So I just recently started watching the series Westworld, which is very interesting and worth watching if anyone hasn't seen it yet, and the first thing that immediately jumped out at me is how the park is basically an MMORPG made into a theme park, as we have a bunch of 'guests', the players, who can interact with the 'hosts', the NPCs, who all have a backstory, and story lines, which are basically quests, that the player can follow. It's almost like Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, or GTA in some ways, but immensely more complex.

The series does a bit of commentary on gaming, if you think about it. We see guests coming in and engaging in some pretty devious/twisted stuff, but if we think about it, it's been seen before in gaming as well. It's a bit of commentary on people in general imo.

What also interests me is the tech used to make the park itself. From the looks of it, the hosts have pretty pre-scripted storylines, with procedural only filling in the improvisation part of it. In fact, it's interesting in the sense that most RPG and MMORPG games today make very little use of procedural content. I'm curious what others think?

I think a lot of people might struggle and hesitate to harm such a convincing AI NPC that shows emotion and pleads not to die convincingly...

Well, that aspect does show, with William I think. He's not interested in doing perverted shit. I think what it is is that it's particularly rich people who don't give a shit? Or maybe it's exaggerated for literary effect?

Go watch the rest of the series. There's lots to talk about, but we can't really go into it without serious spoilers.

Just wait until the killing begins (referring to the two movies from the 1970s, of which funnily the original never really scored here, only the sequel did), then it'll be less of a theme park experience.

Go watch the rest of the series. There's lots to talk about, but we can't really go into it without serious spoilers.