Elite / Frontier KS Update #3: Procedural Generation Video

[Kipper]

Never have the words "shut up and take my money" been more appropriate as when I saw the footage of flying through clouds and imagined all the possibilities there.

I don't think I've seen anything like it in any game, and I can't wait for this.

I only wish I had more cash to give!

I would love to be at the 'space station named after you' level and the alpha test, how much are kidneys going for these days?

 

[Spacegamer]

Never have the words "shut up and take my money" been more appropriate as when I saw the footage of flying through clouds and imagined all the possibilities there.

I don't think I've seen anything like it in any game, and I can't wait for this.

same here with the clouds not see anything like that in a space sim
Hope we get some asteroids with a bit of rotation on them.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

I wonder how intricate in detail the procedural efects will finally be. I can almost visualise/imagine those strong wind and lightning/thunder sounds as you fly through the atmospheres of a gas giant planet.
I hope (though I should imagine it would be used more often than not) there is going to be a good marriage of music, sound and other effects in the general game as well, these types of background effects can really help to immerse the player in a game.
Any 'Carl Sagan' type 'Floaters & Sinkers' maybe as well on some of these gas giants? :smilie:

Jack

 

[The Space Pirate]

David, no, no, no, no!

Going on about numbers and mathematics is not the way to pull in the younger generation! To get the pledges flowing again, we need to see some combat! Seriously, any non Elite, or younger generation fan will watch this video and think 'this game is BORING'! And that is not what you want people to be thinking...

The clouds are beautiful though.

 

[CatInSpace]

I agree with The Space Pirate that it might probably require some more action-packed material to attract the youngsters, but as an 'old' Elite player I kinda loved the technical discussion on the procedural generation. I've always been fascinated by the fact how this entire Elite world could fit in only so little kB's. Creative programming indeed.

Can't wait to fly through those nice looking clowds, experiencing winds and lightning around me while trying to dock. Let's hope for more updates and more people to join the kickstarter project.

 

[Rollo]

David, no, no, no, no!

Going on about numbers and mathematics is not the way to pull in the younger generation! To get the pledges flowing again, we need to see some combat! Seriously, any non Elite, or younger generation fan will watch this video and think 'this game is BORING'! And that is not what you want people to be thinking...

The clouds are beautiful though.

If the younger generation doesn't like this stuff then to h*** with them I say. They are a lost generation, let's produce a new one instead.
Seriously, I'm saying that this needs to be done and to be done differently from games you see today. If I still dream about Frontier almost 25-30 years later, they had to be doing something right, even if I wished for more, nothing has come even close to match it.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

To counter that space priate, it's likely the kids will speak to dad, who will want to take a look before giving over CC details and say "Wow" and pledge more

Don't worry about it - more videos are coming. This is just setting the tone.

Personally I loved it - spoke to my inner geek and confirmed my pledge amount.

 

[CatInSpace]

Elite had a specific vibe that only few current games can match. It was a blast to play, and a genuine way to absolutely get lost in. It might have been generated procedurally (sounds simple enough), but the game world felt real and epic to me.

After Elite I've been trying to find a comparable game to play, but I kinda never found one that felt as big and fun (though Oolite is obviously brilliant). Space games are so focussed on pure combat right now, and I am looking forward to have a trader experience again. Hopefully Elite: Dangerous will provide, also in the single-player department.

 

[DrBaggy]

To counter that space priate, it's likely the kids will speak to dad, who will want to take a look before giving over CC details and say "Wow" and pledge more

Don't worry about it - more videos are coming. This is just setting the tone.

Personally I loved it - spoke to my inner geek and confirmed my pledge amount.

A big thumbs up from me too: this is David talking about his passion, and that's what has made Elite (and if the pledges pick up, E4) great!

 

[Kipper]

I thought it was great too, I actually think more people need to embrace procedural generation and AI techniques as it brings a game to life.

Imagine going to a far flung system in E4 and exploring it knowing that you might be the first person to have seen it. No artist swung by to design it for you, if there's 100,000 stars - even the developers probably won't have seen them all, and if there's enough options - the developers won't have seen all that is possible from what they created.

That's why I enjoy Minecraft, I get to build stuff, but I also get to explore a place that feels both real, and like nobody has been there before.

On the subject of AI (which I think is related) - I think I remember reading an article or interview on Oblivion (the one before Skyrim) where they said they had given the NPCs wants and needs, and were having fun watching what they'd do because none of it was scripted - so for instance one guy is hungry but has no gold, so he goes off and steals someone else's food, etc.

I wonder if you can apply some sort of technique to the enemy ships so that they behave in a non predictable but non random way based on the imagined pilots personality? Imagine hunting a trade ship and it just turning and running because it knows its outgunned or that its cargo its too valuable to lose, and so on.

 

[Styggron]

I love tech videos as mentioned it helps set the tone. More and more tech videos .....WITH of course videos for the more general audience.

Just for a slight contrast to Space Pirate I have found the younger generation shall we call it, was completely interested and wants to learn more about how procedural generation works since they saw it in minecraft. More and more courses are popping up about things like this. They saw it as DIFFERENT from the same boring crap that is out there now that they are sick of.

My sample size was only around 60 though so can't draw any solid conclusions but it does bring me hope. They ARE interested not all of them have that typical "it's boring" attitude, some want to learn and want to know how it works themselves.

So again as usual a bit of balance to spark the interest, show what is different, set the tone, show possibilities and richness as WELL as the usual action sequences as well. Target everyone and get everyone pledging. :smilie:

 

[nOmArch]

Couldn't agree more with that.

 

[rgmarett]

Me too. I showed the video to my daughter and she was interested. Kids don't get enough credit these days - I know I would have been interested when I was younger too.

 

[Riedquat For A Dream]

For all its pros and cons, one thing that I love about the Kickstarter project to date is that it feels utterly different to what we have come to expect from slick marketing led presentations over the last 10 years.

Some people may well find the video boring, some will want more explosions. These people should not be pledging for the game anyway.

If the people who fund this game all have a shared correct expectation of what this game is going to be then things are going to be a lot smoother in the long run.

Avoiding the external pressure of a publisher is something that David Braben has said is a massive draw to funding the game using Kickstarter. Here he has a chance to have people who know who he is and recognise what he has achieved in the past to invest in him and his team's potential, giving them the freedom to make something completely different to what has gone before.

It is interesting that as soon as it is us, the customers, who are pledging our money upfront that we start making demands very similar to what publishers tend to make: full gameplay demos, vertical slices, and so on. But the original Elite wasn't made that way.

This is an unconventional Kickstarter from an unconventional artist for an unconventional game.

As someone who is I believe a core member of this game's audience I found this video giddyingly exciting, and more inspiring than a thousand videos of spaceships firing lasers at each other could have been.

Ian Bell has said that one of the reasons he believes Elite was so successful was because they didn't pander to an imagined audience, they made a game for themselves and treated their audience as adults (even though most of them were children). I couldn't agree more, and I hope that the tone of the videos continue to reflect what will hopefully be the tone of the finished game.

 

[Kipper]

It can't hurt to show off all aspects of what will be another groundbreaking game; including some of the more 'pew pew' stuff.

Keep the technical stuff coming though, I wish I could afford to get in at the level that allowed me to see some of this stuff on my own PC early, and get to talk to the developers about it and maybe even influence it a little bit.

This is the closest I feel I'm going to get to actually going into space and exploring the galaxy

 

[Riedquat For A Dream]

It would hurt if it hasn't been created yet and/or is not ready to show. Past Elite games have been very much built layer by layer from the ground up.

 

[Riedquat For A Dream]

This is the closest I feel I'm going to get to actually going into space and exploring the galaxy

Yes, totally, if Sol is in it then I can imagine just travelling around our system will be incredible in itself!

 

[Kipper]

I agree, it looks like they've got a game engine here, and the money and the years work will be to make it into a game.

I'd bet that right now its not far off allowing you to fly around in space, but there's no trading, no equipment, no combat etc. Probably just a big multiplayer emptiness.

I'd still love to have a go tho

 

[Kipper]

Yes, totally, if Sol is in it then I can imagine just travelling around our system will be incredible in itself!

Absolutely. Think of what the cities would look like on current hardware, I know that Frontier generated them before but they were still a little bit sparse and small probably due to what was possible.

I think one of the most amazing changes will be how much better the 'in-atmosphere' game looks - we got a hint of it today but I bet there's a ton more to come.

 

[Riedquat For A Dream]

Another reason that Elite is such a great game is because they started with the core kernel of a game idea (fighting in space) and built each layer of gameplay tightly around it in a logical, almost sequential manner as they presented themselves. This resulted in a game that, although not specced out on paper in minute detail up front, ended up with fewer design holes than most that are. Decisions were made to rearrange, introduce and no doubt even drop ideas along the way in order to keep a balanced design.

Given this game is most likely going to be built layer by layer as the previous games were, Frontier have to be very careful about what they commit to during this Kickstarter campaign.

With the traditional publisher model any game design goes through changes and cuts along the way. These have to be discussed and agreed upon, with contracts and finances changing accordingly. But with a Kickstarter the money is pledged and that's the end of that.

Imagine how hard to manage a Kickstarter-based project with an already fractured fanbase (newtonian/arcade handling, avatar/no avatar, single/multiplayer) on an emotionally charged project like this would be if a 'deal-breaking' feature for some people that made them pledge was stated as fact at this stage but failed to make it into the final game...