Blizzard’s shift to using AI in various departments isn’t new overall, but it’s starting to feel like the AI used is becoming progressively worse, and World of Warcraft is feeling the impact more than other titles right now. If you frequent the forums, you’ll find regular posts about the poor customer service in Blizzard games now, not just WoW, but it’s starting to be worse than normal, especially with the responses that players are receiving to various tickets they put in for help that they end up not receiving.
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For WoW, the use of AI by Blizzard has produced a number of screenshots of the responses that players have received from Game Masters regarding tickets they submitted. While the lack of help is its own issue, some AI GMs are basically gaslighting players by implying that they can’t be having the issue they claim is the reason they opened a ticket.
Blizzard’s AI Game Masters Hallucinate Information
Once upon a time, the Game Masters working at Blizzard were real people who would take the time to speak with players who opened tickets and solve their issues to the best of their abilities. This was often accompanied by the GM role-playing as a wizard or another identity. Those days are long over, and you’re lucky if you can speak to a human at any point when you encounter an issue in a Blizzard game.
The renewed attention to Blizzard’s use of AI in WoW comes partially from the QA team being largely AI-run now, too. The most recent patch in WoW has been a hot mess, to put it lightly, and the game has become nearly unplayable for many players due to the number of bugs. Then, when you have an issue with those bugs, you’re answered by an AI GM that’s liable to lie to you, as it’s fairly common knowledge at this point that AI has a tendency to hallucinate false information and insist that it’s true.
When you have an issue with those bugs, you’re answered by an AI GM that’s liable to lie to you
I’ve come across a number of screenshots shared on platforms like Reddit from players who had encounters with these AI GMs that are so ridiculous you can’t help laughing while feeling quite sad about the state of AI’s use at the same time. One case had the AI tell a player that the item they won a role on in a dungeon and then never received in their inventory actually didn’t drop at all. The AI took it a step further and followed that by saying that the item in question doesn’t even drop on the difficulty they ran the dungeon on. It’s a useless response and makes you feel slightly insane reading it, even as a second-hand witness to the situation.
Other not-so-helpful encounters include a number of players being directed to FAQ pages or other sources for information on the problem they’re having, rather than the GM providing any meaningful solutions, which usually results in tickets being closed with no resolutions for the players. Once I learned more about the situation, I found myself less surprised by the influx of new players in Final Fantasy 14, as it tends to see that kind of boost when something has gone terribly wrong in WoW.
Ironically, the WoW-Killer Will Be Blizzard
I wrote a piece not long ago about how there have been multiple MMORPGs over the decades that were supposed to kill WoW and take its place at the top of the genre, but none have succeeded in killing WoW. My assumption was that WoW would continue to survive until a new game takes its place, but now I believe that Blizzard is going to kill WoW before another game gets the chance.
AI in general isn’t a tool that consumers love to see being used in products, especially in gaming, and there are still a lot of debates going on about how ethical the use of AI is when it requires existing materials for training, and its output is then based on that material. When a studio mentions using generative AI in particular, it receives backlash more often than not.
Using AI for customer support comes with its own set of issues, which are obvious just from looking at a big example, like Blizzard. When the QA team was replaced with AI, the quality of patches dropped, and there are so many bugs that it’s difficult to enjoy playing the game. When the GMs were replaced with AI, players stopped being able to have their problems solved and faced longer wait times than ever just to have their tickets closed without a resolution. Without fundamental changes in how Blizzard runs the departments that support their games and the use of AI, the future of World of Warcraft looks bleak.
Square Enix Wants 70% Of QA, Debugging Work To Be Done By Generative AI
Square Enix is partnering with the University of Tokyo to enhance game development through the use of AI technologies.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
