4 ms·

Well, the holy grail in games for AI will always be ... AI. Like, actually really pseudo intelligent companions you can converse with. Not gonna happen in the

by ffsm8 2y ago

Well, the holy grail in games for AI will always be ... AI. Like, actually really pseudo intelligent companions you can converse with. Not gonna happen in the foreseeable future, and the job markets are gonna be... Well... essentially gone once that exist, so it's probably for the best that this tech isn't actually anywhere close to AGI

fhd2 2y ago
Didn't downvote you (and not sure why anyone would), but I still disagree: Aren't games ultimately all about interacting with other people? It's already possible to play with actual other people, and quite popular too. Sure, those guys might not be very in-character or prioritise you having fun over them, but there's genuine intelligent interaction. The other way in which games make us interact with other humans is by experiencing things designed by them. Story, dialogues, game design, atmosphere etc. I think we might see more ad-hoc generated world/story, but I think many people would want to experience the _same_ game, in some way, being social animals. I'm not sure if and in what way generative AI or even AGI is going to disrupt the game industry. I can certainly picture the jobs of many people changing, from artists to voice actors. But I'm not sure I see a holy gray here. Lots of interesting novelties that I'm sure will be tried, but not really a fundamental change to why we play games and consequently, what games are like.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  There are plenty of games where the main feature is emergent gameplay resulting from a world simulator and the interplay of basic or complex rules. Dwarf Fortress is the OG here but also Sim City and Elite. Single player experiences are a huge segment and these will get better with LLM integration for world building and NPC agents. Fine tuned or custom models that operate on some basic state and rules could also be explored. You could train BERT family models to choose interesting state changes or actions based on the current game state for simple things like a dog NPC that would seem more intelligent by choosing the next action it should take e.g. deciding to chase a squirrel or growl at a new NPC you encountered based on its awareness of the context rather than following some rule system plus RNG. You could get rid of a lot of the stupid seeming game AI behaviour.
  - fhd2 2y ago
    True, though in my mind I put these things into my "lots of interesting novelties" category. Everything in games (including the physics engine!) is typically fine-tuned to provide fun, more than realism. The same is currently true for AI (especially enemy AI), and I believe it'll continue to be that way. Good point on the procedural aspect, Minecraft and similar games came to mind when I wrote my first post. I'd argue they are still fundamentally a designed, shareable experience, and that's my main point really. In Minecraft, you can't talk about the world much with someone else since it's generated, but the mechanics, materials, recipes etc. are the same, and provide exchange between humans playing the same game. I believe we'll even see some successful AI heavy games in the near future, but I also believe we'll cycle back to games being, first and foremost, designed upfront. I might be wrong of course and we might see some kind of holodeck 100% custom game experience become dominant. It's just my hunch that we won't, even if it's feasible. Thinking as far back as I can, people always seem to have wanted two things from games: Fun, and connection to other people.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
MonortYp 2y ago
I’d love to see a real improvement in games where the NPCs think further than a few if statements. If AI could track context of conversations and include player actions such as quests, relationships, deaths etc to influence decisions or outcomes it would add lots of enjoyment for me. For me it’s either Stardew Valley or Paradox type games for my single player itch or in the past I’ve ventured off to MMORPGs like Eve or Wurm and play in “single player” mode. MMORPGs have a greater sense of world change as players can carve mountains and build estates while slaying champions and such in Wurm online and you can stick to your plot of land and have nothing to do with it while enjoying the benefits. This doesn’t exist in single player games but it could and should. Although I don’t agree AI will be taking jobs but it will just be another tool used in the industry. We need to embrace change and use these new tools to make better content and not just assume jobs will be lost.
- astrange 2y ago
  > If AI could track context of conversations and include player actions such as quests, relationships, deaths etc to influence decisions or outcomes it would add lots of enjoyment for me. From what people say about them Bethesda games try to do this, but it seems like the result is they're impossibly buggy because noone can test all of that. Undertale is low tech, but does track player deaths and use them in the story.
dartos 2y ago
It depends on the game. That’d be great for an RPG game, but if I’m playing a action adventure game or a style fighter, I generally care about how cool it looks and how smooth it plays than I do about the intelligence of the side characters.

by ffsm8 2y ago

fhd2 2y ago

Didn't downvote you (and not sure why anyone would), but I still disagree: Aren't games ultimately all about interacting with other people? It's already possible to play with actual other people, and quite popular too. Sure, those guys might not be very in-character or prioritise you having fun over them, but there's genuine intelligent interaction. The other way in which games make us interact with other humans is by experiencing things designed by them. Story, dialogues, game design, atmosphere etc. I think we might see more ad-hoc generated world/story, but I think many people would want to experience the _same_ game, in some way, being social animals. I'm not sure if and in what way generative AI or even AGI is going to disrupt the game industry. I can certainly picture the jobs of many people changing, from artists to voice actors. But I'm not sure I see a holy gray here. Lots of interesting novelties that I'm sure will be tried, but not really a fundamental change to why we play games and consequently, what games are like.

throwthrowuknow 2y ago
There are plenty of games where the main feature is emergent gameplay resulting from a world simulator and the interplay of basic or complex rules. Dwarf Fortress is the OG here but also Sim City and Elite. Single player experiences are a huge segment and these will get better with LLM integration for world building and NPC agents. Fine tuned or custom models that operate on some basic state and rules could also be explored. You could train BERT family models to choose interesting state changes or actions based on the current game state for simple things like a dog NPC that would seem more intelligent by choosing the next action it should take e.g. deciding to chase a squirrel or growl at a new NPC you encountered based on its awareness of the context rather than following some rule system plus RNG. You could get rid of a lot of the stupid seeming game AI behaviour.
- fhd2 2y ago
  True, though in my mind I put these things into my "lots of interesting novelties" category. Everything in games (including the physics engine!) is typically fine-tuned to provide fun, more than realism. The same is currently true for AI (especially enemy AI), and I believe it'll continue to be that way. Good point on the procedural aspect, Minecraft and similar games came to mind when I wrote my first post. I'd argue they are still fundamentally a designed, shareable experience, and that's my main point really. In Minecraft, you can't talk about the world much with someone else since it's generated, but the mechanics, materials, recipes etc. are the same, and provide exchange between humans playing the same game. I believe we'll even see some successful AI heavy games in the near future, but I also believe we'll cycle back to games being, first and foremost, designed upfront. I might be wrong of course and we might see some kind of holodeck 100% custom game experience become dominant. It's just my hunch that we won't, even if it's feasible. Thinking as far back as I can, people always seem to have wanted two things from games: Fun, and connection to other people.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

MonortYp 2y ago

I’d love to see a real improvement in games where the NPCs think further than a few if statements. If AI could track context of conversations and include player actions such as quests, relationships, deaths etc to influence decisions or outcomes it would add lots of enjoyment for me. For me it’s either Stardew Valley or Paradox type games for my single player itch or in the past I’ve ventured off to MMORPGs like Eve or Wurm and play in “single player” mode. MMORPGs have a greater sense of world change as players can carve mountains and build estates while slaying champions and such in Wurm online and you can stick to your plot of land and have nothing to do with it while enjoying the benefits. This doesn’t exist in single player games but it could and should. Although I don’t agree AI will be taking jobs but it will just be another tool used in the industry. We need to embrace change and use these new tools to make better content and not just assume jobs will be lost.

astrange 2y ago
> If AI could track context of conversations and include player actions such as quests, relationships, deaths etc to influence decisions or outcomes it would add lots of enjoyment for me. From what people say about them Bethesda games try to do this, but it seems like the result is they're impossibly buggy because noone can test all of that. Undertale is low tech, but does track player deaths and use them in the story.

dartos 2y ago

It depends on the game. That’d be great for an RPG game, but if I’m playing a action adventure game or a style fighter, I generally care about how cool it looks and how smooth it plays than I do about the intelligence of the side characters.