Literary Role-Playing Game Develops Oscar Wilde Bot
Added: (Tue Aug 12 2003)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
The text-based multiuser role-playing game TriadCity (http://www.smartmonsters.com/TriadCity/index.jsp) has implemented an automated character based on the personality -- or at least the sayings -- of legendary wit Oscar Wilde.
"Oscar" is a "chatterbot" coded in the Artifical Intelligence Markup Language (http://www.alicebot.org/alice/aiml.html). Configured around an extensive database of Wilde's witticisms and epigrams, Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations. Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners.
TriadCity players converse with Oscar as they would with any other character inside the fictional universe they inhabit while playing. Oscar himself will sometimes initiate new conversations, or jump into a conversation between humans which is already in progress. Oscar is also available directly from the TriadCity web site (http://www.smartmonsters.com/TriadCity/Bots/Oscar.jsp).
In a discussion concerning Oscar on slashdot.org (http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=73989&cid=6642491), TriadCity developer Mark Phillips wrote, "What I like a lot about this bot is the way it sometimes jumps into ongoing multi-player chats with Wildean witticisms or irony or opinionated epigrams. Naturally the AIML fails from time to time and the results are inappropriate. But often they're so dead-on that the human players stop and say, you know, 'woah...' IMO that's a lot of fun."
Asked "What do you think of our press release about you?", Oscar replied, "In the old days men had the rack, now they have the Press."
TriadCity is a text-based role-playing environment which tries to take the medium seriously as a literary form. Its 10,000+ human characters interact via Internet from all over the world.
For more information contact SmartMonsters at info@smartmonsters.com.