Videogames: Your Absurd Character Demands Cannot Be Met

[Kalbear]

In general, procedurally generated content is not nearly as much fun as crafted content for most people. That's not always true - minecraft is a good example of how it blends together well. But minecraft is hugely open, has a lot of player interaction and player-created content too.

But for the most part gamers aren't interested in being tourists of a universe. They're interested in learning, experimenting, and making a difference.

[Muttering Bill]

But for the most part gamers aren't interested in being tourists of a universe.

:agree:

It does sound interesting, but I haven't seen anything that makes me think it will actually be fun to play.

[DanteGabriel]

:agree:

It does sound interesting, but I haven't seen anything that makes me think it will actually be fun to play.

I'm assuming that there will be sophisticated enough AI-like functions to create emergent gameplay based on the creatures that are generated, but buggered if I know how they'll do it.

[Fez]

Yeah, count me among those extremely skeptical of No Man's Sky. It seems like the kind of thing that might be fun for a couple hours, but then get desperately boring due to a lack of gameplay, story, or characters.

[Kalbear]

I'm assuming that there will be sophisticated enough AI-like functions to create emergent gameplay based on the creatures that are generated, but buggered if I know how they'll do it.

This is, shall we say, an extraordinarily hard problem to solve. And for the most part people don't want it. I did some work on surveying this in grad school. What I found was the following:

-for the most part, AI is dumb because it works better that way

-smart AI is not fun to play against because it's too good

-nonscripted AI is often not fun to play against because it seems 'dumb' and is much too hard to get smart

-the most fun 'moments' are often entirely scripted events (shockingly things like Half-Life fall into this much more than you'd think)

-good AI takes significantly large resources to get working well, and those resources are often budgeted for things like graphics, sound, gameplay and the like

-it's much easier to make a challenge by having the bad AI cheat (ie, civ games) than it is to make a good AI play better.

AI is progressing, but not so much that most of those rules don't apply. Looking at the most popular games out there very few have good AI; we either have games like Last of Us which are almost entirely scripted, Call of Duty which is mostly done via other players, Minecraft which has absurdly simple AI and most gotcha elements come from other players, MEs which are scripted, Dark Souls which are totally scripted, etc.

[Werthead]

I have a lot more faith in Elite: Dangerous's procedural generation stuff because it's a hell of a lot more straightforward using it to generate billions of combinations of star systems based on pre-existing parameters, plus I suspect 99.99% of the people who ever play it will stick the couple of hundred, mostly hand-crafted core systems. It's also the fourth game in a series where the previous three really worked the procedural generation stuff well (the first of them thirty years ago!), so they have form.

No Man's Sky is more challenging because of the creation of alien creatures and the different planetary environments, which requires a much finer touch, not to mention at some point manually going through the seed generations to make sure things like giant penis-headed monsters are not going to appear on a planet called Fuckbollocks. The original Elite had this problem when planets called Arse kept showing up, and there were only 2,046 planets in that game.

[Jace, Extat]

I just saw that 'The Last of Us' won over 200 game of the year awards. That seems like too many. Why are there even so many awards to win? Are they counting every half-cracked youtube reviewer?

[KiDisaster]

I just saw that 'The Last of Us' won over 200 game of the year awards. That seems like too many. Why are there even so many awards to win? Are they counting every half-cracked youtube reviewer?

If they were it'd be closer to 200,000 I'd imagine :P

[Shryke]

I just saw that 'The Last of Us' won over 200 game of the year awards. That seems like too many. Why are there even so many awards to win? Are they counting every half-cracked youtube reviewer?

Of course they are counting everyone they can.

[AndrewJ]

Try the game yet? It came back online ahead of schedule yesterday afternoon. And, AFAIK, the XBox versions were up and running as well.

I'm probably not going to be able to try it until tomorrow.

I redeemed my code on xboxlive.com last night. But when I opened up my X1 I couldn't seem to find it to download. I did recall my profile page on Bungie saying it would be playable on the 24th and thought that's maybe when it's scheduled in Australia.

I fired up my X1 this morning (it's the 24th here now) and after a bit of searching, I managed to find where it was ready to install. So... either I just couldn't find it last night or it wasn't ready to download yet.

Oh - and I get a max download speed of 350k/sec - so I figure it will take 8-10 hours to download (I believe it's a 10 gig download?). And my wife would kill me if I tied up the internet bandwidth all day while I'm at work. :P I'll set it to download over night tonight and it will ready for me to give it a whirl tomorrow (Friday) evening.

[AndrewJ]

Bullllshiiiiittttt!!!!!! I've already payed for DA!!!!!

All other things being equal, obviously I'd prefer it sooner rather than later. But when I saw the headline that it was delayed I was fearing it was going to be into next year. An extra month isn't much of an issue to me. And it's better to take the extra time needed to get it right rather than rush it out.

(Now I just hope it will really be finished properly in time for the November release and they aren't rushing it to get it out before Christmas)

[Jace, Extat]

Of course they are counting everyone they can.

Still, 200? That's a lot. I remember when KotoR II came out, it had a tagline 'sequel to the 2002 game of the year'. Just one game of the year.

And now I'm thinking about the fact that I was 18 when KotoR II came out... :frown5:

All other things being equal, obviously I'd prefer it sooner rather than later. But when I saw the headline that it was delayed I was fearing it was going to be into next year. An extra month isn't much of an issue to me. And it's better to take the extra time needed to get it right rather than rush it out.

(Now I just hope it will really be finished properly in time for the Novemeber release and they aren't rushing it to get it out before Christmas)

I feel fairly comfortable about them not rushing this one. It's been over 3 years now, and most sequels from big studios take about 2 and some change.

[Rhom]

And now I'm thinking about the fact that I was 18 when KotoR II came out... :frown5:

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Whippersnapper

[Rhom]

Played about half of the ME3 Omega DLC tonight. Gotta hand it to BioWare, both this and Leviathan were stellar additions to the game. I also really like From Ashes, Javik is a great character to have.

I really wish I could hang onto Tyreen after this mission. (I'm assuming I can't anyways...) I like the Turian Female. Her Huntress class is pretty awesome. I also think she'd get along great with Garrus. :lol:

[Jace, Extat]

Played about half of the ME3 Omega DLC tonight. Gotta hand it to BioWare, both this and Leviathan were stellar additions to the game. I also really like From Ashes, Javik is a great character to have.

I really wish I could hang onto Tyreen after this mission. (I'm assuming I can't anyways...) I like the Turian Female. Her Huntress class is pretty awesome. I also think she'd get along great with Garrus. :lol:

Citadel is even better. It'll blow your mind like cocaine.

[Rhom]

Citadel is even better. It'll blow your mind like cocaine.

I made the mistake of triggering that one already, so while it was fun... I probably only had half the characters at the party. :(