Bot Of The Month Club

Courtesy of Lord Fett

Lord Fett's "Paintball/Capture the Flag" bot runs smoothly inside of its world, controlling a massive war between two teams. Although the war itself is not deadly to its players, it is certainly deadly to its world. Paintballs splat all around inside the world, leaving random splotches of paint. Every time a shot is fired, paint goes flying until someone is hit. If that wasn't enough, the players of this game also get grenades filled with paint to throw at each other. These "Paint Grenades" leave almost comically large splotches of paint where they are dropped, and cover anyone within its range. Unlike other paintball games, however, this game has a vital point to it. One team must either sneak into or blast into the other team's base and steal the flag hidden inside. Every player in the world is on one of three teams, red, blue, or neutral. Players on the neutral team cannot participate in the fun, but they can use a simple command to automatically join one of the other teams. The somewhat intelligent CTF bot then selects a team to put the new player into. Using its limited IQ, the bot is able to select teams so that the teams are equal in the number of team members that they each have. The CTF bot rules the world by entering what is called "Global Mode." While in this mode it can not only see and hear everyone inside the world, but it can magically make text appear in anyone's chat box. It uses this to its full advantage by allowing play throughout the world, and making special, colored messages appear for everyone playing.

Several other features that are not so readily seen when you play with the CTF bot are ammo, rank, rounds, and chat control. Akin to real life, this bot keeps track of everyone's ammo, and every person must grab ammo crates from time to time to make sure they don't run out of ammo in the heat of battle. Using a simple algorithm, the CTF Bot can also calculate your rank, at command. And to top it all off the bot runs rounds. Play continues normally during a round, but when a round is no longer running people may no longer play. These rounds can either be timed or manually controlled by the administrators of the bot. At the end of any round the bot even lists the top three winners and winning team. If any prizes are available then one will be given to the winner. As for chat control, the CTF bot has a built in phone bot which will transmit any chat from one person to anyone who wouldn't normally be able to hear him/her. This unique system allows anyone in the world to chat with anyone he or she likes regardless of the distance between the two. Sending a message to only your team members can also be done with a simple command. Secret planning can be done without anyone but your team knowing.

Want to know what will be coming next? This little bundle of wonders is ever expanding and several new features and items are coming on the way. One of which is an exciting new feature known simply as "JAILBREAK". When this is turned on people who are shot by a paintball are no longer sent back to home base. Instead they are captured by the other team and sent to a jail. And just as the name implies the other team must break into the jail and free their teammates. Of course from time to time the bot will just release everyone, but the main purpose is to make teams work more like teams. Another feature, which will be added by Lord Fett, will be forced avatars. With the coming of Active Worlds 3.4 this new feature will have already been inserted and when a person joins a team they will automatically be switched to an avatar with their team color on it. Along with that the bot will begin to filter text and when a person chats they will no longer have the plain old black text, but rather their chat will be colored according to the team that they have joined.

So to rap it all up in one long sentence, I would have to say this, "The Capture The Flag/Paintball Bot is one giant box of wonders springing from a long history of misfortune only to come out as one of the greatest and ever expanding CTF bots made yet." If you would like to discuss improvements upon this grand bot, then please visit the forum at http://www.vectracon.com/forum.

Want to see the bot for yourself, then come on down to Lugia where it is run 24/7. The world is a P-30/10, big world, but small user limit, but don't worry. The world owners, WingZero and Lord Fett, will be upgrading to a much higher 20 users and at the same time show the changes in the world by changing its name to "CTF@HQ".

If you're interested in finding out more about how to use the SDK, visit the SDK site for information!

Know of a bot that you'd like to see featured as the Bot of the Month? If so, contact us at newsletter@activeworlds.com.