, given my programming background I had no problems with the original version (and indeed was not too happy about the move to the icons), I can see it was the right decision. Then of course there were the numerous tweaks to improve the balancing aspects of all the components. What appeals to you most about RoboForge, what initially attracted you to it? Well, partly I was interested because I had never taken part in a beta for a game before and thought it would be cool to be one of the first pioneers. I also remembered playing a similar game cunningly called 'Robots' (about 17 or 18 years ago), which involved 2D circles (the bots) fighting it out in an arena, with their behaviour being determined by the player programming their brain. Roboforge seemed like a much expanded version of it, and since I had enjoyed playing that one I figured this one would be a good candidate. The other side to the appeal for me was that the game is not affected on ping times or a person's reaction speed. It is a more cerebral past-time and that suits my character down to the ground. You're very active and helpful in the forums, how are you finding the RoboForge community? Does it differ to other online games you've experienced? As I have just mentioned, this is the first online game I've been involved in (apart from playing a few MUDs that is) but I have had experience of other online forums and communities in general before, and the Roboforge Community certainly seems to be one of the more civilised. It is great to see people being able to point forward their point of view, have that point argued about (both for, and aginst), and the discussion not end in personal attacks. The ideas being considered are the important things, not the person who comes up with them, and most of the time, not even the way they make their point. Just about everyone in the forums seem to recognise this fact, and that is in no small part due to the style of game you have created. The old AI vs Design question; where do you feel you strengths lie and which would you spend most of your time on? I think I am a pretty good designer, and a pretty good A.I. writer. I am not a fantastic expert in either aspect of the game (like a few others I could mention) but I am definitely quite solid with both and it seems to be a combination that works...some of the time anyhow :) I spend most of the time at the start of bot design thinking about the construction side. Of course I have certain A.I. aspects in the back of my mind, like what kind of positioning will I need in order to be able to use this joint-weapon combination, and what kind of chassis do I want - a fast light one, or one which has a lot of hit points and can hold a lot of weight, but initially it is an exercise in trying to come up with a design which has as few weak spots as possible - e.g. making sure not to have lots of shields & weapons connected to a single weak component. I'll then put in a few stock A.I. blocks and fight it against the example bots, and a few of my earlier bot designs. At this point, any obvious weak spots will hopefully be found, and I'll either modify the design, consider if I can manage to write A.I. which can 'fix' the problem, or else resign the bot to status of sparring partner. I am a firm believer that every bot you build is useful as an opponent. The wider the variety of bots you put your tournament bots against, the more confidence you can have in their ability. Once I have a design that seems to have merits I'll give it a paint job and then put a bit more time into A.I. development. Who and or what most inspires you bot design and how often would you design a Bot just to beat a specific bot? I really can't say where I get inspiration from in general. I definitely take notice of successful bots I see and sometimes copy a particular construction technique or try to analyse behaviour to see if I can come up with an A.I. that does the same thing. I have created a few full bot copies of other successful bots, but as tends to happen, they are pale immitations of the originals, useful only as training opponents. I don't generally design to beat a specific bot, but more often I'll design to beat a range of bots - e.g. trying to make sure a variety of death-from-above bots can be defeated, or trying to figure out how to catch a runaway bot (which is currently a work in progress for me). Having a bot which is the nemesis of just one other bot is not necessarily going to get you very far in a tournament, but you can definitely get satisfaction from beating a previous champion in the challenge rooms, and the lessons learned from designing to beat a specific bot can sometimes be applied to a more general bot (especially when the solution is an A.I. tweak). That said, I do remember adding A.I. to Ultairior Motives that was to try to help defeat Sky Guillotine which was one of AmbushBugs very successful beta bots. Lastly any tips for those just beginning with RoboForge. Get some sleep ;) Seriously. Roboforge can be very detrimental to your sleep patterns. The number of times you'll lie awake just thinking about how you're gonna turn your bot into a Super-Mega-Death-Dealing bot are almost uncountable. For a slightly more helpful suggestion, I'd probably say make use of the forums and challenge rooms and download and watch as many of the past tournament battles that you can. When you're in your early stages, keep in mind that every battle you fight is a learning experience. Whether you win or lose, you'll always be able to get something from the fight. PREVIOUS FEATURED DESIGNER   Click on the links below to read about our previous Featured Designers - "ABC" "DORPHEN" TOM ELLIS AKA "OCC" ANDREW LINDSEY AKA "JUSTDREW"