98 replies to this topic

[AllSpark]

The only thing which bugs me in MW:O is that the scope of the game is so modest. Frozen city feels like a carefully constructed multiplayer map (which it is) instead of slice of a larger planet.
Procedurally created maps like what we see in Project Infinity would be a dream come true, but we are kidding ourselves if we think such things will be in MW:O eventually. I would however pay another Founders fee for procedurally created terrain feature.

[Darius Deadeye]

As was mentioned in the last post, I would in fact also pay a one-time fee if the developers decided to invest in procedurally generated map-making.

Example of a basic map: plains, few trees, few hills, hardly any cover. Open field slaughter.

Good for tournament gameplay? No. Does it make sense considering battletech lore, etc? Yes.

A lot of battles took place in the middle of nowhere or rather, anywhere.

Even with 20-30 maps, once CW hits and people go into "RP mode", the lack of this aspect is going to become blatantly obvious and I fear the game might suffer from it, though of course I could be wrong.

[FrOdO]

BFett, on 14 April 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

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.

lol, I watched the videos.... like back in 2010 when they came out.


like I said, project is in development hell.... they are trying to do a kickstarter but, honestly..... Star Citizen looks better

[Kristov Kerensky]

BFett, on 13 April 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

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

Did you bother to READ the Development section for that game...evidently not.

2+ YEARS on and they are still working on getting the TERRAIN generation alone working properly..it's still not there as of April 12, 2012.

This is a game using it's OWN engine created for the specific purpose of what they are doing..and after over 2 years they still haven't gotten it working right just producing terrain.

PRGM is possible, it's done in STO right now, go look at how great it works, STO is F2P so you can load it and jump in and see yourself exactly how it works. Keep in mind, this is making maps that are a lot smaller then we use in MWO, the largest in STO is about 2-4 grids on any of the current MWO maps, and even with THAT limitation on size they still get massive amounts of fubar maps, both planet surface(terrain) and complexes(buildings).

And yes, I do compare a game like Tribes 2 to MWO because they ARE quite alike in how they play...and the PRGM tech hasn't really advanced all that much since Tribes 2, which didn't ship with PRGM, that's something WE, the community, created and added ourselves. It was OUR dream to use it create a new map each and every time there was a game, all done on the fly in real time and it didn't take long at all. It just didn't work when it came down to making actual PLAYABLE maps enough times out of 100 to be worth using. Years of working on it, professional and hobbiest programmers alike, and we couldn't make it work..I mean work at all, not just that it made imbalanced maps but getting it to make maps that could be played on. We could introduce random elements TO the map, but generating a fully randomized map from nothing didn't work. We had a lot more people working on the problem than any dev team has ever had, not even Blizzard has that many people all working on the same issue for years..and we couldn't make our dream come true.

What, you think this is the FIRST time people have asked for this? It's been a dream for competitive games for decades and to date, no one has been able to get it to work. Some of us have actually worked on this and we hate the fact that it's just NOT possible..not for the last couple of decades and not right now, not even sure it'll happen in the near future but I can hope.

CryTek engine sure as hells isn't the one to use for this in the first place, it's got enough issues when you manually create the maps that have to be fixed before the map is usable, toss in randomization and you've got a major CharlieFrank going down big time.

1ShotPaddy...no one said we're getting 3500+ maps, as a matter of fact, they said we are NOT getting them. Might want to actually READ the dev interviews and answers sometime instead of just picking up on what someone else said they said somewhere else. We're getting a few hundred planets, that's it, border worlds and specific canon locations.

BTech Universe, there's no NEW terrain for battles, the planets the battles take place on are NOT terra incognita, they are planets that have been fought over for centuries by Mechwarriors fighting for the Houses. Attempting to take specific sites on each planet, time and time again, with those sites changing hands repeatedly..or being destroyed..and then they fight over the rubble..might be something good in there! No joke, that's BTech, they fight over tech and the ruins of tech.

There's no surprises waiting in what kind of terrain they'll be fighting in or travelling through to reach the combat site, there only surprises are what the enemy has waiting..and where it's waiting at. Should read a few of the Clan Invasion novels, really great view of what I'm talking about here, even the CLANS weren't in the dark about what the terrain was like anywhere they invaded. We can get real time intel on any location on Earth within a matter of hours right now...now take that tech 1000 years out, make it so space travel is commonplace, and think about how quickly intel can be gathered in that setting...

[BFett]

I think for a team consisting of one guy who is working on a game during his spare time he's doing pretty well. By the way he does have a combat system coded as well as basic physics.

[Hammerfinn]

You obviously have no idea how game design and programming work if you think this is remotely feasible in a stable, and timely, way. PG maps would be ***** no two ways about it, you haven't thought it out.

Randomly generated maps would be more stale than well-balanced, well-designed maps; how long do you think it would take to generate something with the size and detail of the maps we have, each time? How unstable do you think this would make EVERYTHING if we have to randomly generate a map server-side for each match?

I say, if we want more variety, have the spawn points randomize on each map. That way we have what you want--more of a scouting role, shifting strategy, diverse strategy--without any of the crap that would be generated by something as useless and unstable as PG maps.

Think harder; PG would be so much a waste of PGI's time.

[KingCobra]

PGI should let players make maps and submit them for quality control if they pass the test and the community likes them they should be added to the game. It costs PGI less for fan/player created maps than having staff take 6 months to make one map.

[Davers]

KingCobra, on 14 April 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

PGI should let players make maps and submit them for quality control if they pass the test and the community likes them they should be added to the game. It costs PGI less for fan/player created maps than having staff take 6 months to make one map.

Honestly, if it takes the staff 6 months to make one map why will it take so much less for one player? Most likely player made maps will have the exact same kind of problems as the team made ones, only with less people working out the glitches/bugs.

[Zerberus]

Every map has a Conquewst and an assault version as of this writing, right?

I think it should be feasible to randomize assault spawn + base points to the 5 resource locations, or maybe just use the outer 4 choosing the 2 opposing points to essentially double the amount of maps we currently have to 2 of each "style".

This would at least create some variation in gameplay, hopefully without tying up tooo much dev resources. and if kept for future maps, would also both make finding bugs faster (higher likelihood of someone being in area x at all), as well as to keep the annoyance with the increased rotation of the first weeks to a minimum, esp for the inevitable players that will end up still getting them on a constant "bad luck" basis as is the case with myself and Tourmaline.

Heck, there are places on alpine and tourmaline that I`ve never even seen, and places on caustic that I rarely see, primarily because I drive assaults and don`t usually meander off trying to cap. For me seeing these maps "90° offset" would be a huge improvement from a variation standpoint, and of course it would require rethinking of what were the standard tactics for map x becasue map x is now map +

Edited by Zerberus, 14 April 2013 - 05:46 PM.

[KingCobra]

Davers, on 14 April 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Honestly, if it takes the staff 6 months to make one map why will it take so much less for one player? Most likely player made maps will have the exact same kind of problems as the team made ones, only with less people working out the glitches/bugs.

Well I have made MW2-MW4 maps that had 1-2% bugs in 2 weeks and I was slow at it many fans and players are 24/7 devotees of MechWarrior and could make maps in a month for MWO as some work on them constantly. Also in past MechWarrior games there were teams of people making maps 24/7.So I still think it would benefit PGI.

Edited by KingCobra, 14 April 2013 - 08:51 PM.

[drinniol]

Fate 6, on 14 April 2013 - 05:47 AM, said:

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

They gave you a box and some objects. Nowhere near what is being talked about here.

KingCobra, on 14 April 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

Well I have made MW2-MW4 maps that had 1-2% bugs in 2 weeks and I was slow at it many fans and players are 24/7 devotees of MechWarrior and could make maps in a month for MWO as some work on them constantly. Also in past MechWarrior games there were teams of people making maps 24/7.So I still think it would benefit PGI.

Were they any good? What scale are talking about? Got a link?

Edited by drinniol, 14 April 2013 - 10:46 PM.

[1ShotPaddy]

Kristov Kerensky, on 14 April 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

We're getting a few hundred planets, that's it, border worlds and specific canon locations.

Hell will freeze over before we even get close to a "few hundred". That is what is disappoint.

[Volthorne]

KingCobra, on 14 April 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

Well I have made MW2-MW4 maps that had 1-2% bugs in 2 weeks and I was slow at it many fans and players are 24/7 devotees of MechWarrior and could make maps in a month for MWO as some work on them constantly. Also in past MechWarrior games there were teams of people making maps 24/7.So I still think it would benefit PGI.

And you could probably do just about as much in those engines as you could in the original StarCraft: "I'll put a couple raised levels here, here, and there, throw down some buildings, change the colour of the ground in a few places, add water, and done!". Yeah. That work is of some REALLY high quality.

[KingCobra]

Volthorne, on 15 April 2013 - 12:00 AM, said:

And you could probably do just about as much in those engines as you could in the original StarCraft: "I'll put a couple raised levels here, here, and there, throw down some buildings, change the colour of the ground in a few places, add water, and done!". Yeah. That work is of some REALLY high quality.

I will just say to you sir whatever here is a link to maps there are many and 80% were fan made of course the game engine was not as sophisticated as cryeng3 but in a lot of ways they were much better as in size and diversity. http://www.fileplane.../1/section/Maps

Edited by KingCobra, 15 April 2013 - 06:47 AM.

[Roadbuster]

I don't know how complex creating such a system would be but I love the idea.
More immersion, real scouting, surprise attacks,...

EDIT

Hammerfinn, on 14 April 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

I say, if we want more variety, have the spawn points randomize on each map. That way we have what you want--more of a scouting role, shifting strategy, diverse strategy--without any of the crap that would be generated by something as useless and unstable as PG maps.

I'd like that too. But bases should not be visible for the other team on the map. At least not if it's assault mode. Just implement a function to surrender instead of base cap for assault mode.

Edited by Roadbuster, 15 April 2013 - 07:55 AM.

[Syllogy]

As much as I would like to see randomly generated maps, I don't think it would be wise to look at a system like this.

A much less ambitious approach (in my limited knowledge) and a decent facsimile would be to design maps that would allow for some textures and weather to be randomized to simulate different seasons.

Also, I would like to see some mirrored versions of the maps we already have for some variety. While the maps themselves would not be different, the change of orientation would be slightly refreshing.

[Gallowglas]

I like the idea in concept. In practice it sure seems like you'd just end up with a bunch of really sub-par maps, some of which might be virtually unplayable.

[Kristov Kerensky]

KingCobra, on 14 April 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

Well I have made MW2-MW4 maps that had 1-2% bugs in 2 weeks and I was slow at it many fans and players are 24/7 devotees of MechWarrior and could make maps in a month for MWO as some work on them constantly. Also in past MechWarrior games there were teams of people making maps 24/7.So I still think it would benefit PGI.

And with only a few bugs, I'm sure your maps were great.../sarcasm

Sorry, I never ever released a map that had any bugs on it, there's no excuse for that if you are doing custom maps on your own time, and it's why 99% of all user created maps are garbage. Takes time and work, true enough, but since it's something you are doing because you love it(game/making stuff) then why do it halfassed?

PGI would probably love to allow us to create maps for MWO, but the issues that creates far outweigh any possible benefits, especially for a game that's not even been officially released yet. Someone makes a custom map, sends it in, passes the QA and gets sent out and suddenly..someone notices that there's some copyrighted textures in the map, hidden away somewhere off the beaten path, some place QA wouldn't have looked at due to it's location. Next thing you know, PGI and IGP are being sued for copyright infringement because THEY distributed the map and THEY are legally responsible for it. Yeah..so not a good thing and so not worth the possible issues that single little thing brings up.

[Grey Rabbit]

Appogee, on 12 April 2013 - 11:30 PM, said:

3. ''It would create imbalanced maps.'' Yes. Terrain is like that, War is like that. As I said in my OP, over the course of hundreds of games on hundreds of maps, the balance would turn out equal for all.

This just sounds like something that needs to be added to people's whine list....

"My PUG teams always suck... They all had ECM.... They base capped and everyone made their mechs to slow to do anything about it... Match making is horrible... Hold on... Wait for it.... Almosssst... There it is... The map maker always puts my team at the crappy side..."

I'm against procedural map making in this game. PGI has enough things on their plate, I think and I agree with Bill. Has anyone here tried to make one? I have(on the very novice level, mind you) and at to make it with any mediocre level of detail makes it get complex fast. Who wants to wait for that one guy with the slow as heck laptop to seed and build up a map anyways?

Right now, I think it's more that we're eating the content up every few weeks and we can't be patient. I don't have a problem with the maps that they've made so far.

-Rabbit