this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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I was just thinking earlier today, games could probably use AI to seamlessly work the player's name into dialog. They would still hire voice actors, but insert whatever name the player chooses into the lines where it is mentioned. I feel like this isn't too far away.
World of Warcraft would benefit from this. Local processing power is quite up to the task these days, and it’s jarring to see your name on the screen but the audio says “champion” or something similar.
Maybe in 11.0…
Star field does this and it caught me complete off guard became I had used my real name.
Fallout 4 did as well, but it worked with a list of names that Codsworth could say. I'm assuming Starfield does something similar? Or is it a ton of NPCs that use the name?
Idk I didn't pick a name, I just entered my name for my character. Then I was playing and Vasco just said my name. I literally stopped in my tracks and was like "what did you just say?"
Yeah, he called me Assface.
To be fair, Vasco is a robot with a robotic / computer generated sounding voice. It's still cool, but it wouldn't take modern AI / neural network based processing to do that, any old text to speech engine could reproduce Vasco's voice.
He's voiced by Jake Green https://m.imdb.com/name/nm2482007/?ref_=tt_cl_t_4
I just saw another link farther down saying that its not actually auto generated at all. Jake Green just had to record 1011 different names.......
I thought they actually just recorded a ton of names for Fallout 4? I seem to recall hearing that they did something like 900+ different name recordings.
They did the same thing. Probably using the same list with additions. Both games have a robot be the only character who says your name. I suppose that makes it less unbelievable if you notice the splices where they add your name to an otherwise unaltered line.
That's what I meant :) I just assumed they did the same thing for Starfield
Dang, the future is here.
I like the idea a lot. I can think of two problems that need to be solved for this:
Multiplayer doesn't make a difference, at least not noticeably, as all those shenanigans can already be done by text. You'll get reported and named "player345133" whether you misspell e.g. a forbidden slur or use a misspelling to get the slur's pronunciation.
But it's harder to detect spoken slang when people make it talk in mixed accents and more, you would have to run a talk to text engine too many different times with different filters and parameters against many different languages' lists of slang words with multiple recognizable pronunciations.
And then somebody names themselves ChatGPT and the French will laugh because that sounds like "cat farted" in their language
I recently had this in a game. Just couldn't say which one sadly.. I was really suprised it said my (character's) name. Damn...which game was it?
Starfield does this to some degree: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/starfield-names-list
It does it if you have an anglo-sounding name, which is the problem with brute forcing this.
Generative AI would be a fun solution, but it currently seems like it'd trigger a lot of controversy, sadly.
I use a piece of software called crew chief for sim racing, and it has what seems like infinite names for all different languages and regions.
I don't use that, but from what I see it seems to have a drop-down for name selection, just like any other instance of this. Certainly not "infinite names". A quick Google even shows a forum thread in their official forums to request specific names to be added.
So good for them on crowdsourcing the name list, I suppose, but for games that have a set release instead of being an ongoing, live database service the lists tend to be very limited and more often than not anglocentric. Even in sports games like NBA or FIFA where they just let you pick any existing name in the commentary database.
Oh right. This nasty bugger was it.
I look forward to the expansion from this, even. Real dialogue between the players and the game. Writers and designers set parameters for each character, backstory, motives, personality, current goals, etc. And then instead of a simple 4-5 choices of pre-canned dialog, with pre-canned responses, the player can type (or even say) whatever they want, and the game can return a customized response appropriate for the character.