Throne and Liberty 1.5.0 Patch Incoming

 The next Throne and Liberty global patch 1.5.0 is rolling off the assembly line tomorrow (10/31).  I spoke into my AI box and told it what I was interested in and it spat out this summary for me:

Throne and Liberty Update 1.5.0 Highlights

Throne and Liberty’s Update 1.5.0 lands October 31, packed with new content and impactful tweaks:

New Battle Pass & Shop Gear

The Phantom Tracker’s Star Battle Pass launches October 31, bringing exclusive emotes, a spooky Amitoi, and new outfits. The Lucent shop refresh also offers themed cosmetics for a festive look.

Big Gameplay Enhancements

• Field Boss Rewards: Boss portals now scale better with player count, offering more spread and better odds for rewards, including new Epic reward chests for selecting your preferred Epic loot.
• Combat Adjustments: Faster crowd control immunity buildup makes getting CC’d less punishing in group fights.
• Dungeon Fixes: Bugs in Death’s Abyss are squashed, and Adventure Codex objectives now award more XP.

UI & Quality-of-Life Tweaks

Extra chat tabs, visible health bar shielding, and a better Guild Points tracker make it easier to stay connected and organized.

Bug Fixes Galore

This update smooths over crafting issues, character movement, and controller function—setting players up for a smoother, more polished adventure.

... and honestly the AI (ChatGPT) did really well here with what I gave it as my interest areas.  Specifically I told it my favorite dungeon was Death's Abyss and it picked out a change specific to it.  I also mentioned I was interested in epic loot which it used well.  I also said to make sure to let me know if there was a new battlepass (which I knew already but wanted to see if the AI would interpret correctly).  I also asked if there were any changes to CC / crowd control and it picked them right up!

 I am sure there is more I could get out of reading the actual full patch notes but time is limited here and I'd rather play around with my "read the patch notes for me" AI than read actual notes myself :)

Staying Motivated for the Future of MMORPGs?

 It's Friday of the "Staying Motivated" week for Blaugust 2024 and what better way to wrap the work week than thinking about the future of MMORPGs!  Fortunately TheLazyPeon has taken the time to do must of the thinking for us (it is Friday after all!).

 As can be guessed much of the "future" that is discussed includes AI and TheLazyPeon goes through a number of use cases for AI in games.  Everything from simulating players and creating dynamic NPCs that respond to players in interesting ways is mentioned.  Even the prospect of AI generating an MMO from scratch with just a few phrases!

 It is the "simulating players" that I think was most interesting and realistic of the bunch; especially when it comes to less populated MMOs. Nothing kills the fun in an MMO faster than not having other "players" around. I say players in quotes because obviously the proposal is to create fake players which is basically "adding bots to the game".

 The difference with what we think of bots today is that these bots would be run on behalf of the game developer for the betterment of the game and it's community.  This is markedly different than "gold farming bots" that more often hurt than help games and their communities.

 You might say "but this is just AI NPCs!?" and I'd not disagree but the difference is intent.  The intent is to make them seem like players.  Yes they are not real and it is all schadenfreude, but that is sort of the point.  Think about MMOs you play and how many players you just walk by without a second thought of whether they are a human or not.  Would it be so different if they were not?

 Challenges arise when you start to look at group content and motivations.  Are the bots in it for themselves?  Or are they in it for the good of the other players?  Can an AI controlled player ever actually stand in for a human player in group content without dragging the group down?

 I'd somewhat argue, in many games, much of the group content is scripted and driven by UI prompts and addons so it is not a stretch to say an AI controlled player could execute that nearly pefect.  The question comes in how it handles a change in direction or the pacing of the group.  Maybe the group goes off script and does something out of order.  Can the AI player keep up?

 I won't proclaim AI can do these things but I find it fascinating to consider they may.  As mentioned in the video there is already an extremely complex botting ecosystem in MMORPGs today so chances are we have all come across that "bot that we thought was a player".  There is no doubt those running these bot networks are looking at, if not already using, AI chatbots / large language models to try and avoid detection.

 Whether we like it or not; AI is going to influence our future.  MMORPGs are a logical place for it to fit.  I for one want to remain optimistic on the topic.  That optimism for exciting new technology and what it will do for MMORPGs keeps me motivated to see what happens!

My first Youtube upload in over 12 years!

 I did a thing that I said I was going to do: I made a Youtube video!  My first video upload in -- checks Youtube and blog history -- 12 years!!!  It's been a minute (or 6,307,200+ minutes to be more precise)!  I was mostly encouraged to make the video to show my oldest son some things he could do with his video editing as he ventures off into his video making career.  Also figured this would make a good blog post on how I combined some AI and design tools together to make this thing happen.

 First; the video featuring a race from Asphalt 9 Legends that I've been messing around a bit with lately.

I had a few goals when setting out to do this video

1. Be done in a day
2. Use AI tools to make some images
3. Make use of sound effects
4. Create an intro and an outro I can use in future videos
   
5. Get feedback on how to do better
   

 In order to be done with this in a day I decided early on that I needed to use a game I am less attached to.  Had this been a New World video I'd probably still be agonizing over what footage to use or how to frame it.  Asphalt 9 Legends was easy because it features super fast races with cinematic mode to capture the footage.

 I did hit some issues on capture so will be looking for feedback and suggestions.  I used AMD's software to do the recording.  The game play was smooth but the video had some hitches and it didn't record in a format that I could use in Camtasia 2021 (I use this to chop up videos for work).  I had to use Handbrake to encode the video recorded in AMD and after that encoding, even after playing around with settings a few times, it had a lot of freezes as can be seen in the final product.

 Also AMD records my mouse cursor over the screen even though it is NOT visible when playing the game.  Maybe I just need to use a different recording method or program?  My son uses Microsoft Gamebar (or whatever comes up hitting Windows + G).  I've also seen suggestions to use OBS (Open Broadcast Studio) for capture.

 Next I wanted to hit some AI tools; mainly image generation.  I used Bing's image generator which to come up with a "Let's Race" and "Crash" images to use in the video.  I used Microsoft Designer to clean the images up and make backgrounds transparent.  It works remarkably well but did find it sort of confusing and/or limited in what it could do.  I had some final editing that I just did in Paint.net on my local PC.

 

Apparently "transparent background" to the AI means a checkered background.  I used Microsoft Designer to remove the background and save it afterwards as truly transparent.

 AI only got me so far.  I've had a catchy tagline I've wanted to use for a while of "To the point, no bull, game play footage." with an asterisk of "*Not a pro gamer", but I couldn't get a decent image with the text so I ended up over in Canva creating my own.  Canva was impressive for my first time using it beyond just copying a template from it!  It also converted my work to short MP4 videos for easy use including a subscribe animation!  Static copies of the intro and outro I created.

Intro (created with Canva)

Outro (created with Canva)

 I also learned about Youtube's audio library which I nabbed some sound effects and free music from for the video.  This was honestly an amazing free resource that I think should be recommended more; there is a ton to pick from.

 So enjoy and I hope this maybe inspires some creativity out there!  If this old gamer can do it so can you.  Maybe even my kid will pick something up here from his old man!

Pax Dei Early Access

 Continuing the "heartlessgamer playing around with AI" I asked Bing to summarize the news from the past day with Pax Dei's plans for Early Access.

NVIDIA featured Pax Dei gameplay footage during their CES 2024 special address. Mainframe Industries confirmed NVIDIA DLSS 3 will be included in "day one" of Pax Dei's launch. After a successful alpha test in late 2023, the game developers affirmed the highly-anticipated game is to enter early access in the coming Spring ¹. The game is a medieval flavored social sandbox MMO from developers from Blizzard and Remedy Entertainment ². The game will be available on PC and will feature AI accelerated DLSS 3 ². The early access offers are almost finalized with monetization confirmed as a single purchase grants access ¹. There is no specific date for Pax Dei's early access launch, but a second alpha test phase is in motion with sign-ups available on their website ¹.

¹: [KeenGamer](https://www.keengamer.com/articles/news/pax-dei-early-access-features-nvidia-dlss-3-nvidia-ces-2024-address/)
²: [IGN](https://www.ign.com/videos/pax-dei-nvidia-dlss-3-official-trailer-ces-2024)

Source: Conversation with Bing, 1/9/2024
(1) Pax Dei Early Access Features NVIDIA DLSS 3, CES 2024 ... - KeenGamer. https://www.keengamer.com/articles/news/pax-dei-early-access-features-nvidia-dlss-3-nvidia-ces-2024-address/.
(2) Pax Dei Nvidia DLSS 3 - Official Trailer | CES 2024. https://www.ign.com/videos/pax-dei-nvidia-dlss-3-official-trailer-ces-2024.
(3) Pax Dei Is Hosting Its First Alpha Test, Called 'Home Valley,' Starting .... https://www.mmorpg.com/news/pax-dei-is-hosting-its-first-alpha-test-called-home-valley-starting-on-november-14th-2000129436.
(4) RTX 500 and Counting: Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition & Pax Dei .... https://www.nvidia.com/en-my/geforce/news/ces-2024-dlss-ray-tracing-rtx-games-announcements/. 

Some AI Blog Banners!

 Playing around with Bing's AI generated images; prompt "heartlessgamer blog banner". Results below.  What do you think?