am I running away? am I changing tracks? (part one)

It's been forever since I updated, and I want to get back to that. I need to get back to that. But while I'm taking a break from updating holiday information--anyone in the Gearhaven group will see that later--and concurrently taking a break from the most insane haunt I've ever made--and pictures on that are coming, gods help us all--I want to talk about something else.

I want to talk about the most depressing dark ride I've ever ridden--in SL, or out of it. Let me introduce you to The Clockmaker's Curse.

And this is probably going to be at least a couple entries.



I think any reader of this blog grasps the issue immediately. Love the details if you will--I did--admire the concept of a steampunk dark ride--I did, too. But it's AI, start to finish. The images, the visual effects, the narrator's voice--all of it. It's all artificial intelligence.



Usually, I ride every dark ride I've gone on in SL twice. More if I really like it, but at least twice: once out of mouselook, for pictures, and the second time as intended--the "correct" time of day, in mouselook, just for the experience.

This one? Popped out of mouselook when I found a reasonable image for this entry, popped back in, because I knew this would be the one and only time I rode it. And my gods, it broke my heart.



I can almost name the engine, too. There's a particular similarity of faces with generative models. Midjourney comes closest--the faces are similar, the particular detailing...the utter lack of everything-is-Pixar-shaped (see PXZ.AI or YouCam). It might not be, it could be another engine I havent run across--and if you scan up to the first two images, that particular style layout, that font, those colors are everywhere in SL right now, and that is also depressing. I've gone to two iterations of the Whispering event, and I'm not going back a third, because...as much as I'm fond of a few creators who've had booths there, the inundation of AI textures, AI text, AI image layouts...it all looks the same, it's all instantly recognizeable, and it's all AI nonsense.



The story wasn't even terrible. Black Hollow was a normal small town, until the Clockmaker arrived. He wanted to preserve time, and he did it with arcane rituals and souls. You have arrived in Black Hollow, years--or decades, or centuries--later, and are advised not to stay after dusk. But...you do. And thus, the ride begins.



I'm not saying the haunt's bad, per se. (Though somehow that makes everything worse.) I am saying it's 100% AI.



I am saying that if I had known about it in advance, I never would have gone.



I am saying if this hadn't been so obviously, so carelessly AI, I might have been far more invested.

On to part two.