There’s plenty of reason to interact with others still. I find having players to chat or grind with when I’m out doing something makes for an enjoyable time.
Crafting orders also make for a neat way to meet people.
This post wasn’t created with the intent to isolate ourselves further. The purpose was to see what others think of the concept of turning a handful of AI characters loose and seeing what they can accomplish with the prompts given. Nothing more, nothing less. Just an experiment.
Oh no, of course… And I wasn’t arguing against the post… But against the growing use of AI looking like something out of a speculative science-fiction dystopian novel… like the one I’ll be writing 
I just want WoW to feel like it used to 
Or at least as loyal to that vision as possible.
Totally fair!
AI can be worrying, because of the knowledge we carry about what it is theoretically capable of. If used ethically, it could be incredible though.
True… But who do we trust to use it, how, and to what ends… That’s perhaps one of the deepest, most crucial questions of our age that nobody could have foreseen (except speculated, again, in science-fiction) 
I want AI to do my job so I can write / paint / play games. I don’t want AI to write / paint / play games so I can do my job.
AI isn’t good enough to be competitive with human players with the same experience.
If you threw AI into millions of simulations for an encounter with little variability, ya it could probably map paths etc.
That’s actually what I am attempting to learn via schooling! I lowkey want to automate my own work so I have more time to do the things I want to do, while merely verifying that the work is indeed correct.
The post itself however is an idea I had following a few videos from Emergent Garden on YouTube where he has AI play Minecraft. I found it interesting enough to actually start pursuing more knowledge on the subject, because I think the idea of having a private instance of WoW where only the AIs play the game would be super entertaining.
Imagine having a bunch of AIs running around with different “skill levels” and independant goals, and watching them learn and progress through the game. Like I mentioned before, it would be like a digital ant farm where my entertainment is derived from watching that progress. It sounds really enjoyable to me.
No, AI (or rather programmed bots) should be superior to players.
SC2 bots are better than players.
As far as I know, the Island Expedition AI’s are the best they’ve created so far. Idk, maybe they can.
What you’re describing isn’t an AI, it’s a script.
To be AI, at least in the sense we currently use, it needs to look at the current situation, make a decision, and then look at the current situation to make the next decision.
“Wait X seconds and then swap in” doesn’t require any decision making, and it would happen without regard for the current situation.
The healing priorities bracket is a little more complex, but ultimately it’s just the programer telling the bot what to do and when to do it.
That’s still not AI, just automation.
Based on how poorly some people perform in keys, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were AI.
If Blizz allowed AI to level for me, I’d be all over it in a heartbeat
Communication to overcome obstacle? Yes, although there are experiences on either extreme you still can’t remove the fact that games are a viable means of people learning social skills.
However, when does it shift from skill development to just monotonous repetition? Thats where video games can be awful, you can solo q into a lobby for a game you’ve been playing for 20 years, all because you’re 30 and refuse to learn how to socialize down. Imo the reason people have such fond memories of early wow is because of just how much of the community came from beneath it, they came from dnd, everquest etc. wow was an accessible frontier for people who wanted to help others through socialization, that still exists… but the game existing and people committing so much of their life to it has definitely led to a lot of individuals from socially progressing.
People throw a fit if things don’t go their way, they throw a fit if someone is playing the wrong talent in pickup content. Prior to video games, the internet? Those people would’ve had to go outside, they would’ve been the guy who smashes peoples models playing warhammer, argue about vague rulings, smell like a monkeys toecheese, and they would’ve been kicked away. Now they just play online and reroll as an undead rogue every classic relaunch.
Personally I think AI in games is a good thing, I’d rather be able to play “wc3” with 20-40 npc armies running on scripts with 1-5 individual players as the heroes. Wow is archaic relative to AI in this sense where people are so used to just playing with other players, but even then if you look at cutting edge raiding its still robotic, the enemies are scripted and the fights follow a script, it just takes time for players to learn it. 40 players following a script compared to 5 doesn’t offer anything more integral to learning other than the fact that chaos ensues when 35 of those players have absolutely no clue what the script is supposed to be. They run around like chickens with their heads cut off and as I said, I’d rather just have the ability to replace them with npcs so the other 5 can experience some semblance of organization without having to sweat over making a cohesive unit of 10+ players. But thats partially because I view it has dehumanizing to instruct as deeply as it would require, thats literal war, barking orders, making someone feel like crap because they did something wrong, I agree with leaving that out of games and I think the best solution is through AI. I’d rather run a simultation with major variable input to see my strategy than to live through it knowing I’m making 30 other people feel stressed about following a script, playing with other people is just a game, I don’t want it to become anything deeper and if I do, I’ll gladly use AI to emulate human behaviour in a game, because I can modify it without having to ruin the fun for somebody else.
I do think its necessary to maintain separate communities, there’s a massive problem with adding scripts to content where players believe its human error occurring. Its like I said with the dnd to mmorpg progression, you need to offer the progression, which my self example being; playing with humans, understanding human error and inconsistency, attempting to understand what it would take to make humans work cohesively, then progressing to not wanting to carry a whip and instead opting for AI. If you start throwing in AI too early you get people who think peak strategy or optimization is relative to your apm in sc2 and they start nitpicking humans based on something as basic as their capability to parse 90% in retail wow.
If you care to look at denser symbolic explanation of what I’m saying I’d suggest revisiting shadowlands. Specifically the relation between the first and the enlightened story, in contrast with the primus and the houses of maldraxxus, the guy carving runes out of the nature of the game, the thing the enlightened are bound towards replicating. On the flipside you could argue the more nature based approach of the night fae, or the emotion based one of the venthyr, the latter being especially relative to what I mentioned about “toxic” antisocial development in the pursuit of refining ones capability to find holes in the chaos, from the lack of nature to concisely follow the patterns of the first ones.
Could they play it at the most basic level?
Yes.
Could they play it as raiders? No.
Unless they happened to be getting signals from the code or something but even then.
Capitalism: “So, what’s the problem?”
It’d happen under any economic system tbh.
Probably more to do with apathy in our age of widely accessible information.
Yes, and for many people nowadays and even 10, 20 or 30 years ago games WERE and remain the most or even the only viable form of true social fulfilment.
I highly encourage watching “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin” on Netflix streaming.
This is a subjective imposition, though.
Again, for some people, socializing IRL is simply NOT viable, at least not by past metrics.
Nowadays, education and social media promote such anti-human philosophies and unnatural exaggerations, polarizations and atomization of human psychology, like something straight out of a Dystopian novel… As if they read those as manuals?!
When they’re constantly preached repressive nonsense - like the human inability to know reality or rely on history or research (i.e. academia being an anti-human cult propaganda engine generating NPC’s that worship self-sacrifice to any ideology but their own happiness…) …
This is when people start to search for somebody else to guide them through a mess they have been discombobulated too much to dare interpret or act on their own within. This is what the Post-modernistic cult faith has done. Hijacked and subverted any idea about modernity or human progress, to be sorry excuses for the worst instinctual motivations of pre-modernity and striving coercively towards some (Again, subjective and imaginary) idea of a “collective” “utopian” vision… Whatever one decides that might be, because we can’t judge any idea as wrong… Except some ideas are better than others in function, but NOT according to this schematic. The one that sounds the most enticing and revolutionary will be the winner. EXCEPT there’s no proof… and often contradictory proof regarding both the aspirations and past outcomes of these attempts at changing the narrative about humanity to anything except what works.
I highly suggest researching the ‘species’ of “parasitical ideas” in evolutionary psychology.
I argue that WoW has SAVED MANY, many lives.
I am only but one example, if I were to attest.
The thing is there are too many copies out there. Games, movies, shows, even books now… that dilute and push a “hyper-reality” because of a falsehood, that it is somehow suddenly more moral or beneficial to believe that everyone’s ideas are equally true and should be given an equal stage with no merit or motivation.
It just so happens, that some write stories or program games better than others… be it from an inclination developed at a young age or meticulous engagement and training in the field. Usually, some combination of both, as individuals tend to gravitate to study their interests, specialize, and excel in them. And of course that’s exactly what the new paradigm views as sinful (because the proponents of these ideas where heralds of laziness, and the drive for sameness results from envy and fear).
That’s why the Trading Post exists.
I’d MUCH rather have FEWER but FAR superior venues of escapist entertainment - be that, in their QUALITY… and especially their philosophy and not blurring the line between imagination and reality.
When looking at something like Rated Battlegrounds in WoW – they are anything BUT a literal war!
This is NOT to attack your opinion of it, but how education has made most people view things with anxiety and confusion because they have never experienced them.
As it happens, I was injured as the result of a real war just a few months ago…
What WoW PvP for example has done for me, is exactly that – provide a lens with a safe narrative distance (the function of escapism from literature) through which they can deal with the world via experimentation. Again, that is why children, and adults, PLAY as an evolutionarily adapted concept.
Sure, some people will not know what they’re doing in the battleground or the arena, but that doesn’t mean they are not worthy of acquiring skill in the same way I did through practice and tribulation. People don’t have to answer to some subjective standard of whether or not they are useful to MY end of getting enjoyment out of an extremely micro-cosmic simulation of SOME aspects of reality. JUST as I would never want to bend myself and force myself out of enjoyment for the sake of somebody else’s. Part of maturity is the acceptance of individual difference, and its embracing.
I am HAPPY seeing noobs making mistakes because I know they can LEARN and ENJOY the game for many years to come. Of course, it’s tougher when there’s higher rating goals involved… But that’s what you’d want to organize a group for. Except, now that’s impossible because there isn’t enough participation, and so the Solo-Queue was invented.
To me, this all comes from disposition and philosophy,
but it’s CRUCIAL to distinguish between leadership and tyranny.
If you queued up for a Random battleground and some guy just went bonkers because your team lost, and he whispers insults at you, you can report and ignore him.
However, a rated battleground, for example, is different. Do you know how much I used to scream at people twice or thrice older than me in MoP and WoD?
And vice versa. When you sign up to play as a team, you “sign a contract” of “I am here to individually play my best so that I can learn and enjoy – And thus contribute to the team so we can win more – and learn and enjoy more.” The leader hence has been given the temporary, micro-cosmic authority to scream at you if you’re not using your brain, and it’s not like that has any implication beyond that moment or beyond that environment. I have lost contact with 99% of the people I used to play with, unfortunately, but what I’ve learned remains and serves me today, both within and without the confines of the game… Again, because learning from stories and plays constitute sample experiences that mimic… And may even emulate reality (Since in WoW you’re judged by your merit more than IRL a lot now)
That is absolutely true, and because of that I hold the game should NOT have any such AI within. It’s simply NOT what people have signed up (Subscribed to) WoW for. It’s a clear violation of any trade rules, consumer agreements, etc. FOMO trickery is another.
If the game is doing badly in some aspects, perhaps it is time to revise what developments have been made to sway people away from them and fix those… And, if all hope is lost, consolidate the game and cut that mode away – as was done with 5v5 arenas and is now being ghostly done with 10v10 group Rated Battlegrounds, and even group Arenas TO an extent.
Now, I have many contentions with the way the game has been changing and gradually losing its MMO aspects. But the day I accept it has been co-opted for some arbitrary, mystifying ideology that treats human beings as tools and sees nothing wrong with replacing them with scripts… That will be the day I finally quit the game and will only have the points which are leading me to write Sci-Fi Dystopian novels dramatically reinforced.
I love WoW, and especially the experiences and joy it has given me throughout the years. That’s what I signed up for… Not for yet another IP hijacked and twisted by short-term, superficial ideas that might as well have come from Sauron… And yes I do look at other aspects of the entertainment industry now exactly the same way. It’s not about human benefit or even rational approaches to profit any longer, but about psychological exploitation and brainwashing ideologies BECAUSE that’s what’s being indoctrinated into people now from childhood.
Again, I know this because I AM in that environment. Academia puts insane cult ideas in people’s heads, like worshipping dictators and sacrificing themselves to a robot programmed by somebody else, or loving the planet more than their own life.
Now, These are NOT new ideas… But actually majorly outdated ones.
ONLY the deity and the utopian vision have been swapped for a newer version that can get more people on-board through appealing to subjectivism (So “society” rather than a personally reflective “God”), emotionalism, tribalism, mysticism and altruism. It’s a revisional view of human nature that splits it apart as if to control and change it. We have seen it plenty of times ONLY in the last century… and we know fully well how that ended.
Ask the ~160 million people who experienced that to the extreme… Nevermind, you can’t. OOPS 
(But YOU CAN research: Solzhenitsyn, Rand, Bezmenov, Sowell, Van Fleet, Park, etc etc).
It’s not gonna work…
Just look what has been happening to the movie industry.
People CAN and SHOULD observe reality and make decisions based on what is real.
And when they get tired of seeing dull repeats of copied nonsense, subverting and destroying everything they used to love, DENYING them connection to reality, themselves and other people too… They will fight back, either vote with their wallets, or something FAR more extreme in regards to its impact on lives.
Nice strawman… I hope one less person will fall for it since I suggest they research anything whatsoever.
The problem is never the technology. Inanimate objects have no inherent behavioral properties. Only philosophy – The disposition of people is how they will wield it. (Take a simple example, like using a stick to fight a tiger vs to light a fire… As short vs long-term – the latter lead to cooking and accelerated evolution. Each object can have various uses based on applying the mind to reality, testing, failing and adapting nature to human need BASED on an unbiased look at nature. What has in modernity been termed a scientific methodology.)
If people see existence as hopeless and themselves as powerless to fulfil their desires (Within the bounds of reality…!), they will give themselves in to any information that, again, is made to SOUND compelling. It’s far easier to imagine far beyond and wide ahead, than to pause a moment and look at one’s surroundings and decide the next step forward to fulfil that vision. The latter is how humanity has done it forever… Until some ~150 years ago when certain bad ideas returned, were veiled as intellectual, and have been hence propagated as the only truth even though every measure says exactly otherwise.
We live in a world of delusion because of people’s choice to accept delusion.
Nothing more, nothing less. I’ve gotten myself out of different mystifications, and anybody else can as well because we’re all human. We’re unique and that’s good, but we’re all human.
AI could indeed be used for good measure, but it could also lead to boundless destruction. It’s all up to people to decide what to do with it.
My call is that it untested technologies wielded for Neo-Mystical ideologies should be kept away from entertainment, that’s supposed to be escapist – the application of one’s mind to a fictional scenario, to process information about reality (e.g. human connection, leadership, trade; through guilds and RBGs etc.). The more the HUMAN aspects of anything dilute, the more the Non-/A-/Anti-Human (Animalistic / Irrational, Zombified / Parasitized, Robotic / Deterministic “NPC”) can flourish. Not necessarily because it’s real (until technology might make it so, somehow). But because people BELIEVE it to be true, and that’s the behaviors they will embody and pass on. Post-modernism is the Genus Cult of N’Zoth IRL and I hope somebody can question it for themselves now. Because my life has been far better since I’ve started to deny the gaslighting and focus on what’s real and makes me healthier, happier long term. Which is what I knew BEFORE these whacko ideas hijacked entertainment and academia and had me in their sway during some critical years. Brainwashing is hard to un-do, but it’s possible.
I can link to more materials, but I’d like to preserve my forum privileges, hopefully. None of this is to be interpreted as political, because it isn’t. Politics today are just branches of bad philosophy worshipping this version or that version of dysfunctional ideals. The solution is to simply live for one’s own happiness as a human being, on planet Earth… and not to give their mind - individuality, integrity, creativity… to anything and anyone for any price. Not to a robot, and not to people who believe they have The Truth over you because they were taught something you can learn too – or more often, disprove as their manipulation and self-delusion they use because of their psychology, to which you have no responsibility, and no pro-human morality would demand that you sacrifice yourself for.
At the end of the day, people should make their own research and check what applies. If something is wrong, don’t accept it because it’s popular, trendy, or because some cliques have given it a mystifying aura of intellectuality or Truth. That’s just choosing not learning from history or about human motivation. It’s why using one’s mind to discern things is crucial. It’s what makes a human being, as opposed to an NPC. A human being thinks, an NPC serves.
So, Shadowlands IS the right comparison. Post-modern nonsense is encapsulated in the Sylvanas’ narrative and its lesson. People who believe they’re the Jailer will eventually be petrified by reality. It used to be in the form of a tiger in the woods, but it can be whatever else now thanks to technology but because of unchanging moral education. Now it can result in a nuke, which is that another end of the spectrum I started with. I hold that playing an MMO with AI is a Dystopian state right in the middle. It’s half-way uncanny when half your team is bots, but not yet the one-way destruction of all that exists. But, if the dominating Nihilistic philosophies continue to do so, it may very well result in that, sooner or later. I think we already feel the effects by the mere fact growing up in video games and social media has constituted a substitute for a social life, for probably many dozens of millions of people, and that will only continue to increase, unless a solar flare wipes that all out or something lol
The approach I described involves starting with pre-written scripts, much like existing bots. These scripts follow a set routine to handle specific tasks, but they’re improved over time by AI. Between runs, AI analyzes all the previous results, identifying patterns and making probability-based adjustments to the scripts.
This system is both cost-effective and less likely to bug out compared to running AI during a fight. If you’ve ever broken something like ChatGPT, you know how easy it is to trip into circular logic or other failures. However, AI can step in during a run for tasks where static scripts fail—like adapting to unexpected situations or predicting player movement.
To clarify, think of how humans play games. We essentially run scripts ourselves. A player might follow a priority list from Wowhead for their rotation, deviating only when forced to adapt or when they make a mistake. AI isn’t necessary for following such a list; a bot like Honorbuddy could execute it nearly perfectly if well-scripted. AI’s strength lies in adaptability and long-term optimization.
Example:
Let’s break this down with an example—a Ret Paladin in a fight with a mix of combat mechanics. The system has modular scripts for combat, defensive actions, movement, and utility. AI steps in only when the script encounters unpredictable challenges.
Initial Engagement (Script-Driven)
The system starts by checking if you’re in melee range.
Spread Mechanic (AI Hand-Off)
A boss mechanic forces players to spread out. Scripts handle basic checks, but AI calculates optimal positioning:
Defensive Scenario (Script + AI)
A high-damage ability is incoming, requiring defensives.
Knockback Mechanic (AI Hand-Off)
The boss uses a knockback ability.
Inputs Required:
The AI goes through these steps systematically but has the flexibility to adapt based on real-time feedback.
INPUT boss_position(x, y)
INPUT player_position(x, y)
INPUT knockback_range (from XML)
INPUT dangerous_zones[] (active mechanic zones)
INPUT safe_spots[] (pre-marked areas for the mechanic)
# Step 1: Calculate knockback direction and destination
angle_to_player = GetAngle(boss_position, player_position)
destination = CalculateKnockbackSpot(player_position, angle_to_player, knockback_range)
# Step 2: Check destination validity
IF destination IS IN dangerous_zones[] OR NOT IN safe_spots[] THEN:
# Step 3: Recalculate new position
new_angle, new_destination = RecalculatePosition(destination, dangerous_zones[], safe_spots[])
destination = new_destination
# Step 4: Execute movement
MoveTo(destination)
# Helper Functions:
FUNCTION GetAngle(boss_position, player_position):
RETURN atan2(player_position.y - boss_position.y, player_position.x - boss_position.x)
FUNCTION CalculateKnockbackSpot(player_position, angle, range):
x_offset = cos(angle) * range
y_offset = sin(angle) * range
RETURN (player_position.x + x_offset, player_position.y + y_offset)
FUNCTION RecalculatePosition(destination, dangerous_zones[], safe_spots[]):
FOR each possible_angle IN [0° to 360° in small increments]:
test_destination = CalculateKnockbackSpot(player_position, possible_angle, knockback_range)
IF test_destination NOT IN dangerous_zones[] AND test_destination IN safe_spots[] THEN:
RETURN (possible_angle, test_destination)
RETURN (fallback_angle, fallback_destination)
While this structure looks script-like, the AI’s real strength lies in:
Google’s Deepmind has been able to play Minecraft, although in a limited sense. I.e. it can move around pick up items etc.
The problem is that the “win” condition of an MMO game is nebulous at best.
Can you answer fill in the blank: you win wow when you __________ .
I don’t doubt that you could eventually clear a dungeon or kill a world boss, but “play” the game? Mmm…
Think about how AI works: you can imagine a terrain populated by mountains and valleys and your goal is to find the path that goes through the terrain at the lowest points overall. Basically if you pour water on the terrain the water would find this path. Now just imagine this terrain is N-dimensional and evolving with time rather than 3-D. The path is your “winning” condition (hopefully). Now imagine if you didn’t have a clear “winning” condition…that’s like saying you don’t know what the elevations are.
AI can do tasks. It can move in the game. Task done? Win. Moved correctly? Win.
Basically you can train it one thing at a time by having volunteers command a player “go pick that flower” “move to the NPC” and then having a player do that in the game. What the player does is the “success” criteria and the commands are the “prompts”. Then after seeing it hundreds of times the AI “learns” to do it. Hopefully. It doesn’t understand “why” you’re doing it. Doing a single dungeon would be… A lot of volunteers…a lot of hours… could it generalize? Play well? Mmmmm… How big is the grant lol?
I feel like you guys are vastly overestimating the capabilities of current AI. Right now it’s like a baby learning to grasp and manipulate things. Literally that’s half of robotics AI learning rn lol.
Any responsible researcher will ask for a private instance to test in and would ask permission to do this sort of testing and would not be using it to farm gold in the game lol.
I mean, in theory, yes, it’s possible. Botting exists (however useless they may be if you’re unfortunate enough to get one in your group), so at a certain skill level a self-correcting bot would theoretically be able to do the content. I’m not sure if that’d apply to high M+ or mythic raids or not (depends on if the Ai bot could “see” the mechanics, I guess), but it’d still be theoretically possible.