What does this mean? Any examples you can give? (I didn't start playing until late 2004, so I'm not sure what, exactly, you guys keep referring to when you say this.)
The old AI has several differences. One, the older AI pets are better at pathfinding than the new ones, meaning they more quickly and efficiently navigate around obstacles when following you or pursuing a victim.
Two, the older AI spellcasting pets (especially the WW) are much more aggressive in their use of spells, they cast as rapidly as Rune Beetles and often times do brutal spell "combos" (Exp+FS+Claw+Poison).
Three, they are more responsive when it comes to using spells to heal/cure themselves. My Hades will cure himself almost the very moment he gets poisoned, and he begins casting Greater Heal on himself starting at 60-80% health, where newer AI pets start healing at around 20-30%. I've seen Hades cast Greater Heal on himself up to three times in a row before, healing himself for around 100-150 health.
Overall, older AI spellcasting pets (particularly WWs) have superior spellcasting AI than newer pets do. WWs used to be able to cast AoE spells such as Mass Curse, Chain Lightning and Meteor Swarm, but the ability was removed (or locked) on them due to the fact that the spells would also hit friendly targets at the time. If a tamer was standing right behind his WW vetting it, and it cast Mass Curse/Chain Lightning/Meteor Swarm on an opponent in melee range of it, the spell would also hit the tamer, causing the WW to attack him as well. Plenty of "OoOoO"ing occured from that.
Over the years, there have been several "generations" of WWs and Nightmares created through various Publishes. My Long Mane Pure Nightmare, Apollo, was worth several mill at one point (back when that was alot), because pure Nightmares stopped spawning for years. He's old AI as well, him and Hades made for a pretty nasty team (and still do, just not against newer Peerlesses that were designed with Sampires/Greater Dragons in mind). The older generations will obey the "Drop" command, and older generation WWs will not eat gold. First gen WWs have Frost Breath, which WWs no longer spawned with after Week 2-3 of T2A, because it did too much damage on top of their already impressive spell/melee damage.
I've never seen Hades open a Gate or Recall before, although i have seen him use Frost Breath a few times. I recall Unicorns originally being able to open gates if their rider was low on health, but it was changed to poison immunity/curing because they couldn't gate from Ilshenar. Ki-Rins still do a Chain Lightning on their rider's attackers when the rider is low on health. I used to mage duel while riding a Ki-Rin on my Tamer/Mage specifically for that purpose.
