Print

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

[mendonca]

Unfortunately I'm going to have to disagree with the desire for procedural generation in this instance. Procedural generation just doesn't work for a believable city, if you want to move beyond placeholder, generic buildings like 'gas-station', 'sports goods store' and 'house'. You can get away with it in more abstract representations, like Cataclysm does, but I think it could be damaging to immersion in the pseudo-realistic isometric display we have here, if you get e.g. Baptist Church 1, Sports good store with a red sign, and then Baptist Church 1 all in a row (which is the real issue that they are trying to stay away from - the more specific graphics are actually a hindrance in allowing this sort of thing).

Better to have a lovingly crafted map in the first place, and we shouldn't ignore the end-game vision of Project Zomboid where the world is fixed, but LARGE (i.e. too large for you to see all parts of the map every playthrough).

Nevertheless the engine is moving slightly away from the current 'fixed' world in that the map is going to consist of 'Lots', which are essentially gaps provided in a large template master-map, to be filled in by seperate sub-map files defined elsewhere. The vanilla version will still (as far as I can tell) be completely fixed in it's architecture between plays, but it opens up the possibility for modders to generate pseudo-random maps at each new playthrough.

[Leatra]

If procedural generation is made correctly, it works well. Look at Cataclysm.

A city map consisting of lots could be more interesting though.

[dogstile]

My main issue with this game and don't get me wrong, I like what i've seen so far, however...

I can't help but look at it and think that its survival crisis z, but with a bit of rogue survivor tossed in there. Which is fine, except the bit of rogue survivor isn't really substantial enough for me to pay for a game over something which i'm pretty sure is freeware by now.

[Shadowscales]

Just buy it!
I did, and I'm never going to look back!
Even with the slow updates!

[Tilla]

Their ambitions go far beyond Rogue Survivor and Survival Crisis by quite a bit. They've also significantly increased the map size since last time, and once the cell loading stuff is in again there'll be more than enough content. There really is no perfect Procedural Generation that can make a decent realistic city, even the biggest proponents of procedural will tell you that.

[QuakeIV]

Their ambitions go far beyond Rogue Survivor and Survival Crisis by quite a bit. They've also significantly increased the map size since last time, and once the cell loading stuff is in again there'll be more than enough content. There really is no perfect Procedural Generation that can make a decent realistic city, even the biggest proponents of procedural will tell you that.

The Toad disagrees...

[Tilla]

Their ambitions go far beyond Rogue Survivor and Survival Crisis by quite a bit. They've also significantly increased the map size since last time, and once the cell loading stuff is in again there'll be more than enough content. There really is no perfect Procedural Generation that can make a decent realistic city, even the biggest proponents of procedural will tell you that.

The Toad disagrees...

He has the right to but frankly: DF towns don't really look that good or natural. It's actually the biggest complaint I've seen on other forums about the upcoming version.

[mendonca]

I can't help but look at it and think that its survival crisis z, but with a bit of rogue survivor tossed in there. Which is fine, except the bit of rogue survivor isn't really substantial enough for me to pay for a game over something which i'm pretty sure is freeware by now.

Yeah, what Tilla said. Your opinion is very fair, at this point. Maybe in a year or so (6 months?), probably (hopefully?) not.

Their ambitions go far beyond Rogue Survivor and Survival Crisis by quite a bit. They've also significantly increased the map size since last time, and once the cell loading stuff is in again there'll be more than enough content. There really is no perfect Procedural Generation that can make a decent realistic city, even the biggest proponents of procedural will tell you that.

The Toad disagrees...

He has the right to but frankly: DF towns don't really look that good or natural. It's actually the biggest complaint I've seen on other forums about the upcoming version.

AND Toady has the benefit of working in the medium of ASCII. Imagine how unreal and unconvincing those towns would look if you could see the repetition of necessarily limited and detailed isometric textures, not just figurative blocks of 'stuff' which our minds are perfectly willing to flesh out for us?

[woose1]

AND Toady has the benefit of working in the medium of ASCII. Imagine how unreal and unconvincing those towns would look if you could see the repetition of necessarily limited and detailed isometric textures, not just figurative blocks of 'stuff' which our minds are perfectly willing to flesh out for us?

Could not have said it better myself. It's very hard to do procedural generation in any format where the imagination is not at play.

[Nelia Hawk]

hmm wasnt in one of the "humble bundles" some type of city generator?

it was the introversion bundle: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=1837

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR9xI0GgrBY

doubt anything similar to that will be in zombiod...
but what about map options at the start of the game where you can change some map generation options so you can decide yourself how much randomness you want in the map or how big you want the map to be etc.
kind of like rouge survivor had map size options.

[Flare]

Their ambitions go far beyond Rogue Survivor and Survival Crisis by quite a bit. They've also significantly increased the map size since last time, and once the cell loading stuff is in again there'll be more than enough content. There really is no perfect Procedural Generation that can make a decent realistic city, even the biggest proponents of procedural will tell you that.

Aren't most cities procedurally built ?

[Imofexios]

Does this game support online coop or am i totally wrong?
Is this really worth the purchase now?
Looking really interesting game.

[mendonca]

Does this game support online coop or am i totally wrong?
Is this really worth the purchase now?
Looking really interesting game.

No to the first one.

It's at least a year away (probably?) from functioning multiplayer.

As to whether it is worth the purchase? I think so, because I am happy to give the developers some money while they build the game. But it is definitely not 'complete' (far from it), and I would estimate the 'average' gamer would find about an hour or two worth of play in there, as it stands.

Modding already works well though, if you are into map creation, minor scripting stuff and general messing about on that front.

Ooh, interestingly, whilst I'm on the subject, has anyone picked up that the upcoming version will have access to most of the game (as it will stand ... still no save or multiple map sections) via Lua scripting?

Should be exciting, will be interesting to see if the next stage picks up a new round of modders.

[Tilla]

hmm wasnt in one of the "humble bundles" some type of city generator?

it was the introversion bundle: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=1837

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR9xI0GgrBY

doubt anything similar to that will be in zombiod...
but what about map options at the start of the game where you can change some map generation options so you can decide yourself how much randomness you want in the map or how big you want the map to be etc.
kind of like rouge survivor had map size options.

even the devs of subverison have admitted that they had really strange problems, even several years into developing their software.

[Dakorma]

hmm wasnt in one of the "humble bundles" some type of city generator?

it was the introversion bundle: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=1837

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR9xI0GgrBY

doubt anything similar to that will be in zombiod...
but what about map options at the start of the game where you can change some map generation options so you can decide yourself how much randomness you want in the map or how big you want the map to be etc.
kind of like rouge survivor had map size options.

No interiors, that's actually where the devs stopped developing the game at, they couldn't find a way to make the bland interiors interesting and fun to navigate.