Was Will Smith cool before that? The last movie I saw with him is that one movie where he co-stared with himself and the one before that was after earth.
I guess the one with the tennis was ok? His involvement was hardly a stamp of quality before the slap.
He had put out a long line of duds, but was still considered an accomplished actor. King Richard is probably an outlier as a critically acclaimed role for him, but even after a decade of mostly crap he’s still been getting the work.
Given the response from Chris Rock to the slap, that might all be over though. He’s still busy as a producer on Bel Air, which has been…okay? That might be his next move in his career.
I know Lemmy hates it, but I really think AI could play a core part in the future of multiple choice RPGs.
I’m not saying let it be free and build the entire game, but if you train a model to be a certain character and add limitations so it doesn’t go too wild, then that could be massive imo.
Still have a human storyline and imagination behind the game, but use AI like the tool it is for certain parts.
Unless I see major advancements in the technology, I think AI will be a great tool in the toolbelt for developers operating on lower budgets, but Baldur’s Gate 3 is going to have people expecting the best from Larian’s games going forward, and that’s going to mean human writing and human performances. I think without those major advancements in the technology, it’s going to come off as lesser quality.
Seriously? You play a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 and your first thought was “damn, this game could really benefit from having less handcrafted, professionally written dialogue”
In the future I think it’s a really viable option to create more immersive and interactive games. The technology is pretty far away though, not to mention I don’t think most machines could handle the load while also running a game. It’s at best a dream right now, but a pretty interesting idea for 15 years from now.
That’s a pretty big assumption about where the tech is going. In my experience it’s really stupid to try to predict what tech will look like more than a year or two into the future, let alone over a decade.
You could have a fully man made storyline, but then expand the world in a way that is currently impossible.
Even if you train a model for main characters/stories, it would still be built off the work of writers, the model would simply be the character they’ve written.
I think the way video game devs/people are (from what I can see from outside) they are well poised to realize someone making an LLM or a finetune or whatever you want to call it – that produces master level dialogue/stories/whatever is (will be) a skill just like storytelling/writing is.
If I were a JRR Tolkien or Herbert with a universe in my mind, it would be so much more pleasing to make an engine that generates anything from that world that to just write out a few stories from it.
If I were a JRR Tolkien or Herbert with a universe in my mind, it would be so much more pleasing to make an engine that generates anything from that world that to just write out a few stories from it.
One of the foundational tenets of good writing is that worldbuilding is just masturbatory unless it serves the story. You don’t create a cool world and work your way backward into a story. You create a great story and craft a world around it which supports the story you’re trying to tell. The stories are the thing that have value, not the setting or the lore.
Telling a great story is a completely orthogonal skill to worldbuilding, and it requires creativity, emotion, and authorial intent. Star Wars and Harry Potter are both dogshit at worldbuilding, but they’re both some pretty rad stories. Avatar: the Legend of Korra is set in one of the best fantasy worlds ever created and it was a very mediocre story.
Not the opposite at all. Tolkien didn’t know what the One Ring was when he wrote about Bilbo finding it in the Hobbit. Good worldbuilding is iterative. Tolkien went way too obsessive for LOTR and a lot of the worldbuilding he did was purely for his own pleasure rather than serving the story.
Keep in mind he didn’t try to publish The Silmarillion while he was alive. And also that the vast majority of LOTR fans don’t give a shit about stuff in the Silmarillion if it isn’t also relevant to the story of LOTR.
I’m a DM, and I can tell you that as fun as worldbuilding is, no information about your world is real until players learn and remember it. And if you try to loredump on them, they won’t actually remember stuff.
Worldbuilding is fun, but it’s also masturbatory; it’s only fun for the DM until the game’s story makes it matter for everyone else.
If I were a JRR Tolkien or Herbert with a universe in my mind, it would be so much more pleasing to make an engine that generates anything from that world that to just write out a few stories from it.
Tolkien was a linguist with a deep fondness for nature and spirituality. He loved creating languages and building beautiful, natural worlds around them. I can’t imagine a single person who would be less enamored by the idea of machinistic language devices that people use to “generate everything”. I think he would be either bored by this possibility or deeply disturbed.
Tolkien also had a deep disdain for industrialism and automation, which is what inspired Isengard in the books. When he says Saruman has “a mind of metal and wheels”, it’s implied that the reader understands why this is a way of saying that Saruman is evil. He definitely wouldn’t be a fan of MindOfMetalAndWheelsGPT.
Perhaps but I can’t see anyone who is interested in creating and communicating fake worlds eschewing the idea too much. If you make a fake world, there’s no way you could ever ‘get it all out’ since you’re just one guy. This would open up that possibility to make a world bigger than yourself and what you can get out of your brain
Maybe now, but everyone was afraid to fund 100MM BG3 because they thought no one wanted CRPG and they want Fortnite or whatever. Hopefully Larian spawns more people who actually care about their users instead of just greed
Frankly I think that’s just recency bias. It’s new so it feels better. Before BG3 came out, most people agreed DA:O was the perfect CRPG, or Mass Effect, and just look at the sheer number of video essays on YouTube praising the quality of F:NV.
New games come along and old games look paltry in comparison. It doesn’t mean the older ones are actually worse. But you’ve had decades to enjoy DA:O, while BG3 still feels like it has secrets to uncover. It still is unexplored territory, and that’s exciting.
Personally I think that once the dust settles, it will be clear that, apart from limitations due to when each was made, these games are all equally 10/10 games in their own way. It’s not as though BG3 is without flaws. And it’s still actively being worked on.
But not me – None of them have ever reached my bar except for BG3 – I care less about video game stories and more about mechanics/freedom of choice to be fair
Chrono Trigger FF3 SNES (FF6) Final Fantasy Tactics FF7
I don’t know what that guy was talking about. There have been so many games released with amazing stories. It’s just the ghost of Jack Welch has slithered into gaming and rather than make great titles we get microtransaction shit games.
That statement in itself is quite sad, when one of the reasons everyone called it out as being an amazing game is because it was huge, well crafted, and made by a company that actually seemed to give a shit.
I don’t say this to diminish their achievements, because I’m 80 hours in and still not done, but it’s a spectacularly low bar that Larian absolutely launched themselves over. At a time where companies seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, Larian did the exact opposite, and reaped what should be the most obvious of awards (do good work, get lots of money).
I speak to enough dipshits at work spewing word salad, this is what I wanted with my escapism, people who follow the fucking conversation not some AI bot resume filling buzzwords about the plot.
Not less handcrafted, but AI enhanced on top of the already excellent written dialogue.
If I want my entire BG3 gameplay to be about grilled cheese, then I would be able to when talking to every NPC while still getting the excellent story about mindflayers. The cheese is just on top.
100% the future. Like has anyone put all the billion pages of lore from TES into a GPT finetune? Surely that would make better dialogue than HALT! for the 900000000 time right?
I have used AI to RP some stuff (don’t ask), and while the higher end models, and even the better self hosted models are really good at answering in a way that makes sense and works in context, it is pretty hard to make them do anything, new, interesting, or unexpected, without prompting it specifically.
Nothing that I’ve seen playing around with LLMs makes me think that a well-written work of fiction could be improved by including them, unless there is a significant leap in capability.
And this is ignoring all the discussion about LLMs and copyright/stolen content.
I think AI Dungeon proved that you could have a great Gen AI-driven campaign experience, but the novelty wore out really fast after it was used up as streamer bait and the ethical considerations are just too much of a risk.
There was this little RPG company, BioWare, that made this little known game called… uh… Baldur’s Gate or something. Then they made Baldur’s Gate II. And all was fine. And then they said “you know what, we should do something really cool and innovative and creative!” …And they did! They made Neverwinter Nights. And Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro was a real drag in the process, wanting them so many compliance meetings regarding the content and canon and game mechanics. So Bioware was like “OK this is the absolute last time we work with this kind of nitpickers, we’ll create our own fantasy RPG setting and system.” …and that’s how Dragon Age came about.
WotC/Hasbro isn’t any easier to work with these days, that’s for sure. Except this time, even the tabletop fans know that.
Hopefully Larian gets to eventually make the epicest dream game they can and, uh, not get bought out by EA or something.
Yes, despite what Larian wants you to believe, 30% of the company was sold to Tencent years ago to raise more money for BG3. Afaik Danny O’Dwyer dug that up from the irish business register because Larian never even made a statement about it. Instead they keep pointing out how privately owned they are and that there is nothing to worry about.
BG3 was a massive success, but I wonder how much of that cake is left after 450 employees, Bioware, WotC and Tencent got their pieces of that. If they really want to release a much bigger game in half the time, they’ll need to tripple their employees which will absolutely explode spendings. They have nothing else in the works until then, no mobile game cash cow or big merch sales to keep them afloat. The only way to generate more money when production costs will inevitably exceed expectations is… to sell more of themselves.
The divinity games definitely felt inspired by DND. I’ve even been able to convince friends (including some who don’t play video games at all) to pick it up because of how similar it feels to tabletop. Larian was a natural choice for BG3 and I’m convinced that was part of the vision with their early work
If we are taking about battle mechanics I hope they come up with a new system all together. I think both the OS2 and BG3/DnD mechanics were serviceable, and it was fun to play out fights. But neither was much of a challenge and fights didn’t often feel like unique puzzles.
If you are going to play Divinity 2, start with Divinity 1
They both have differences in mechanics, but play about the same. The only main difference is that Divinity is only 2 player, while Divinity 2 is 4 player like BG3
Also, the mechanics of both Divinity games are build around it being video games. Meaning it is a better experience. In comparison with BG3, which was build as a TTRPG and only converted to a video game.
The only things I miss with Divinity are the cutscenes. Otherwise they would be as perfect (or even better) than BG3.
I’m gonna disagree with that other commenter. I’d recommend starting with DOS2 before 1. DOS2 is much more refined and generally less annoying to play. And they’re separate stories, so nothing in 2 would spoil the experience of 1
But they’re both good games worth playing, so don’t let that indecision stop you from trying either
I’m not sure I agree. DoS2 mechanic are cool, but the combat becomes way to chaotic for my liking. Also you do one mistake and now half your party is dead and the other half is on fire.
Heh has there ever been a palladium rpg system in a video game? Really I’m curious, I loved their IPs (ahhh Robotech) and some neat ideas that weren’t other IPs but the system left a lot to be desired. To be fair I never played much of them but recall reading rifts, superhero one and Robotech game books back in the 90s a lot.
I don’t think there has, I only played a few times but it always seemed like such a rich story and setting for adventures. A world magically ripped apart by the billions of lives extinguished instantly in nuclear fire. Dimensional Beings crossing into the world, from dragons to vampires to leyline walkers.
Next one ditches all the filler and just goes straight to shagging a series of elves, demons, were-bears, cthulhus, etc. One after another, there are so many cthulhus to shag and you are the chosen one.
Have they ever done Sci-Fi? Also now that they are well known in the mainstream it would make a lot of sense to make another game using their own IP, would it not?
Really I just miss games that are intensely and deeply “written”…Like Arcanum, Morrowind, or Disco Elysium. I want a game that is actually several books encased in game software. BG3 is close, but I want something even denser. I’ll be so gratified if Larian is on the same page.
I know what you mean. Disco was such a treat in that respect yeah. I love those kinds of literary games, where you can feel an author reaching out across the medium and actually trying to communicate something to you. Like there is a message in the game other than just supporting gameplay or engagement.
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