These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

What about Procedural Generation ?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
SCORPl0
Foundation Cutting-Edge
DECOY
#1 - 2013-10-09 10:59:02 UTC
Sure Rubicon brings a lot of new interesting features and game mechanics but What are you waiting CCP to use more Procedural Generation ?

Why am I Playing EvE out in the first place?

Glad you asked. I've taken great interest in a project for a similar game called Infinity. Unlike EVE, Infinity actually allows players to access and explore entire, land smoothly on true scale planet surfaces and all without any loading screens. Instead of 5000 star systems, Infinity has ~200 billion.

Early sample in game screenshot from Infinity:

The player can go anywhere on such a planet or fly his spaceship directly over to the rings of that other nearby world. It's all done using procedural generation, which means the environments are created from algorithms rather than stored content. Nearly all meshes and textures are created in real time according to what the player happens to be viewing.

During the ~8 years that I've been following and promoting procedural generation, CPU power has increased much more rapidly than HDD data bandwidth. So it's about time for it to become a much more prominent feature in game architecture, particularly in the persistent, open sandbox worlds of MMOs.

This is not so far a new thing but not much used in EvE.

So Why not use more procedural generation and interaction with planets ? That would create a new EvE dimension.

Please see this 2 Infinity links :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43eIjvoYfos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0-lsyo28SU

Procedural generation wiki :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

A nice book for Devs :

http://www.amazon.com/Texturing-Modeling-Third-Procedural-Approach/dp/1558608486/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381316286&sr=1-2&keywords=a+procedural+approach
NearNihil
Jump Drive Appreciation Society
#2 - 2013-10-09 11:18:34 UTC
While I must admit it sounds awesome having practically infinite content, I do have some issues with it.

First and foremost, EVE has, on average, (and I am pulling this number out of my butt) about 50.000 concurrent players. They are "confined" to the 10.000 or so solar systems. Already there are vast swaths of space in low and null (and even some in high, probably wh space too) that are practically unused, would adding more space really help anyone? Less interaction, more singleplayer.

Secondly, and this ties into the first point, how would the new systems be populated? What would the lore be? Would entire solar systems just pop out from Narnia and everyone would pretend they've always been there? Would mission agents, asteroid belts, cosmic anomalies, conquerable space and stargates be materialized out of thin space?

Thirdly, on the subject of conquerable space. It would become practically meaningless to hold sov space. Since there are literally billions of solar systems, anyone can hold multiple systems and just hole up in there to rat or mine or do whatever; also tying into the first point of it becoming a singleplayer game you pay a monthly fee for. Sure, someone can come into "your" system and harass you, but the odds of that are practically zero (near nihil, hurray I've used my username in a sentence) due to the sheer number of systems.

As for procedurally generating planets... this is DUST's territory.

Not to mention that the development time of this would be immense - from a static number of systems to procedurally generated would require a good bit of rewriting code, new art assets for various stars and nebulae would have to be made, et cetera.
SCORPl0
Foundation Cutting-Edge
DECOY
#3 - 2013-10-09 11:45:16 UTC
NearNihil wrote:
While I must admit it sounds awesome having practically infinite content, I do have some issues with it.

First and foremost, EVE has, on average, (and I am pulling this number out of my butt) about 50.000 concurrent players. They are "confined" to the 10.000 or so solar systems. Already there are vast swaths of space in low and null (and even some in high, probably wh space too) that are practically unused, would adding more space really help anyone? Less interaction, more singleplayer.

Secondly, and this ties into the first point, how would the new systems be populated? What would the lore be? Would entire solar systems just pop out from Narnia and everyone would pretend they've always been there? Would mission agents, asteroid belts, cosmic anomalies, conquerable space and stargates be materialized out of thin space?

Thirdly, on the subject of conquerable space. It would become practically meaningless to hold sov space. Since there are literally billions of solar systems, anyone can hold multiple systems and just hole up in there to rat or mine or do whatever; also tying into the first point of it becoming a singleplayer game you pay a monthly fee for. Sure, someone can come into "your" system and harass you, but the odds of that are practically zero (near nihil, hurray I've used my username in a sentence) due to the sheer number of systems.

As for procedurally generating planets... this is DUST's territory.

Not to mention that the development time of this would be immense - from a static number of systems to procedurally generated would require a good bit of rewriting code, new art assets for various stars and nebulae would have to be made, et cetera.


I agree for most of what you said.

It's a huge work, that require "mechanics rethinking" but It's a very impressive technique.

1st: To allow Procedural Generation, it permit to add millions of systems but this is not forced to create as much systems.
2nd: Dust uses planets environments but it can be shared with EvE events (mining, laboratory, factory, ... what else ?).
3rd: And it opens new way playing EvE. Conquering planets in addition to systems.

Did u even known Mankind game? Strategical mechanics of this game are really interesting with Procedural Generation use.
Debora Tsung
Perkone
Caldari State
#4 - 2013-10-09 11:56:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Debora Tsung
NearNihil wrote:
While I must admit it sounds awesome having practically infinite content, I do have some issues with it.

First and foremost, EVE has, on average, (and I am pulling this number out of my butt) about 50.000 concurrent players. They are "confined" to the 10.000 or so solar systems. Already there are vast swaths of space in low and null (and even some in high, probably wh space too) that are practically unused, would adding more space really help anyone? Less interaction, more singleplayer.



Yes and no.

No, because obviously once you are alone somewhere, doing something without any other players around, the question wether you really play an MMO or just another single player game with a forced always obnline copy protection and advanced chat client is debatable.

Yes, because right now, the lone explorer, the frontier man that pushes past the borders of the known space, the adventurer that returns from his exploits loaded with untold riches and stories of exciting new things that no man has ever seen before does not exist. Not in EVE and not in any other MMO out there.

---

Do you remember the first time you warped to an asteroid belt or a relic site? Or the first time you entered a WH System?

I remember mine quite well.

The first time I warped to an asteroid belt, I thought it would be some huge place, extending virtually andlessly in one direction or the other, a place to explore, find the one nugget amidst all the basic stuff that you can harvest to finance your next ship, or the hidden pirate base to (most ironically) burn down and plunder.

I got some cluster of rocks roughly 100km wide with two NPC frigs in it... I felt slightly underwhelmed. Straight

Or the first time I scanned down a archeology site... No space indiana jones feeling for me there either. I drank quite a lot of alcohol aftterwards to get the most possible excitement out of it.

I admit, the first time in a WH was cool, the feeling of exploring the new and unknown lasted a littlle bit longer there. The red cloud background, the weird lighting the unbelievably huge red thingy that looked like an exploding star looming above my head like the promise of something horrible waiting right behind the next place I could reach...

But then... grinding sites to get nanoribbons... *shrug* I got used to it.

---

Don't get me wrong, EVE certainly made steps into the right direction, and I really like that, but proceduraly generated content to further emphasis on the vastness of space and the the promise of hidden riches for the daring explorer would be something I would like very very much. Smile

EDIT: Oh god I built a wall. Shocked

Stupidity should be a bannable offense.

Fighting back is more fun than not.

Sticky: AFK Cloaking Thread It's not pretty, but it's there.
Lair Osen
#5 - 2013-10-09 12:18:31 UTC
While this ~space Minecraft~ idea would be rather nice, I can't really see it having any place in EVE.
The point of such a thing would be space exploration, which is generally a rather boring and lonely experience that defeats the purpose of being an MMOG.
EVE is a game driven largely be conflict, and conflict only happens if there is a limited amount of space.
Schmata Bastanold
In Boobiez We Trust
#6 - 2013-10-09 12:29:49 UTC
Procedurally generated content would be great for all things that are spawned for players. So forget about planets, solar systems, map of universe topography. But mission pockets, anomalies, exploration sites, all this kind of stuff could be generated by server when somebody initiate warp to it. This way sites nobody visits wouldn't consume resources beside their markers on overlay/scanner but those visited would be pretty much unique in how they look.

Beside something like this I don't see use for procedurally generated content in Eve. We don't care how planets surface looks like, we care about them only as warp targets, PI interests and occasionally as a places where Dust bunnies could use a little fire from the sky.

Invalid signature format