Has anyone at Homecoming talked about incorporating AI voices into the game?

[Skyhawke]

On 7/14/2025 at 7:41 AM, Chris24601 said:

If they were even to consider going voiced, I’d say instead of AI the community could donate their own voice work to the project. Homecoming is entirely supported by volunteer player donations. Doing some volunteer voice work would just be a different way to show support.

 

It would be a LOT of work though and really increase the size of CoH on the hard drive, so I don’t think it’s a particularly good investment of Homecoming’s resources. But if they were to do it, players volunteering their voices would be the way to go.

 

Dibs on Dillo! Hoooorb.

[VVonder]

On 7/13/2025 at 8:10 PM, Steampunkette said:

That's really cool! I'm happy that people who have visual impairments or reading difficulties have this accessibility option.

 

I think the best thing the Homecoming team could do to support that segment of the community is to promote Sidekick as an optional add-on for those with said disabilities.

 

But taking the time to go through all the missions in the game and assign voices to the characters with AI audio just seems like way too much work for way too little benefit and major ethical considerations.

 

Kudos to the developer!

 

I didn't see this thread, happy to answer any questions.

 

I have a gender from the game database for most NPCs, it picks a base voice at random and applies a random twist to basic knobs (like speaking rate).  Then the only trick is making sure that character always gets those same parameters.  You _can_ modify them to sound better/different.

 

(and some comments unrelated to Steampunkette)
 

It's hilarious that people are worried about SAG.  There is no money here.  There never will be.  The voices are either built into Windows where Microsoft paid a few shovels of cash to voice actors to develop them or other commercial companies (amazon, google, elevenlabs, openai, etc..) did similarly.  As much as I would have enjoyed sampling a certain someone for Aeon I didn't.

 

Do you want human voices?  Not a problem.  sidekick responds to chat log messages by playing wav files, the AI bit only comes in if the wav file doesn't exist.  Go ahead and record all the dialog you want.  I'd even be happy to try and make that process easier.  The only serious challenge are the dialogs that include the names of your character or the team name of a taskforce.

 

Sidekick is entirely client side.  That means no one gets voices unless they choose to.  It is based on reading the chat stream, so it induces no delays in gameplay; totally non-blocking.  For most of the cutscenes the timing is fairly decent.  It also does things like tell you which badge you just got and which level you just reached.  Things the vanilla UI doesn't do a very good job with.

 

If you don't like it that is totally up to you.  It is opt in, and as far as I'm aware that is not changing.  I enjoy playing with voices.  In my opinion it makes the game a richer experience.  All you have to do is not install it and you'll never hear a syllable of it (or do install it, odds of it not working correctly are quite a bit higher than 0%)

 

Again, happy to answer any questions.  The code is all on github.  It has been a fun project to build and while I do hope other people enjoy it I made it for myself.  I write software for a living but it is backend linux stuff, this multi-process, multi-threaded windows app in python is a nice stretch outside my comfort zone.  Even if no one uses it my goals have already been accomplished.

 

[golstat2003]

28 minutes ago, VVonder said:

 

I didn't see this thread, happy to answer any questions.

 

I have a gender from the game database for most NPCs, it picks a base voice at random and applies a random twist to basic knobs (like speaking rate).  Then the only trick is making sure that character always gets those same parameters.  You _can_ modify them to sound better/different.

 

(and some comments unrelated to Steampunkette)
 

It's hilarious that people are worried about SAG.  There is no money here.  There never will be.  The voices are either built into Windows where Microsoft paid a few shovels of cash to voice actors to develop them or other commercial companies (amazon, google, elevenlabs, openai, etc..) did similarly.  As much as I would have enjoyed sampling a certain someone for Aeon I didn't.

 

Do you want human voices?  Not a problem.  sidekick responds to chat log messages by playing wav files, the AI bit only comes in if the wav file doesn't exist.  Go ahead and record all the dialog you want.  I'd even be happy to try and make that process easier.  The only serious challenge are the dialogs that include the names of your character or the team name of a taskforce.

 

Sidekick is entirely client side.  That means no one gets voices unless they choose to.  It is based on reading the chat stream, so it induces no delays in gameplay; totally non-blocking.  For most of the cutscenes the timing is fairly decent.  It also does things like tell you which badge you just got and which level you just reached.  Things the vanilla UI doesn't do a very good job with.

 

If you don't like it that is totally up to you.  It is opt in, and as far as I'm aware that is not changing.  I enjoy playing with voices.  In my opinion it makes the game a richer experience.  All you have to do is not install it and you'll never hear a syllable of it (or do install it, odds of it not working correctly are quite a bit higher than 0%)

 

Again, happy to answer any questions.  The code is all on github.  It has been a fun project to build and while I do hope other people enjoy it I made it for myself.  I write software for a living but it is backend linux stuff, this multi-process, multi-threaded windows app in python is a nice stretch outside my comfort zone.  Even if no one uses it my goals have already been accomplished.

 

 

Sidekick sounds great, but that is not at all what I think the OP was referring to. Or what is traditionally thought of when talking about using AI voices.

 

EDIT: Had the OP specifically talked about using SideKick I think the responses and conversation would have gone differently.

Edited Saturday at 05:37 AM by golstat2003

[mechahamham]

I don't get weirded out by AI art the way some people do. HOWEVER, hearing AI voices crawls right up my spine, right into the 'Flight or Fight' part of my hindbrain, and makes me start looking for weapons. To say that they drop me in 'Uncanney Valley' is an understatement. They both enrage and horrify me all at the same time.

 

DO NOT WANT.

VERY NO.

/jranger

 

For the love of all that is good and right with the world, do not unleash the demon voices!

 

Someone a little up the thread suggested volunteer voice acting. I have a stutter and lack-of-tone, so if you need someone to voice terminally socially awkward characters, I can do that.

[ZacKing]

On 7/13/2025 at 5:35 PM, El D said:

So allowing spaces explicitly for the hosting of AI generated content, where players can freely post it, share the sites and prompts used to generate it, and actively encourage others to engage in using AI is a pretty clear signal that 'Homecoming supports players doing this.'

 

If this is going to be the only measure for whether or not "Homecoming approves something", they may as well shut the forums and Discord down.  Whether or not an artwork, AI generated or not, is copyright infringing is depending on the use.  There are fair usage laws on the books in many countries.

[El D]

4 hours ago, ZacKing said:

 

If this is going to be the only measure for whether or not "Homecoming approves something", they may as well shut the forums and Discord down.  Whether or not an artwork, AI generated or not, is copyright infringing is depending on the use.  There are fair usage laws on the books in many countries.

 

It's the only measure that's relevant. If you don't support something, you don't allow it to be used under your name or promoted through your venues. Homecoming has no problem removing or prohibiting content they don't approve of, as they clearly state in their own code of conduct/terms of service and have clearly shown through on-going moderation of the forums/discord. If a user does something Homecoming's staff do not support users doing, the unsupported content is removed (and so is the user, depending on the nature of the unsupported content).

 

In this instance, said thing being actively permitted by the Homecoming staff is 'hosting hundreds upon hundreds of AI images made by 3rd party companies utilizing NCSoft's IP without a license.' Now, maybe NCSoft doesn't care about their IP being freely used by outside AI companies and recreated at-will. A lot of Korean businesses are embracing AI nowadays. Maybe some amount of the Homecoming staff see no issues - practical, ethical, or otherwise - with using generative AI in that fashion either. Hell, maybe some of the Homecoming staff use generative AI themselves. Free art is free art after all. However, strictly from the view of Homecoming being official, licensed stewards of the CoH IP - an IP that NCSoft has historically been very tightfisted over - actively permitting their users to post unlicensed 3rd party recreations multiple hundreds of times and encourage other users to help AI companies make more (and do so more accurately) on their watch and via the official site seems really dumb.

 

Or maybe AI art is just the modern replacement for all the fan art, commissions, and demo record videos we had back on Live. Outside of the 'post your best costume here' thread, AI generated content comprises the biggest art thread on the forums by a wide margin and is the largest art channel on the discord. This is, apparently, what the majority of Homecoming's art community is now.

 

 

An unlicensed copy of a real comic book cover someone else actually drew that manages to infringe on two companies at once. It's quick, it's easy, it doesn't require a commission fee, and it has totally eclipsed any other form of community-made art in both usage and views. Reminds me an awful lot of how AE has functioned in-game, come to think of it.

[Darmian]

7 minutes ago, El D said:

Reminds me an awful lot of how AE has functioned in-game, come to think of it.

What?

[battlewraith]

14 minutes ago, El D said:

Or maybe AI art is just the modern replacement for all the fan art, commissions, and demo record videos we had back on Live. Outside of the 'post your best costume here' thread, AI generated content comprises the biggest art thread on the forums by a wide margin and is the largest art channel on the discord. This is, apparently, what the majority of Homecoming's art community is now.

 

I got back into doing art in 2004 because of this game. The art community used to do competitions, art tutorials, giveaways, lots of stuff. Sad to see what it's become.

[VVonder]

5 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

I got back into doing art in 2004 because of this game. The art community used to do competitions, art tutorials, giveaways, lots of stuff. Sad to see what it's become.

That is perfectly fair.  The "Art and Multimedia" category ought to be divided; maybe "Original Art" and "Generated Images"?  I think that provides for the right kind of distinction.

[battlewraith]

31 minutes ago, VVonder said:

That is perfectly fair.  The "Art and Multimedia" category ought to be divided; maybe "Original Art" and "Generated Images"?  I think that provides for the right kind of distinction.

 

I dunno. A lot of artists and artist communities are circling the wagons--they won't share a space with AI content. It would be like sharing space with an abuser. 

[El D]

26 minutes ago, Darmian said:

What?

 

The core thought behind the comparison was 'overly popular tunnel vision fast tracks to their respective end goals.' AE is the quickest, most efficient way to reach high amounts of XP/inf and hit the level cap, so it's what a bunch of people do. Doesn't require engagement with the community or any other game content. Fast, easy, can even be done without actually playing the game. Similarly, AI is the quickest, most efficient way to produce images, so its what a bunch of people do. Doesn't require any initiative or actual creation, just 'I want a picture as fast as possible with the minimum of personal cost and time investment.' Fast, easy, no artistic skills or talent required. Though, overall that might be giving AE too much flack. Even with the prevalence of farming, AE at least requires some level of human interaction when it comes to testing, playing, and writing the non-farming content. Generative AI just copies things that neither the users nor the AI companies had any hand in making at all (or, often, have any ownership of).

 

Bit jarring to just throw in at the end of the prior post, I'll admit, but the prevalent methods of how both were used only struck me in that moment. Train of thought writing and all that.

 

43 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I got back into doing art in 2004 because of this game. The art community used to do competitions, art tutorials, giveaways, lots of stuff. Sad to see what it's become.

 

Pretty much the same. I look at the AI posts like this one and think back to the Stan and Lou shorts or the Dance Gun Word Up video from the ole days and it's just depressing.

 

Back to OP's post, while AI voices as a creative replacement would be abhorrent, implementing a limited text-to-speech accessibility option wouldn't be a bad idea. Some folks have already suggested that in other threads. I'm not really all that sure how much use it would get given MMOs in-general are very text heavy and CoH is at the deep end of that spectrum, though. Combined with how fast players move through maps, any use of voices - AI or text-to-speech - seems like it'd just become a huge jumbled wall of sound. But hey, if text-to-speech would earnestly benefit someone and the devs have interest/time to make it work, why not?

[Darmian]

43 minutes ago, El D said:

Train of thought writing and all that.

Well, fair enough.  I never use it like that but I suppose I'm in a minority.

[ZacKing]

9 hours ago, El D said:

In this instance, said thing being actively permitted by the Homecoming staff is 'hosting hundreds upon hundreds of AI images made by 3rd party companies utilizing NCSoft's IP without a license.' Now, maybe NCSoft doesn't care about their IP being freely used by outside AI companies and recreated at-will.

 

If you feel this is such an important issue (it isn't), then send in a petition and have the GMs pass it up the chain.  The HC folks can have their lawyer talk to the NCSoft lawyer.   Maybe you'll get your wish and the evil AI will get banned from the forums and Discord.  I wouldn't hold my breath.  

[DIGITAL_JEDII]

On 7/12/2025 at 8:46 AM, dgoold7601 said:

I feel like it would make stories easier to follow and AI voices are so well done now you wouldn't need to hire a bunch of voice actors. I just think it would help me get immersed in the story much more if all my missions were given to me through an AI voice. It might be a cool big next step in advancing the game and in-game immersion. 

Why don't you ask scarlett johansson - I'm sure Sam Altman might have your answer!

[Lunar Ronin]

17 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

I dunno. A lot of artists and artist communities are circling the wagons--they won't share a space with AI content. It would be like sharing space with an abuser. 

 

I have no horses in this race, but apparently the Final Fantasy XIV art community is stringently anti-AI and a lot of them are on Bluesky.  They were crap talking Homecoming something fierce several months ago over how much AI art is posted on the forums and Discord server, and for allowing AI art at all.  A few mentioned that they won't play because of it.  So, there is something to that.

[LightMaster]

3 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I have no horses in this race, but apparently the Final Fantasy XIV art community is stringently anti-AI and a lot of them are on Bluesky.  They were crap talking Homecoming something fierce several months ago over how much AI art is posted on the forums and Discord server, and for allowing AI art at all.  A few mentioned that they won't play because of it.  So, there is something to that.

This user gets it.

 

I came to Homecoming for City of Heroes game(s) itself, not the AI generated art of the server(s) or forums, and I can play the game while ignoring forums and channels involving those of Homecoming and beyond. If the Homecoming devs decided to use generative AI to speed up with designs and sound effects, then that’s a nope for me.

 

Another thing against generative art is that I hear about several if not many of them “artists” turning out to be among the biggest scums of Earth, including controversial personalities that endorsed them over man-made arts. Those scums also overlap with cryptobros in terms of bootlicking, scummy and stealing tendencies too. I know this might be a Godwin fallacy, but when it is a whole group of a mainstream thing that commit injustices or horrid crimes, maybe it is time for the Homecoming devs and Game Masters to reconsider about generative AI art?

Edited Sunday at 05:02 PM by LightMaster
Had to be more precise on which AI to not give the wrong idea

[El D]

12 hours ago, ZacKing said:

If you feel this is such an important issue (it isn't), then send in a petition and have the GMs pass it up the chain.  The HC folks can have their lawyer talk to the NCSoft lawyer.   Maybe you'll get your wish and the evil AI will get banned from the forums and Discord.  I wouldn't hold my breath.  

 

Given the gold name reply to my initial post, I think they're already well aware. Also, I never said AI was evil. I said that using generative AI as a replacement for creative efforts is feckless, dishonest, and without talent or skill. AI itself is a machine. A very sophisticated one, but still a machine. It possesses no morality. It can only do what it's made to do or is utilized for. In this instance, said use is 'bloating what was once an earnest art community with hundreds upon hundreds of unlicensed 3rd party regurgitations of NCSoft's IP.' Speaking as a current user and as someone who was active in the art community on Live, that's a really bad look. A game about the imagination of building your own superhero can't manage to support an art community without AI?

 

3 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

I have no horses in this race, but apparently the Final Fantasy XIV art community is stringently anti-AI and a lot of them are on Bluesky.  They were crap talking Homecoming something fierce several months ago over how much AI art is posted on the forums and Discord server, and for allowing AI art at all.  A few mentioned that they won't play because of it.  So, there is something to that.

 

Case in point. FFXIV's art community alone is larger than Homecoming's total active population. That's a lot of prospective players being turned away. It's not like Homecoming doesn't host tons of contests, both dev and player run, showcasing the creativity of its community between costumes, bases, bios, etc. What happens when people who hear about Homecoming and the possibilities allowed by the game show up to look around? They're going to see that the largest, most popular areas of Homecoming's art community are just generative AI.

 

Really it just feels like a game with such a focus on genuine creative efforts can do so much better than pervasively permitting AI. I can't imagine the Homecoming devs would support having their own contributions eclipsed by generative models. They know how difficult the code of the game is to work with, how much time and effort they've spent on crafting new story arcs, forming enemy groups, building zones and mission maps - but none of that would exist as it is without them. Without their perspective and point of view, their interests and particular creative flairs. Could a generative AI have written storylines for the Kallisti Wharf revamp, the Dr. Aeon Strike Force, or expanded Cimerora? Maybe, but it didn't. I imagine the devs who wrote that content would be horribly insulted if anyone implied AI had even been involved (and rightfully so!). However, if that's the standard that the staff sets for themselves, why then does Homecoming permit our artistic community - what should be an institution celebrating that same creativity and path of outreach for our playerbase to emphasize what CoH is about - to be actively displaced and disrupted by AI they themselves wouldn't use?

Edited Sunday at 04:55 PM by El D

[ZacKing]

21 hours ago, El D said:

Given the gold name reply to my initial post, I think they're already well aware.

 

Well, why not make sure if this is such an important topic to you?  As I suggested, send in a support ticket and have the GMs pass it along.  Have the HC lawyers talk to the NCSoft lawyers.  

 

21 hours ago, El D said:

Also, I never said AI was evil. I said that using generative AI as a replacement for creative efforts is feckless, dishonest, and without talent or skill. AI itself is a machine. A very sophisticated one, but still a machine.

 

Right and you've made your position clear.  AI is bad.  Yes, it's a tool just like any other tool.  Yes, people have complained about tools since tools were invented.  People said everything from indoor plumbing to light bulbs to the internet would destroy humanity and ruin lives by taking away jobs.  Humanity and jobs are still here and are going to continue on with AI too.  

 

21 hours ago, El D said:

A game about the imagination of building your own superhero can't manage to support an art community without AI?

 

How is anyone "not supported" here?  There's no rules preventing any artist from posting their drawing/painting/sculpture/whatever medium they work in here.  

 

On 7/20/2025 at 9:44 AM, Lunar Ronin said:

I have no horses in this race, but apparently the Final Fantasy XIV art community is stringently anti-AI and a lot of them are on Bluesky.  They were crap talking Homecoming something fierce several months ago over how much AI art is posted on the forums and Discord server, and for allowing AI art at all.  A few mentioned that they won't play because of it.  So, there is something to that.

 

21 hours ago, LightMaster said:

I came to Homecoming for City of Heroes game(s) itself, not the AI generated art of the server(s) or forums, and I can play the game while ignoring forums and channels involving those of Homecoming and beyond. If the Homecoming devs decided to use generative AI to speed up with designs and sound effects, then that’s a nope for me.

 

I hope you all find a game more to your liking that doesn't use AI.  I wish you good luck there.  There are other CoH servers out that that may not be using AI or allowing AI generated images to be posted on their Discord.

[golstat2003]

I think it will eventually get to the point where every game developer uses AI in some part.

[battlewraith]

16 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Right and you've made your position clear.  AI is bad.  Yes, it's a tool just like any other tool.  Yes, people have complained about tools since tools were invented.  People said everything from indoor plumbing to light bulbs to the internet would destroy humanity and ruin lives by taking away jobs.  Humanity and jobs are still here and are going to continue on with AI too.  

 

A nuclear arsenal is just a tool, yet nations will go to war to prevent other nations from acquiring one. People thought nuclear weapons would be bad--and guess what, they were bad. Possible human extinction level bad.

 

Is is reasonable to discuss AI in relation to the impact of nuclear weapons. Yes. 

AI is disrupting education, science research, creative industries, and so on. Whole divisions of companies are being eliminated in favor of AI.

Meanwhile, governments are sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into training centers to support a technology that would be used by industry to eliminate labor and used by government for things like surveillance. 

 

The USA is probably the world leader in energy consumption. I read a report recently that estimated that the added consumption from the planned investment in AI would be the equivalent of taking the already high level and adding Italy's level of consumption. At a time when the destructive effects of climate change are being increasingly felt all over the world. 

 

There is a scenario where, in the future a small subset of humanity controls technology and it's uses, while the vast majority of people do manual labor that is difficult to automate. 

Under this scenario, you'd be right. Humanity didn't go anywhere and jobs didn't go anywhere. Yeee-haw.

 

 

 

[battlewraith]

49 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

How is anyone "not supported" here?  There's no rules preventing any artist from posting their drawing/painting/sculpture/whatever medium they work in here.  

 

Any artist posting online now has to contend with their work being scraped and used in AI training models.

Apart from that, AI applications like Midjourney allow individual users to upload images into the application as style or character reference. This was openly discussed on the Midjourney forums--a user liked an artist on Instagram and began using that artists work directly in their prompts, to produce stuff that looked the same. Due to the rate at which AI can produce stuff, and the way frequent posting drives the algorithm, the copycat's audience on the site dwarfed the guy that was being ripped off.

 

Pardon the exaggerated comparison, but from an artist's perspective Homecoming offering space for this stuff would be like a small town allowing a NAMBLA convention right next to a children's playground. 

[ZacKing]

28 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

A nuclear arsenal is just a tool, yet nations will go to war to prevent other nations from acquiring one. People thought nuclear weapons would be bad--and guess what, they were bad. Possible human extinction level bad.

 

Right because the false equivalence of AI generated art and nuclear weapons are totally the same thing... 🙄 Humanity is still here even with nuclear weapons by the way.  

 

30 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

AI is disrupting education, science research, creative industries, and so on. Whole divisions of companies are being eliminated in favor of AI.

 

These same arguments were made for every invention from light bulbs replacing candle makers, automobiles replacing horses, the cotton gin replacing manual laborers, desktop computers using CAD software replacing pen and paper draftsman ... that list can go on and on and on and on.  People can and have moved on to do other things, learn other skills and get other jobs.  This view is also squarely focused only on potential negative aspects of AI and its effects on society.   I'm guessing you don't believe there's anything good that will come from the development AI?  Things like vast improvements in medical research into curing disease, improvements to clean energy, resource conservation, understanding of physics and the universe ... none of that is any good I suppose.

[ZacKing]

28 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Any artist posting online now has to contend with their work being scraped and used in AI training models.

 

How is this any different than before?  An artist posting their work online had to contend with others stealing their work and claiming it as their own or directly copying it.

[El D]

@ZacKing I couldn't help but notice that in your 'get over it or leave' post, you didn't address the actual points I made. You got real hung up on dismissing my personal opinion over AI and the idea of criticism of AI in-general but seemed to have skipped the important 'and this is how it's current affecting Homecoming' bits in there. Regardless of anyone's personal stance on whether AI or 'good or bad,' Homecoming's official allowance of AI has had a direct impact on sustaining the community by negating outside interest in the game and is incredibly hypocritical considering the devs own efforts and how much work they put in to crafting content. Why should the playerbase fund the devs artistic views and personal creations for CoH when the largest part of our art community showcases a blatant disregard for that same respect being given to players?

 

It also runs counter to Homecoming's 'you want to help and make decisions? Volunteer yourself. Put in effort on Beta and apply to join the dev team' approach. The devs either had to learn the skills they use to manage the game's code, write engaging content, and craft costume pieces and powersets or already possessed them and have refined them through working on Homecoming. Generative AI doesn't do that. It doesn't teach anything or hone any skill sets. There is no 'generate a new dev' button. The skills that our devs utilize are only gained by work and maintained through practice. CoH's art community though? Their skills and earnest efforts can be ignored if you want to use generative AI. Homecoming will even make special channels for it. A constant reminder that many of the folks here readily push the 'don't hire an artist or learn how to draw/paint/demo edit, just get the end result' button while the devs require that anyone who wants to work with them actually be able to show their work.

 

Of course, all that becomes a moot point if the devs do actually use generative AI to make content. Personally I don't think they do or ever have but hey, I'm not on the dev team so I can't know for sure. All I and anyone else thinking about playing on Homecoming have to go off of is what we can see, which is 'wow, they sure have a lot of AI art. They must really like their players using it.'

[ZacKing]

11 minutes ago, El D said:

You got real hung up on dismissing my personal opinion over AI and the idea of criticism of AI in-general but seemed to have skipped the important 'and this is how it's current affecting Homecoming' bits in there. Regardless of anyone's personal stance on whether AI or 'good or bad,' Homecoming's official allowance of AI has had a direct impact on sustaining the community by negating outside interest in the game and is incredibly hypocritical considering the devs own efforts and how much work they put in to crafting content.

 

I wasn't the one making claims about how AI generated art is "impacting the game" by "sustaining the community by negating outside interest".  The onus isn't on me to provide quantifiable data.  That's on the people making those claims.  What's the overall impact?  Is there any impact at all?  How big or small is said impact?  So how many people were driven away by AI generated art on the HC Discord?  How many joined specifically because there is AI generated art posted there?

 

I'm sorry if I don't believe a few people posting on social media that they don't like HC because of AI art equates to any measurable impact on the community in general.  From the numbers we can see, the relative population has been stable.  Excelsior is in the red most nights now.  Seems to me that AI art isn't driving people away in droves.

 

20 minutes ago, El D said:

It also runs counter to Homecoming's 'you want to help and make decisions? Volunteer yourself. Put in effort on Beta and apply to join the dev team' approach. The devs either had to learn the skills they use to manage the game's code, write engaging content, and craft costume pieces and powersets or already possessed them and have refined them through working on Homecoming. Generative AI doesn't do that. It doesn't teach anything or hone any skill sets. There is no 'generate a new dev' button. The skills that our devs utilize are only gained by work and maintained through practice.

 

And all of that will more than likely eventually change when AI is capable of programming game code through prompts.  

 

22 minutes ago, El D said:

CoH's art community though? Their skills and earnest efforts can be ignored if you want to use generative AI. Homecoming will even make special channels for it. A constant reminder that many of the folks here readily push the 'don't hire an artist or learn how to draw/paint/demo edit, just get the end result' button while the devs require that anyone who wants to work with them actually be able to show their work.

 

None of which means artists with real artistic skill cannot share and promote their work here on the forums or on Discord.  Why don't you ask the GMs here to create a specific subforum here and on the HC Discord for non-AI generated art?