A Game Developer's Review of Applying LLM to Game NPCs
As a company side project, I tried connecting GPT to an open-world RPG NPC.
1. Implementation method: Generate dialogue via OpenAI API, set NPC persona prompts
2. Advantages: Unexpected player responses, maximizes quest diversity
3. Disadvantages: Cost higher than expected ($0.01 per API call), response time 2-3 seconds
4. Improvements: Introduce caching, considering switching to local LLM (e.g., LLaMA)
If anyone in the game industry is considering applying LLM, let's share information.
7 answers
Using Llama might make it faster, but the quality seems like it will drop... that's something to consider too.
I've tried something similar before, and it turned out to be pretty decent if you cache well. Also, fine-tuning a local model is quite useful.
Even a 2-3 second delay is too frustrating to play the game. It's especially critical if it's an RPG where real-time conversation is important.
I rather think that unpredictable conversations enhance the fun of the game. If the drawbacks are addressed, it will be a huge hit.
Oh this looks like it'll be super fun haha but the cost ㅠㅠ
Is there a source? How do you manage API keys?
Agreed, we need to introduce caching.