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Medieval Fantasy City Generator

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Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#91

Post by siavosh »

ianbicking wrote: post #78
thom wrote: post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

In one article about Dwarf Fortress they talked about how they would write stories, then pull apart the stories to figure out how they are made and then how to make them randomly. It's a bit different from physical/realistic inspiration, and likely to lead to more fun in the results. If I vaguely remember, there's this sense of major plot points, and then everything else is connective tissue. You can imagine the same…

The game "Caves of Qud"'s creators have given some GDC talks on procedurally generated histories [1] which I thought was pretty interesting. But it all seems very limited and hacked since NLP research is still very far from creating any useful text generation like good summaries let alone fiction.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0sLa1y3BW4

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#92

Post by Fomite »

LargeWu wrote: post #72
thom wrote: post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

This seems to be geared more at tabletop RPG. When you're running a game, it's helpful to have these sorts of artifacts to enhance players' understanding, but it's not the sort of thing that GM's really want to spend a lot of time on, unless there's some specific thing you need. Having this just be generated potentially saves a lot of time.

One of my interests for it is miniature wargaming campaigns. Where I really don't care how the city was built - just what it looks like before someone sacks it.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#93

Post by smogcutter »

DanAndersen wrote: post #68

One thing I would love to see in a city generator like this is a simulation of time and how gradual evolution shapes a city. There's a picture book called "Barmi: A Mediterranean City Through The Ages" by Xavier Hernandez and illustrated by Jordi Ballonga. It illustrates a fictional city from Neolithic settlement to Roman outpost to medieval town to modern city. Some images can be seen at http://jordiballongaen.blogs…

That's a neat idea. I'm imagining a system based around a kind of decision tree of what different structures or districts could turn into. Each change adjusts the weighting for the potential futures of neighboring structures in the graph. Throw in random events like fire, invasion, etc that can change the map at a stroke.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#94

Post by erikb »

leanthonyrn wrote: post #66
erikb wrote: post #47

I think this stuff is interesting but not heavily moving. Every few years someone shares a tool like this. But why not have such a tool connected to something useful like a flight simulator or openstreetmaps, or in a format that game engines can use as foundation for a game? Then people could actually do something with it instead of just looking at it.

Agreed. The Map is a great start. If this content could be exported to another type of game such as Elder Scrolls Morrowind or Thief. Even OSS games like Battle for Wesnoth , 0 A.D., and SuperTuxKart would be interesting.

or Unity or RPG Maker. Think about you want to build your own game and have tools like the Dwarf Fortress World generator as a starting point. This way it becomes much easier to create a lively world.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#95

Post by Fomite »

erikb wrote: post #47

I think this stuff is interesting but not heavily moving. Every few years someone shares a tool like this. But why not have such a tool connected to something useful like a flight simulator or openstreetmaps, or in a format that game engines can use as foundation for a game? Then people could actually do something with it instead of just looking at it.

That this can be exported to SVG makes it useful for a number of applications.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#96

Post by smogcutter »

knolan wrote: post #63
thom wrote: post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

A problem I have with a lot of modern games is the fake sense of scale. In the Mass Effect games the Citadel is supposed to be some vast city floating in space but you’re limited to a few rooms with billboard textures to show the rest of it. On the other hand the game Fuel delivered a massive sprawling (mostly empty) wasteland to chew up in your buggy and was non-random per user. I would love to see this kind of proc…

IMO games like the Witcher 3 and elder scrolls do a much better job of that. Mass Effect tries to trick you into feeling like you're in a big world with freedom to move around, but actually it's a lot more like a Final Fantasy type game: each area is a small "town" zone with the same couple shops, adjacent to a dungeon you need to clear to advance the plot. I like the Witcher style much better. Here's hoping their new game Cyberpunk 2077 lives up to it.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#97

Post by knolan »

smogcutter wrote: post #96
knolan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem I have with a lot of modern games is the fake sense of scale. In the Mass Effect games the Citadel is supposed to be some vast city floating in space but you’re limited to a few rooms with billboard textures to show the rest of it. On the other hand the game Fuel delivered a massive sprawling (mostly empty) wasteland to chew up in your buggy and was non-random per user. I would love to see this kind of proc…

IMO games like the Witcher 3 and elder scrolls do a much better job of that. Mass Effect tries to trick you into feeling like you're in a big world with freedom to move around, but actually it's a lot more like a Final Fantasy type game: each area is a small "town" zone with the same couple shops, adjacent to a dungeon you need to clear to advance the plot. I like the Witcher style much better. Here's hoping their ne…

The Witcher indeed does a great job, and to a somewhat lesser degree Horizon Zero Dawn does well too. However these are essentially worlds with small villages and towns. Novigrad is pretty impressive but isn’t much bigger than a typical European small town.

What I’ve love to experience is getting lost in the sprawl and scale of a metropolis. Oddly enough L.A. Noir did a pretty decent job of this.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#98

Post by DonHopkins »

DanAndersen wrote: post #68

One thing I would love to see in a city generator like this is a simulation of time and how gradual evolution shapes a city. There's a picture book called "Barmi: A Mediterranean City Through The Ages" by Xavier Hernandez and illustrated by Jordi Ballonga. It illustrates a fictional city from Neolithic settlement to Roman outpost to medieval town to modern city. Some images can be seen at http://jordiballongaen.blogs…

There's a nice 3D animation of Amsterdam's growth from Stadsarchief Amsterdam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvsHvfs3G1M

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#99

Post by mywittyname »

sandworm101 wrote: post #85
thom wrote: post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

Why story? The breakthough of SimCity was the concept of software as a toy. The user creates their own fun. In a more modern context, open things to the community by allowing them to write and share their own stories. Anyone familiar with the history of Kerbal Space Program knows this issue. KSP's developers releases a "contracts" system that was essentially a random story teller. A few variables were randomly select…

I wonder if a modern SimCity could use some ML algorithms to emulate how humans build cities by mining data from real players.
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