Eh. I dont really see how. Most of the time that's just how procedural generation is. When the generation of creatures follows a certain set of rules, it's not like you're going to see something that's going to knock your socks off every single time.
that doesnt excuse it being bad
procedural generation is a tool, not a goal.
I'm not so sure about that. Look at the title of this thread: "18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to explore". Why generate 18 quintillion planets? Why hype up that absurd number specifically? What's the use case of this, knowing that the end user is not actually going to see all 18 quintillion planets? It seems that procedural generation for No Man's Sky is the whole point, the
raison d'ętre of its existence.
There doesn't seem to be any use case for the procgen in this game, other than to produce an illusion of content and depth that makes the rest of the game seem immersive. Maybe you can say
that's where proc-gen being used as a tool, but no, I think it's just being used for...well, hype isn't the right word here...
An indie game developer, Bruno Dias, is currently developing a space game called Voyageur, where procedurally generated text is used to provide description for the various planets you can visit. He mentioned casually
in an interview:
"In games, procgen originated as a workaround for technical limitations, allowing games like Elite to have huge galaxies that never actually had to exist in the limited memory of a 90’s computer. But it quickly became an engine of surprise and replayability; roguelikes wouldn’t be what they are if the dungeon wasn’t different each time, full of uncertainty. Voyageur represents an entry into what we could call the “third generation” of procgen in games: procedural generation as an aesthetic."
That's what procedural generation is being used for in
No Man's Sky. Sheer beauty and taste, divorced from form and purpose. Let's have a vast, massive galaxy that you can explore and see content that no other player will ever see, so that players can then partake of meaning that is meaningful
solely because it is specific to them and to them alone...Not out of any sense of it actually being useful, but because it's just cool.
Like most things about aesthetics, it's really a matter of taste, and while I can see many people who would love procgen for procgen's sake, I can also see why it wouldn't be appealing to many other people as well. And, of course, my mini-rant doesn't excuse
bad procedural generation...