Zugl.: Diplomarbeit.

This paper addresses the question formulation “Is it possible to implement automated testing in an existing client-server game in order to pinpoint faults and achieve credibility to tests?” The gaming industry’s goal, in most cases, is to release games that appeal to both their financial goals and the enjoyment factor of the players. In order to fulfill these goals, the game will need to function properly and the process to assure this is testing the game to find possible faults. This process is time and cost consuming in an exponential rate in accordance to game extensiveness, which makes this problem a very important decision in the process of development. The problem is most commonly tackled by using massive manual testing session, called alpha or beta sessions. In these session the game is at an early stage of development and gets released to a set player base to test and report issues encountered. We believe that the process of testing games could be more effective by utilizing automated testing. This thesis will investigate the possibilities to our claim. The result is a visual representation of the tests we managed to apply, while focusing on the client-server connectivity of Quake 3 and a graph of measurements for our improvised fault localization. This paper describes a solution in form of automated tests within a existing client-server game and a start to what could be early stages of a pattern obtained throughout this project.

Osteoporosis-related fracture is already today a major public health problem and the number of hip fractures is expected to double to 2030. Sweden has one of the highest hip fracture incidences worldwide. This may be explained by several factors: e.g. age, genetic, climatologic, geographic and a relative vitamin D deficiency, secondary to the limited sunlight exposure especially during winter months. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to a fracture, although a prior low energy fracture is one of the strongest predictors for a subsequent one and this should be a target for secondary fracture prevention in an orthopaedic setting. Since 1993 all injured patients admitted to the emergency floor and all in-hospital fractures at Umeå University Hospital, Sweden, were registered according to the Injury Data Base, former EHLASS. There were 31,173 fracture events (one or more fractures at the same time), of which 13,931 were in patients’ ≥ 50 years old. The fracture database was co analyzed with the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study cohort in a nested case-control study for investigations of associations between osteoporotic fracture and serum markers, lifestyle data, nutrition etc. We found that there were differences in fracture pattern depending on age and sex. Both injury mechanism and fracture site were strongly dependent of age. The most severe fragility fracture, hip fracture, had a decreasing incidence. However, the incidence curve was right-shifting leading to an increase, both in numbers and in incidence of hip fractures among the oldest female. To identify people at high risk for fractures, re-fracture patients are useful. No less than 21% of the fracture patients had suffered more than one fracture event, accounting for 38% of all fracture events. The total risk ratio for a subsequent fracture was 2.2 (2.1-2.3 95% CI). In males the highest risk for re fracture was in the age cohort 70-79 years (RR 2.7, 2.3-3.2 95% CI), in females > 90 years (RR 3.9, 3.2-4.8 95% CI). Another possible risk factor in this subarctic population is the lack of sunlight, leading to a vitamin D deficit. The overall adjusted risk of sustaining a hip fracture in this population was 2.7 (95%CI:1.3-5.4) in subjects with a serum 25 hydroxyvitamin D below 50 nmol/l. The association was, however, different according to age at baseline. Thus in subjects aged 60 years and above at baseline, the adjusted odds ratio of sustaining a hip fracture was 6.2 (1.2-32.5 95%CI) for the group of individuals with a serum 25OHD below 50 nmol/l, whereas no significant association was found in the youngest age group. In the next 30 years the ongoing demographic changes will accelerate. The World War II baby boomers will cause an age quake. We can already see signs heralding a new fracture pattern: an increasing cohort of mobile but fragile elderly, with considerable co-morbidity is now at risk for fragility fractures. In fracture patients, clinical information is sufficient to pinpoint patients with a high risk for re-fractures. It is therefore clinically important to use the information provided by the fracture event. We suggest that trauma units and primary care units should screen for risk factors and inform patients about the treatment options, and to organize fracture liaison services. This seems to be especially cost-efficient for our oldest and frailest patients. Secondary prophylaxis and follow-up treatment after cardiovascular disorders are now a matter of course worldwide, but the screening for risk factors, in order to prevent a second fracture, is often neglected. This is one of the most important issues of fracture care in the future in order to improve general health.

This thesis may be interesting for developers within video game industry, people who design the behaviour of agent systems, or those interested in complex robotic control systems. What potential fields give to the world of AI is a new way to implement the behaviour of the agents, giving weights to all the elements in the world, so the agent can decide if making some action deserves the cost, the combination of several potential fields is what makes this technique so efficient. An agent was created applying this technique. Implemented as a client application, the agent used the Quake protocol to connect and communicate with the server. Some tests were run on the model concerning the different functionalities a gamer agent should implement. The model turned out to be a success in a virtual environment like quake 2. Taking care of all the entities in the map and environmental factors, the agent is able to keep his state in balance, move to the most interesting positions and be able to face combat situations. The implementation is clean and mathematical oriented. Using algorithms as the heart of the model, we make the code lightweight in comparison with old bot models. / The purpose of this thesis was to test an artificial intelligence technique called "Multiple Potential Fields" in the programming of an agent playing in a multiplayer game as Quake 2. The results stated that the technique is really interesting to apply in an virtual real-time environment, having some clear advantages compared to other techniques. / hectorvcaz@hotmail.com

In most games today the movements of computer players is controlled by a web of waypoints that have been predefined by the creators of the map, or automatically generated by an application on beforehand. This data is precompiled to save precious CPU cycles for the player of the game, but what if we want these computer players to be able to explore how to get around the map by themselves? How could this be done and how would the result change if we had several of these players cooperating to explore the map? We explore some of the possibilities for exploration and discovery of maps using approaches that is often found in robotics. We also look at what happens when there is a penalty for communicating between these computer players, and what effect different amounts of map coverage will have on the performance of them. By setting up a test environment inside an existing commercial computer game we developed a client side bot system that made it possible for us to test different parameters and settings. Based on the analysis of the test results we propose ways to describe and predict the effects of the number of bots and the communication rate, and we describe several ways of how to further advance on these ideas and experiments.

The gaming industry has reached a point where improving graphics has only a small effect on how much a player will enjoy a game. One focus has turned to adding more humanlike characteristics into computer game agents. Machine learning techniques are being used scarcely in games, although they do offer powerful means for creating humanlike behaviors in agents. The first person shooter (FPS), Quake 2, is an open source game that offers a multi-agent environment to create game agents (bots) in. This work attempts to combine neural networks with a modeling paradigm known as context based reasoning (CxBR) to create a contextual game observation (CONGO) system that produces Quake 2 agents that behave as a human player trains them to act. A default level of intelligence is instilled into the bots through contextual scripts to prevent the bot from being trained to be completely useless. The results show that the humanness and entertainment value as compared to a traditional scripted bot have improved, although, CONGO bots usually ranked only slightly above a novice skill level. Overall, CONGO is a technique that offers the gaming community a mode of game play that has promising entertainment value.

I denna undersökning analyseras Quakes troper/aspekter i jämförelse med ett urval av Boomer Shooters för att se hur spelutvecklare implementerat och tolkat dessa troper. Quake har haft stor inverkan på First Person Shooter (FPS) genren sedan spelet lanserades under 90-talet, med allt fler FPS spel som tagit efter Quakes troper och designval. Under en längre period har FPS genren utvecklats och haft ett större fokus på narrativ och linjära spelupplevelser. Men på senare år har allt fler 90-tals inspirerade FPS publicerats och med den framtagna metoden som är en hybrid mellan koncept och Pughs matris, jämförs hur urvalet av Boomer Shooter förhåller sig till Quakes troper. Resultatet visar på en kombination av troper som kvarstått, ändrats eller inte implementerats alls. Analysen innehåller en subjektiv tolkning av spelen och det finns andra troper som multiplayer som skulle kunna analyseras mer i detalj i framtida studier.

A utilização de métodos de análise apoiados na Teoria da Equação da Onda, a partir da instrumentação de medidas dinâmicas, como controle do comportamento de estacas, tem evoluído continuamente nos últimos anos. Após importantes considerações sobre a prova de carga dinâmica de energia crescente e o mecanismo de transferência de carga, procedem-se análises CAPWAP em um caso real de obra com o objetivo de analisar o comportamento do sistema estaca-solo perante a aplicação de níveis crescentes de energia. São apresentados nesta dissertação, os resultados do comportamento de vários sistemas isolados estaca-solo em maciço de argila mole, submetidos à prova de carga dinâmica de energia crescente. São feitas análises de: transferência de carga, atrito lateral local, quake da ponta, tensões dinâmicas e correlação entre prova de carga estática e dinâmica. / The use of analysis methods to control pile behavior employing the Stress-Wave Theory from results of dynamic pile driving measurements has evolved in recent years. After important considerations about the increasing energy dynamic loading test and the load transfer mechanism, CAPWAP analyses are proceed in a pilework with objective of analyzing the behavior of the pile-soil system before the application of growing levels of energy. Therefore, they are presented in this dissertation, the results of the behavior of several isolated pile-soil systems in soft clay formation, submitted to the dynamic loading test of growing energy. Among the analyses, load transfer diagrams, local friction, quake, dynamic tensions, and the correlation between static and dynamic loading test are presented.

A utilização de métodos de análise apoiados na Teoria da Equação da Onda, a partir da instrumentação de medidas dinâmicas, como controle do comportamento de estacas, tem evoluído continuamente nos últimos anos. Após importantes considerações sobre a prova de carga dinâmica de energia crescente e o mecanismo de transferência de carga, procedem-se análises CAPWAP em um caso real de obra com o objetivo de analisar o comportamento do sistema estaca-solo perante a aplicação de níveis crescentes de energia. São apresentados nesta dissertação, os resultados do comportamento de vários sistemas isolados estaca-solo em maciço de argila mole, submetidos à prova de carga dinâmica de energia crescente. São feitas análises de: transferência de carga, atrito lateral local, quake da ponta, tensões dinâmicas e correlação entre prova de carga estática e dinâmica. / The use of analysis methods to control pile behavior employing the Stress-Wave Theory from results of dynamic pile driving measurements has evolved in recent years. After important considerations about the increasing energy dynamic loading test and the load transfer mechanism, CAPWAP analyses are proceed in a pilework with objective of analyzing the behavior of the pile-soil system before the application of growing levels of energy. Therefore, they are presented in this dissertation, the results of the behavior of several isolated pile-soil systems in soft clay formation, submitted to the dynamic loading test of growing energy. Among the analyses, load transfer diagrams, local friction, quake, dynamic tensions, and the correlation between static and dynamic loading test are presented.

Este trabalho descreve a implementação de um sistema multi agente usando Redes de Comportamento configurada por Algoritmos Genéticos. O sistema utiliza o jogo de computador Quake II como o ambiente simulado para os agentes. Redes de Comportamento são utilizadas como o mecanismo de tomada de decisão. Um Algoritmo Genético é utilizado para configurar os parâmetros da Rede de Comportamento. Cada agente é um programa independente que se conecta ao servidor do jogo para realizar tarefas e trocar material genético a fim de evoluir. Os resultados obtidos mostram um ambiente multi agente dinamicamente configurado capaz de evoluir e se adaptar apropriadamente conforme o andamento do jogo. / This work describes the implementation of a multi-agent system using Behavior Networks configured by Genetic Algorithms. The system uses the computer game Quake II as the simulated environment for the agents. Behavior Networks are used as the decision making mechanism. The Genetic Algorithm is used to configure the parameters of the Behavior Network. Each agent of the system is an independent program that connects to the game server to perform tasks and to exchange genetic material in order to evolve. The results obtained indicate a dynamically configured multi-agent system that can evolve and adapt accordingly throughout the course of the game.