I’m co-chairing a workshop on Agents for Games and Simulation at Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) 2010 in Toronto this May. The Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) community has spent years thinking about decentralized communication and cooperation between agents, and has recently taken an interest in applying their research to games. However, they acknowledge that their existing approaches may not currently be practical for commercial games, and may be a hindrance for designers. This workshop will bring together Game AI and MAS researchers and developers, to work toward viable solutions.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Agents for Games and Simulations
Workshop@AAMAS 2010
May 10-11, 2010, Toronto, Canada
http://people.cs.uu.nl/dignum/AGS10/
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Important dates:
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Deadline for submissions: 2 February 2010
Notification of acceptance: 2 March 2010
Camera-ready copy of papers: 15 March 2010
Workshop: 10 or 11May 2010
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Research in Multi-Agent Systems offers promising technologies to implement non-playing characters embodying more realistic cognitive models. However, the technologies used in today's game engines and multi-agent platforms are not readily compatible due to some differences in their major concerns. For example, where game engines focus on real-time aspects that prioritize efficiency and central control, multi-agent platforms privilege agent autonomy instead. And while multi-agent platforms typically offer sophisticated communication capabilities, these may not be usable, or even appropriate, when the agents are coupled to a game. So, although increased autonomy and intelligence may offer benefits for a more compelling game play—and may even be essential for serious games—it is not clear whether current multi agent platforms offer the means that are needed to accomplish this. Indeed, when current approaches to game design are used to incorporate state of the art Multi-Agent System technology, the autonomy and intelligence of the agents might even be seen more as a hindrance than an asset. A very similar argument can be given for approaches based on agent-based (social) simulations.
In this workshop we want to bring people together that address the particular challenges of using agent technology for games and simulations.
Just like last year the workshop will have three main themes:
Of course we also welcome any papers about experiences on the use of agents in games and simulations. This can be applications where agents are replacing persons in training situations, where agents function as virtual tutors or in any other way enhance the game play. We also would like to invite explicitly contributions that describe the use of agents with rich cognitive models in simulations. Both success as well as "failures" are welcome as they both can help us better understand what are the key issues in combining agents with game and simulation engines.
To have look on what kind of papers were presented last year have a look at: http://people.cs.uu.nl/dignum/AGS09/
The proceedings of that workshop are available from Springer LNAI-5920 Agents for Games and Simulations.
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Formatting guidelines:
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We encourage participants to submit a paper (15 pages max), describing their work on one or more of the topics mentioned above. All non-presenting participants will need to submit a one-page position statement which presents their view on agents for games and simulations relative to (one of) the workshop topics.
All submissions must include the author's name(s), affiliation, complete mailing address, phone number, fax number and email address. Please use the LNCS format for formatting your paper.
All accepted submissions and position statements will be published in the workshop proceedings.
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Submission procedure:
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Submissions should be submitted through the EasyChair system at https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=ags2010
PostScript or PDF format.
The deadline for receipt of submissions is February, 02, 2010. Papers received after this date will not be reviewed.
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Organizing Committee
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Frank Dignum, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Jeff Bradshaw, IHMC, Florida, USA
Jeff Orkin, MIT, USA
Annerieke Heuvelink, TNO, The Netherlands
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Program Committee:
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Elisabeth Andre (DFKI, Germany)
Ruth Aylett (Heriot-Watt University, UK)
Andre Campos (UFRN, Brazil)
Bill Clancey (NASA, USA)
Rosaria Conte (ISTC-CNR, Italy)
Vincent Corruble (LIP6, France)
Yves Demazeau (CNRS-LIG, Grenoble)
Virginia Dignum (Technical University Delft, The Netherlands)
Alexis Drogoul (LIP6, France)
Bruce Edmonds (MMU, UK)
Corinna Elsenbroich (University of Surrey, UK)
Klaus Fischer (DFKI, Germany)
Hiromitsu Hattori (Kyoto University, Japan)
Koen Hindriks (Delft University, The Netherlands)
Wander Jager (Groningen University, The Netherlands)
Stefan Kopp (University of Bielefeld, Germany)
Mike van Lent (SOAR technology, USA)
Michael Lewis (University of Pittsburg, USA)
Stacy Marsella (USC, USA)
Scott Moss (MMU, UK)
Hector Munoz-Avila (Lehigh university, Bethlehem, USA)
Emma Norling (MMU UK)
Anton Nijholt (UT, The Netherlands)
Ana Paiva (IST, Portugal)
Michal Pechoucek (CTU, Czechia)
David Pynadath (USC, USA)
Geber Ramalho (Brazil)
Gopal Ramchurn (University of Southampton, UK)
Avi Rosenfeld (JCT, Israel)
David Sarne (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Pjotr van Schothorst (VSTEP, The Netherlands)
Maarten Sierhuis (NASA, USA)
Pieter Spronck (Tilburg University, The Netherlands)
Katia Sycara (CMU, USA)
Duane Szafron (U of Alberta, Canada)
Max Tsvetovat (George Mason University, USA)