David Gaider: Ah, yes. The dream of procedural content generation. Even BioWare went through several iterations of this: "what if we didn't need every conversation to be bespoke?" Unlimited playtime with dialogue being procedurally created alongside procedural quests!
Ah, yes. The dream of procedural content generation. Even BioWare went through several iterations of this: "what if we didn't need every conversation to be bespoke?" Unlimited playtime with dialogue being procedurally created alongside procedural quests!
Each time, the team collectively believed - believed down at their CORE - that this was possible. Just within reach. And each time we discovered that, even when the procedural lines were written by human hands, the end result once they were assembled was... lackluster. Soulless.
Was it the way the lines were assembled? Did we just need more lines? I could easily see a team coming to the conclusion that AI could generate lines specific to the moment as opposed to generic by necessity... an infinite monkeys answer to a content problem, right? Brilliant!
In my opinion, however, the issue wasn't the lines. It was that procedural content generation of quests results in something shaped like a quest. It has the beats you need for one, sure, but the end result is no better than your typical "bring me 20 beetle heads" MMO quest.
Is that what a player really wants? Superficial content that covers the bases but goes no further, to keep them playing? I imagine some teams will convince themselves that, no, AI can do better. It can act like a human DM, whipping up deep bespoke narratives on the fly.
And I say such an AI will do exactly as we did: it'll create something shaped like a narrative, constructed out of stored pieces it has ready... because that's what it does. That is, however, not going to stop a lot of dev teams from thinking it can do more. And they will fail.
Sure, yes, yes, I can already see someone responding "but the tech is just ~beginning~!" Look, if we ever get to the point where an AI successfully substitutes for actual human intuition and soul, then them making games will be the least of our problems, OK?
Final note: The fact these dev teams will fail doesn't mean they won't TRY. Expect to see it. It's too enticing for them not to, especially in MMO's and similar where they feel players aren't there for deep narrative anyhow. A lot of effort is going to be wasted on this.