ChatGPT Advised World of Warcraft Director to Return to Shadowlands
So Ion Hazzikostas is not afraid AI will replace him any time soon.
AI has been developing rapidly in the past years and is now getting more and more used in the gaming industry. While developers are concerned that AI might displace them, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas is not worried about this after having a conversation with ChatGPT.
In an interview with IGN, Hazzikostas shared that he inquired about its ideas for the next World of Warcraft expansion. The response he got was questionable:
“I kid you not, the number one prompt it returned to me…was ‘Return to the Shadowlands.’ So I feel like I have pretty good job security, not too worried about ChatGPT replacing me anytime soon.”
There are several things wrong with this suggestion. First, Shadowlands was released before Dragonflight, so going back to such a fresh expansion is quite odd. But most importantly, Shadowlands is not loved by fans. Players complained about the game's late-game systems, time-gating, slow content releases, and how it treated Sylvanas. Overall, not a great idea to return to.
Talking further about the role of AI, Hazzikostas said the studio has been using it for "automating really arduous, painful tasks like fitting helms around Blood Elf ears and so forth" for years, before generative tools attracted that much attention.
World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Longdale believes there is "a lot of opportunity" there:
“When we're talking about living in a world that we want to feel alive, there's a lot of opportunity there. We are so focused on excellence in the craft in our design that we want to make sure that everything has our human touch. But I do think there's a lot of opportunity in an interactive space to see what the opportunities are. And we have for quite some time now. AI is…not new to us in our day-to-day. And evolution in AI is certainly going to help us, but it's always been here.”
If you'd like to learn more about it, check out the original article. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
