Of possible interest, maybe not 😁, I’m noticing in Shadow of Mordor (2014), because of the game setting and zero social interaction, I can get into the game, but not be vested in it, like I can in what I’d describe as a good RPG, (Fallout 4, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Cyberpunk 2077). I took a break last night to continue my current playthough of Fallout 4 and still I feel completely at home in that game, it’s like meeting up with old friends. That said, I’m still enjoying the combat aspects of SoM. My only hesitation is that is that I was also enjoying the magic combat in Hogwarts Legacy and without significant social action, I ended up setting that aside…🤔
To clarify, when I describe “good social interaction” in my game examples, it’s pretty damned crude, but there is still something from a 9 year old game (F4), even a 20 year old game (VMB).
Since then what they’ve done is raise games to highly realistic levels of environment, but this realism makes it jarringly apparant, just how crude and limited the social interactions are, what you’d imagine should be accompanying this new level of realism is just not there. This is one of the reasons Starfield pissed me off, they had what might be described as a head start in this aspect of a game, but instead, just used there 9 year old mechanic and it painfully shows. The companions annoyed me a great deal, and crew members, just boring as hell place holders. My god, they are aweful. “Hey boss we missed you.” <silence>. Nothing better than a ship full of crew members that you can’t talk to, and I’m overlooking asking them to accompany you on a mission.
Is AI the answer to this, what I see as a social dilemma, without scripting out every social interaction? Possibly…but with the current LLM models, my guess it would be more complex, more of the same, but that could be good enough.
Can you imagine a dynamic AI model that is prepared to discus with you the politics of Night City?
If you could, let’s say you rely on a microphone to communicate with NPCs, would you ever ask them “how’s it going?” I would and I’d expect an answer, not a blank stare.
