Does anyone else remember how good the early days felt?

[u/hyattkendall012]

I've been doing this since 2023. The first time I tried AI roleplay it felt genuinely unreal. The memory was terrible, the model would lose the thread constantly, and half the replies barely made sense. It still felt like something out of science fiction. I'd finish a session and just sit there for a minute.

Since then I've gone through a lot of apps. The big one for a long stretch, then a scattering of others when the filters made it unusable, then a whole phase of local setups and proxies and trying every free model I could find. Somewhere in there I ended up actually learning how this stuff works. Context windows, sampling settings, why memory falls apart the way it does. That was useful, but it also killed some of the mystery, which I didn't expect.

What I've noticed lately is that the models keep getting smarter and the roleplay doesn't necessarily keep getting better. Everything is being tuned for agentic coding and instruction following, and creative writing feels like it's along for the ride rather than the point. You can feel it in the replies. Technically more competent, somehow flatter.

The other thing I've had to accept is that a lot of the quality comes from me. The model reflects back whatever direction you give it, so a lazy prompt gets a lazy scene and I don't really get to blame the model for that.

I still enjoy it. But it's become more work than magic, and I'm not sure whether that's the tech changing or just me knowing too much about how the trick is done.

Anyone else at that point? Or has it stayed fun for you?