Q: A game like No Man's Sky is using procedural generation of planets, how will Star Citizen be different in that aspect?
CR:
EHHHH WELL because we're not... we're not... we... we have a TOTALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH... so uhhh... star... there... there's like... I'm not interested in having a BILLION or a QUINTILLION or EIGHTEEN QUINTILLION star systems that are all RANDOMLY PUT TOGETHER so... all we do... so the PROCEDURAL... PROCEDURAL PLANETS is a BAD WORD FOR IT, what it is is... they are ARTIST AND DESIGN DRIVEN PLANETS THAT USES PROCEDURAL TECHNIQUES TO EHM LIKE BUILD OUT AREAS QUICKLY. So... but in terms of the planet like specify... like HOW YOU BUILD it... like where the mountains will be where the oceans will be where the desert will be where the forest will be... that's all SPECIFIED by an artist at a higher level... and then they build, ehm... sort of TEMPLATES COMPONENTS where procedural tech can take all the higher level, uhm, like... kind of WORLD... and the WORLD HEIGHT MAP... and it applies the SETS of like 'OK, here's the... here's like a FOREST BIOME or here's a MOUNTAIN BIOME or here's a DESERT BIOME' and the it puts them, paints them in areas somewhere the artist has specified...
So what it really is, we're using procedural tools to allow an artist to build something at a fidelity of CRYSIS but at a PLANETARY SCALE very quickly. And then they can... they can... DECIDE, 'Oh, I'm making these areas like THIS', or they can ZOOM IN to areas and change and edit them around to how they want.
So essentially we're using the tools to allow artists to RAPIDLY GENERATE really interesting locations so all the locations we have, we're not hitting a button that GENERATES RANDOM NUMBERS... Wow! That planet! Or that planet! So it's completely different from NO MAN'S SKY which does it that way, which is also kind of the same way that ELITE does it too... so ours is specifically built to construct and design the worlds and we're just making it so an artist with the right... with all the TEMPLATES DONE RIGHT can create a world IN LESS THAN A DAY... then... then it's just a matter of how much time he wants to put, like, certain areas he sort of wants to really CRAFT or just leave it the sort of the way it was sort of done
And that's what we use, that's what we're using the tools for... the IDEA and that's I think the DIFFERENCE between like STAR CITIZEN and the OTHER GAMES is that like... you know I've always liked WORLDS and STORIES and that's how you know WING COMMANDER sort of you know... felt GROUNDED and... you know the old ORIGIN MOTTO was WE CREATE WORLDS and so... uh... that's important for me, we already read now that STAR CITIZEN'S got lots of LORE, we've been writing lore for it for FOUR YEARS, the systems are... you know... you know have a quite a lot of DETAIL, PLANETS have quite a lot of detail, we have LOCATIONS, CHARACTERS, all spread through our UNIVERSE that we've been working on, uh.. not... I mean you guys haven't even seen a whole bunch of this stuff, but that's so we can build out the world where it feels like it's a... a REAL WORLD THAT YOU CAN EXIST IN and go out ADVENTURING
And it's all gonna be in MULTIPLAYER and see a... you know DO THINGS TOGETHER and ADVENTURE TOGETHER and... you know... it's... it's... it's... so... it's quite... it's quite a bit different that way.
But you know... we still gotta finish it so you know... they're already shipping and out so... I mean I have to say that NO MAN'S SKY's a pretty impressive technical achievement and... you know... so...
(CR is asked a question which is inaudible on the recording)
That's... that's... that's... DIFFERENT from being a technical achievement... so I mean I'm just... you're just... you're... you're... the ISSUE that you're having is the general issue that you always get with procedural generation, because it''s... at some point you're gonna see the patterns and it doesn't seem to have a rhyme or a reason, uh, and... you know I think maybe... maybe one day? There could be some super formula that could move away from that, but it's just HARD to do that so... technically it's pretty impressive and it's a pretty small team that did it, eh... so, you know, it's pretty cool, but we're going in a totally different path which is much more a constructed world with a much more level of detail but I mean, in MY OPINION, we're gonna try to get the STANTON SYSTEM FOR EVERYONE AT THE END OF THE YEAR with a big release at the end of the year... and you know that's got FOUR MAJOR PLANETS and a bunch MOONS and secondary areas like OUTPOSTS and stuff, like FORTY SPACE STATIONS and a HUGE AMOUNT OF AREA... and that I think is plenty... HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF GAMEPLAY going between... just because of the amount of DETAIL and... you know, the THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO versus otherwise... just go to STAR SYSTEM after STAR SYSTEM it's just kind of the same thing again and again
So uh... so YEAH... I mean you'll see we got... we got... we're gonna... SHOW... a... like a little bit of a TEASER of some STUFF on Friday at the EVENT, ahhh... ahhhh... so ahhhh.... ahh... you'll... kinda see a little bit of what I'm talking about and hopefully you guys will like it, sort of like the NEXT STEP, or the EVOLUTION.
Yeah it's gonna be PRETTY COOL.
