[Luis Dias]

So there's this new thing making an appearance with this trailer.

Ahhh yeah.

I like it!

[Phantom Hoover]

Very kitchen sink-y. I like the art but I don't understand why so many developers these days seem to think gluing a space sim to an FPS is the holy grail of game design.

[StarSlayer]

You can have your cake and the shooter brosephs too?

[IronBeer]

"Every atom procedural"

....
The very first words in the trailer, and possibly one of the boldest, most ambitious statements I've yet seen in game design. My jury's still out on how smart/stupid/ambitious/crazy/feasible the procedural generation is, but I will say that I really like the art style.

One actual minor quibble: I'm not convinced that the displayed footage is actually coming from in-game, since the HUD doesn't update at all during the clip. Hopefully that's just an oversight, because if the game can do what is displayed and implicitly promoted, it'll likely be a technical marvel.

[An4ximandros]

So... do I get to make nukes? The whole atom thing sounds more like a "poetic" description of the whole system. (Probably very small cells)

[Phantom Hoover]

"Every atom procedural"

....
The very first words in the trailer, and possibly one of the boldest, most ambitious statements I've yet seen in game design. My jury's still out on how smart/stupid/ambitious/crazy/feasible the procedural generation is, but I will say that I really like the art style.

Ohhhh dear. Procedural generation's such an indie buzzword these days that when I hear the term all I can think of are the all-too-frequent pitfalls that ensnare designers who go to it as the One True Solution to content generation.

[NGTM-1R]

They've said very little about it actually, so I'm still suspicious.

[Luis Dias]

I am not suspicious, just curious. I am extremely conservative about trailers of anything really, I just wanted to share this interesting heads up.

If anything it's a neat concept and a good artistic direction. And if the Limit Theory guy can by himself do whatever it is he's doing right now, well it is in the realm of possibility that a whole team can do this kind of stuff.

If they can deliver it however it's a very different question. Wait and see!

[Phantom Hoover]

My problem is the concept is just that -- neat. The kind of thing you'd chat about in idle conversation and say "oh yeah that would be awesome" because you don't have to confront all the problems of building one functioning game from your super comprehensive procedural generator once you've spent years perfecting it, let alone two.

[BloodEagle]

They've said very little about it actually, so I'm still suspicious.

This.

As much as I'd like to be sold on this from that trailer, they actually showed very little in the way of interaction.

--

Ohhhh dear. Procedural generation's such an indie buzzword these days [...]

Indie-buzzword is such a snarky buzzword, these days.

I will say that good procedures are rather difficult to come by in games touting the Procedurally Generated attribute, with developers usually using the term to mean 'simple randomization that fits together'.  But there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater (unless, you know, that's what you're into) over a term.  90% of everything is crap, after all.

[Luis Dias]

Well we have a possibility that this is a little more than just chatting. Given the increasing pc performance and the amount of knowledge of procedural algorithms already existent out there, I don't find this as impressive an achievement at all. I think it's a matter of time until a game dev would be successful at it. It also strikes me as appropriate that is a small dev team trying this approach. An AAA dev team would try to do the "design everything by hand" approach.

[BloodEagle]

Oh, hey.  RPS link with a more in-depth view.


::EDIT::

So, wait.  It's not a multiplayer game.  But if someone depletes a planet of a valuable resource, the same planet in my single-player game will also lose that resource?

 

Can I opt out of that ****?

[Phantom Hoover]

Well we have a possibility that this is a little more than just chatting. Given the increasing pc performance and the amount of knowledge of procedural algorithms already existent out there, I don't find this as impressive an achievement at all. I think it's a matter of time until a game dev would be successful at it. It also strikes me as appropriate that is a small dev team trying this approach. An AAA dev team would try to do the "design everything by hand" approach.

The problem here isn't technical barriers, it's one of design focus. It's very, very easy to get sucked into procedural generation; to build some exquisite bottom-up framework for generating a world which the player will never interact with because they can only experience it as a static landscape, and then assume that a functioning game will just kind of drop out of that at the end. Opening the trailer with 'every atom procedural' does not inspire me with confidence that these people know to avoid that trap.

[AdmiralRalwood]

I don't understand why so many developers these days seem to think gluing a space sim to an FPS is the holy grail of game design.

It's quite simple, really... which is closer to the holodeck: a space sim, or a space sim where you can step out of your cockpit?

It should come as no surprise that this results in so many terrible games; as BloodEagle quoted below, 90% of everything is crud.

[Phantom Hoover]

i take everything back this game has the best potential for griefing of anything ever made

[BritishShivans]

i take everything back this game has the best potential for griefing of anything ever made

Might I ask why?

[Luis Dias]

coz "procedural generation shenanigans" and a wide misanthropic view of humanity in general .

He sees a glass of water and not only dismisses the water that is inside of it (dishwasher detergent, no doubt), he will complaint that the glass is probably made of a plastic that was found on some hell hole of a garbage dump somewhere in Bangladesh.

And he's probably right! I just point out that there's a glass of water there that could have some potential, and I like water is all.

[Phantom Hoover]

no i'm saying this because the environmental devastation you wreak upon the procedural shenanigans will be persistent and transmitted to other players. read the rps article, if you wipe out a species it's wiped out for everyone

[Luis Dias]

It needs to be "genocide" for it to be transmitted at all.

And I think they'll work out the details of that thing. I think those kinds of spoken things are not to be taken canonly. I am perhaps even more skeptical than you on this! They'll see if it conveys a good gaming experience or not.

Really, that is the last thing on my mind that can break this thing. I am way more worried about the consistency of this procedural generated galaxy, they show a leaf, then a beach, then a island, then a planet, then several planets and asteroids and the whole galaxy is mentioned. And supposedly, any changes you made to the world will be "saved". Well. I see a lot of potential "SimCity" kind of shenanigans happening here. Or worse!

[BloodEagle]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/10/interview-no-mans-sky-and-procedural-generation/#more-179478

We are designing a set of rules, we’re not designing a game, [...]

 

When a game designer tells you that the game he's making isn't a game, it's a very bad sign.