#sylestia

Yeeeess I finished the 6vis set for Sylestia's Faelora!! :D Been working on this since Thanksgiving.

Sylestia has been using AI generated assets for a long while now, and I decided to write this up because I'm not sure how well known this is among the remaining playerbase (not that I think many of them are gonna read this but I guess it's here now if they care to). Krinadon (site owner/admin) has explicitly said this in a mass PM before, screenshot and examples below context.

Context: This was a mass PM from late 2022 sent to a large section of the playerbase with a long list of allegations against different users. Some of the claims were blatantly petty and others were seemingly serious but in reality extremely shaky. Some players receiving the PM had no involvement in any of the perceived antagonism, and not everyone receiving it was in some kind of clique like the wording in the Glaselk section would suggest. Krin was largely complaining that people were criticizing him and Faiona (other owner/admin) in a private discord server, of which a handful of people sent him screenshots. For transparency, I committed two apparent crimes: one was assuming the AI assets were made by people, and in a private discord server, criticizing the decision to update them over focusing on more important parts of the site. The second was complaining about the shitty stereotypical "Pow Wow Costume" (since renamed but otherwise unaltered) and associated clothing items in its set, as well as the name of the "Wild Wendigo Morkko" theme. As far as Krin complaining that people think he was giving Glas special treatment... well, if you know, you know. No clue if they even play anymore, but you all know that harassment is bad already, so don't do that. I didn't edit that section out of the screenshot because idk if that'd be seen as suspicious or something.

[Image ID: A screenshot of a private message from Krinadon on Sylestia titled "Official Player Conduct Warning (1 of 2)". The last section of the message says the following: Experience Orb and Magical Pie Art: No, no artist time was spent nor wasted on these assets. No, we did not divert any site resources to the specific creation of these assets. We were learning and testing with artwork created by AI and these were our initial test projects. The end results actually ended up being pretty decent, so we decided to use them. No, we are not going to replace any artists with AI artwork. However, we most definitely are looking to supplement where we can so that our artists can continue working full time on more important projects. I think that we are aware of how to properly budget our time and resources. We have been doing this for a decade now. And yes, our artists are aware that we are using AI artwork. /.End ID]

Now, I think the first thing I should point out is that the artists knowing the site uses AI doesn't necessarily mean that they like the decision. I don't know the artists personally, but I do know that at least one of them has, unsurprisingly, posted about not liking AI art.

Secondly, it wouldn't be fine even if the site artists loved AI, because as it is, it's unethical to use regardless. The training data is artwork scraped from the internet without consent from the creators. No amount of promising that you won't replace human artists will erase that. Informing the site artists that you're using AI won't erase that.

Here are the confirmed AI official assets (descriptions in alt text):

(The orb pic is comically large because they kept it at >500x500 for a while and I saved it)

Additionally, there are background items that are almost definitely AI generated:

Some have glaring issues while others may be less obvious, but when comparing them to the art styles in other items, the difference is apparent, and is not explained by having multiple artists and the seeming lack of a style guide.

There were also several coloring contests with obviously AI generated lineart:

And also official threads where players were to design pets based off of AI generated images. These ones were from the faelora design raffle during the 2023 spring festival:

If you're not convinced they're AI, the images on the thread were hosted by Sylestia's server's and reverse image searching didn't turn up any matches. They would never commission these, and they didn't just take them from another site. They were generated for the raffle.

Staying in those caves for such a long time really does something to you, huh?

Here’s some Sylesties.  Sparko, Seacreea, and Jennail.  Instead of gijinkas these guys have been getting anthros.  For no specific reason, I guess.  They might get gijinkas someday, but I like this aesthetic for them.

I’ve been dressing my Sylestia pets like adventurers, the original inspiration was the 90s anime aesthetic from shows like Slayers.  But not everyone needs giant shoulderpads and orbs, so some of them get more typical medieval fantasy wear.  Interestingly, there aren’t ‘classes’ in Sylestia, but there are elements that come with specific moves and emphasized stats.  So they kind of have class suggestions that I can interpret on my own.

For example, Sparko and Seacreea are both Light users, an INT-based element with some healing moves.  I made Sparko a more traditional mage (not a healer/cleric though) with a lantern-themed staff.  Seacreea doesn’t have a staff or wand, but her clothes are supposed to evoke nun and miko vibes, and she emphasizes healing.  I never specified an element for Jennail so she’s just wearing whatever, lol.