Important Details about Worlds and Phoenix

Important Details about Worlds and Phoenix

Important Details about Worlds, World Info, and Phoenix

Worlds and Scenarios have been merged. Here are some important things to know about this transition:

  • Scenarios in Phoenix now have all the same creation tools that Legacy Worlds did.
    • The “Character Creator” feature on Scenarios allows creators to build a starting experience for players that is the same as Legacy Worlds.
    • Creating “Story Cards” is the same as generating “World Info”.
  • We have done a data merge, and all Legacy Worlds are now playable “Character Creator” start Scenarios.
  • Legacy Worlds can now be edited in Phoenix as Scenarios as well.
  • We have updated filters and views in Phoenix so players can find Scenarios with elements that were from Worlds.

Please visit our Discord server to ask any questions, or give us any feedback about this change.

Merging Worlds into Scenarios

Background

Worlds and Scenarios both provide creators with ways to configure an experience for other AI Dungeon players. There’s always been some overlap in functionality between the two, and players have requested we bring features from one over to the other. As we reviewed the feedback, we realized we could simplify the experience if we combined them.

Phoenix Scenarios have World tools

Scenarios in Phoenix are the first step in combining the two. If you create a Scenario in Phoenix, you can create Story Cards (the replacement for World Info) and set up a Character Creator (similar to the starting experience from Worlds). In other words, the Phoenix Scenarios allow you to make the equivalent of a World from Legacy.

World and Scenario Data Merge after Legacy is Retired

Once we’ve fully rolled out Phoenix and retired Legacy, we’ll merge Worlds and Scenarios into a single content type. We can’t do this until Legacy is retired since Legacy supports editing and creating Worlds. Currently, any World created in Legacy is displayed in Phoenix, where we still show Worlds as separate content types in the UI. Worlds won’t be editable in Phoenix until we merge the World and Scenario data shortly after retiring Legacy. We encourage content creators to use the Phoenix Scenarios when creating new content going forward to avoid this temporary limitation.

Creating Worlds in Phoenix (using Scenarios)

In Legacy, creating a "World" was a wizard-type experience that actually did two things: 1) it had a flow for generating World Info entries, and 2) it allowed the creator to specify which of those entries would be sent to the player to help them create a relevant character for the world by selecting from criteria set up in the World creation flow.

With the pending merge of Scenarios and Worlds, we are breaking those apart.

The creation of World Info (for establishing races, locations, etc) is simply the creation of Story Cards. With Legacy, this option was a buried option at the end of the World create flow. It's now a primary choice in the new Scenario creation flow.

Then, the creator can decide what type of play experience they'd like to configure for their players. You can give players a simple story prompt (migrated from Legacy Scenarios), a multiple-choice experience (migrated from Legacy Scenarios), or a Character Builder experience (migrated from Legacy Worlds).

If you're looking for World Builder, simply create a Scenario and start adding Story Cards (formerly known as World Info).

Story Cards Replace World Info

Background

World Info is one of the most powerful features players have to help the AI track key story details, character descriptions, and, well, information about their worlds. Since language models like the ones we use in AI Dungeon can only process a limited amount of information (ie context limits), World Info helps players control which information the AI is processing at a given time and improves the consistency of the story.

This is functionality we’d like more players to be able to take advantage of. The implementation of World Info in Legacy has been complicated and confusing. A few months ago we shared a concept design for a more intuitive World Info experience that would not only be easier for new players to understand but it would also give experienced players more control over the data included in the context. Although we don’t have immediate plans to implement this concept, it represents our hope of making Story Cards more accessible to the average AI Dungeon player.

The transition to Story Cards is an important first step for improving the player experience and the underlying architecture from World Info.

Deprecating Shared World Info

The ability for World Info to be shared between content and users is powerful but confusing. It creates a number of challenges, both from technical and design aspects. We asked players for feedback about the idea of retiring the shared World Info library in favor of having World Info be tied to a specific content instance. We expected our creators would reject this proposal, but we were surprised that most were in favor of this change and agreed the shared library created more problems than it was worth.

With Story Cards replacing World Info, Story Card data is now tied to a specific piece of content. When you play a Scenario created by another user, the Story Card data tied to the Scenario gets duplicated for your adventure. This means if you want to make changes to the Story Card, you can. With shared World Info, you would have gotten an error saying you didn’t have permission to edit (since the World Info originated from the Scenario).

After retiring Legacy, any World Info that is part of the Global World Info library but NOT assigned to a Scenario or Adventure will be migrated. The plan is to systematically create an empty Scenario that these entries will be assigned to. No World Info entries, whether part of a World or part of the Global World Info, will be lost. All entries will be migrated.

Import/Export

One capability players told us they’d miss with shared World Info was the ability to push changes to other players or to share data between different content they create. For instance, some creators use the same characters and settings in different Scenarios, so a way to easily re-use this data is needed.

Because of that, we’re introducing Import and Export for Story Cards. For any Scenario, you can export the data as a JSON file. You can then import it into a different Scenario or Adventure, and it will replace the existing Story Cards. Some players may also prefer to edit and make changes directly in the JSON file rather than using the AI Dungeon interface.

We anticipate more refinements for the Importing and Exporting process will be needed.

You can access the Import and Export feature by navigating to the Settings of an Adventure or Scenario, then click on Details, and scroll to the bottom.

Please continue to share feedback

The changes outlined here impact some of the most used and loved features in AI Dungeon. As we roll out Phoenix to more users, we look forward to hearing more feedback on improving the experience. The changes outlined here are just the first step; we expect more refinements over time.

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