This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Choice is great. It rewards creativity, roleplay and general mastery of gameplay over petty linear storytelling. Minecraft, Crusader Kings and Stalker mods simply provide a fundamentally different gameplay experience than The Witcher, Metal Gear Solid and vanilla Stalker. Not an inherently lesser one.
Far from removing immersion, good sandboxes enhance it. Which is why I was far more saddened when I lost one of my founding dorfs than when Aerith met her doom.
The challenge will be here in taking LLMs, which are naturally milquetoast averages of all possible conversations, and making you care about the fiction they create by preventing narrative suspension breaking hallucinations and maintaining coherent sequences of events.
I think the best fit for the tech is actually going to be what old RPGs used to have (like Fallout) where you could just type dialog to the characters and mentioning choice words would trigger secret dialogue. Except way more natural.
Can't wait until we get real time voice interaction and nerds start arguing that they totally used the suave voice instead of the off-putting one. Being rejected virtually as well will be fun!
this already kinda exists : https://community.openai.com/t/vampire-game-where-you-convince-llm-to-let-you-in/604295
you talk into your mic to try and convince various AI characters to let you into their home. The AI doesnt judge you for your tone, but this is a pretty great proof of concept of how this tech could be implemented in a bigger game imo.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Emergent narratives rely on players choosing their path wholly, not selecting dialogue options to force the player to sympathetically experience the trials of the PC. Full sandbox games where the gameplay loop is independent of the baseline narrative allow this freeform, hence Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, CK and most 4X allow players to organically develop an emotional connect with their suicidal shitheads. The same cannot be said for voiced action RPGs where the core narrative must be experienced to unlock more of the core loops. If the loop is tedious, then the narrative strengths must shore up the experience. I played GTA IV only till it was necessary to unlock all the cities, and then ignored literally everything in favor of just dicking around. Same with Skyrim even before mods, just collecting butterflies. The core loop being good enough allows a narrative choice and its risk to be diminished.
Well it's true what they say, good gameplay can redeem anything.
Hell if you can make me suffer through the literal vomit inducing aesthetics of Cruelty Squad because the immersive sim loop is just that good, you can probably make a talk-to-shoggoth simulator that people will play even if that part of it is tedious.
But there is something to say about the narrative being less in your face. All the praise given to Dark Souls is not for nothing. It is true that the same minimalist approach in a shittier game would only make it boring, but the same amount of salt I put on my potato would ruin a strawberry cake.
There has to be a way you can weave these new tools into a good game, and whoever finds it will get bragging rights for the next decade at the least and a world spanning empire at the most.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link