Romance isn’t the most logical thing, and a video game lives in a computer and kinda has to be logical.
So it’s either going to be some scripted events written by a human which the player doesn’t have control over, or it’ll be along the lines give item X to character Y, select dialog option B and now she loves you. The first doesn’t fit the medium and the second is a really terrible way to portray a relationship.
Maybe some LLM algorithms might portray romance better? But I don’t feel good about that. Don’t want to burn crazy amounts of electricity talking to a LLM character in a video game and the game would have to be online only, which means it cold be shut down at any time.
Even if we have the tech to have an LLM kind of algorithm that wouldn’t use too much power and could run locally, it would really suck if you couldn’t progress in a game because the LLM decided they don’t like you. So it would still be a side thing, and not important to the main story of a game.
Oh, I do think that romance is logical. After all its purpose is to ensure the survival of the genes. It’s just that the romance algorithms and the hardware they’re running on have been hotfixed for millions of years so there are insane amounts of technical debt, that make the algorithm hard to figure out.
And in romance movies there is always a pursuer and a pursued party. And, as audience, we can clearly identify the correct behavior for the pursuer. But, if you identify with the pursued party, then these romance movies will feel like it’s all chance, because the pursued often has very little agency.
A scoring system just formalizes this behaviour. And in video games, you as a main character have all the in-game agency. A romance, that would move the agency to an NPC will feel like the “OMG it’s you, the grand champion” guy from Oblivion, or like a courier desperately trying to talk to you no matter where you are.
And I generally don’t have an issue with local LLMs in video games, but I really don’t think there is a way to make them work. Dialog trees are a really good way to give a player some control, while not overwhelming them with choice.
LLMs might work by allowing characters to acknowledge things you have done outside their own little storylines.
And, sure, I can type in my question. But this will be clunky and imo break the flow of the game. And I really don’t want to sit infront of a computer and be talking out loud to some NPCs.
To me finding the right dialog option or getting the right item just doesn’t cut it. In real life a lot depends on the head space both people are in and what’s going on in their lives when they’re talking with each other. You could have a max “score” with someone, but they’re kinda seeing someone or maybe you have a family emergency you need to deal with and things don’t work out. If you have characters that are just waiting for you to select the correct options and have nothing else going on in their lives, it’s all very flat and oversimplified.
Some things just don’t follow the rules of logic, or if they do, it’s too complicated to model mathematically. But maybe people would get value from an approximation of a cheesy romance novel? Not really sure what the goal is tho. Is it realistic encounters or something emulating something not at all realistic but some people enjoy anyway?
Romance isn’t the most logical thing, and a video game lives in a computer and kinda has to be logical.
So it’s either going to be some scripted events written by a human which the player doesn’t have control over, or it’ll be along the lines give item X to character Y, select dialog option B and now she loves you. The first doesn’t fit the medium and the second is a really terrible way to portray a relationship.
Maybe some LLM algorithms might portray romance better? But I don’t feel good about that. Don’t want to burn crazy amounts of electricity talking to a LLM character in a video game and the game would have to be online only, which means it cold be shut down at any time.
Even if we have the tech to have an LLM kind of algorithm that wouldn’t use too much power and could run locally, it would really suck if you couldn’t progress in a game because the LLM decided they don’t like you. So it would still be a side thing, and not important to the main story of a game.
Oh, I do think that romance is logical. After all its purpose is to ensure the survival of the genes. It’s just that the romance algorithms and the hardware they’re running on have been hotfixed for millions of years so there are insane amounts of technical debt, that make the algorithm hard to figure out.
And in romance movies there is always a pursuer and a pursued party. And, as audience, we can clearly identify the correct behavior for the pursuer. But, if you identify with the pursued party, then these romance movies will feel like it’s all chance, because the pursued often has very little agency.
A scoring system just formalizes this behaviour. And in video games, you as a main character have all the in-game agency. A romance, that would move the agency to an NPC will feel like the “OMG it’s you, the grand champion” guy from Oblivion, or like a courier desperately trying to talk to you no matter where you are.
And I generally don’t have an issue with local LLMs in video games, but I really don’t think there is a way to make them work. Dialog trees are a really good way to give a player some control, while not overwhelming them with choice.
LLMs might work by allowing characters to acknowledge things you have done outside their own little storylines.
And, sure, I can type in my question. But this will be clunky and imo break the flow of the game. And I really don’t want to sit infront of a computer and be talking out loud to some NPCs.
To me finding the right dialog option or getting the right item just doesn’t cut it. In real life a lot depends on the head space both people are in and what’s going on in their lives when they’re talking with each other. You could have a max “score” with someone, but they’re kinda seeing someone or maybe you have a family emergency you need to deal with and things don’t work out. If you have characters that are just waiting for you to select the correct options and have nothing else going on in their lives, it’s all very flat and oversimplified.
Some things just don’t follow the rules of logic, or if they do, it’s too complicated to model mathematically. But maybe people would get value from an approximation of a cheesy romance novel? Not really sure what the goal is tho. Is it realistic encounters or something emulating something not at all realistic but some people enjoy anyway?