June 2024 Game Discussion Thread

[ZedClampet]

 

[ZedClampet]

All art by AI. That little guy holding the gun up to his eye is in for a big surprise. But not for long. The gun is pointing at him. (If the relationship between the stock and the trigger is any indication)

 

[ZedClampet]

Holy crap. AI song writing has vastly improved over the last year. My wife used Suno to create an entire cybersecurity blues/rock album. She actually wrote the lyrics, although you could get the AI to do that, too, but the AI did the voices and instruments.

I swear to you these songs were better than anything I've heard on the radio in a long, long time. I was absolutely stunned. I would actually buy that album.

I don't know how many songs she created and got rid of, but the ones she picked were fantastic.

I actually got a little teary-eyed, and I'm not sure why. Something is about to surpass humans on this little rock of ours, and I think I'm conflicted about it.

 

[Zloth]

All art by AI.

The gal's face on the far right tipped me off. Then I noticed the chimney not-on the house. Still, it's a good picture. The second one with the sales is even better.

This should be a big month for Elden Ring fans.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

...about to surpass humans on this little rock of ours, and I think I'm conflicted about it.

I'm not picking up what youre putting down here, LLMs can't make anything without ingesting a metric fuckton of human created content first. Anything it makes is the definition of generic.

I can totally see it as a great creative tool when prompted and edited by humans for speeding up a lot of tasks and making stuff, great for cutting down on menial tasks. But replacing us entirely? Dont see it. I think a lot of people at executive level are very excited about it though, because mostly they see the cost/time savings rather than it producing superior end results to a human employee.

---

Anywhooo, I hurt my back really badly and now I cant sit, stand or lay without feeling uncomfortable. So I bought Darkest Dungeon on Switch so I can play something while I mope around waiting for it to get better. Its still a good game.

 

[Hveðrungr]

I wonder if the AI added a rainbow because its training data told it that June is Pride Month.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm not picking up what youre putting down here, LLMs can't make anything without ingesting a metric fuckton of human created content first.

I'm not picking up what you're putting down here. Humans can't make anything without ingesting a metric fuckton of human created content first.

Human creativity is basically identical to AI creativity. We absorb everything we hear or see, and then we rework it. Only when humans do it we call it being "influenced" by....

Sorry to hear about your back. Hopefully it's just a muscle strain or something and not anything to do with your spine. Muscles get better pretty quickly. The spine, not so much unfortunately.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'm not picking up what you're putting down here. Humans can't make anything without ingesting a metric fuckton of human created content first.

Human creativity is basically identical to AI creativity. We absorb everything we hear or see, and then we rework it. Only when humans do it we call it being "influenced" by....

I didnt think you would

Humans can make all sorts of original things and art works based on all kinds of weird individual life experiences thrown at them, the final result of which varies based on all kinds of bodily chemical imbalances and traits that if not entirely unique are pretty individual. LLMs just take everything fed to them and make an average based on the data they are fed, and not to forget, the prompts that humans put into them to make them work in the first place.

AI/LLMs are pretty cool, but I dont believe theyre replacing us with the current way they work no matter how much more powerful they get. If youre right and they do somehow, I'll buy you a hotdog. No predicting the future.

Sorry to hear about your back. Hopefully it's just a muscle strain or something and not anything to do with your spine. Muscles get better pretty quickly. The spine, not so much unfortunately.

Thanks. Pretty sure its muscle thats poking a nerve somewhere because its radiating to my hip, did something similar last year and it cleared up in a week with some muscle relaxants from the doc and a bit of physio. Last time I couldnt stand up for a couple days, this time I was able to walk almost straight away without too much trouble.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Humans can't make anything without ingesting a metric fuckton of human created content first.

How was the first example of each genre, or indeed the first example of creativity itself, created? Lots of things must have arisen ex nihilo at various points. The contention is that AIs can't do that ex nihilo creation bit, only the reworking bit.

 

[Johnway]

So i jumped back into Chivalry 2 at least until the 6th of june purely because its x2 exp. So to warm up i decided to jump into beginner mode and kill bots and practice getting into the grove making sure to parry/counter etc. The good news is that its probably the fastest way for me to earn exp and get the season passes cleared away. Did play some of the regicide gameplay and i did encounter a few decent players and has made me wonder some of the things they do. i need to record some gameplay footage without impacting cpu/resources. is that even possible?

 

[ZedClampet]

I didnt think you would

Humans can make all sorts of original things and art works based on all kinds of weird individual life experiences thrown at them, the final result of which varies based on all kinds of bodily chemical imbalances and traits that if not entirely unique are pretty individual. LLMs just take everything fed to them and make an average based on the data they are fed, and not to forget, the prompts that humans put into them to make them work in the first place.

AI/LLMs are pretty cool, but I dont believe theyre replacing us with the current way they work no matter how much more powerful they get. If youre right and they do somehow, I'll buy you a hotdog. No predicting the future.


Thanks. Pretty sure its muscle thats poking a nerve somewhere because its radiating to my hip, did something similar last year and it cleared up in a week with some muscle relaxants from the doc and a bit of physio. Last time I couldnt stand up for a couple days, this time I was able to walk almost straight away without too much trouble.

Humans, at the end of the day, use the work of others to create something new. Body chemicals have little to nothing to do with it, and even if they did, who cares? It's still just the human machine, like the AI machine, mixing and matching everything its learned. Consider body chemicals to be a random number generator.

I never said AI was going to just blanket replace us. It will replace us in a lot of ways. It's getting better and better exponentially. But there will always be room for humans. We'll each have our own jobs. It is officially replacing humans for me in most new music.

I'm not wagering anything because it wouldn't be fair. It's already happening. Seventy percent of developers are using AI instead of humans in certain situations. This number comes from a survey of developers that I posted about in the defunct AI thread.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Humans, at the end of the day, use the work of others to create something new. Body chemicals have little to nothing to do with it, and even if they did, who cares? It's still just the human machine, like the AI machine, mixing and matching everything its learned. Consider body chemicals to be a random number generator.

I never said AI was going to just blanket replace us. It will replace us in a lot of ways. It's getting better and better exponentially. But there will always be room for humans. We'll each have our own jobs. It is officially replacing humans for me in most new music.

I'm not wagering anything because it wouldn't be fair. It's already happening. Seventy percent of developers are using AI instead of humans in certain situations. This number comes from a survey of developers that I posted about in the defunct AI thread.

I really disagree with the first part, people are weird in all kinds of ways. Theres basically an infinite number factors that affect something as simple as a persons mood on a given Tuesday at 2.34pm.

I totally get its a very useful tool, especially for making things like terrain and assets in games and writing code. I even understand why devs want to use them for music, dialogue and stories, we know around here that some dont care for some of those in games anyway. Even then those things need to be overseen and edited by a real person to make sure they work with everything else.

 

[ZedClampet]

I really disagree with the first part, people are weird in all kinds of ways. Theres basically an infinite number factors that affect something as simple as a persons mood on a given Tuesday at 2.34pm.

I totally get its a very useful tool, especially for making things like terrain and assets in games and writing code. I even understand why devs want to use them for music, dialogue and stories, we know around here that some dont care for some of those in games anyway. Even then those things need to be overseen and edited by a real person to make sure they work with everything else.

We have a basic disagreement on humans then. We are machines just like AI, and there's nothing special about our faults and whims that can't be duplicated with random numbers and the like. But I'm done with this conversation for now.

****

On the sports forum I'm on (I don't know if I ever mentioned I'm now a moderator--the only one--on a forum with over 20,000 users), there is a discussion about how old you can be and still play video games (there is a lot of hand-wringing about everyone wanting to play the new EA college football game).

Naturally, I responded to this thread. Wasn't a perfect response, because I was mostly just reading threads to chuck out the morning rule breakers:

"Worldwide, there are now over 3 billion people who report playing games. 800 million on console. 1.3 billion on PC. Many on mobile (a lot of people in the first two groups also play mobile).

Video games are like most other forms of entertainment. You don't really outgrow them. You might have more or less time for them at different points in your life, but it's certainly not a matter of maturity. There are many people in their 60's, 70's and 80's who play video games. According to industry surveys, the average age of a gamer is pretty high. I don't remember exactly right now, but it's in the late 30's, which means there are a lot of people older than that who consider themselves gamers."

It's a whole different world over there.

Edit: When I say I was tossing out the rule breakers, I mean deleting posts. The most I can do is mute people for a week. They pay $9.99/mo, so we're not actually going to kick them out.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Here's something I think is a decisive factor on AI:

If you get AI to iterate on its own or each other's content, rather than on human input, it quickly degenerates to gibberish. Because AI is not creating new value, every time it creates a simulacrum of value it degrades it slightly, like a page of text that's been photocopied a hundred times.

That's not the case for humans. We've been iterating on our own and each other's work for thousands of years without this problem. That's because we can create new value and impart it to our work.

AI can't do that. It can only recycle, dumbly, with less and less fidelity every time.

 

[ZedClampet]

Made us a little base in Nightingale that sort of blends in with our surroundings in the desert.

 

[Pifanjr]

Here's something I think is a decisive factor on AI:

If you get AI to iterate on its own or each other's content, rather than on human input, it quickly degenerates to gibberish. Because AI is not creating new value, every time it creates a simulacrum of value it degrades it slightly, like a page of text that's been photocopied a hundred times.

That's not the case for humans. We've been iterating on our own and each other's work for thousands of years without this problem. That's because we can create new value and impart it to our work.

AI can't do that. It can only recycle, dumbly, with less and less fidelity every time.

I mean, there's a lot of derivative drivel out there, with people trying to copy another person's success without understanding why it was successful. And not just other people's success, there's plenty of people who fail to replicate their own success.

I believe great breakthroughs and innovations are rare because a relatively small percentage of humans is capable of them. I'm pretty sure AIs will eventually get better at it, but it'll take a few more human innovations in AI tech before they get there.

 

[Hveðrungr]

I mean, there's a lot of derivative drivel out there, with people trying to copy another person's success without understanding why it was successful. And not just other people's success, there's plenty of people who fail to replicate their own success.

I believe great breakthroughs and innovations are rare because a relatively small percentage of humans is capable of them. I'm pretty sure AIs will eventually get better at it, but it'll take a few more human innovations in AI tech before they get there.

AIs that use their own output as training data become gibberish in very short order. Not just “derivative drivel”. Literal gibberish. No coherent grammar, invented words, just chaotic non-information (which is very significant in terms of thermodynamics). It's a really fascinating phenomenon, not least because humans don't do that. Even a rubbish novelist won't start randomly words order of writing out.

That means that AIs are a thermodynamically closed system that quickly tends to entropy, but humans are not. Humans are generating information; AIs are not.

 

[BeardyHat]

Anywhooo, I hurt my back really badly and now I cant sit, stand or lay without feeling uncomfortable. So I bought Darkest Dungeon on Switch so I can play something while I mope around waiting for it to get better. Its still a good game.

Sorry about your back; being unable to sit comfortably must be absolute misery. But Darkest Dungeon is good and it fits perfectly on handheld. I didn't actually get into it until I played it on my Vita.

On the sports forum I'm on (I don't know if I ever mentioned I'm now a moderator--the only one--on a forum with over 20,000 users), there is a discussion about how old you can be and still play video games (there is a lot of hand-wringing about everyone wanting to play the new EA college football game).

You're cheating on me?

Most people just don't think that deeply about games. I met a nieces fiance this weekend who was excitedly telling me about CoD and Immortals of Aveium and it's incredible graphics; he liked Elden Ring as well, but had never heard of Dark Souls.

Nice enough guy, but games are more of something to do in your free time, rather than a hobby unto itself, which is probably what most on the sports forum view it as.

Made us a little base in Nightingale that sort of blends in with our surroundings in the desert.

Looks pretty amazing. My builds always look like ****.

Speaking of: I'm still enjoying Abiotic Factor (I feel like I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, but I'm too lazy to look it up. I just say, "Abee-Ot-Tic"), but I really enjoy the exploration and am pretty bored with the crafting, as any survival game. My "base" is just crates, a stove and a crafting bench and I dread whenever I have to go back to manage my inventory or craft new stuff.

Was also a but disappointed with my eGPU/laptop yesterday. Had some time to try Hell Let Loose with my friends and it went pretty badly; where the game can hit 50-60fps in single player training, it struggles to maintain 20 in an actual game. I suspect the CPU is just overworked trying to send stuff to the eGPU, as well as process all the network information coming from Discord and the game itself. Should have tried without Discord, but I suspect it won't be much better.

Lastly, I picked up Skald: Against the Black Priory last night on a whim. My social battery is shot to **** on this vacation, as it's a majority of my family in this one house (there's 12 of us here and we've invited local family over every night, so up to 18 people at times), so I just hid last night and played this game. It's pretty neat so far and works surprisingly well on Deck, so I'm excited to play it on the plane today and hopefully quell my anxiety about flying.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory on Steam

SKALD:Against the Black Priory is a retro-style party-based RPG set in a grim-dark fantasy world of tragic heroes, violent deaths and Lovecraftian horror. Take a chance and roll the dice as you embark on a compelling story filled with deadly creatures, branching story and tactical, turn-based combat

store.steampowered.com

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Sorry about your back; being unable to sit comfortably must be absolute misery. But Darkest Dungeon is good and it fits perfectly on handheld. I didn't actually get into it until I played it on my Vita.

Lastly, I picked up Skald: Against the Black Priory last night on a whim. My social battery is shot to **** on this vacation, as it's a majority of my family in this one house (there's 12 of us here and we've invited local family over every night, so up to 18 people at times), so I just hid last night and played this game. It's pretty neat so far and works surprisingly well on Deck, so I'm excited to play it on the plane today and hopefully quell my anxiety about flying.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory on Steam

SKALD:Against the Black Priory is a retro-style party-based RPG set in a grim-dark fantasy world of tragic heroes, violent deaths and Lovecraftian horror. Take a chance and roll the dice as you embark on a compelling story filled with deadly creatures, branching story and tactical, turn-based combat

store.steampowered.com

Thanks, not to over complain because it could be much worse but I cant sit, stand or lay for too long without getting uncomfortable and the Switch can come with me wherever I go. Its taking a bit of getting used to on the controller, I generally dislike playing non action games with a controller but it does work OK especially with the touch screen for checking out enemy resistances and so on. Sure I'll get even more used to it over a few more hours.

I wishlisted Skald earlier, saw the PCG review the other day and then the Sven Winke article today too. It would be a nice change of pace from the AAA games Ive been into recently, looks great.

 

[Zloth]

...I'm excited to play it on the plane today and hopefully quell my anxiety about flying.

I wish I could fly for you! I love it. Give me a window seat and I'll gawk at the clouds and landscape and even the sky above (so much darker, even mid-day!) for half the flight.

I got the Eternal Oblivion achievement in ELEX 2 for killing the leader of a faction that wanted to die by my hand. Ooookay. So, I quickly run off, dump the nice gal that's my current companion for the nasty gal, agree to take part in the ceremony, and... oh, he wants to die in battle?? Oh, well, OK. I'll make this quick and use that rain of fire spell that mangles just about everyone around me for 30 seconds.

That worked. Unfortunately, it worked a little too quickly. I killed him, but the spell was still going as the mission ended and people came back in to the room - killing some guards and hurting the guy who was overseeing the ceremony, too, I think. So, he thanked me for my deed, asked me if I wanted some money for it, and then attacked me. I was able to kill him off, but somebody reported that I had killed a guard and the whole faction wanted me dead now. <sigh> Re-loaded, did it again, but this time I didn't use the big fire spell.

Anyway, that was achievement #4000 for me.

 

[BeardyHat]

Thanks, not to over complain because it could be much worse but I cant sit, stand or lay for too long without getting uncomfortable and the Switch can come with me wherever I go. Its taking a bit of getting used to on the controller, I generally dislike playing non action games with a controller but it does work OK especially with the touch screen for checking out enemy resistances and so on. Sure I'll get even more used to it over a few more hours.

I wishlisted Skald earlier, saw the PCG review the other day and then the Sven Winke article today too. It would be a nice change of pace from the AAA games Ive been into recently, looks great.

Well, it sounds pretty bad! One of the things I've realized as I get older is that generally I care the most about being comfortable. What I could tolerate in my teen and 20's, approaching 40, I just can't deal with anymore.

Although, I also am a person that struggles to sit still for a long period of time, so sitting in one position for short stints might not be too bad.

Skald is really cool so far and it is a nice change of pace to just be mostly reading so far, though I've only done 74 minutes. Combat I'm not so sure about yet, as I only got to do it once, but my main complaint is that the combat text overlaps (between your hits and enemy hits) and fades quickly, so it's challenging to read.

I wish I could fly for you! I love it. Give me a window seat and I'll gawk at the clouds and landscape and even the sky above (so much darker, even mid-day!) for half the flight.

I got the Eternal Oblivion achievement in ELEX 2 for killing the leader of a faction that wanted to die by my hand. Ooookay. So, I quickly run off, dump the nice gal that's my current companion for the nasty gal, agree to take part in the ceremony, and... oh, he wants to die in battle?? Oh, well, OK. I'll make this quick and use that rain of fire spell that mangles just about everyone around me for 30 seconds.

That worked. Unfortunately, it worked a little too quickly. I killed him, but the spell was still going as the mission ended and people came back in to the room - killing some guards and hurting the guy who was overseeing the ceremony, too, I think. So, he thanked me for my deed, asked me if I wanted some money for it, and then attacked me. I was able to kill him off, but somebody reported that I had killed a guard and the whole faction wanted me dead now. <sigh> Re-loaded, did it again, but this time I didn't use the big fire spell.

Anyway, that was achievement #4000 for me.

I used to be just fine, but the last 12 years when I came down with anxiety and depression it's been bad when I fly. Logically I know everything is fine, but the anxiety gets a firm grip on me; probably because I've realized also that I'm a type that likes to be in control, so I struggle when I'm not, but I'm working on that... at any rate, I don't mind a smooth flight, doesn't bother me in the slightest, but going over the Rocky Mountains is a rough one.

That emergent stuff in PB game is always the best part, even if it can be frustrating at times. I ought to jump back in to Gothic; I had been playing it, but set it aside because I got a bit bored with it. I should probably just start with Gothic 2, as it's my favorite one anyway.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Well, it sounds pretty bad! One of the things I've realized as I get older is that generally I care the most about being comfortable. What I could tolerate in my teen and 20's, approaching 40, I just can't deal with anymore.

Although, I also am a person that struggles to sit still for a long period of time, so sitting in one position for short stints might not be too bad.

Skald is really cool so far and it is a nice change of pace to just be mostly reading so far, though I've only done 74 minutes. Combat I'm not so sure about yet, as I only got to do it once, but my main complaint is that the combat text overlaps (between your hits and enemy hits) and fades quickly, so it's challenging to read.

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/jGGgkiDqqtA?si=y5-jKJMY_SKDMef9




Its hurts but the worst thing about it is that its preventing me from doing normal things. Feels better today already though.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Its taking a bit of getting used to on the controller, I generally dislike playing non action games with a controller

Turn-based tactics games work really well on handheld. I spent more time than I care to admit playing Advance Wars on the DS.

Anyway, that was achievement #4000 for me.

Ooh, I have 3,895 (on Steam). Not far behind.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm puzzled about one thing in the AI debate above. How come AI's output is being judged on human terms?

If AI is observing the state of human output and not rolling its visual sensors and shaking its computation enclosure, it's seriously missing the 'I' part of AI.

It seems totally idiotic to us to jump out of a high-up window, yet it's the most natural thing for a bird chick to jump out of the nest without any in-practice training. Birds must surely think we're so limited.

TLDR: Doesn't make sense to criticize a cat for not barking.

 

[Hveðrungr]

AI doesn't “observe” anything. It's just a matrix multiplication algorithm.