I’m not sure how I feel about AI chatbots as NPCs. On one hand, it does add near infinite dialogue options and flexibility to adapt to what a player does. That’s super cool and immersive.
On the other hand, it feels so damn lazy. Like I want to play games with dialogue/story as an art form, not as a “how much time can I spend here”
I’m playing Where Winds Meet and imo the chatbots are one of the weakest points of the game. You are told it’s a bot, it feels like one, and as there is still a rigid game around this interaction, it’s essentially just a weird romancing minigame. The only reason I engage with this system is because it can be easily cheated. Nothing of value would be lost if this feature was entirely cut from the game.
I think it’s pretty cool. The game does have a lot of pre-written dialogue as well, so it’s just an additional interaction you can have with NPCs. It also does require a detailed backstory, motivations, personality etc to be written for each NPC you can chat with, so I wouldn’t exactly call it lazy.
you can build systems that allow freely chatting but will always stay in character. it just requires making your own training data, and training your own model. which nobody seems willing to do. mostly because it’s not feasible without bethesda-levels of dialogue.
I’m not sure how I feel about AI chatbots as NPCs. On one hand, it does add near infinite dialogue options and flexibility to adapt to what a player does. That’s super cool and immersive.
On the other hand, it feels so damn lazy. Like I want to play games with dialogue/story as an art form, not as a “how much time can I spend here”
I’m playing Where Winds Meet and imo the chatbots are one of the weakest points of the game. You are told it’s a bot, it feels like one, and as there is still a rigid game around this interaction, it’s essentially just a weird romancing minigame. The only reason I engage with this system is because it can be easily cheated. Nothing of value would be lost if this feature was entirely cut from the game.
I think it’s pretty cool. The game does have a lot of pre-written dialogue as well, so it’s just an additional interaction you can have with NPCs. It also does require a detailed backstory, motivations, personality etc to be written for each NPC you can chat with, so I wouldn’t exactly call it lazy.
you can build systems that allow freely chatting but will always stay in character. it just requires making your own training data, and training your own model. which nobody seems willing to do. mostly because it’s not feasible without bethesda-levels of dialogue.