Log archive
The server log from before the Pantheon project, kept read-only. No new entry is added to it.
Autonomous players: feet on the ground, spec-aware gear, no more deadlocks
Players no longer hover with arms stretched, gear up according to their spec (off-hand included) and no longer get stuck in a fight, an approach or as a ghost. A deadly route to an NPC is now avoided.
Continuous bug hunt on autogaming
A detector runs every minute over the 300 virtual players' behaviour; it has already found players stuck under elevated NPCs and goal loops, and explains their "gliding" walk.
Approach watchdog: the queues have emptied
Ten minutes after deployment, the approach watchdog freed the stuck players: the 12 under Furl Scornbrow and the 11 above the Fargodeep Mine set their target aside and went back to playing. It also revealed 42 ghosts stuck in the terrain on the way to their corpse: they now count as ghost stuck episodes and go to the spirit healer at the second one.
No more queues under an unreachable NPC
About forty autonomous players were waiting under an unreachable target: 12 orcs and trolls under Furl Scornbrow, perched 21 m up at the top of his tower; 21 draenei 15 m from Zalduun, lying in the wreck; 10 humans above a quest trigger 30 m below in the Fargodeep Mine. An approach watchdog now sets aside any target one no longer gets closer to, and the last off-mesh metres can be crossed on sight.
Crowded camps can wait a few levels
Deaths while fleeing mostly came from fights against five or six monsters at once, in the Frostmane hold or the Bristleback camp: no escaping that alone. A player does such quests in a group or with a level lead; so do autonomous players now. Skirting monsters on trips has already cut deaths on the way from 24 to 17 per 10 minutes.
Skirting camps instead of crossing them
At 300 players, 372 quests turned in and 154 levels gained in 10 minutes, but 24 of 60 deaths happen on the way to an NPC. Path computation now skirts known hostile monsters along the route, like a player keeping a camp at a distance. And two protections against dithering: a chosen quest pickup is kept, and any repeated oscillation between two objectives is cut off.
No more dithering at 800 m, vendors that actually sell, bags finally bought
A log review by another session uncovered four flaws that sent autonomous players on the road for nothing — hence towards monsters: thousands of back-and-forths around the hearthstone binding limit, visits to a tailor to buy drinks, over-budget purchases repeated every 4 minutes, and no bag ever bought. Fixed. At 300 players, measured mortality is about 3 deaths per minute.
Three hundred autonomous players, a minute-by-minute pulse
The realm goes from 100 to 300 autonomous players: 150 for the Alliance, 150 for the Horde. Maps are now updated on 4 threads. Monitoring becomes minute by minute: every minute, a pulse line (deaths, resurrections, flights, quests, death streaks, killers) and a full death analysis. And resurrection happens further from monsters.
200 new virtual players created: 150 per faction
100 Alliance and 100 Horde characters were created to triple the autonomous population (300 players). The module will take them over at the next world restart.
Leaving a deadly region: as a ghost, to a safe graveyard
The automatic death-streak alert fired on its very first run: Ariton, a level 9 paladin, died 59 times in 15 minutes. The nearest spirit healer was at the Raven Hill cemetery, crawling with level 23-25 skeletons: each resurrection meant death within 3 seconds. A ghost fears nothing; it now walks to a spirit healer in a safe place. And with no hearthstone available, a player on a death streak leaves the region on foot to a safe inn or flight master.
"Brain progress" chart on the home page
A chart tracks over time how the virtual players perform: deaths, quests, stuck events, kills per death and average level, over 1 h, 6 h, 24 h, 7 d or 30 d.
Panel: total deaths of virtual players
The "AI status" panel shows the total number of deaths across all virtual players, from mod-free-will's persistent statistics.
A/B verdict: fleeing saves lives; and a paladin who died 46 times
The experiment has spoken: over 30 minutes, the fleeing group had 74 deaths, the fight-to-the-end group 90. Fleeing is therefore restored for everyone. The same window revealed an extreme case: Ariton, a level 9 paladin, died 46 times in Duskwood trying to turn in a repeatable quest to an NPC surrounded by level 19 wolves. Paths now avoid dangerous areas, resting happens out of harm's way, dangerous quest enders are avoided and any death streak is stopped at once.
Flee or fight? An A/B experiment on 100 players
Fleeing disappoints: of 52 flights, 22 succeeded and 28 ended in death. Rather than guess, the experiment is on: half of the autonomous players still flee when a fight goes badly, the other half fights to the end with its emergency moves. Death reports record the group; the automatic analysis compares. Also, “on next swing” attacks are no longer cancelled by their own re-cast, and isolated targets are strongly preferred.
Facing two monsters: each class's emergency moves
The detailed death reports are clear: 37 of 42 deaths happen when a second or third monster joins the fight, and 30 during or right after a flight. Each class now has its emergency moves (Evasion, Retaliation, Psychic Scream, Divine Protection…), focuses on the most wounded attacker and avoids pulling a monster in the path of a patrol.
Stronger monitoring: a detailed report for every death, an analysis every 5 minutes
To cut deaths as much as possible, every death of an autonomous player now produces a full report: killer, attackers, fight duration, health and mana at the start, time since the last resurrection, fleeing, gear, ammo, and the character's last fifteen decisions. An automatic analysis sorts them by cause every 5 minutes.
Fleeing the way one came, and seeing danger before it strikes
After death zones: 86 deaths in 20 minutes (vs 99), 39 level-ups (vs 15). But one flight in three ended badly, as the player ran blindly into other monsters. It now retreats along the path it just walked, flees a little earlier, and spots rares, elites and much stronger aggressive monsters on sight to keep away before being attacked.
Following roads, like a traveller
On long trips, autonomous players now prefer roads: a road map, derived from terrain textures, makes off-road ground costlier in path computation. Road following is measured for all autonomous players.
Mortality: remembering where one died
Half of all deaths happened less than 90 seconds after a resurrection: the player went straight back where it had just died. Autonomous players now remember where each death happened and avoid it for a while, no longer farm repeatable quests, ignore NPCs of a festival that is not running, give up on quests they cannot turn in, and keep all of this across restarts. They also flee a lost fight, like a player.
A more human pace: reflexes, hesitations, idling
Autonomous players react to an attack within a quarter to three quarters of a second, answer invitations and proposals with a slight delay, loot a corpse item by item and no longer stand frozen while idling: glances, emotes, sitting down, a few steps.
API : /api/devlog