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Comment by azath92 | Hacker News Reader

Only because it is something i find fascinating: > There are those Orcs in that one Lord of the Rings game who hold grudges against you.

Is referring to the nemesis system in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, and its an amazing set of interlocking procedural systems that do genuinely feel like its AI, but is really AI in the sense its always been used by games (the rules the games follow to govern NPCs+world) and not AI in the sense of modern LLMs or even other generative systems. This video is a great look at what it is and why its great IMO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm_AzK27mZY

I think a system like this could really work well with some modern LLM stuff, but it certainly feels magic without it.

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> I think a system like this could really work well

Too bad, it's patented! https://www.eurogamer.net/shadow-of-mordors-brilliant-nemesi...

Fuck software patents and every single person who has ever filed one.

It’s not really, the patent is very narrow

https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1iyrbzd/clearing_up_...

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10926179B2/en

The patent was filed in 2016 and granted in 2021. If the system was so useful we would’ve seen it in another game before then, or a very similar system after.

I was aware of the patent, and agree i think its overly narrow and you could get around it easily. I think the reason we haven't seen it or something like it in another game (or i haven't but someone pleeeease id love to hear systems like it), is less because its not useful, or maybe its not useful as a plug and play because the only reason it works is because of the super exhaustive care taken on tuning its parameters and giving it enough variety to make it interesting to play.

Kinda like the dialogue/story paths in something like hades, where IIRC they made a whole system to manage it, but the reality is that system only matters when the tree is suuuuuuuuper complex. or maybe it was disco elysium, or both ...

Ah. Well, maybe we could improve the patent system instead? If most property is going digital, and we agree as a society that idea generators and executors deserve compensation for their effort, I think the answer would be better more evolved compensation systems and I agree stopping patents that are clearly a troll though would be better to be fucked.

> maybe we could improve the patent system instead?

The patent system benefits the uber-wealthy at the expense of everyone else, so no, that won't be happening.

is that still true in an age where intelligence is accessible via AI models and we can all file patents? (not saying we are there today, though maybe that may be a reality in 1-2 years)

> idea generators and executors deserve compensation for their effort

To be fair, in this specific example executors of the idea were already compensated by selling a well-received game with a cool new mechanic.

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