Procedural Generation. Is it overhyped?

Iskariot

Iskariot
I am truly awed by the concept of procedural generation. To me it is like some sort of techno-magic.
But I wonder do we -do I- expect too much?

I came across this interesting article that made me a bit more cautious about my expectations. There is a very real danger of repetitiveness and sameness. Especially in a huge universe like Elite's.

http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/08/procedural-generation/

I really would love another extended dev video by Mr. Braben about PG.
What can we expect, what should we not expect.

Are there any knowledgeable forum members who can tell me more about this?
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Well I've been coding in procedural generation for years and I can happily says it's all its hyped up to be :) But like with all computer things you have garbage in garbage out. If your parameters are limited you will get boring things.

I recommend checking out Proteus and Sir, You Are Being Hunted as examples of games you can play right now with really interesting procedural content. Or Dwarf Fortress (but that's harder to play and to visualise). These were all done recently by tiny teams with miniscule budgets. Frontier can go way beyond this.
 

smsKONG

smsKONG
As with all things in life you get what you put in.
Well not exactly all things in life; bloody benefit cheats :p
 

SAB380

SAB380
Iskariot said:
I am truly awed by the concept of procedural generation. To me it is like some sort of techno-magic.
But I wonder do we -do I- expect too much?

I came across this interesting article that made me a bit more cautious about my expectations. There is a very real danger of repetitiveness and sameness. Especially in a huge universe like Elite's.

http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/08/procedural-generation/

I really would love another extended dev video by Mr. Braben about PG.
What can we expect, what should we not expect.

Are there any knowledgeable forum members who can tell me more about this?
Click to expand...

I don't think its overhyped.
Most people are aware of its pros and cons.
For a game like Elite the pros faaaaar outweigh the cons.
Your travelling at high speed across vast distances. Its not GTA5 where every shop window poster needs to be uinque.
 

scrufferpops

scrufferpops
DB himself said that there were many parameters to the PG so indeed yes pretty much every system will be 'unique'...And don't forget frontier are including other things that are currently understood (partially, or mostly) by science, like black holes, neutron stars, super giant stars, hyper giants, quasars, gas giants, nebulae, asteroid belts and others....Race you to the supermassive black hole thats theoretically in the heart of our galaxy!! (cue that most excellent best band on the planet 'MUSE' :p )
 

Toumal

Toumal
Space Engine does procedurally generated planets and terrain for planets we have no exact data on, and it's really an amazing sight.

SyIVd4bl.jpg


So yes, I think it's both a marketing buzzword (nothing wrong with a bit of hype for Elite ;) ) AND a very useful technique for games like this.
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
This is what I am wondering/worrying about (from the article I mentioned):

(Game X) is unbelievable at first because “LOOK AT ALL OF THESE PLANETS I CAN EXPLORE!” But then, once you’ve been to a few of these planets, you start to realize that, actually, there’s only a small handful of planet types and biomes, and then it starts getting repetitive. The planets may be unique in that their formations aren’t all the same, but they hold all the same contents in different quantities and variations. The procedurally generated customization in Starbound produces thousands, if not millions, of unique results, too. But it could be as much as an armor chest piece that is a slightly different shade of purple to your other one. The result isn’t as exciting as the number-based marketing spiel would have you hope.
Click to expand...

Or this:

...Procedural generation does allow that, though. Sort of. It’s a shortcut. They don’t have to hand-craft every inch of their game world, like Bethesda pretty much did with Skyrim. They can write some code that constantly creates ground for the player to walk over, churning out items and enemies at them to collect and fight. But, in my experience, it often lacks the heart that comes with hand-crafting these details, and quite often, it becomes repetitive and bland within just a few hours of play, if even that long.
Click to expand...
 

Toumal

Toumal
Iskariot said:
This is what I am wondering/worrying about (from the article I mentioned):
"...The planets may be unique in that their formations aren’t all the same, but they hold all the same contents in different quantities and variations. ..."
Click to expand...

That is certainly a danger, yes. And DB repeatedly said that they'd take time for the planetfall expansion because they do not want planets to effectively be just a slightly different form of starbase to dock with. Ultimately, the different kinds of activities you can do on a planet is not something you can procedurally generate. You can generate the content for each activity, but you have to define the activity types beforehand, manually. So ultimately that will be limited and repetitive.

But on the bright side, at least you won't be limited to just 50 planets. Also, FD has stated that they will close down certain areas of the galaxy to be filled out with special stuff lateron, so people will still have stuff to discover long after the game release. And I think that's an excellent long term motivation idea.
 

Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Skyrim was not handcrafted - procedural techniques were used extensively to produce the game world, which than had overpasses afterwards to polish things or supplement with handcrafted content.

As for samey content in procedural games... well we see it the same in non-procedural games. Consider the fairly dull planet exploration in Mass Effect for instance. When you only have 3 types of X and you show 20 of X to the player then they're bound to get bland. The trick is to have a good enough mixing pot so people will see good variety, and to keep tweaking and adding and inserting hand-crafted pieces here and there to make the world feel interesting.

Letting people modify environments makes a huge difference too. Unfortunately it looks like we won't have that in Elite.
 
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Darren Grey

Darren Grey
Looking more at that article, it has some really great comments, including from some procedural designers that I know and highly respect. Ed Key makes a great point "I find patches of wilderness (even in vacant city lots) to be infinitely richer and more evocative than any garden."

What can be wonderful about a piece of procedurally generated content is the feeling that no one, not even the developer, has seen the piece of content you're seeing. Imagine reaching some far-off planet in Elite: Dangerous and finding a strange biosystem in place, one that no one else has seen yet and that the developers didn't even consider as a possibility.
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
Darren Grey said:
Imagine reaching some far-off planet in Elite: Dangerous and finding a strange biosystem in place, one that no one else has seen yet and that the developers didn't even consider as a possibility.
Click to expand...

Yes that is one of the things that is so immensely fascinating about PG, especially in a huge game like Elite.
One of the developers of No Man's Land said in an article that when he was testing a particular seed he discovered some totally unexpected life forms in an ocean on one of the planets. Reading that made my heart beat faster.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
If there are 10 000 differents planets around the system Sol, it will be enough for me. I shall have difficulty to explore more. However there will be of repetitions. In real galaxy there must be a lot of similar planets.

:)
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Sometime in the future...

Spacer 1: Another planet with water, plants and life....
Spacer 2: Yeah, reality generated planets are overhyped.
Spacer 1: It's like life uses the same 98 elements over and over again.
Spacer 2: So laaaame.

:p
 

Dirtmuncher

D
Procedural generation can be great or meh depending on the implementation. For generating a star system it should be a combination of logic, preconditions and RNG.
If its all really samey the difference and number of possible outcomes is to low or are negligible.
For the creation of a galaxy you really need a lot of different possible outcomes.
 

Adept

Adept
"It's space, it all looks familiar. Black with twinkly bits"

/Lister

PS. That is from memory, so probably not quite correct.
 

Lobster

Lobster
It isn't a magic wand that automatically makes the game good. It creates a varied and unpredictable board on which the game is played, but the interactive systems are what will make or break the excitement of it.

If you have a lifeless shallow trading system, for example, then it doesn't matter if you have ten stars or ten trillion, it's going to get boring really fast. It doesn't matter how impressive your fancy math for generating the platinum content of asteroids is, if there is no incentive for a player to lust after rare platinum asteroids, then no one will give a monkeys.

A strong collection of mechanics that place value on discovery are what will make an extra hyperspace jump worth the click. Never knowing what opportunities might be around the next corner..
 

Branoic

B
I played the Star Trek MMO for a bit when it launched. It has sections of unexplored space where you can go and discover new planets and complete new missions, and it was all procedurally generated, and utterly utterly crap. Mostly because there was no permanence. Anything you discovered was instantly wiped the moment you warped away, which really negated the sense of discovery, of pushing the frontier of human exploration further and further. I have faith that Frontier Developments will handle this a LOT better!
 

Tony Spaniels

Tony Spaniels
Ive posted this before, (and for those of you's who have already viewed this I apologize), but it really intrigues me if it came to pass that alongside procedurally generated systems, there are also procedurally generated creatures that habit these planets and develop.

For example, something like this..

http://vimeo.com/85053197

How cool would that be if you are an explorer that you couldnt not only discover planets but also new and utterly unique lifeforms that are slowly evolving?? :D It staggers my imagination...
 
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