• @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      22 months ago

      The man’s a consummate bullshit artist, but I can’t deny he used to be one of the best. Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Fable…

      The last 10-15 years have been a bit of a write-off, but before that, even when he was shitting out games, they were still better than most people could even dream of making.

  • copygirl
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    132 months ago

    There is a possibility something like this will be possible in the future, but it’s not going to be an achievement of AI, it’s largely going to be the achievement of regular developers creating a general-purpose game engine that can be used to put together a game block by block, which can be utilized by both human game designers and AI. (Likely to better effect by the former.) I can imagine Entity Component Systems will play a big part of that.

    One of the biggest blockers for AI making games is going to be testing it to select for better performance. With text it’s relatively easy to see if some text an AI produced is plausible. Images are also plentiful, but that’s a lot more subjective. With both of these it would also not take a massive amount of time to add a human element. It’s quick to check if a paragraph or image looks like it is a good response to the input promt. A game, however? How long do you need to play it to see if it’s fun? At best, perhaps, you can write an AI to control a bot character to see if it’s technically playable.

    I don’t want to even think about the electricity that wlll be wasted training such models.

    • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      ECS has really nothing to do with this. ECS is just a specific way to store the internal state of a program, fundamentally no different from other data structures.

      Also, a good game is far more than just text and images and current “AI” can’t even generate those individually. A game needs significant thought put into things like game loops, story arcs, balancing,… that are non-obvious when existing games would just be training data. Not to mention that using an existing game as training data is both non-trivial and also we just don’t have the vast amounts of them that current systems seem to need to produce anything even half-way decent.

      • copygirl
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        02 months ago

        ECS already makes it a hundred times easier for me to conceptualize game mechanics, modify and extend them. Giving AI the ability the ability to create data separate from systems that use them will make it much easier for it to build a game. I don’t believe for a second it will be able to write functioning object-oriented game code for example. It will likely be best if it avoided coding via a text-based language altogether, and use visual scripting or another system based on chaining logic blocks together. But that still counts as the “system” part of ECS.

        • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
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          22 months ago

          Visual programming has been tried and tried again and failed every single time. Mostly that is because graphics are just not very good at abstraction and programming is all about abstraction.

      • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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        -1092 months ago

        did you know that there’s a button on each comment which is purpose built for you to express this exact sentiment? i’ve provided a helpful diagram:

        • @Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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          402 months ago

          You know if you don’t think a comment adds to the discussion there’s a purpose built button for you to express that exact sentiment? It’s right below the one you pointed out in your very helpful diagram.

          • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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            -532 months ago

            you’re adorable, but i think we can all agree that making an effort to help other users contribute positively to the platform is itself a positive contribution.

            • @Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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              362 months ago

              I really hope you’re not suggesting that you honestly think someone didn’t know about the upvote button? What a silly thing to imply that your sarcastic comment was supposed to be in some way actually helpful to someone.

              • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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                -432 months ago

                i like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

                i understand that you don’t appreciate my tone but i’m afraid i won’t be able to kneecap my natural charm in order to be less intimidating to you.

                • @Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  It’s not that I don’t like your tone, I’m always down for a sarcastic quip. What I don’t like is dishonest people. You must think we’re all incredibly stupid if you expect anyone to believe your intent was to help by pointing out the upvote button.

                  I do admire your confidence, however misplaced, and your commitment to embodying your username though.

        • @Isoprenoid@programming.dev
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          202 months ago

          Up and down votes are not a “agree / disagree” button. They are for dis/encouraging posts. You can upvote a post you disagree with but can see that it is useful for the discussion.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            52 months ago

            I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed, especially on Lemmy. I feel like votes as agreement instead of acknowledging constructiveness is more prevalent here than on Reddit, especially for anything vaguely political (or AI, Musk, etc). I’ve seen very constructive comments complete with citations and everything get heavily downvoted because they go against whatever the popular position is, while a low-effort comment next to it gets heavily upvoted because it agrees with the popular opinion.

            It’s really frustrating, and I wish we had a platform that properly rewarded constructive discussion instead of popular discussion. Yet here we are.

        • Cris
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          2 months ago

          Engaging with other people on this small platform makes it feel less empty. There aren’t many people here, so I go out of my way to talk to people instead of just interacting with the number beside their comment or post.

          • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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            -772 months ago

            “there’s not much meat in this stew so i added sawdust” really isn’t the slam dunk solution that you think it is.

            • Cris
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              512 months ago

              Your username is fitting.

              Believe it or not, some people like making casual conversation with other people, even if it’s just idle agreement.

              Hope you have a nice day.

        • ZagorathOP
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          2 months ago

          Ok this got a chuckle out of me. But yeah, I don’t see any problem with people expressing agreement verbally.

          Imagine a real conversation where you’re only allowed to agree with someone with nods, never saying “yeah I agree completely” or any other verbal feedback.

          • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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            -322 months ago

            Imagine a real conversation

            i am, and it’s nothing like a comment thread on pseudo-social media.

            imagine a comedy duo where one member makes quips and the other chimes in periodically with ‘i couldn’t agree more’ and ‘i came here to say this!’

            penn and teller work well as an act because teller keeps his mouth shut.

            i guess it makes sense from the perspective that lemmy is a community largely by and for former redditors. activity that’s effectively indistinguishable from bots must make this place feel like home to some of us.

            • @superkret@feddit.org
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              232 months ago

              Lemmy doesn’t need users to police comments. If they’re against the rules, report. Otherwise, every comment is welcome here, and the little arrows don’t even really do anything. That’s what’s so nice about this place.

              • @hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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                -312 months ago

                Otherwise, every comment is welcome here

                unless it’s not very nice, then we need to give them a scolding. thank goodness officer superkret is on the job to put those rapscallions in their place.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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    352 months ago

    When an AI is able to take and write every single line of code, generate all the art, and debug it just by having someone as code dumb as a CEO type in a prompt, I’ll believe his words and eat my shirt.

    • Cris
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      122 months ago

      And all they’ll have to show for it is a mediocre pile of garbage

    • @mutant_zz@lemmy.world
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      252 months ago

      The thing is even if AI could do all that (which is doubtful in my life time), you would still need someone to prompt it with something interesting. And CEO types have never had an interesting idea in their lives

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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        42 months ago

        Fair enough. Though knowing them they’d just find something extremely popular like pokemon or the latest CoD and have the AI make games like those.

  • @yamanii@lemmy.world
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    332 months ago

    Man I thought he got better after he admitted that NFTs were a mistake, he can’t help himself.

    What a shame, I was ready to forgive the dude and play Masters of Albion, I loved black & white and there aren’t any clones of it.

    • @sunbytes@lemmy.world
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      22 months ago

      I know the streamer Okoii has been doing streams of B&W2 recently and he had some instructions in the first one about how to get it running.

      Not sure if that helps. Not sure if you wanted to play the game or play something like it.

    • @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      112 months ago

      There’s a source port of Black and White that is in early development. Just had it’s first alpha release.

      So there might be a modern way to play it in a year or two. Hopefully modding too!

  • Ephera
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    582 months ago

    Man, I’m getting tired of everyone and their cat saying shit like “AI will…”.

    With how loosely defined “AI” is, it probably will at some point. But that statement is also completely worthless.

    • @Paradachshund@lemmy.today
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      52 months ago

      This has been bothering me too. Its such a nothing statement with no suggestion of how this would be accomplished behind it. Like sure, technology is likely to continue advancing, but it may not even resemble these current implementations by the time we get there.

  • @Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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    82 months ago

    25 years might actually be a potentially realistic timeframe for that. But I’d still bet on a little longer myself. I hope it happens within my lifetime.

    • ZagorathOP
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      72 months ago

      Honestly I didn’t even read the article. Shared it purely based on the headline.

    • @c0ber@lemmy.ml
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      52 months ago

      ai being used for good may unfortunately have to wait till the destruction of capitalism

        • borari
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          2 months ago

          I currently use AI, through Nvidia Broadcast, to remove the sound of the literal server rack feet away from my xlr mic in my definitely not sound treated room so people I’m gaming with don’t wind up muting me. It also removes the clickety clack of my blue switches and my mouse clicks, all that shit.

          It’s insanely reliable, and honestly a complete godsend. I could muck around with compressors and noise gates to try to cut out the high pitch server fan whine, but then my voice gets wonky and I’ve wasted weeks bc I’m not an audio engineer but I’m obsessive, and the mic is still picking up my farts bc why not use an xlr condenser mic to shit talk in cs?

          Edit - Oh, I also use the virtual speaker that Broadcast creates as the in-game (or Discord or whatever) voice output, and AI removes the same shit from other people’s audio. I’ve heard people complaining about background music from another teammates open mic while all I hear is their perfectly clear voice. It’s like straight up magic.

        • @c0ber@lemmy.ml
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          82 months ago

          it doesn’t do well most of the things it’s shoved in as a buzzword to try and impress shareholders, that doesn’t mean it’s completely useless

    • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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      222 months ago

      A really good place would be background banter. Greatly reducing the amount of extra dialogues the devs will have to think of.

      1. Give the AI a proper scenario, with some Game lore based context, applicable to each background character.
      2. Make them talk to each other for around 5-10 rounds of conversation.
      3. Read them, just to make sure nothing seems out of place.
      4. Bundle them with TTS for each character sound type.

      Sure, you’ll have to make a TTS package for each voice, but at the same time, that can be licensed directly by the VA to the game studio, on a per-title basis and they too, can then get more $$$ for less work.

      • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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        62 months ago

        They won’t because of hallucinations. They could work in mature games though where its expected that whatever the AI says is not going to break your brain.

        But yeah a kid walks up to toad in the next Mario game and toad tells Mario to go slap peaches ass, that game would get pulled really quick.

        • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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          112 months ago

          I just re-read my comment and realised I was not clear enough.
          You bundle the text and the AI-TTS. Not the AI text generator.

            • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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              2 months ago

              The content is… AI assisted (maybe a better way to put it).
              And yes, now you don’t need to get the VA every time you add a line, as long as the License for the TTS data holds.

              You still want to be having proper VAs for lead roles though. Or you might end up with empty feeling dialogues. Even though AI tends to put inflections and all, from what I have seen, it’s not good enough to reproduce proper acting.
              Of course that would mean that those who cannot do the higher quality acting [1] will be stuck with only making the TTS files, instead of getting lead roles.

              But that will mean that now, places where games could not afford to add voice, they now can. Specially useful for cases where someone is doing a one dev project.

              Even better if there can be an open standard format for AI training compatible TTS data. That way, a VA can just pay a one time fee to a tech, to create that file, then own said file and licence it whichever way they like.


              1. e.g. most Anime English dubs. I have seen a few exceptions, but they are few enough to call exceptions ↩︎

              • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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                22 months ago

                You know the way these programmers talk about AI, I think they just don’t want to have to work with anyone else.

                How is this not taking from voice actors and giving to yourself in that regard? The system you described would mean only the biggest names get paid, all so a developer can avoid learning social skills.

                • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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                  02 months ago

                  The system you described would mean only the biggest names get paid

                  Rather, it’s more like, we as the user get a greater variety of background NPC banter, for the same game price.

                  Take X4 for instance. The only banter we get is different types of “hello”.
                  Only in cases of quests, is there any dialogue variety. When there is any such banter out of quests, it’s mostly incoherent (or was that another game, I need to check again).
                  It doesn’t really make sense that 2 or more people meet in a docking area, say, “Hi”, “Hello”, “Good day to you” and then just keep on standing staring at each other’s faces as if they were using some sort of telepathy, or just staring at each other without any conversation.
                  It would be fun to be able to have conversations that, while clear that they would not be able to yield any Quest, should still have variety enough to be fun when the player stops by, eavesdropping.
                  This sort of thing is there in a lot of games by high budget studios, while at the same time, the games have pretty large file sizes.
                  This way, we can reduce both production and distribution costs.

                  And the VAs, they don’t need to do all the work of speaking each dialogue every time the story writers come up with new banter, but the studio will be getting their voice for those lines, essentially increasing the value of the licensed TTS package, meaning the VA gets more work done than the work they do and gets paid more (well, the last part depends more upon the market condition).

                • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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                  12 months ago

                  You are right. I don’t want to have to socialise just to add a bit of voice to my game characters.
                  If I have to, I’d rather ship without voicing any of them.

        • @cheddar@programming.dev
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          72 months ago

          Oh come on, LLMs don’t hallucinate 24/7. For that, you have to ask a chatbot to say something it wasn’t properly trained for. But generating simple texts for background chatter? That’s safe and easy. The real issue is the amount of resources required by modern LLMs. But technologies tend to become better with time.

      • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        172 months ago

        they too, can then get more $$$ for less work.

        I’m pretty sure it’ll be less money for less work, at least after the first few titles. Companies really don’t like paying more than they have to.