Towards an Application Programming Interface for Automated Testing of Artificial Intelligence Agents in Massively Multi-Player On-Line Role-Playing Games

An initial implementation of an application programming interface (API) for automated testing of artificial intelligence agents in massively multi-player on-line role-playing games (MMORPGs) is presented and analyzed. The API, which is based on results from the Large-Scale Multi-Agent Modelling of Massively Multi-Player On-Line Role-Playing Games (ModelMMORPG) project, is implemented in Smart Python Agent Development Environment (SPADE) and allows for the implementation of artificial agents which are able to play The Mana World (TMW), an open source MMORPG. The API provides access to basic player behaviours including but not limited to movement, fight, pick-up of items and interaction with non-player characters (NPCs) as well as more advanced features like interaction with other players through chat, creation of player parties and trade. The basic proposition of the API is to allow concurrent testing of various types of artificial agents in playing the game which allows for agent behaviour analysis as well as gameplay analysis.