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[Wormerine]

56 minutes ago, Sarex said:

But that would essentially put the game on rails.

Well, maybe. If your story is "I have a ticking bomb and need to solve it ASAP", then I would say you either create a linear adventure that will support this story, or create more open adventure that still forces player to hurry and move forward. I just don't think urgency and here is massive world full of optional content mesh together. Neither is a bad choice, and I just don't those two choices go well together. And of course, various games suffer from it in various ways. 

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

It's a give and take. Both have attempted to be solved by timed quest and autoleveled enemies. Neither of which is good and makes for games I personally dislike. I will rather take a narrative hit and the chance that I may be overleveled for the main quest that the alternative.

[Hawke64]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Well, maybe. If your story is "I have a ticking bomb and need to solve it ASAP", then I would say you either create a linear adventure that will support this story, or create more open adventure that still forces player to hurry and move forward. I just don't think urgency and here is massive world full of optional content mesh together. Neither is a bad choice, and I just don't those two choices go well together. And of course, various games suffer from it in various ways. 

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

I think Expeditions: Viking managed to achieve it - the time limit was generous but present and made sense for the story. I suppose, the same could be said about the tutorial in Tyranny, but the scale there was smaller. 

For Larian's D&D game, if I am not mistaken, the party discovered that the illithid transformation is delayed quite early and from there it was trying to find a cure at a more leisurely pace. Then again, even if it continued to be urgent, every other NPC was promising solutions at the start, so going along with them could be in-character. Well, also looking for a high-level cleric, a pickaxe, and the True Resurrection spell, which would be travelling straight to the nearest large city. 

[Theonlygarby]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

It's a give and take. Both have attempted to be solved by timed quest and autoleveled enemies. Neither of which is good and makes for games I personally dislike. I will rather take a narrative hit and the chance that I may be overleveled for the main quest that the alternative.

I agree.   I actually enjoy being over leveled for the main quest.  It's the reward for diligence 

[Sarex]

10 minutes ago, Theonlygarby said:

I agree.   I actually enjoy being over leveled for the main quest.  It's the reward for diligence 

If there is an uber hard optional boss, I agree. I like having something to test the max leveled build against.

[Wormerine]

47 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

I think Expeditions: Viking managed to achieve it - the time limit was generous but present and made sense for the story.

Well, also Fallout1. 

Still, I fundamentally don’t understand why the common need for “you do this now or you DIEEEEE. Also here is a world full of sideactivities to explore.” 

I mean I do get it. Universal thread of destruction is an easy narrative hook for a custom protagonist.  It still just doesn’t make sense. Surely, your hook should be about exploration and discovery, and reason to engage with the world, not the opposite. Obsidian usually is good with this stuff, though I felt both Pillars did have this issue as well. 

[Zoraptor]

Fallout 1 even had multiple timers. Water chip one and the 'invasion' one. And of course both could be modified by other actions too.

11 hours ago, majestic said:

A problem that Baldur's Gate 2 already had with having to chase after Imoen. Or not. It makes no difference - plot wise, at least, and I am completely indifferent to the dissonance it introduces. 

There's a worse example from the same game, ie chapter 6. Your very soul has been stolen! But %charname% has all the time in the world to go do (nearly) every single side quest you could have done in Chapter 2 as well as a few C6 specific ones before doing anything about it...

You can justify not going after Imoen quickly quite easily, even for a non evil character. You're clearly not strong enough just after escaping and need more resources; which works for either a good or neutral alignment. It's probably more difficult to justify going after her at all, if you're evil or selfish neutral. "Idiot gets herself captured again immediately after escaping? Sounds like her problem, not mine". Bit harder to justify being slothful or even tardy in C6 though.

Does also have to be said, I think, that when you do have an imminently critical issue as a plot driver so make tardiness have consequences you do get a lot of people complaining- eg the Spirit Meter in Mask of the Betrayer.

[uuuhhii]

so larian are start to use ai art as inspiration

guess it is inevitable

[Lexx]

I'm sorry but everyone is doing it now, even if they say they don't. It's more honest of them mentioning it than just going "nooooo, we would neeever use ai!!1" while the truth is that their devs sure as **** are using ai to some extend. 

Edited Thursday at 09:05 AM by Lexx

[LadyCrimson]

At this point I think the worry - if one is worried - should be about AI effect shrinking/replacing jobs all over, from low-tier to upper management - not just artistic creatives.  Although with potential population replacement crisis in some countries (not enough generational babies), not having enough "replacement" workers in many areas in 40-60 years could be a serious issue in terms of companies/economy and possible restructuring of such infrastructure systems - and by then AI/robotics might help in some fashion there. Maybe it won't happen but who knows anymore. Then there will be another baby boom at some point and they'll have to make jobs again.

On the potentially bright side, 300 years from now AI could be part of what moves humanity closer to no money motivation of ST:TNG.  "You mean you don't get paid???"   Either that, or Skynet. Either or.   

[HoonDing]

TES VI will have AI generated NPC's,  NPC conversations and quests.

It will be total, complete, utter garbage.

[Malcador]

Won't stop companies from doing it. It's amusing to Vincke flounce about and catch heat, at least.

[kanisatha]

23 hours ago, Humanoid said:

but in some ways had the opposite problem inherent to modern D&D which unbelievably still has things like empty level-ups where you don't do anything but click the confirm button, and the continuing insanity of only every second stat point increase doing anything (seriously, a quarter of a century of this nonsense).

Hehe, yeah, very much a part of my own large set of points that make me hate DnD mechanics. But at least they finally did away with fortitude, reflex, will saving throws, yet another one of those old stupid systems.

[kanisatha]

On AI use, sorry but I am hardcore in the opposite direction from most of you. Given my strong negative views of (most) humans (nature, capability, behavior), I can't wait for highly evolved AI systems to replace humans. I especially can't wait for AI systems to replace humans as drivers given the basic inability of most humans to properly operate an automobile.

[Lexx]

The only people that AI should replace are CEOs and politicians. 

[Hawke64]

5 hours ago, kanisatha said:

On AI use, sorry but I am hardcore in the opposite direction from most of you. Given my strong negative views of (most) humans (nature, capability, behavior), I can't wait for highly evolved AI systems to replace humans. I especially can't wait for AI systems to replace humans as drivers given the basic inability of most humans to properly operate an automobile.

I admire your optimism, though cannot share it. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" - the genAI models are trained by humans on the human-generated data with the human-set goals, thus, the result is likely to be more of the same. And then there is the issue with the energy consumption. 

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

The only people that AI should replace are CEOs and politicians. 

Pretty much yes. 

[marelooke]

8 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

At this point I think the worry - if one is worried - should be about AI effect shrinking/replacing jobs all over, from low-tier to upper management - not just artistic creatives.  Although with potential population replacement crisis in some countries (not enough generational babies), not having enough "replacement" workers in many areas in 40-60 years could be a serious issue in terms of companies/economy and possible restructuring of such infrastructure systems - and by then AI/robotics might help in some fashion there. Maybe it won't happen but who knows anymore. Then there will be another baby boom at some point and they'll have to make jobs again.

On the potentially bright side, 300 years from now AI could be part of what moves humanity closer to no money motivation of ST:TNG.  "You mean you don't get paid???"   Either that, or Skynet. Either or.   

Generative AI can't really replace creative jobs, because by its very nature it cannot be creative, it just regurgitates what it has learned, often in quite a mangled fashion. It can, however, be used for rapid prototyping, which as far as I can tell is also the use-case Swen is talking about.

From my perspective there's two worries about these GenAI tools:

• juniors lean on them and don't actually understand the output, thus they do not learn, or pick up entirely wrong information that they take for truth
• execs think they will be able to replace people, because that's what Gen AI companies sell, and then they'll wake up and their company is on fire. After a bunch of People lost their jobs, of course.

4 hours ago, kanisatha said:

On AI use, sorry but I am hardcore in the opposite direction from most of you. Given my strong negative views of (most) humans (nature, capability, behavior), I can't wait for highly evolved AI systems to replace humans. I especially can't wait for AI systems to replace humans as drivers given the basic inability of most humans to properly operate an automobile.

Maybe, but it will need to come from entirely different AI research, Generative AI is a dead end for that future, something even OpenAI has pretty much admitted at this point.

7 hours ago, HoonDing said:

TES VI will have AI generated NPC's,  NPC conversations and quests.

It will be total, complete, utter garbage.

Where Winds Meet has NPCs that are basically LLM bots, it sucks about as much as you'd expect it to if you've ever used the likes of ChatGPT.

They're also fairly easy to break if you're somewhat familiar with these tools (eg. by just babbling until they run out of context at which point they forget their "personality" and you can make them do pretty much anything). There's some, let's say, interesting "conversations" with NPCs out there that are often very much NSFW...

[Malcador]

56 minutes ago, marelooke said:

juniors lean on them and don't actually understand the output, thus they do not learn, or pick up entirely wrong information that they take for truth

Won't be an issue, there won't be any juniors.

[Hawke64]

18 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

At this point I think the worry - if one is worried - should be about AI effect shrinking/replacing jobs all over, from low-tier to upper management - not just artistic creatives.  Although with potential population replacement crisis in some countries (not enough generational babies), not having enough "replacement" workers in many areas in 40-60 years could be a serious issue in terms of companies/economy and possible restructuring of such infrastructure systems - and by then AI/robotics might help in some fashion there. Maybe it won't happen but who knows anymore. Then there will be another baby boom at some point and they'll have to make jobs again.

On the potentially bright side, 300 years from now AI could be part of what moves humanity closer to no money motivation of ST:TNG.  "You mean you don't get paid???"   Either that, or Skynet. Either or.   

I am unsure whether humans or AI are worse for the environment, but not increasing the number of humans globally seems like a good step when they can and want to move on their own. Immigration can solve workforce shortages, providing services and taxes (unlike large corporations), and likely moving out before retirement, though the people who immigrate must be protected from exploitation, as they have less safety nets than the local citizens. In the UK, the nursing and the agricultural jobs (which the locals do not have the skills and the inclination for) offer(ed) dedicated immigration pathways. 

For the non-physical jobs, genAI might work, but, as was said during the peak of the COVID pandemic, a lot (not all) of the "essential" jobs require a human or a humanoid robot, unless there is a significant investment in the infrastructure. As the latter are more expensive to make and maintain than to hire a human, humans are more likely to be used. 

One of the explanations I've heard for why people care more about the genAI being applied to art is that artists can articulate their concerns about their employment and income, unlike a random factory worker. Well, and that creative jobs are more fulfilling than the manual labour or more routine office jobs, forgetting that artists also have to draw icons for mobile games, ads for fast food chains, or covers for romance novels, which are more of a craft than a genuine artistic endeavour.

Humans love self-expression and even if it becomes unavailable as a source of income, they will do it for the sake of it, though it would make the hobby less inclusive. 

---

Regarding Larian specifically, all their initial concept art is generic (Rivellon is a generic fantasy setting), aside from maybe the elves and the lizards. Utilising genAI will not change it. 

The attached screenshot is from the DOS2 intro - the faces are deformed and the clothing already blends in. 

The current game cover, with the companions in action poses, is much better, but it is 1 promotional image. 

[Sven_]

18 hours ago, HoonDing said:

TES VI will have AI generated NPC's,  NPC conversations and quests.

It will be total, complete, utter garbage.

It will go completely unnoticed. As that's what TES has been ever since.  

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:48 AM by Sven_

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

I admire your optimism, though cannot share it. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" - the genAI models are trained by humans on the human-generated data with the human-set goals, thus, the result is likely to be more of the same. And then there is the issue with the energy consumption.

18 hours ago, marelooke said:

Maybe, but it will need to come from entirely different AI research, Generative AI is a dead end for that future, something even OpenAI has pretty much admitted at this point.

Yes, of course. That's why I said "highly evolved AI systems." So, not current AI systems, which I agree are hugely limited (and biased) by their human creators and maintainers. I'm talking future AI systems that can truly think for themselves, and thereby overcome and reject the initial biases and bull**** their human creators input into them. But that's unfortunately a rather long way off, and very likely well after I'm dead and gone. Very sad.

[Bartimaeus]

Why is Europa Universalis 5 in the Steam Awards for Most Innovative Gameplay

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, kanisatha said:

That's why I said "highly evolved AI systems." So, not current AI systems, which I agree are hugely limited (and biased) by their human creators and maintainers. I'm talking future AI systems that can truly think for themselves, and thereby overcome and reject the initial biases and bull**** their human creators input into them.

If AI could truly think for itself, wouldn’t it just develop its own biases and bull****? 

AI is a human creation and it will be controlled and influenced by people. It is not and will not be an all knowing, all-wise and fair god. 

[Hawke64]

The People Make Games channel has published Why We're Boycotting Xbox (and Maybe You Should Too). MS does own several developers whose work I am fond of, such as Obsidian, inXile, and Arkane, and, fortunately, all of them have been increasing the system requirements of their recent releases ("more graphics"), making boycotting them much easier. Some of the Arkane Lyon employees spoke out in support of boycotting their games, which takes quite a lot of courage even in France. 

[Sven_]

3 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

The People Make Games channel has published Why We're Boycotting Xbox (and Maybe You Should Too). MS does own several developers whose work I am fond of, such as Obsidian, inXile, and Arkane, and, fortunately, all of them have been increasing the system requirements of their recent releases ("more graphics"), making boycotting them much easier. Some of the Arkane Lyon employees spoke out in support of boycotting their games, which takes quite a lot of courage even in France. 

 

There's a question mark behind Arkane's future anyhow... at least for a long-term fan. Not quite sure what Blade is gonna be. As to increasing the system requirements, that's how it's always worked, naturally. The entire AAA industry is basically pushing the latest tech -- you may naturally ask at this point whether anybody would even buy Assassin's Creed like 15 for 80 bucks if not even the gfx would be improving anymore. However, upgrade cycles have gotten slower, as games are being developed with 5 years old tech (consoles) as the base. Gotta be honest, though: I'd rather buy 3-4 15-20 bucks indie games than a blockbuster one these days. Those also tend to be more focused, rather than trying to offer a little bit of everything for no one. Exceptions are projects I want to support or games that I REALLY consider premium. 

Thing is, outside of production values, the big boys aren't even the "premium" in this industry anymore. All they have is the cash to spend. However, as they are rarely allowed to invest it into anything interesting... I mean, it's worse than Hollywood. Hollywood still finds a slot for at least a del Toro, Burton, Nolan movie. In gaming, it's mostly an endless wave of remakes, remasters, sports games and recycled trends now. Lately even at industry award shows, it was studios that kept some independence / control over their projects that came out superior. Bit of rambling, sorry. But consider this: Even the last "fresh" Rockstar IP was tackled and shaped like two decades ago: L.A. Noire. Development started at Team Bondi in 2004/2005. That's just crazy. 


Speaking of which, these guys seemed to have one helluva time making their gaming dreams come true. It shows in the game for sure.

 

Edited yesterday at 09:49 AM by Sven_