Frequently Asked Questions:
Bots/Game Rundown
Want to know quickly whether a game has bots available for it (right now)? Consult this list:
Yes:
- Doom: Yes
- Heretic II: Yes
- Hexen II: Yes
- Jedi Knight: Yes
- Kingpin: Yes
- Quake: Yes
- Quake II: Yes
- Quake III: Yes
- Sin: Yes
- Tribes: Yes
- Unreal: Yes
- Unreal Tournament: Yes
No:
If you want to get more information about this subject, read Are there any bots for YYY game?
Where can I find a proxy bot?/Can you give me a proxy bot?/Why don't you do proxy bot news?
Bot Epidemic does not cover proxy bots as they are a total nuisance, both to players and authors of proper client-side and normal server-side bots.
Any e-mail that is received asking about proxy bots is ignored.
Will XXX Bot work with YYY mod?/Will there be support for XXX Bot in YYY mod?
This is a popular question. You cannot use such and such a bot (unless it is a client-side bot) with such and such a mod unless that mod has support for the bot written into it or the bot author has added support for the mod themselves.
Examples are OSP Tourney DM (which has Gladiator bot support built-in to the OSP files) and the CTF mode in the Eraser bot (CTF support has been coded into the bot's files) respectively. Quite often there are hybrids of a bot and a mod (or a bot and several mods)
created by a third author, not related to the bot or the mod(s). Examples of these are the Holywars Frogbot merged by numb and the WeaponsFactory Eraser by Acrid.
When merging bots with other mods it's not just a simple case of putting the two files together, they have to be properly merged *and then* code has to be written so that the bot nows how to play the rules of the mod. With more complex mods this can mean bots can never be merged in (or written internally)
for the mod as it is very hard. A real life example of this was the planned version of Jailbreak with Eraser bot support. Eventually Anarchy (the JB coder) had to give-in as it was to difficult to get the bots to play the mod properly.
It is more likely that a bot author or third-party will merge a bot with a mod (or add support for a particular mod), so if you want a particular mod support try e-mailing a bot author asking about it.
Only occasionally does a mod team write a bot for its own mod (eg the Havoc bot for Chaos DM), and if they want bot support with their mod it is more likely that a mod team will publically ask for a bot coder to come forward to write the necessary code.
I can't run XXX bot! How do I get it to work?
Thankfully this type of question has reduced dramatically from when I started working on Bot Epidemic. People are more aware of what to do (through experience) and the advent of bot launchers (hail to their authors :)) has
taught many people how to use bots. They do still come in though, so here's the course of action to follow if you find the bot not working:
Before you e-mail in a request for help read the readme.txt or similar document that is in the bot file package you downloaded. A good readme should give you all the instructions on installing and running the bot and may even provide pointers
on what to do if something isn't working or provide a set of frequently asked questions (FAQ) regarding the running of the bot.
Make sure you're using the bot with the right game. This rarely happens although a mix-up between Normal Quake and QuakeWorld does occasionally take place.
Check that you have the latest patch for the game you are using the bot with. Again this is less and less of an occurence now, but back when iD were releasing regular patches for Quake II
many people weren't updating fast enough or were updating to fast. Check the readme.txt or similar that comes with the bot to see what version of the game the bot is intended to run with.
Read the readme again to make sure you're using the right commands/keys for loading the game and spawning bots and are running commands in the right sequence. Make sure the files are in the correct directory.
If you still can't get the bot working at all then send in a request for help, detailing your problem. If the bot keeps crashing or locking up your system then you have probably encountered a bug. If this is so then send an e-mail to the
bot author(s) detailing the problem, how it occured etc
Are there any bots for YYY game?
A very popular question this one. Firstly the source code to the game in question will need to be released before a bot can be written for it (by a third-party). Sometimes you get lucky and the developers of the game include bots, although it doesn't happen that often.
Secondly there needs to be someone out there with the impetus to write a bot for the game. With popular games (eg Quake II) there are usually at least half a dozen authors who will start writing a bot once the code becomes available. With games which are less 'mainstream' (eg Sin) then it can take a long time
before an author comes along to write a bot.
Some games don't have support for user-made mods anyway. Either the source code hasn't been released yet (as was the case with Half-Life not so long ago) or
the game just does not have direct support for mods (this is very rare with First Person Shooter games these days as the mod communities generally keep the game alive past its release and can lead to added sales).
As long as there is support for bots (some games don't support bots completely yet [it's Half-Life again...] even though they support mods) then an author will probably come along at some point to write a bot.
Will there be bots in YYY game when YYY game is released?
This is hard to call as features for unreleased games are never really finalised until the game goes off to be created on CD. Some features can implemented or cut overnight, others take a long time to develop.
Bots fall into the latter category.
For some reason bots are still not seen as a high priority game feature to many, and so if they do exist in a game and are not working as wanted or time cannot be allocated to their development it is quite possible that they will be cut.
If you want to find out whether bots are going to be in a game first try contacting the 'press person' (for want of a better word) for the company creating the game, the person who usually gives quotes to games sites/magazines and the like on what is happening with the game.
If this proves futile then try talking to someone from the development team for the game, specifically a producer or programmer. If again that proves futile then e-mail us here at Bot Epidemic and we'll see if we can help.
Also check out interviews with staff members from the development company (again a producer or programmer being interviewed
will be more likely to provide information on bots than an artist) as sometimes they get asked about bots being in the games.
Once the game has been released and no bots are present it inevitably leads to the next question...
Why aren't there any bots in game YYY when they said there would be?/I read on a forum there would be bots in YYY, why weren't there any?
Many people get infuriated when they think that bots are guaranteed in a game, buy the game and find out that there aren't any bots. Most of stuff below details what you should do before you buy a game (there's not much you can do after you've bought it). Where does the fault lie
if bots aren't in a game when *you* thought they were guaranteed:
1: In the development company who didn't deliver what they promised. This can happen but is not common. If it does there's not much you can really do except ask the development company why bots weren't including and/or if
bots will be included at a later date (in a patch or enhancement).
2: The information you were given was incorrect. This is often the cause of confusion.
Firstly there are a lot of thick (stupid) people out there who wouldn't know what a bot was if it jumped out of their monitor and started doing a jig on their keyboard.
They think it's funny to reply to questions about bots on forums by stating that it is certain. Don't be drawn into their little game. Be especially wary if they manage to mispell bot repeatedly or talk about features that
aren't going to be likely (eg you can run 100 bots at once on a P200). These are sure-fire indications that they don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Never ever trust something you've been told as the whole truth, particularly if you just see a small quote, for example "bots will be inluded in YYY". That quote could easily have been taken out of context with the full
phrase being "if time permits bots will be included in YYY".
If you've got a quote from someone at the company responsible for the game then that is a reliable source, but still not hard evidence that bots are present (unless you get a quote after the game has been sent to be boxed).
Above all else the best way to find out whether bots are in a game is to talk to someone who has already got the (released) game.
XXX Bot works with YYY game, can I use it with ZZZ game too?
This is almost certainly a big NO. Just like any other mod bots cannot be used across different games, because each game may use a different language for mods (eg Quake uses QuakeC, Quake II uses C and Sin uses C++).
Sometimes you might see several similarily named bots for different games, for example the Oak bot is for Quake and the Oak II for Quake II. This doesn't mean that they are a direct conversion between games, just that the author wants to keep the name similar for all the bots
he/she creates.
Why do you have a section for bots for game YYY when you don't have one for game ZZZ?
When sections are created in Bot Epidemic's 'Bot Catalogue' for a particular game it is because they either have bots created for them or there is a high chance bots will be created for them.
An example of this is the Half-Life bot section which has been present since before Half-Life was released. This was because when Half-Life finally supports bots completely it is guaranteed that at least one bot author will create a bot for the game.
