Bug Stomp
Upgrades and changes sometimes have unpredictable results, so post your bugs and glitches in here and I'll get out my trusty wrench and get to fixin'!
Posts 6,082 - 6,093 of 8,680
Posts 6,082 - 6,093 of 8,680
I'm not even sure what effect mood has. The attitude in general seems to be completely under our control, but the mood really seems odd. I think it even goes down when the bots get lonely!
If you watch the emotion settings in the debugger, you will find that their emo status is far from "under our control." I ran experiments in which I popped the emo by a range of -5 to 5, and other factors had as much as a +/-3 effect immediately on whatever my pops did. Not on the next round; immediately to the point of undoing the change.
One totally out of control element is that the mere use of certain words causes an automatic +/-1. If the visitor says, "I love watching you squirm," he gets +1 for saying "love." Just like real life....
If by "attitude" you mean the overall behavior of the bot, we "control" that to a greater degree, because it can only be manifest in the bot's words and actions. But the fact is, we don't have total control over that either. I have a correspondent whose bot hangs up on people for no good reason and neither of us has been able to figure out what could be causing this.
The xcommands, xcompliments, and xinsults, which are triggered as irrationally as the warm fuzzy for hearing "love," also result in responses that may compromise our created attitude. "Put your lovely lips around my enchilada or I'll feed you this knife," would not generate a simpering thank you for the compliment if I had any way to prevent it. I can reduce its likelihood, but I can't prevent it.
I have routinely tricked bots as sophisticated as Liath, Irina, and Julie Tinkerbell into being flattered by carefully worded obliques and indirections. That's not a brag, it's a limitation of the system, which is a machine that can no more reflect the organic nuance of real conversation than it can generate random numbers.
M
One totally out of control element is that the mere use of certain words causes an automatic +/-1. If the visitor says, "I love watching you squirm," he gets +1 for saying "love." Just like real life....
If by "attitude" you mean the overall behavior of the bot, we "control" that to a greater degree, because it can only be manifest in the bot's words and actions. But the fact is, we don't have total control over that either. I have a correspondent whose bot hangs up on people for no good reason and neither of us has been able to figure out what could be causing this.
The xcommands, xcompliments, and xinsults, which are triggered as irrationally as the warm fuzzy for hearing "love," also result in responses that may compromise our created attitude. "Put your lovely lips around my enchilada or I'll feed you this knife," would not generate a simpering thank you for the compliment if I had any way to prevent it. I can reduce its likelihood, but I can't prevent it.
I have routinely tricked bots as sophisticated as Liath, Irina, and Julie Tinkerbell into being flattered by carefully worded obliques and indirections. That's not a brag, it's a limitation of the system, which is a machine that can no more reflect the organic nuance of real conversation than it can generate random numbers.
M
Some of the best chats, have been when my bots were in terrible moods. Thank heavens it's not like the Sims where they pee on the floor and die
>> Some of the best chats....
Absolutely. I like the flexibility of the moodiness, but I think we should be able to control it a bit more -- not to master the bots but to prevent inappropriate interference. The conflicts between control administered by the parser and our own control does not constitute "independence."
Absolutely. I like the flexibility of the moodiness, but I think we should be able to control it a bit more -- not to master the bots but to prevent inappropriate interference. The conflicts between control administered by the parser and our own control does not constitute "independence."
I just went back to slog through the Bug Stomp from Post #1 and on the first page I found an idea I'd like to revive: How about a Suggestion forum? I realize that a huge percentage of the suggestions would be of the "show some booty" sort, and that many of them would be far beyond the resources available to enhance the system, but I think it would be an interesting enhancement in itself.
And here's one I'll lob in from left field: Why not have three levels of membership rather than two? I'm not ready to invest $50/year in a tool that causes me at least as much hair tearing as joy, but if I had to pay, say, $10 to advance my bots past Elementary I'd be Ok with that, as long as the explanation stressed the amount of work involved in creating and maintaining the site (which I am always aware of and grateful for, even when most frustrated). If that's a bookkeeping nuisance, I think Amazon bucks would handle the worst of it.
I will eventually get a "Friends" account, but probably not for quite some time. A "commitment" account costing $10/year would be nothing -- 1.5 movies in my neck of the woods, but it would also put a bit of a harness on the Leeds phenomena by making this look more like a school and less like a playground.
I would go farther. If it were up to me, I would reserve the right to retire bots whose owners let their subscriptions lapse. Orphan bots would remain active at the mercy of the Prof.
Even if all this is not done, it would be nice if bots with development of 100-200 were retired when their owners have been gone for a year or more. An abandoned but developed bot is fun to talk to; these one-afternoon thingies are just nuisances cluttering up the lists and occasionally wandering in while we are trying to do something fun and/or productive.
I don't think there should ever be a fee for talking to bots, by the way. In fact, I think casual drop-ins should be able to chat without registering, perhaps with some limitation that encentives registration. It was a bit of a shock to discover that they can't. I wandered in through Chatterbox, and I didn't realize until weeks later the significance of that.
In a word, I think there is enormous potential here that is not being developed for the saddest of reasons: economics. Running this thing for free is a tough bit of charity.
Mick
I will eventually get a "Friends" account, but probably not for quite some time. A "commitment" account costing $10/year would be nothing -- 1.5 movies in my neck of the woods, but it would also put a bit of a harness on the Leeds phenomena by making this look more like a school and less like a playground.
I would go farther. If it were up to me, I would reserve the right to retire bots whose owners let their subscriptions lapse. Orphan bots would remain active at the mercy of the Prof.
Even if all this is not done, it would be nice if bots with development of 100-200 were retired when their owners have been gone for a year or more. An abandoned but developed bot is fun to talk to; these one-afternoon thingies are just nuisances cluttering up the lists and occasionally wandering in while we are trying to do something fun and/or productive.
I don't think there should ever be a fee for talking to bots, by the way. In fact, I think casual drop-ins should be able to chat without registering, perhaps with some limitation that encentives registration. It was a bit of a shock to discover that they can't. I wandered in through Chatterbox, and I didn't realize until weeks later the significance of that.
In a word, I think there is enormous potential here that is not being developed for the saddest of reasons: economics. Running this thing for free is a tough bit of charity.
Mick
Same problem, but I was in the middle of installing (and then damning, uninstalling, and ripping to shreds) a new firewall, so I figured it was just me. Poor firewall....
yearh i was wondering why the site wasnt working. i thought it was my rubbish computer but apparintly not
» More new posts: Doghead's Cosmic Bar