Has anyone programmed a Diablo that plays itself?

[Ebon]

Has anyone made an engine that plays Diablo without user's input, from start to finish (i.e. a bot)? I don't mean cheating, and I don't mean occasional botting where stuff like Laz Runs are repeated until success occurs. I mean a full computer-controlled Diablo gameplay. I'm asking since the decisions a player must have in Diablo are very simple, at least on Normal difficulty, that a computer can take them itself:
- move forward slowly, to attract few enemies
- click on object (including monster)
- try to evade projectiles
- retreat towards choke point and wait there.

The town business may be a bit more challenging, but might boil down to an optimization problem where the player must sell some objects and buy the best ones available.

It would not be very easy to bot it, since there's no access to the source code, so the engine would probably have to "see" Diablo on the display and mine data.

[Galbraith]

What would be use of that?

[Ebon]

What would be use of that?

What use would it be? Well, to see how much the computer can do autonomously, and to prove that Diablo can be solved this way! And sure enough, there are the challenges of deciding which spells to cast (if a wizard) or which inventory items to use.

[qualakon]

Another use could be to create something mechanics like mercenaries or pets, different summons and harder bosses that could interact with players differently depending on which class or how they're specced, if thinking about the gameplay elements one could use from the AI that would be necessary to complete some of OP's tasks.

[duner]

Great. Now I dream about the ideia of having a dedicated computer streaming a non-stop (or almost) Diablo match in my house.
Nice.