Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[forsaken1111]

I haven't bought NMS, and I won't either. I knew I wouldn't like it from the first time I heard about it. The big tipofff was "procedural generation", generally that means "we didn't have the time/manpower to design things properly". Generating some aspects of a game is all well and good, but trying to do most everything results in a boring mass of gray goo.

This is ridiculous. Nearly everything in Dwarf Fortress is generated via that procedural generation you're so set against. It can be fine if done properly, and the procedurally generated part of NMS isn't the part most people are complaining about. Sure the planets look a bit samey but a planet is a planet. They can easily add more variety.

Also, games need to provide something for you to do. Players like to settle down and build a base or something, and a game about exploring space doesn't allow that.

This is the crux of the problem. A lot of features that would have given you something to do, which were talked about by those developers, are not actually there.

[milo christiansen]

I like DF, but not nearly everything is random (just some throwaway creatures and the terrain). If all the creatures, plants, etc were random DF would be a lot less interesting.

[heydude6]

If all the creatures, plants, etc were random DF would be a lot less interesting.

Isn't that one of the things Toady plans to implement?

[milo christiansen]

Yep, stupid thing to do in my mind, but some people link "procedural everything" to "more fun" in their minds. For actual results of that look at just about every game that has tried procedural everything, it seems cool, but rarely is.

[Putnam]

If all the creatures, plants, etc were random DF would be a lot less interesting.

Isn't that one of the things Toady plans to implement?

Yes, and he specifically mentioned the "grey goo" problem. It's actually his wording originally AFAIK.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So, in all seriousness, what IS this game? Not what it isn't, what is actually in game? Is it really just infinite expanse simulator 2016?

[LoSboccacc]

So, in all seriousness, what IS this game? Not what it isn't, what is actually in game? Is it really just infinite expanse simulator 2016?

well the planets are quite beautiful when seen in static screenshots, so there's that. also ship generation is not that bad, and between the gorillion combinations sometimes you get something more beautiful.

[Putnam]

It's a resource grind-type game based on procedural generation. There are two main goals in the game and it can be played after.

Personally I'll just stick to MGSV and Spore? Those two fill every niche that NMS does, and each does it far better. MGSV has very satisfying resource acquisition and equipment upgrading. Spore has ~about as interesting exploration and formerly had similar multiplayer features (before the inevitable shutdown of the servers that would provide creatures created by other players, which let me tell you avoided the grey goo pretty well) with the additional bonus of giving you actual tools to change the world around you in meaningful ways.

OTOH, Spore is nigh unplayable in certain ways without mods. With mods, though, it can be relaxing as all hell.

[milo christiansen]

Yes, and he specifically mentioned the "grey goo" problem. It's actually his wording originally AFAIK.

The term "grey goo" in relation to a mass of random stuff predates Toady by quite a bit AFAIK. Can't seem to feed google anything that will make it spit out confirmation, but I have seen the term elsewhere.

[forsaken1111]

The term grey goo is mainly used to describe a sort of substance that turns everything else into itself. Usually in regards to nanomachines or 'nanites' that consume everything to make more nanites. I've never heard it used to describe procedural generation.

[Putnam]

The term grey goo is mainly used to describe a sort of substance that turns everything else into itself. Usually in regards to nanomachines or 'nanites' that consume everything to make more nanites. I've never heard it used to describe procedural generation.

Yeah, I've never seen anyone but Toady use the term "grey goo" to refer to "so procedural that it ends up too abstract to give a shit".

[milo christiansen]

Well I have, actually I heard it used that way before I ever heard of DF, but I forget where exactly...

[miauw62]

I haven't bought NMS, and I won't either. I knew I wouldn't like it from the first time I heard about it. The big tipofff was "procedural generation", generally that means "we didn't have the time/manpower to design things properly". Generating some aspects of a game is all well and good, but trying to do most everything results in a boring mass of gray goo.

This is ridiculous. Nearly everything in Dwarf Fortress is generated via that procedural generation you're so set against. It can be fine if done properly, and the procedurally generated part of NMS isn't the part most people are complaining about. Sure the planets look a bit samey but a planet is a planet. They can easily add more variety.

DF has a lot of pre-made stuff and adds a layer of simulation to the procedural generation. basing your entire game off procedural generation and that alone will always make terrible games, and i'll keep saying that until i see any proof to the contrary.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Well when its ALL procedural generation, it begins to bleed in to the realm of simulation.

[Sergarr]

Well when its ALL procedural generation, it begins to bleed in to the realm of simulation.

Well, as I see it, simulation is modelling a game system's evolution, procedural generation is essentially taking a large dictionary and throwing out sentences made up from semi-random "noun-verb-adjective" combinations. Simulation can produce qualitatively different things, because they flow naturally from the rules of the world - not so much in procedural generation, where you have to code for every such detail to appear. Fundamentally different things.

Otherwise we could call normal physics engines as a "procedural generation of object's positions and velocities", and then "procedural generation" would stop having any real meaning.