Hello guys! First post here!

First, I must say I have absolutely no knowledge of programming, languages and stuff. I’m an average Joe in what concerns to PC’s, I only know basic things.

So, this is my problem:
I want to build an IM/MSN Messenger basic bot that doesn’t need to answer complex stuff, in fact, I only want it to ask some multiple choice questions to a human.

My ideia is to build a game (similar to notpron.com) where people must find clues to solve riddles. One of those riddles are supposed to lead to an e-mail that the human must add to MSN Messenger, answer the 3 multiple choice questions the bot will present to them, and then, if answered correctly, the bot would unveil the next clue.

That’s all I need the bot to do. But since I don’t know how, I’m here to ask for your help.
Thanks for your attention.

Hello, Interzone, and welcome to the forums.

That sounds like a rather interesting project, but I think that using a chat bot just to ask simple questions and score answers is just a bit of overkill. Of course, if that’s the route you wish to take, there are some questions that need to be answered, so that we can determine how best to help:

1.) Will users access the bot through the IM program? If so, which one(s)?
2.) Where/how will the bot be hosted? And what scripting platform(s) is/are available?
3.) Will you have access to a database provider, or will you have to use a “flat file” form of data storage?
4.) How much “traffic” do you realistically expect your bot to generate? this will affect questions 2 and 3, as well.
5.) Will your bot deal with only the quiz questions and answers? Or will it be able to actually chat, as well?

The answers to these questions will likely give us a starting point to at least point you in the right direction.

Hi Interzone,

Welcome to the forums!

The home page (directory tabs) lists some tools to create instant chatbots (find clickable links in the righ column)

  *  AI Buddy
  * Botégo
  * BotPlatform
  * Do You Dream Up
  * Infs Intellectual Agents
  * Imified
  * MyCybertwin
  * Pandorabots
  * Personality Forge
  * Ysalaya.org
  * Zabaware

Not sure which of them support MSN Messenger and which not, but that’s easy to discover.

Hopefully this helps…

Erwin

What’s your real name btw?

@Dave: typing instanteneously

What can I say? I like to keep on top of things. That “administrator” title is something I take quite seriously, after all. And let’s not forget that I’m not just here to learn. I’m also here to help.

Dave Morton - Aug 10, 2010:

Hello, Interzone, and welcome to the forums.

That sounds like a rather interesting project, but I think that using a chat bot just to ask simple questions and score answers is just a bit of overkill. Of course, if that’s the route you wish to take, there are some questions that need to be answered, so that we can determine how best to help:

1.) Will users access the bot through the IM program? If so, which one(s)?
2.) Where/how will the bot be hosted? And what scripting platform(s) is/are available?
3.) Will you have access to a database provider, or will you have to use a “flat file” form of data storage?
4.) How much “traffic” do you realistically expect your bot to generate? this will affect questions 2 and 3, as well.
5.) Will your bot deal with only the quiz questions and answers? Or will it be able to actually chat, as well?

The answers to these questions will likely give us a starting point to at least point you in the right direction.

In my efforts to think outside the box I thought it would be cool to do something like that, but I lack the know-how. Anyway I don’t need anything too complex and time-wasting, It would be a “bit of overkill” as you’ve just said. I’m just seeking for advices.

My name is Alexandre by the way, and I’m Portuguese.

Answering to your questions:
1) I would want the bot to be accessible through Windows Live Messenger.
2) The bot’s host could be the same as the bulletin board that represents the community I’m developing this game to. The host supports java, php, etc., pretty much everything as far as I know.
3) Yes, I’ll have access to a database, If I understood the question.
4) The traffic would be generated by 20/30 people at most. The community is quite small. The host can handle it well, I think.
5) Only questions and answers. Chat could be limited to the greetings.

Also, portuguese should be the bot language.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

Erwin Van Lun - Aug 10, 2010:

Hi Interzone,

Welcome to the forums!

The home page (directory tabs) lists some tools to create instant chatbots (find clickable links in the righ column)

  *  AI Buddy
  * Botégo
  * BotPlatform
  * Do You Dream Up
  * Infs Intellectual Agents
  * Imified
  * MyCybertwin
  * Pandorabots
  * Personality Forge
  * Ysalaya.org
  * Zabaware

Not sure which of them support MSN Messenger and which not, but that’s easy to discover.

Hopefully this helps…

Erwin

What’s your real name btw?

Thanks! I’ll have a look on that!

Dave Morton - Aug 10, 2010:

What can I say? I like to keep on top of things. That “administrator” title is something I take quite seriously, after all. And let’s not forget that I’m not just here to learn. I’m also here to help.

Ok… I’ll come out with it. .. I have just become down right addicted to your site Erwin !!!

I talk my wife’s head off about AI and chatbots, and when my nephew comes over with his wife, the women sit and talk and every now and then look over at us talking for hours and just shake their heads lol . .. but I feel this site has really got together a lot of great ideas and people !

From the information you’ve provided, it’s my opinion that a chat bot would be way more than you really need. A simple PHP script can be written up in about an hour or so that could easily handle your needs. If you need someone skilled in PHP to write up the script, I’d be more than happy to assist you, but this would have to be handled privately, as certain bits of information needed to create such a script is best not made public. Right now, my schedule is moderately light, so writing up the code can be a relatively quick process. It’s up to you. One bit of caution, though. I have NO comprehension skills with Portuguese, so any test questions/answers I would use would be in English.

Victor Shulist - Aug 10, 2010:

Dave Morton - Aug 10, 2010:

What can I say? I like to keep on top of things. That “administrator” title is something I take quite seriously, after all. And let’s not forget that I’m not just here to learn. I’m also here to help.

Ok… I’ll come out with it. .. I have just become down right addicted to your site Erwin !!!

lol! That’s already public knowledge, Victor.

AGREED !!

addicted to the site… I’ve been addicted since early 2009, when we really kicked off, but since we’ve have introduced our forum it so much more fun! Thanks to you guys!!!!

Offtopic: working on a forum for animators as well. Currently speaking with all kinds of people of having a separate tab. Working title: ‘3D humans’. Even more fun!

Dave Morton - Aug 10, 2010:

From the information you’ve provided, it’s my opinion that a chat bot would be way more than you really need. A simple PHP script can be written up in about an hour or so that could easily handle your needs. If you need someone skilled in PHP to write up the script, I’d be more than happy to assist you, but this would have to be handled privately, as certain bits of information needed to create such a script is best not made public. Right now, my schedule is moderately light, so writing up the code can be a relatively quick process. It’s up to you. One bit of caution, though. I have NO comprehension skills with Portuguese, so any test questions/answers I would use would be in English.

I would be very very grateful if you did that. I don’t even know how to thank you all enough for your kind support.

Erwin, I did some research on the providers you posted, and pandorabot seemed interesting. I registered and created a test bot. It’s easy to train them and add knowledge, and I found a program that links the bot with a Live Messenger account and that’s neat! I think the only turnoff is that probably there’s no way the script could be integrated on the bot’s AIML files :/ But then again, I don’t know if it’s possible.

Erwin - yes, do the 3D humans thing.  When my bot is ready to get “a body” (right now it is simply run from the command line on my Linux box),  I will want a nice 3D avatar, so I will be looking for a real professional for that !

as for addiction… only found out about the site this year, but my addiction to AI/NLP/Chatbot research goes back 25 years.

Ok, Alexandre. I’ll get to work on the project this evening. I’ll post some preliminary code, along with a link to a test page on my development server sometime before morning (my morning, that is. ).

It seems that no sooner did I post my promise to work on the script than all heck broke out here. Not to worry, everyone here is fine, but I’m only now getting back to this, and I need to ask some questions:

1.) Will there only be the three questions? Or will there be a pool of questions that the script will pick at random?
2.) How do you want to handle folks who start the process, but leave early? Do you want them to start over, resume from where they left, or be “disqualified”?
3.) Do the questions need to be asked in a particular order, or can they be randomly asked?
4.) Do you need the script to be fully functional, right from the start, or do you have someone who can set up the database table with the questions, and supply the script with the information for connecting to the database?
5.) Since this script will be accessed from an IM program, do you need a specific output template, or just plain text?
6.) If you already have the database table set up, I’ll need to know the name of the table, along with the structure, so that I can create an identical table on my DB to do testing. (I know, not really a question, but it’s still info I need)

If the answers to any of these questions will require information that should not be made public (e.g. info for connecting to your database), I would suggest you use my Contact Page to provide me the answers. Or you can simply email me at dave(dash)morton(at)techie(dot)com - Lord, how I hate spammers who cause me to have to obfuscate my email address.