The sad thing is, I think those days are 100% over. With data mining, wikis, etc. I think there will never be a game that’s played mostly in-game with in-game tools, with people chatting in-game about how to do overcome various challenges the game throws at you. The world has just moved on. I never played something as hardcore as Ashron’s Call in the early days, but I do miss the early days of WoW when so much more of the fun was player-driven, and there was so much more interaction with other players.
I think that’s one reason why D&D is seeing an increase in popularity. It’s a game where you can optimize things to some extent, but because it’s human-driven, a DM can mitigate that somewhat. It’s also inherently social, and it’s impossible to data-mine, and difficult to min-max because each campaign is different and many DMs have slight variations on the set rules.
Well, the opposite might be possible as well. An AI and genetic algorithms could keep a world ever evolving making information obsolete over time and since we know data mining will happen, I’d look at making it a game mechanic somehow.
Some of my favourite games use procedurally generated maps. But, those maps are not hand-sculpted the way MMO dungeons are. And, while you could certainly use generative AI to come up with generic babble from NPCs, that’s not the same as designing entire quests. It may be that eventually a generative AI system will be able to do everything a human could have done: hand-crafted maps, full quest chain dialogue, etc. I just think we’re nowhere near that point yet.
For example, a quest chain almost always has a goal behind it. You’re revealing a certain aspect of the story to the player bit by bit as they complete parts of the quest. But, to do that you need at least a very basic theory of mind. You need to understand what the player knows before the quest chain starts, what each bit of the quest chain will add to their knowledge, and then what they’ll understand at the end of the quest chain. That “theory of mind” stuff is the thing that generative systems just can’t do right now because they’re just fancy auto-complete.
As for auto-generated dungeons, WoW tried that with Torghast in the Shadowlands expansion, and it was not well received. Granted, part of the problem was that Torghast was a depressing, death-themed “dungeon”. But, a bigger issue was that there was no intention behind the design of the levels. It was just a randomized set of corridors that fit together in a random way. Good dungeon designs require intention. You want to reveal something to the player as they go through the dungeon. Ideally you want to know that you’re working your way towards a boss. WoW’s black temple raid is a good example of this. You start in the sewers, you work your way out into a courtyard, you enter another building, clear out the ground floor and open a door that unlocks access to a set of staircases that works its way to the top of the building. You beat the Illidari council which allows you to access a door that opens to the roof of the building where you face the final boss Illidan. I don’t think generative AI is anywhere near being able to come up with a concept like that, let alone design the maps and art for the whole thing.
I wasn’t thinking of an AI generating the world map and dungeon. I was more thinking of an AI driving the agency of world actors. It doesn’t have to have a complete theory of mind, a reactive AI or limited memory AI, aka “chess engine” could “simply” drive the opposing faction.
We could imagine a war scenario, where the AI plays one side and the players the opposite and the effect of war would naturally change the world. That town where the wiki tells you you could buy that cute horse? Well too bad the AI invaded it or reduced it to rubbles. The HQ where the commander is supposed to be, well it moved back 20 clicks after the last player attack, etc…
The AI doesn’t really need to understand the purpose of its objective.
Of course it’s a frigging huge undertaking, it would probably cost the GDP of a small country and need it’s own nuclear powerplant to run (hello Microsoft!) but not impossible with today’s tech.
