Depending on how it’s done, it could make the game better or worse, just like any other tool. I imagine there will be a lot of growing pains as devs figure out what works and what doesn’t.
this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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I could see an mmo using it for small random side quest generation where any npc could give you a quest tailored to the character. That kind of stuff would go along way to make big open worlds more “living”
Does that need an AI or just a well adjusted automated generation?
It's the same thing. AI is not some magic pixie dust.
ML models 'learn' by generating non-human-readable arrays of weights, that's a little pixie-dusty. But it's use there is narrow, in a supporting role. My comment was about the core 'making radiant quests feel tailored to you' thing. It woulf still be a set of tables with fillable blanks, it's structure and content decided by humans with a little random or maybe AI-gen content dropped here and there to add variety. Otherwise it won't communicate the resulting quest to the system.
As a developer (not of games, but still), I would actually be interested in a tool that can generate simple code snippets for me to correct and assemble into a more complex system. But yeah, as you said, there will be growing pains as everyone figures out the optimal use cases for AI in development
"Developers hate it". No they fucking don't. I know plenty of game devs saving a shit ton of time with AI.
It could be interesting for procedurally generated games. Imagine a world with no fixed map, settlements where every person is completely unique and will talk to you about any subject you want to talk to them about (instead of the same canned phrase or two), a completely different roster of baddies to fight every time, maybe even the storyline itself never plays the same each time, or the style of play changes from game to game. I'm hopeful we'll start to see some truly unique games with AI helping out, though I'm guessing we'll get a mountain of shovelware that just uses AI to generate shitty non-sensical art assets and meaningless dialogue.
Have you played/seen Vaudeville? It's a detective game where every character had their own LLM and TTS trained for a specific personality.
It's super janky and I never finished it because I kept getting conflicting info from characters but....it's a really great use case for it. The massive caveat being that it requires an Internet connection.
The massive caveat being that it requires an Internet connection.
Like literally every game released in the last decade
I had two replies in my inbox. One was yours and the other was about people unnecessarily adding "literally" to their statements lol
Ive been playing games all week in offline mode. In fact I prefer it so it stops updates breaking my mods. Come at me.
How can you do that when they said LITERALLY every game?!
AI-generated maps and NPCs might be ok. Ditto fights, though there would have to be playtesters whose job it is to make sure the result is something winnable and acceptably fair.
The main issue there would be that there IS no continual certainty of that. You'd have to either be able to rerolled entire encounters — which would be jarring — or force the AI to DM what happens when you lose an impossible battle — far more rewarding, provided it doesn't keep doing it. But it may keep doing it. This would be impossible to ever test adequately. Every game on the market may be a hard mode Bethesda game.
I personally really don't think I'd enjoy something with a randomly generated cast/main story for the same reason I wouldn't be interested in owning one singular book whose writing changes every time you read it. I don't play to kill time; I play for the stories and I get attached like hell to the good ones. I replay them ad nauseam because I miss the characters.
I think it would be an intensely entertaining idea either as a New Game+ or for those games to have a wildcard setting that you could turn on and off. That way, there's no lack of devs who get to tell the tale they wanted and players can mix it up when they're bored. Otherwise, you've downgraded the job of the entire company to filling the AI in on background lore and nothing else.
Other aspects:
• for those that do get attached and wanna re-experience it, you'd need a way to save the information behind the game you just played. That file might be fairly gigantic?
• Would also lead to a weird market for other peoples' saves. The way modders already make quests, but for an entire plot.
• NPCs and party members that all look like randomized sims.
Ideally AI could be used to reduce the amount of work required to produce AAA assets, and allow that time to go back into quest design and world building. Or just reduce development time so we can get great games more often.
Yeah, another tool like licensing a game engine or procedurally generated content. It will still require a lot of review and revision, custom work to overcome edge cases, and direction to meet your goals.
What AAA studio managers hear:
"So you mean I only need two devs now to do the work of 10? Sounds great!"
"And no, we're not going to lower the price of our games."
AI can be a great tool if used properly to enhance human work but companies seem hell-bent to instead have just AI do all the work, cutting human beings out completely and "saving costs". Recipe for disaster.
The wording of this is so stupid for a lot of reasons. Specifically with how ambiguous "AI" is. The ghosts in pacman are AI.
If they're talking about generating code bases, that's just not going to happen.
If they mean LLMs being used by programmers in code editors as a useful tool, like GitHub Copilot, then that's awesome and an increase in productivity.
Artists can use generative AI art for quick textures like repeating grass textures. An AI will not be able to match an art style or theme, it has a limited scope and can't be hand crafted like what's required in game with poly budgets.
Devs obviously love better tools. These save time and increase productivity.
I think you're on the money, but I have to disagree with one point: AI will absolutely be able to match an existing art style, if not now then very soon.
I like the idea of using it to give NPC's intelligent things to say.
"There are no countries in Africa that start with the letter K."
Together we can stop this
Not yet.
People are a bit optimistic about how it could be used, it's still a bit dumb. In all likelihood it's likely to be used in asset creation since that's one of the pricier aspects of game design, automating and replacing the more grunt work stuff. Not design so much as textures, object modeling, etc., which are already easy to do via AI (and easy to train, avoiding lawsuits by keeping things in house). That'll displace "artists" although texture creation is a bit of a slog anyway.
Should people be worried about writers? Maybe, but I'm not-- at least not yet. AI can create filler, but it's story writing is abysmal. You'll still need a creative behind the curtain to build the world, subvert tropes, and so on. AI can assist but if it's better than you on writing, you really shouldn't be a writer.
To use an example from when ChatGPT became mainstream, a certain scifi serial magazine had to close submissions because they were bombarded with cheap and fast short story submissions. According to the editors, these stories were some of the worst they've ever seen. I forget the name of the magazine, but I thought it was pretty funny since I was playing with the tool and couldn't agree more.
None the less, it's probably for the best. I hate making assets, and my wife used to do translation and that's really boring and under paid. A lot of game design is incredibly boring and laying off people making those things is probably in their best interest, those jobs suck. Main downside is the business class of the industry will pocket the profits instead of reinvesting in their products or reducing prices.
A lot of game design is incredibly boring and laying off people making those things is probably in their best interest
People need to pay rent. The fuck is this.
Ideally, yeah, AI should be used to automate boring grunt work and enable more people to engage in something creative. Maybe those jobs in the future can transform into something like managing AI's output and fixing unique edge cases, where human input is still required.
Yes exactly! And ideally in the short term we can minimize the damages that charges like that make. I've seen places where factory jobs left, and it's not great without some intervention.
I'd love basic income but... not optimistic, but we can always dream.
Even if the dream isn't going to be realized fully, it's still useful to have a direction to move in