Midnight Appreciation - better than I thought

[Just Passing through]

Not me?

Haha...now that you say it - you even have the same avatar on your channel as you have here. Yeah, I must have seen some of your videos. Should also have added Thraun, Dratnos...and how could I forget one of my favorite for the whimsicality of his videos...wowcrendor....

[Amerissis]

Why - are you allergic? Is the game for you about reading the quest text as if they wrote some essay?

If you can't tell it's AI, it's fine, but turns out some quests are definitely too AI. And yeah, it bothers me. Both because it doesn't read well, and because it cost someone their job.

[Relapses]

Expedition 33's criticism was mostly leveled at everyone losing their minds to give it awards it didn't deserve, like sound track/visual design

Or an RPG award over KCD2, or silk song getting snubbed so people could dick ride a mediocre jrpg that's gonna ruin the genre for years to come due to shoehorned in God awful party mechanics, like gaming needed more of those after the boom of souls likes

Jesus man, I wasn't a huge CE33 fan myself, but saying it didn't deserve some accolades for its soundtrack is certainly a take.

[Just Passing through]

If you can't tell it's AI, it's fine, but turns out some quests are definitely too AI. And yeah, it bothers me. Both because it doesn't read well, and because it cost someone their job.

Yep, would bother me as well when jobs are lost to this. But how do you tell it is "too AI" with quest texts. I mean...at least for videos, we get people pointing out where stuff is not only "maybe AI" but "definitely" (like in the Christmas Coca Cold advert).

I definitely think quest texts are a very likely source to be done by AI (mainly because of "How many people actually read them?"), to me so far, nothing stood out. Then again, I might have been fooled by an occasional AI video.

[justawower]

It's certainly been a great xpac to me so far. Glad to be back in traditional EK, so much so that I probably could've done without Harandar or Voidstorm tbh. But they aren't bad. I hope they stay the course and keep updating older content.

[Calfredd]

Yep, would bother me as well when jobs are lost to this. But how do you tell it is "too AI" with quest texts. I mean...at least for videos, we get people pointing out where stuff is not only "maybe AI" but "definitely" (like in the Christmas Coca Cold advert).

I definitely think quest texts are a very likely source to be done by AI (mainly because of "How many people actually read them?"), to me so far, nothing stood out. Then again, I might have been fooled by an occasional AI video.

If it helps, if you see anything more vague or slightly off-putting than this post here, it might be A.I.

[Illuminance]

But how do you tell it is "too AI" with quest texts. I mean...at least for videos, we get people pointing out where stuff is not only "maybe AI" but "definitely" (like in the Christmas Coca Cold advert).

It's all based on pattern recognition. Technically there is no way to "prove" the use of AI in most cases. Solid evidence would be a primary source admitting/demonstrating its use, or the product has an embedded watermark that can be extracted, but those are often not available.

The Coke ad was easy for people to identify because the artifacts in the video suggested it wasn't a normal computer graphics/marketing pipeline. Video models have been lagging behind image generation which have been lagging behind text, if "believability" is the criterion. Soon we might not be able to tell AI generated content apart from older methods in any medium if these models keep improving.

With text, currently you can identify vocab, grammar, and semantic patterns that are overrepresented in mainstream LLMs. The more experience you have with these models, the easier it is to detect. Here's a set of examples from the Harandar's Kitchen quest line in Midnight:

"This meal is more than tradition--it is a promise."
"You have done more than fill bowls--you have upheld something fragile and vital."
"Let those who share in this meal remember that unity is not ease--it is effort."

These are all from the same short quest series and they all have the trifecta of: 1) "it's not X | it's more than X: it's Y" construct, 2) em dashes (translated into double dashes), and 3) vapid statements that are written in a way that is supposed to give the impression of profundity. These are all hallmarks of LLMs, specifically the ChatGPT family. I have sunk an absurd amount of time into exploring how LLMs work for writing, D&D, and summarizing text for my work, and after a while these patterns jump out at you.

---

On the main topic, I'd have to go pretty far back to find an expansion that I felt matches what Midnight is shaping up to be. It's so far a better Dragonflight/TWW combo. The story has room for improvement but it's better than Dragonflight, and the delves/prey system seem to be direct upgrades to the solo/small group-oriented content that we got in TWW.

While housing is far from perfect, it's the single largest feature that they've added in many years. It should turn out nicely once they've spent more time polishing it and adding functionality in the form of construction, layouts, pets, and mounts.

I'm optimistic and pleasantly surprised in many ways.

[Just Passing through]

If it helps, if you see anything more vague or slightly off-putting than this post here, it might be A.I.

Shows me three posts, but I guess it is '27 by Heaventan. Yeah, it sounds weird, but the poster apparently is from Indonesia. Could be a google translate. Then again it is also very positive, so that is odd

- - - Updated - - -

It's all based on pattern recognition. Technically there is no way to "prove" the use of AI in most cases. Solid evidence would be a primary source admitting/demonstrating its use, or the product has an embedded watermark that can be extracted, but those are often not available.

The Coke ad was easy for people to identify because the artifacts in the video suggested it wasn't a normal computer graphics/marketing pipeline. Video models have been lagging behind image generation which have been lagging behind text, if "believability" is the criterion. Soon we might not be able to tell AI generated content apart from older methods in any medium if these models keep improving.

With text, currently you can identify vocab, grammar, and semantic patterns that are overrepresented in mainstream LLMs. The more experience you have with these models, the easier it is to detect. Here's a set of examples from the Harandar's Kitchen quest line in Midnight:



These are all from the same short quest series and they all have the trifecta of: 1) "it's not X | it's more than X: it's Y" construct, 2) em dashes (translated into double dashes), and 3) vapid statements that are written in a way that is supposed to give the impression of profundity. These are all hallmarks of LLMs, specifically the ChatGPT family. I have sunk an absurd amount of time into exploring how LLMs work for writing, D&D, and summarizing text for my work, and after a while these patterns jump out at you.

---

On the main topic, I'd have to go pretty far back to find an expansion that I felt matches what Midnight is shaping up to be. It's so far a better Dragonflight/TWW combo. The story has room for improvement but it's better than Dragonflight, and the delves/prey system seem to be direct upgrades to the solo/small group-oriented content that we got in TWW.

While housing is far from perfect, it's the single largest feature that they've added in many years. It should turn out nicely once they've spent more time polishing it and adding functionality in the form of construction, layouts, pets, and mounts.

I'm optimistic and pleasantly surprised in many ways.

I second your final opinion. As for housing, it isn't yet attractive to me - and even when I have all my 13 classes at 90, I might rather level more alts than do housing.

But mostly thanks for the long AI explanation. As somebody who has worked in Animation (2D and 3D) for over 30 years, the Coca Cola commercial was very apparently AI, beyond what is traditionally used with filters, post production etc. But that is mostly "It feels like that because of experience" - Better ofc if it can be proven by analysing the picture as you demonstrated.

Though I have also had to read hundreds of scripts in my line of work, it is harder for me to tell with text - and I don't even see the benefit here (yet). With my limited knowledge of "Text AI" it seems easier to just come up with these line by a human. Isn't it more effort to have a human think of parameters for a quests, then input it into AI to get these lame texts? I mean...there is bound to be more effort than just typing "Make me a 5 step questline about food in a Harani zone"?

[Illuminance]

Isn't it more effort to have a human think of parameters for a quests, then input it into AI to get these lame texts? I mean...there is bound to be more effort than just typing "Make me a 5 step questline about food in a Harani zone"?

With the same caveat of we don't know exactly what they did, here are some potential reasons why they might be using AI:

• Rather than write a prompt per sentence/quest, it might be somewhat efficient to build a complex prompt up front and then feed in design documents. For example, an expanded version of: "digest this information about Harandar, generate twenty quest lines that capture the relationship between an adventurer and day to day life of the native population, restrict each output to 200 characters," and send it off
  
• Using AI could enable them to outsource quest dialogue to lower wage countries that might not even speak English fluently. They outsource a lot of their art work currently, at least based on job descriptions they've posted and interviews with artists I've seen
  
• You could have an entry level worker write a draft or outline of everything and ask a LLM to "turn this into quest text," similar to how some people use AI to reword emails
  
• Efficiency might not matter at all -- it could be mandated by the business. Microsoft along with a bunch of other tech companies effectively force AI use on employees; Example 1, Example 2

My perspective is that there is some subtle evidence of AI-generated text, and the idea that they would forbid or ignore AI for text in 2025-2026 seems much more far-fetched than allowing or even mandating it use.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Using AI could enable them to outsource quest dialogue to lower wage countries that might not even speak English fluently. They outsource a lot of their art work currently, at least based on job descriptions they've posted and interviews with artists I've seen

Wow, this is alarming. After an expansion launches, I like to tour through artstation and browse the WoW dev portfolio dumps. I thought it was all in house still, and was what was giving WoW and edge over GW2 where by End of Dragons most of the art was being outsourced to contractors.

[Illuminance]

I thought it was all in house still

I don't know what the proportions of in-house and outsourced are, but I was browsing the Blizzard careers website last year and at that time 3-4 of their open art positions looked like this one. It'd be hard to tell just how much work is contracted out since contractors aren't always credited for their contributions.

This coincided with seeing some official art on reddit and checking out the artist's socials to see who they were - one was "Goddasaurus" (Artstation link, Instagram link). He produces gorgeous art that meets/exceeds Blizzard's typical quality in my very amateur opinion. I noticed he lives in Uzbekistan, so I assume Blizzard is trying to use economic disparities to save a buck, much like how programming work is outsourced to India/Eastern Europe at tech companies.

[Just Passing through]

My perspective is that there is some subtle evidence of AI-generated text, and the idea that they would forbid or ignore AI for text in 2025-2026 seems much more far-fetched than allowing or even mandating it use.

I think you are spot on here. Again looking at the Jeff Kaplan / Friedman interview, where Kaplan said that a game company / Blizzard would / should naturally look into AI, though he thinks that you would always need the human touch. An example was how AI would always give pretty shitty suggestions of how a UI should look (and do it confidentally) but is helpful in how to integtate code etc.

Also from personal experience (anecdotal of course) - even friends of mine who are very critical about AI, have used it to write resumees or job applications and ask Chat GPT etc. Even those who claim they are very "pro worker rights" and all that. So yeah...companies will 100% dable into it where possible and where they can get away with it

[Doffen]

Haha...now that you say it - you even have the same avatar on your channel as you have here. Yeah, I must have seen some of your videos. Should also have added Thraun, Dratnos...and how could I forget one of my favorite for the whimsicality of his videos...wowcrendor....

All quality

I use chatgpt for wow stuff, its a nice tool to see whats up. Like now I want to see what will sell the most of enchants when season starts, and get answers from that. Everything with moderations I'll say.

[Biomega]

I think you are spot on here. Again looking at the Jeff Kaplan / Friedman interview, where Kaplan said that a game company / Blizzard would / should naturally look into AI, though he thinks that you would always need the human touch. An example was how AI would always give pretty shitty suggestions of how a UI should look (and do it confidentally) but is helpful in how to integtate code etc.

Also from personal experience (anecdotal of course) - even friends of mine who are very critical about AI, have used it to write resumees or job applications and ask Chat GPT etc. Even those who claim they are very "pro worker rights" and all that. So yeah...companies will 100% dable into it where possible and where they can get away with it

Just to piggyback off of this and not necessarily as a direct response...

You can have convictions all you like, but when it comes to the brutal reality of the marketplace, it's going to be do or die in a lot of cases. Even if a company doesn't want to use AI, the advantages it offers mean they'll have little choice in the matter if they want to compete - because other people will use it, and so produce more stuff for less money. The loss in quality is largely irrelevant. That's just a matter of adjustment, and of advancement; i.e. you don't use AI for the things it's terrible at, and it keeps improving so what it can do will grow over time.

The idea that somehow customers will reject it and exercise their power in the market to squash AI tools is romantic nonsense. For starters, they won't know in the vast majority of cases - QED this discussion here, where people can only speculate and suspect because there's no disclosure and no way to really police this. Even if the company banned use of AI, nothing stops an employee from going home and using it, then coming in to work tomorrow with a brilliant new concept, guaranteed self-made I swear bro trust me cross my heart and strike me dead put a lobster on my head. And even if there was disclosure mandated by law somehow, most customers would either not care, or stop caring very quickly because things are just too pervasive and people are already adopting the technology left and right.

I'm all for critiquing quality - but where that quality comes from shouldn't matter. If it's shit it's shit, whether a human made it or an AI is irrelevant. And if it's great it's great whether a human or an AI made it, too. Maybe there's different probabilities for outcomes, who knows (this depends a lot on the specific context), but probabilities are irrelevant, too. If something is shit I don't care if it had a 99% chance to be good - it's not, it's shit. And vice versa, something being good will always be good whether it was a 99% chance to be good or 1% or whatever else. Only outcomes matter.

The moral aspects of labor that go into this are a separate discussion, but like with automation before it (and many other things, too) this is something that needs to be solved by legislation, not consumer activism. Customers will shop at Walmart and Amazon for products made by the blood, sweat & tears of third-world 11-year olds all day long. Same with AI. They'll happily trample the corpses of laid-off workers. Solutions to these problems - which are unquestioningly real and pressing - lie elsewhere.

[czarek]

Setting is big deal. TBC vibes. Silvermoon as city hub. Class design. Thumbs up.

[Just Passing through]

The moral aspects of labor that go into this are a separate discussion, but like with automation before it (and many other things, too) this is something that needs to be solved by legislation, not consumer activism. Customers will shop at Walmart and Amazon for products made by the blood, sweat & tears of third-world 11-year olds all day long. Same with AI. They'll happily trample the corpses of laid-off workers. Solutions to these problems - which are unquestioningly real and pressing - lie elsewhere.

Yep, it is what it is indeed and while there are people avoiding companies like Amazon or Nestle, they are too few to matter (at the moment). Sometimes it kind of works, but in the end I often hear "I have to make ends meet, so I buy the cheapest stuff and cannot care how it was made" (and I am not judging here).

There are companies here, mainly in the art market, who have artists confirm that they don't use AI. But that is mostly for fear of future copyright trouble. There are Children Book and Comic conventions though that don't allow any AI art. Don't ask me how they check or verify it.

To circle around to the actual topic: I still like what I get with Midnight. Sure, we know Eversong and Voidstorm is what it is, but Zul Aman and Haranir have nice variations in the zones. I ry not to get too distracted by "This is what you need to do to max out every minute of game time" videos and level 7 characters at the moment, rotating them to always have decent rested xp with my main at lv 90 being the first to really charge into stuff with the next reset. And tbh I am even a bit annoyed that 12.05 is already announced. Give me a breather

[Relapses]

I think you are spot on here. Again looking at the Jeff Kaplan / Friedman interview, where Kaplan said that a game company / Blizzard would / should naturally look into AI, though he thinks that you would always need the human touch. An example was how AI would always give pretty shitty suggestions of how a UI should look (and do it confidentally) but is helpful in how to integtate code etc.

Also from personal experience (anecdotal of course) - even friends of mine who are very critical about AI, have used it to write resumees or job applications and ask Chat GPT etc. Even those who claim they are very "pro worker rights" and all that. So yeah...companies will 100% dable into it where possible and where they can get away with it

AI is like any emerging technology. There are good and bad ways to use it. Many of the anti-AI folks' arguments are extremely Luddite in nature. AI isn't just going to disappear, even after the bubble bursts. I'm hardly pro-AI myself, but we need to be able to talk about practical applications of the technology without receiving a 67 minute sermon about the horrors of late stage capitalism every fucking time somebody brings up the topic.

[HanziePanzie]

Not me?




I was there the whole time and Legion was way better received than all the expansions around it. The only real criticism was the legendaries, but even the Artifact Weapon had a lot more nuanced opinions.

Shadowlands in the start was also better received than for example BfA. So there are more nuances than one expansion "just being generally hated" I find that untrue in most cases except Warlords of Draenor(even then there are more to it, but WoD started very buggy as well)

Yes, the 'only real criticism' was reeeaaally bad. I hope you remember that. I personally got worried for first time in 23years. However, the community was also much more wild(and young).

Even recently, someone created a thread praising BFA for what it was. I didn't see that coming.

I don't think 'wait and see', "it's too soon" is a real argument. Legion is a good example.

Point is - go play Midnight - it doesn't get any better(maybe in 10years)