Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[rhamorim]

I wonder how much of its success was because of the randomized exploration and limitless world vs. the building and crafting gameplay

I can’t speak for others, but in my case, it’s the randomized exploration for sure.

[Profanicus]

I mean i more or less promise “we” here at Qt3 don’t play it.

Yep! Ahem…

But I’ve heard from an anonymous source, that Minecraft has some great procedural algorithm. It generates quite interesting formations both above and below ground. Very pleasing to the eye and cool to explore. Apparently.

[Teiman]

I think that folks are forgetting what procedural generation is, and why it was initially used in the first place.

It was not there to create an infinite amount of interesting worlds, each with their own unique motif.

It is there to fit a universe into 64K. Instead of a planet consisting of 1GB of unique assets, it can consist of some pre-built assets and the controlling string; e.g. #55EF12A2CA3 with that hex number being generated by some low-cost Fibbonaci algorithm.

I see “procedurally generated” and I do not think “oh cool, a universe full of unique wonderful surprises”, I think “Elite Dangerous’ twisty maze of beige planets, all alike”. It’s the 2010’s panacea and buzzword, just like “paradigm” was when I was in my 20’s.

The original Elite had 65535 worlds.

So maybe, maybe procedural generation started has a way to save memory space.

[Profanicus]

The original Elite had 65535 worlds.

It had 8 galaxies, with 256 stars/planets in each. So 2048. And those 8 galaxies were hand-picked seeds.

Originally they were going to have 2⁴⁸ galaxies, but Acornsoft wanted something a lot smaller!

[Teiman]

Hand picked seeds!!. I an sure that will fuel a debate on the internet (glad you corrected me, sorry for the mistake)

[DeepT]

Minecraft succeeded because it unintentionally tapped into pre-teen kids.

Minecraft succeeded because it was a genuinely new kind of game, what other game that was like it came before it? I can’t think of any.

Its continued success was because it was moddable. A pure vanilla minecraft would have never reached the heights that minecraft has reached today.

[Teiman]

Minecraft succeeded because it was a genuinely new kind of game, what other game that was like it came before it? I can’t think of any.

Its continued success was because it was moddable. A pure vanilla minecraft would have never reached the heights that minecraft has reached today.

Every step in the Minecraft story had decisions with tremendous success that doubled the number of players, imho. I don’t think you can point to a single decision and say, this one. Modability is just one of these.

Like, I remember when the only blocks in minecraft where dirt, lava and water. When it was a Java game you would run in the browser. When It had not infinite landscape or multiplayer or capability to save the world. I can’t point my finger to where the amazing music where added, but I can remember with fondness quiet moments when the music just kind of decided to show and made that quiet moment into something to remember forever.

It wont be has a popular game if it did not had multiplayer, or infinite landscape, or was still a browser java game.

[Miramon]

So maybe, maybe procedural generation started as a way to save memory space.

Of course in the modern age it’s mainly a way to save designer costs. And it’s a bad way for most applications because of self-similarity and lack of content. There are occasional designs for which it’s apt, typically those in which a substantial amount of crafted content can be integrated or for which no crafted content is appropriate in the first place.

[Teiman]

Of course in the modern age it’s mainly a way to save designer costs. And it’s a bad way for most applications because of self-similarity and lack of content. There are occasional designs for which it’s apt, typically those in which a substantial amount of crafted content can be integrated or for which no crafted content is appropriate in the first place.

I don’t want to be cynical. Cynical people know how the world works, but they have lost the ability to imagine a different world.

Procedural algorithms is how the universe is made. Birds follow some simple rules to fly in flocks. Trees, snow, mountains grown following L-systems. Math is at the core of the natural world, and when we look at a mountain we are kind of refreshed, when we look at a tree, some part of us feel good. Videogames can too use the same or similar algorithms has the real world, and create their own… praeternatural world, that will too refresh us.

[rhamorim]

Cynical people know how the world works, but they have lost the ability to imagine a different world.

I don’t think that’s right. I don’t expect much from the real world myself, but I’m perfectly able to see how different (and better) the world could be, and that is actually a big source of anxiety and frustration. But anyway…

[Miramon]

Videogames can too use the same or similar algorithms…

The complexity of real-world physics is (almost) infinitely greater than the trivial arithmetic used for game procedural generation. Observing that the superficial features of a mountain range look like they’re fractal or that flower petal growth follows the fibonacci sequence addresses a teensy zillionth of a percent of all phenomena, or all the features of a landscape scene. In a sense real-world procedural generation is God.

… and create their own… praeternatural world, that will too refresh us.

Holy chrome. 1000 points for the sentiment, +500 points for “præternatural” and +100 bonus points on top of that for the classical spelling.

[Teiman]

The complexity of real-world physics is (almost) infinitely greater than the trivial arithmetic used for game procedural generation.

Like in many things in software, you don’t need a full set. You can already build some amazing world with a subset of everything that make the realworld real.

I am happy I have managed to communicate the idea that procedural generation can be more than a way to save budget in artist. That is much more, or can be much more.

I don’t think that’s right. I don’t expect much from the real world myself, but I’m perfectly able to see how different (and better) the world could be, and that is actually a big source of anxiety and frustration. But anyway…

I know, I did the wrong words. Is more like… cynical people don’t believe in progress?, maybe? cynical people and naive people are wrong about in the same proportion, they are like the two extremes in a continuum. Except naive people is awesome and cynical people not.

[instant0]

cynical people don’t believe in progress

If I’m going to travel in a space ship, I’d rather have a bunch of cynics making it than a bunch of naive people. The Naive person can be the “dreamer” like Roberts, but have the cynics controlling the money and doing the actual work.

[Teiman]

i am a fan of what works :-)

[Wendelius]

I wonder which category Elon Musk belongs to. He seems more a we can do anything dreamer than cynic to me.

[rhamorim]

i am a fan of what works :-)

Sounds like a pragmatist to me. ;)

[stusser]

I had refrained from posting in this thread, opting - as I normally do - to just lurk (as I do in several forums that I visit).

Ohhhh shiiiiiiiit, can’t believe I missed this for nearly a week!

popcorn.gif

Edit: Finished catching up. That was a really boring legal procedural movie. :(

[Ryan_Kelly]

Minecraft succeeded because it was a genuinely new kind of game, what other game that was like it came before it? I can’t think of any.

Infiniminer is often mentioned as the game Minecraft copied took inspiration from.

The origins of Minecraft

But then I found Infiniminer. My god, I realized that that was the game I wanted to do. I played it in multiplayer for a while and had a blast, but found it flawed. Building was fun, but there wasn’t enough variation, and the big red/blue blocks were pretty horrible. I thought a fantasy game in that style would work really really well, so I tried to implement a simple first person engine in that style, reusing some art and code (although not as much as you’d think) from RubyDung, and came up with this:

[Teiman]

Infiniminer kind of ignored his own settings, used the blocks thing as a gimmick and did not embraced it. Notch kind of rescued that idea from Gimmicky-land and made a game where it was given life. Infiniminer was not a game like Minecraft, it was a game like Matheus28 “Fort Wars”, If i remember correctly.

[Ryan_Kelly]

Infiniminer had a sandbox mode that was functionally similar to Minecraft’s creative mode, but the “core” modes of each game were indeed different (competitive multiplayer vs. sandbox survival). The real similarities lay in the underlying procedurally generated voxel tech, rather than the genre.