98 replies to this topic

[l4Dl]

DeadlyNerd, on 13 April 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

Oh, you mean a SP game where a large map is the size of the base area you need to cap? Wait, no it's not, IT'S SMALLER. Not to mention that terrain had absolutely no effect on how your monster fought the enemy monster.
Don't you think that if open map generation was so easy, that Crytek wouldn't have already randomly generated thousands of maps for Crysis?

Don't try to reason while changing the subject. It's "childish" and proves how much you're "confident" in your claims.

You have no idea about the technical aspects of automatic map generation. None.
Its very clear in your quickness to assume a SP generated map cant be sent to clients, over a network connection.

If you need me to explain this in a technical term (in which you wont understand), let me know.

And if you actually played spore, you'd know that the terrain plays a big part on the creature stage. You cant get to "certain" areas unless you use "glide". So yeah, it does effect the outcome.

[ThatOneEdgyGuy]

Why not just allow the community to submit maps?

They could be approved or denied based on case preference by the devs, and it would sate some of the widespread community railings that "WAH! PGI doesn't care about it's base!"

[BFett]

This topic had me wondering about what other game developers are doing with procedural maps and I thought this video would sum up what kind of power is currently out there. Early Alpha footage but still pretty sweet. http://www.infinity-...d=113&Itemid=93

[FrOdO]

Dreamslave, on 12 April 2013 - 04:26 PM, said:

Yea, I giggled during that one interview where he said the IS is made up of like 3500 planets or something. I was thinking "oh yea, 3500 planets? You mean a dozen maps on repeat, right?"

I hope PGI has something up their sleeves for this. If not, I could foresee this really taking some people out of the experience. Procedural generation would help very much but, not knowing the technical aspects of such an implementation I couldn't begin to discuss how difficult it would be. If the only complaint though is that it would be difficult..... that's just a loser mentality. You should have never got into game design if you wanted to make the same game out of a different fiction.

[1ShotPaddy]

FrOdO, on 13 April 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

I hope PGI has something up their sleeves for this. If not, I could foresee this really taking some people out of the experience. Procedural generation would help very much but, not knowing the technical aspects of such an implementation I couldn't begin to discuss how difficult it would be.

Infinity is a space massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) being developed by Flavien Brebion. In Infinity, the player controls a spacecraft and travels throughout the entire galaxy trying to make a name for him/herself. Because the game is a MMOG the player connects to an online server on which any number of people are playing in a persistent world.[2]

All of the programming work for the game is being undertaken by Flavien Brebion. Planet terrain, star systems and a galaxy will all be created using procedural generation.

http://en.wikipedia....Infinity_(MMOG)

Edited by 1ShotPaddy, 13 April 2013 - 07:19 PM.

[FrOdO]

1ShotPaddy, on 13 April 2013 - 07:18 PM, said:

Infinity is a space massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) being developed by Flavien Brebion. In Infinity, the player controls a spacecraft and travels throughout the entire galaxy trying to make a name for him/herself. Because the game is a MMOG the player connects to an online server on which any number of people are playing in a persistent world.[2]

All of the programming work for the game is being undertaken by Flavien Brebion. Planet terrain, star systems and a galaxy will all be created using procedural generation.

http://en.wikipedia....Infinity_(MMOG)

I know about Infinity, last time I checked it didn't have the proper funding and was on the ropes; Dead in the water (have you seen Star Citizen or Elite:Dangerous?.... those games are actually funded and are progressing nicely).


While an impressive engine to be certain, again I don't know how it handles other things. It's important to consider physics, animations, ballistics, and all the other simulations that occur within a game engine and not just the generated worlds.

The I-engine is a completely different game engine, PGI would have to make an entirely new game in order for that to work (unless they can somehow import from Cryengine 3!?), they can't just shoehorn the I-engine into the game. Did you think they could?

Edited by FrOdO, 14 April 2013 - 04:19 AM.

[ego1607]

Scouting the unknown terrain, looking for points of tactical advanage... ugh, the idea gives me a hadron...

I don't even think it would in most cases be unbalanced. Since both teams would be put on an unknown terain, advantage would mostly be on the team that manages to quickly scout out the map and adapt their strategy to the situation. It would make MWO much more of a thinking man's game.

[Nightfangs]

Completely agree with OP!
Randomized maps would make the game fresh and give scouts a real function besides "where is the brawl today?".

Of cause some of the maps would not be that "good" as manually generated ones.
But you could implement a "random map rating system" and have a gamemode for the best 50 maps of the last 3 months (after a certain time the maps should be taken out of the selection to make room for fresh ones).
Those are just random numbers, don't fixate on them.

/edit
Why should maps be always "balanced/fair"? I'm perfectly okay with being at a small disadvantage where or with what mechs I start. If you always MUST have an exact 50% chance of winning, I propose flipping a coin for entertainment.

Edited by Nightfangs, 14 April 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[Alex Warden]

op is right. we always use random maps in MegaMech,and i never heard someone QQ over "unequal conditions"

the arguments are unbeatable: in a universe of trillions of planets, you can´t rely on even conditions. and nothing is worse than already knowing where the fight will happen right in the moment you read the maps name...

they could do hand-crafted maps for vital places/ capitol worlds and random maps for the 100´s others...

[Ranek Blackstone]

ThatOneEdgyGuy, on 13 April 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Why not just allow the community to submit maps?

They could be approved or denied based on case preference by the devs, and it would sate some of the widespread community railings that "WAH! PGI doesn't care about it's base!"

The legal problems with MWO being a for profit game means that all maps submitted would need to be checked for possible copyright violations. And the sheer volume of maps that would be submitted would make it impossible to go through them all in anything like a timely manner.

[Fate 6]

Kristov Kerensky, on 12 April 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

OP...6 years of playing Battlefield 2 on the same set of original maps it shipped with, even though myself and the servers I played on had all the addons and extra maps. Know why? Because those maps were the most balanced and fun for playing on..over and over..day after day..week after week...for 6 years.

The maps are a part of the game, all too true, but the reason people STILL play Battlefield 2 today is that the GAMEPLAY is fun and the same map played for the 10000th time doesn't run like it did any other time before. People..they got this nasty habit of doing things you don't expect, even if they KNOW there's a 'right' way to do something, they'll try something else anyway.

Random maps..great concept, horrible when actually implemented for anything but grins and giggles and absolutely detested by anyone doing competative gaming. For MWO, this is even more of a factor because how the team works together is very much determined by the map, something you'll have spent many many hours sitting and learning and understanding. That way you can determine the best allocation of your forces in the most effective manner and have plans set up to deal with variations that your enemy will always introduce. Random maps..you can't practice for those, you don't know what weapons and Mechs will be the most use. And they WILL all too often be totally one sided in their layout, which will do nothing but anger everyone playing.

The original BF:2 maps were also REALLY good. I still remember the map from the multiplayer demo. I think I played that one map over and over for a month before my original XBox died and I had to replace it with a 360. But it was so good that I could play 1 map for a month. There are few maps that good. The only other map I can think of that is that amazing was Lockout in Halo 2, the best map I have ever played on in a shooting game. None of the MWO maps are that awesome.

[Fate 6]

Ranek Blackstone, on 14 April 2013 - 05:30 AM, said:

The legal problems with MWO being a for profit game means that all maps submitted would need to be checked for possible copyright violations. And the sheer volume of maps that would be submitted would make it impossible to go through them all in anything like a timely manner.

Halo 3 and Halo: Reach did it, with a much larger community to boot.

[Daggett]

Though i like the idea of exploring endless worlds in community warfare, we should keep in mind that it takes a lot of effort to create the algorithms needed to build believable, interesting and last but not least PLAYABLE random maps.

There must be no 'craters' mechs can fall into and never get out or too much impassable hills in general.
It must be made sure that you doesn't get stuck in the landscape, especially while jump-jetting.

And it is a great challenge to create maps that does not look totally dull.
And to be honest, most random maps i've seen yet are totally boring.

Minecraft for instance works because you can shape the world.
If it looks dull, you make it interesting. If you are stuck, you dig your way out.

This is not possible in MWO, therefore a viable map-generation is an truly epic task. And we should accept if PGI does not want to put a huge amount of effort into such a risky feature.

But if they want to try it: Thumbs up!

Edited by Daggett, 14 April 2013 - 05:51 AM.

[Fate 6]

Yes.










Plz.

[BFett]

FrOdO, on 14 April 2013 - 04:18 AM, said:

I know about Infinity, last time I checked it didn't have the proper funding and was on the ropes; Dead in the water (have you seen Star Citizen or Elite:Dangerous?.... those games are actually funded and are progressing nicely).


While an impressive engine to be certain, again I don't know how it handles other things. It's important to consider physics, animations, ballistics, and all the other simulations that occur within a game engine and not just the generated worlds.

The I-engine is a completely different game engine, PGI would have to make an entirely new game in order for that to work (unless they can somehow import from Cryengine 3!?), they can't just shoehorn the I-engine into the game. Did you think they could?

The update in your quote is from Friday, 12 April 2013 as noted at the bottom left of the screen. Progress and updates are slow but if you check out the last two videos you will be completely blown away. The full list of videos can be found here. For a physics test within the engine check out Physics, motion blur and asteroids ring video.

Edited by BFett, 14 April 2013 - 06:05 AM.

[Dirkdaring]

Darius Deadeye, on 12 April 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

Completely agree. Why this isn't being worked into the game is beyond me.

Really? Having to download a new map every single game and wait for every player to have the map loaded before starting is beyond you? Are you going to be the first one to stand up for PGI when people complain in record numbers about being force to wait for some dude for 10 minutes thats still using dial-up in Backscratch County Kansas?

Edited by Dirkdaring, 14 April 2013 - 06:05 AM.

[Zerberus]

Good Idea for MW:Tactics, Bad idea for MW:O, for all the reasons stated. Most importantly data center resources and overall bugginess. MW:O is NOT Diablo II

[Alex Warden]

Dirkdaring, on 14 April 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

Really? Having to download a new map every single game and wait for every player to have the map loaded before starting is beyond you? Are you going to be the first one to stand up for PGI when people complain in record numbers about being force to wait for some dude for 10 minutes thats still using dial-up in Backscratch County Kansas?

you won´t have to load a complete new map... you would have all assets on your harddrive, just the arragement would be different each time.

[Targetloc]

I think it would be amazing if it was possible. I don't think the technology is there yet.

Generating locally from the same seed or downloading a map from the central server would take a long time.
Meshes would be untested. There would probably be a high chance of falling through the world.


However, I think we could get a ton more mileage out of the current maps if PGI added 8+ different spawn points to the maps and randomly selected 2 of the 'good' ones for each team to start at.

Alpine would be a completely different experience if one team started at Epsilon and the other at Kappa.

[FF Hobbes]

I agree 100%. PGRM are the only way that long term interested can be maintained, especially within the Community Warfare paradigm.