AI generated text in Dragon Knight's passives

BardokRedSnow · May 22

ZOS_Zenke wrote: »

Hey everyone! Michael Zenke here, Loremaster at large and incredible fan of flavor text.

I just wanted to call out that these were not made with AI. All of the text shipped for the Elder Scrolls Online is hand-written, by humans, no exceptions.

The Arcanist strings, as well as these Dragonknight entries, were an attempt by us to inject a little more context and flavor into our skills. The feedback I'm seeing here that the Arcanist was more successful on this front is super interesting, and I want to say I deeply appreciate that you all care enough to think about them.

For some behind the scenes on this, Dragonknight and the other 'base game' classes offer a bit of a different challenge than Arcanist did. As a brand-new class, we had kind of 'blue ocean' (Mora joke) to explore when it came to their lore context. Hence the references to ancient Arcanist orders and mysterious figures.

The DK, on the other hand, is a very well-established experience in our minds. We've been playing the DK for years!

My thought was that suddenly announcing that there are orders of Dragonknights we've never talked about before (or the like), felt like the wrong approach. Which is why these flavor lines focus more on vibes and the experience of being a DK, rather than explicit worldbuilding.

Thank you all for caring about the use of AI-generated text in our project. This is something we all care deeply about as well, and I hope we can continue to talk about stuff like this in the future in a positive way.

As a DK main since beta days, I love the flavor text, and I don't think trying to make new lore just for flavor text is the right way to go either. I especially love that y'all made the connection to the thu'um more evident while not actually being the thu'um itself. Its perfect for tying in both nord fans and otherwise since the akavir and nords both have a connection to the dragon power. It only makes sense that the thu'um itself is mentioned when that's what the akaviri kiai is inspired from.

BardokRedSnow · May 22

Also there's no need to change anything for the dk text imo, @ZOS_Zenke , please do not add reman's battlecry instead of stormvoice etc, everyone knows that reman cyrodiil was a dragonborn and used the thu'um, the context of his power which was a thing before we knew fully how the thu'um worked or where it came from, is that it is derived from his being dragonborn and uses the thu'um naturally.

Stormvoice, a nickname for it and used as flavor text for DK skills is perfect and I don't think most fans have an issue with it at all, I certainly don't. I was in love with it and couldn't be happier with all the DK changes currently. GGs.

BardokRedSnow · May 22

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Guess I was correct about the flavor text just being vibes and not legit lore

Should be evident from "Aedric Spear" being a skill line name.

alternatelder · May 22

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Guess I was correct about the flavor text just being vibes and not legit lore Should be evident from "Aedric Spear" being a skill line name.

Do you know what Aedric means in tes lore? And don't use AI to give me an answer.

BardokRedSnow · May 22

alternatelder wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Guess I was correct about the flavor text just being vibes and not legit lore Should be evident from "Aedric Spear" being a skill line name.

Do you know what Aedric means in tes lore? And don't use AI to give me an answer.

This is so painfully patronizing and cringe but I'll humor you. It is Et'ada, the original 8 which elves claim to be the only descendants of but it is both wandering and old ehlnofex that are derived of them.

You're going to argue probably that all magic is then technically aedric in tamriel specifically because it comes from aetherius via Magnus, the sun and the holes in the void a la the stars made by the magna ge. You'd be wrong though because aedric magic refers specifically to divine essence magics such as magic from their left behind artifacts like the eye of magnus, arguably the thu'um since dragons are pieces of akatosh, and why Nords say they're of Kyne specifically since they have more inherent ability to learn the thu'um allegedly (I like to think so, meaning non dragonborn).

There's argument that Lorkhan's heart falls under that category too but his nature is a bit different from the 8 and is why he's not included in that. The armor of Pelinal and the blessings that correlate with it definitely fall under that category though and are distinct from normal magic in not just function but potency.

There you go. Y'all gotta get over the AI fearmongering one shotting this community, its weird.

BardokRedSnow · May 22

Wandering and Old Ehlnofe(y) before someone hits me with the uhm actuallyyy lol.

Bguk · May 22

I have no issue with the lore being there. If anything, maybe italicize it so it stands out from the skill. Something like Magic cards have as an example. The flavor text stands out.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · May 22

Are people unaware that AI was trained on how people write so no you are NOT a master of determining if AI wrote something.

Ratzkifal · May 22

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Guess I was correct about the flavor text just being vibes and not legit lore Should be evident from "Aedric Spear" being a skill line name.

You are confusing "what is" for "what ought to be". Just because many of the DK ability snippets and tidbits frankly suck right now doesn't mean that they are stuck like that forever and that we should give up on them entirely. Especially because there are some that do have something to tell, like The Storm Voice. There was an attempt here. So let's do it properly and get it right.

And also, I really don't share your sentiment about Aedric Spear. Priests aren't just mages with a focus on restoration magic. Sure, a lot of it is ritualized restoration magic, but Arkay's protection against necromancy and such is real. I don't think it's hard to believe that there is a divine ritual for -for lack of a better word- conjuring a weapon to protect the faithful. It might very well be Aedric in origin, even when it's not on the same power level as something like Pelinal's armor. We have the same for minor Daedric artifacts too, like the Daedric Crescent or Malacath's Band of Brutality. It's the equivalent of the Aedra/Daedra lending you a finger instead of a hand. At least that's my take on it.

Ratzkifal · May 22

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

ZOS_Zenke wrote: »

Hey everyone! Michael Zenke here, Loremaster at large and incredible fan of flavor text.

I just wanted to call out that these were not made with AI. All of the text shipped for the Elder Scrolls Online is hand-written, by humans, no exceptions.

The Arcanist strings, as well as these Dragonknight entries, were an attempt by us to inject a little more context and flavor into our skills. The feedback I'm seeing here that the Arcanist was more successful on this front is super interesting, and I want to say I deeply appreciate that you all care enough to think about them.

For some behind the scenes on this, Dragonknight and the other 'base game' classes offer a bit of a different challenge than Arcanist did. As a brand-new class, we had kind of 'blue ocean' (Mora joke) to explore when it came to their lore context. Hence the references to ancient Arcanist orders and mysterious figures.

The DK, on the other hand, is a very well-established experience in our minds. We've been playing the DK for years!

My thought was that suddenly announcing that there are orders of Dragonknights we've never talked about before (or the like), felt like the wrong approach. Which is why these flavor lines focus more on vibes and the experience of being a DK, rather than explicit worldbuilding.

Thank you all for caring about the use of AI-generated text in our project. This is something we all care deeply about as well, and I hope we can continue to talk about stuff like this in the future in a positive way.

As a DK main since beta days, I love the flavor text, and I don't think trying to make new lore just for flavor text is the right way to go either. I especially love that y'all made the connection to the thu'um more evident while not actually being the thu'um itself. Its perfect for tying in both nord fans and otherwise since the akavir and nords both have a connection to the dragon power. It only makes sense that the thu'um itself is mentioned when that's what the akaviri kiai is inspired from.

Oh and stop presenting your headcanon as fact. You are contradicting yourself here if you are saying "don't make new lore just for flavor text" and then go "the Akaviri Kiai is inspired by the Thu'um, thanks for confirming that in this flavor text btw". It's not even a reasonable assumption to make because we actually know nothing about the Kiai and as sad as it is Children of the Sky has already taken some major hits to its credibility before. Until it's confirmed that the Kiai isn't just a regular ordinary shout like an IRL kiai in martial arts, but actually the DK's source of power, you are spreading misinformation.

But hey, if The Storm Voice was changed to... idk... a passive called "Akaviri Kiai" or "Reman's Battlecry" you'd have a much more solid argument and you wouldn't even have to deal with the thought of Khajiit DKs wielding the actual Thu'um, which I know from our other conversations is something you don't like, despite Khajiit dragonpriests existing and Khenarthi being one of their most important deities.

Dakarn · May 22

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Are people unaware that AI was trained on how people write so no you are NOT a master of determining if AI wrote something.

AI-generated texts have very distinct sentence structures and even grammar. This is quite easy to detect.
It changes over time and from model to model, so people's ability to recognize generations is also improving.
I hope you at least don't think LLMs are intelligent, lol

BardokRedSnow · May 22

Lol, if you can make an argument aedric spear, you can make an argument for storm voice, it’s really not that deep

Also I never said they confirmed anything about the Akaviri kiai specifically in my post, @Ratzkifal but as with most straw mans you see what you wanna see. I said it makes it more evident. It’s not the same as flat out saying it’s confirmation but we really don’t need more as it’s already super obvious.

Clearly, the developers agree me also, it’s just vibe text, so even if you were right, it doesn’t matter at all and doesn’t make DK tongues.

Also the kiai is directly inspired by the voice, that’s fact, Reman Cyrodiil is Dragonborn and his voice is the Thu’um

Also, dragon knight powers are not the actual th’um, I really don’t know how much this needs to be stated, flavor text isn’t to be taken literally. That’s the entire point, lol. You criticized me for “going off vibes” when the developers themselves are, lol not me. In other words, no amount of Dragonknight khajiit will bother me, because they are not using the Thu’um. They are using Akaviri kiai magics, inspired by the Thu’um.

Edited due to mistakes made posting from a phone

BardokRedSnow · May 22

I’m not even really sure how this is up for discussion when dragon knights literally have wings of dragons sprouting out their backs and they spit fire…. There’s dragons in akavir, they (the akavir) came searching for a Dragonborn and knew it was reman when they heard his voice.. how many dots on the graph do you need to get from Akaviri Kiai to Thu’um lol it’s even more obvious with the events of the skyrim main quest also.