Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Divinity - General Discussion

The work a camera does is different than the work a painter would do -- unless the goal is to be absolutely photorealistic, then the camera provides a shortcut to achieving that, yeah. Using GenAI as references is not the same because you are drawing from the output of something that is already a muddled mess of millions of other images and then: are they painting over it? Are they using that generated piece as a starting point? I would like to see a video that shows one of their artist's process in detail and then maybe things would be much more clear on both ends of the discussion.

I'm not completely against AI being used in the industry. I think there's a lot of parts where it makes sense (like who wants to create 5 difference level-of-detail renditions of every asset you've already made). There's busy work and then there's creative work.

And again, the "art" issue aside I'm not sure there's an ethical generative AI model out there right now.

I don't want to be a spreader of doom and gloom, or unwilling to see reason. I know a lot of people, myself included, who aren't all torches and pitchforks but they are disappointed still, and I think it's ridiculous to not have expected some very loud pushback.

This is not inherent to Gen AI. It's also not unique to it.

Plagarism existed way before Gen AI. Where people literally stole other people's work and either used it directly or painted over it.

Again, this is entirely a "Usage" issue not a "Process" issue. It's all about how it is used.

Just like other tools such as photoshop. Yes, you can just steal other people's work and photoshop it and pass it off as your own work, just like you can Gen AI something and trace over it and call it your own. It doesn't make photoshop bad, it just makes bad uses bad.

Gen AI only gets a bad rep because the vast majority of use cases right now have been bad uses of it. Whereby AI art IS the final product (Bypassing use of actual artists entirely), or people have been tracing over it and calling it their own work.

But not all cases are like this.


You say that, but there wasn't that big of a deal made out of Arc Raiders and their use of AI. Which was actually involving one of the bad uses of Gen AI. Whereby they used AI to replicated VA's to make generated voice overs for callouts instead of having those VA's actually record said lines.

People just passed it over because "The VA's were apparently cool with it" and Arc Raiders is still one of the most popular games right now and has Overwhelmingly Positive reviews as a result.

Companies did this because it's cheaper and easier to implement.

Old game (cRPGs) didn't do it because, usually, no voiced line that use the word his/her.

There will be extra cost to record extra line exclusively for another gender.

It's cheaper and smarter just streamlined dialogue lines into one, instead of recording twice just to call you him/her, so they use "them" or avoid using it altogether because #somebody always going to notice when it used "them" too often.

Historically in cRPG, gender never matters, what matters is your background or skills, that define your character.

AFAIK action adventure "role playing game" like mass effect, AC etc. prioritize selecting gender because they lack literally everything else. Your background in Baldur's Gate 3 stays relevant the entire game, your background in Mass Effect matters once or twice at most in the entire trilogy.

So yes, as avid cRPG player I'm going to advocate to use gender neutral dialogue but it must comes with more dialogue and more choices on top of background which actually define your character not just flavor text.

Except many of the companies that do this still have gendered dialogue. Sometimes it's tied to "Body Type" sometimes they have a selection for what gender you are (That is separate from body type, genitals and voice).

Meaning they still go through all the effort of making gendered differences, but still call it "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" instead of Male and Female just because non-binaries are afraid of said terms.


Actually, it has mattered on occasion. Namely regarding what romance options you have. Some have also had equipment that was gender locked (Ones that were trying for more realism as opposed to the whole magically size altering nature of what we're used to - Whereby you can loot some armour being worn by a Half-Orc and then equip it on your Halfling and it fits just fine... Rather than being like that scene in LotR where Gimli puts on a human sized chainmail which trails onto the floor)

Ironically, gender defined romance options has actually fallen away while gendered dialogue has increased over time. More modern games have romance options being playersexual, whilst also making more of a point to include gendered dialogue.

There are exceptions of course, Rogue Trader for example is more classic, with gendered romance options and lack of gendered dialogue (You are always "Lord Captain" and never referred to by pronoun)


Your background in Baldur's Gate 3 is never relevant. The actions for your inspirations are largely irrelevant fluff. Thus arguably background in ME means more because it's directly referenced 3 times and determines 2 missions. While in BG3 your background is never once referenced, not even a single fluff dialogue option (There are class dialogue options but no background ones)

And yet, the Daisy plot offered a choice and player agency. One can argue about the initial implementation of Daisy, but giving the player options makes it better than the emperor railroad, especially with how badly the emperor is implemented and that according to datamines Orpheus would also have been an part of the Daisy plot.

I played the Early Access since day one and I just don't see it.
I have no idea what are you even basing this judgment on, because that's DEFINITELY not how I remember it.

It was still a bunch of cutscenes where you were simply having dialogues with HER -so in that sense nothing really changed- except she just wasn't working as a character, because she failed spectacularly at achieving the supposed goal of alluring/convincing the player that she was a credible ally.
The overwhelmingly dominant theory among the almost-entirety of the fanbase back then was that her identity was just "the tadpole trying to fuck you over".
Which to be fair was a suspect even with the "Guardian", except she was far more convincing at arguing their case and insinuating on the players the doubt she was actually on their side and acting on their best interest. Something that the "Daisy" never achieved for a fraction of a second.

With Daisy you had the option to join her "Down by the river", complete with its own music theme.