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Post by grimgryphon on Mar 28, 2015 21:19:56 GMT
Typical day in SotA. Entered town and thought I'd talk to a guard:  Great, he's guard in this town and has no idea where I am (or apparently, what I was asking). No worries, I'll go talk to a resident:  Cool, Now we're getting somewhere. Oh, wait, I'm in Kingsport. Apparently this old dude has Alzheimer's. I'll go talk to another dude in the market who looks exactly the same. Maybe his brother/clone has not succumbed to the disease yet. I'm hungry anyway, let's see if I can get directions to some food.  Apparently I have a choice of food locations, however they are top-secret or something and I'm guessing scattered throughout the land? OK, males are somewhat stupid so let's try talking to a female, who is also older than god as well. They must eat children or something here in Kingsport. Weird.  OK, looks like Frieda is also confused about where she is, taunts me with an answer that makes me want to punch the social security check right out of her, and finally proves what I've been thinking all along. I think I'll go sucker-punch a few skeletons instead. |
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Post by Mordecai on Mar 30, 2015 10:06:18 GMT
The talk-to-npc idea was doomed from the start.
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Post by kb on Mar 30, 2015 10:14:37 GMT
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 31, 2015 3:16:28 GMT
Yeah I still like the talk options tree. Get a list of things to choose, click them, move on. Rolling back time on human input devices isn't exactly... Cutting edge.
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Post by Mordecai on Apr 1, 2015 4:18:55 GMT
Yeah I still like the talk options tree. Get a list of things to choose, click them, move on. Rolling back time on human input devices isn't exactly... Cutting edge. I agree. It isn't cutting-edge at all, let alone State of the Art. It's gimmicky and ineffective. I've been cynical about the chat system since it was introduced, but I found a little hope when I saw Lum engaging the community and working on the system last year. The hope is false though, since the kind of chat system they're going for is far beyond the scope of the project and would require futuristic AI to work. Still, what I find myself grasping with isn't whether or not the chat system could work. It can't, at least not under the given circumstances. Instead, I find myself wondering how they could possibly believe that they can make it work. With the limited budget, failed deadline, and apparent interest in cutting corners everywhere, you'd think that they would replace the current chat system with something more effective, feasible, and less frustrating. It's like they're throwing glitter at us and telling us that it will turn into magic soon™. Just a little more money... |
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Post by kb on Apr 1, 2015 7:30:02 GMT
Based on things I've said to NPC's, and improvements that I've noticed that seem like they were based on the stuff I said to NPC's in-game, I can tell that Lum does read a lot of what people say and he clearly works hard on improving the conversation system based on how players interact with it. However, as all three of you have already demonstrated, it appears to be a lot of spinning of wheels with very little pay off. At the end of the day, SotA's conversation system feels like a dressed up version of www.cleverbot.com/ and it's pretty sad they'd have Lum working so hard on something that hasn't been nearly as immersive as they were hoping for (in fact, I think Cleverbot comes a lot closer to beating the Turing test than any NPC in SotA ever will). Kinda reminds me of all the time Stephen Daniele put into the overland map, only to scrap it for something very different (not saying I'm for or against that, just pointing it out as another example of a lot of work being done in a system that doesn't pan out the way it was hoped things would work). |
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Post by argyle on Apr 2, 2015 4:42:57 GMT
Yeah I still like the talk options tree. Get a list of things to choose, click them, move on. Rolling back time on human input devices isn't exactly... Cutting edge. I agree. It isn't cutting-edge at all, let alone State of the Art. It's gimmicky and ineffective. I've been cynical about the chat system since it was introduced, but I found a little hope when I saw Lum engaging the community and working on the system last year. The hope is false though, since the kind of chat system they're going for is far beyond the scope of the project and would require futuristic AI to work. Still, what I find myself grasping with isn't whether or not the chat system could work. It can't, at least not under the given circumstances. Instead, I find myself wondering how they could possibly believe that they can make it work. With the limited budget, failed deadline, and apparent interest in cutting corners everywhere, you'd think that they would replace the current chat system with something more effective, feasible, and less frustrating. It's like they're throwing glitter at us and telling us that it will turn into magic soon™. Just a little more money... I remember reading or hearing lum say very bluntly that there was a division in the dev team about whether the system as originally envisioned would work and that most of the members of the dev team were on one side and the other side was, well, Richard. He also said there was only so much they could do with the system and it would inevitably end up limited and compared it to the millions of dollars Apple invested in developing Siri and how even that can easily be proven to be a dumb AI. |
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Post by grimgryphon on Apr 2, 2015 14:19:15 GMT
I agree. It isn't cutting-edge at all, let alone State of the Art. It's gimmicky and ineffective. I've been cynical about the chat system since it was introduced, but I found a little hope when I saw Lum engaging the community and working on the system last year. The hope is false though, since the kind of chat system they're going for is far beyond the scope of the project and would require futuristic AI to work. Still, what I find myself grasping with isn't whether or not the chat system could work. It can't, at least not under the given circumstances. Instead, I find myself wondering how they could possibly believe that they can make it work. With the limited budget, failed deadline, and apparent interest in cutting corners everywhere, you'd think that they would replace the current chat system with something more effective, feasible, and less frustrating. It's like they're throwing glitter at us and telling us that it will turn into magic soon™. Just a little more money... I remember reading or hearing lum say very bluntly that there was a division in the dev team about whether the system as originally envisioned would work and that most of the members of the dev team were on one side and the other side was, well, Richard. He also said there was only so much they could do with the system and it would inevitably end up limited and compared it to the millions of dollars Apple invested in developing Siri and how even that can easily be proven to be a dumb AI. One big difference: When Siri is being dumb, she's at least entertaining, IMO. :-) |
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