The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
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The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
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Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#2In other news the set of "The Death of {X}: {Article Topic}" is infinite.
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#3As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing an exploration and combat based space game, with an astronomical number of locations. (Much, much greater than billions) These locations will also contain procedurally generated alien technologies that can be incorporated into ship designs, resulting in emergent ship capabilities and gameplay.
Such a large universe also means that there will always be a frontier for someone to strike-out into and establish their own industrial infrastructure/empire. (Once certain thresholds are reached, such factions become visible in "Hyperspace" to other large factions.)
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#4As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing an exploration and combat based space game, with an astronomical number of locations. (Much, much greater than billions) These locations will also contain procedurally generated alien technologies that can be incorporated into ship designs, resulting in emergent ship capabilities and gameplay. Such a large universe also means that there will always be a frontier for…
Sounds great.. please tell me more.
Any ETA on a beta?
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#5As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing an exploration and combat based space game, with an astronomical number of locations. (Much, much greater than billions) These locations will also contain procedurally generated alien technologies that can be incorporated into ship designs, resulting in emergent ship capabilities and gameplay. Such a large universe also means that there will always be a frontier for…
I know that generally, the cost of generating a thousand levels is roughly the same as generating a billion of them, but I just don't see this as being a huge selling point. Never mind that no one lives long enough to visit a billion things period, most people don't stick with a game for more than a couple years. In that time, how many locations will they visit? How many of them will turn out to be duds? And if e concentration of duds is high during a gamer's first 10 hours, will he/she stick with the game for even one month?
I know it's not a situation in which you can say, well, maybe I'll hire a dedicated designer...because cost is the issue with intentionally designed levels. Im just saying that the games I adore the most are the ones with just even a few levels that thrilled me, likely because of e human genius that pored laboriously over every detail.
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#6[deleted]
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#7In other news the set of "The Death of {X}: {Article Topic}" is infinite.
Notice the publishing date: Monday, 14 January 2008
Getting rid of designers sounds great from the point of view of the guy footing the development cost of a game. But it doesn't work. It makes for a very generic gaming experience.
The focus on nowadays is making a designer's job easier so they can be more productive.
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#8Look at part three of this series: http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-of-leve...
Considering this article is four years old, a lot of this didn't pan out. Spore failed to come remotely close to its hype, Borderlands' gun system turned out to be unpopular (too many guns were completely useless). Diablo 3 uses procedural dungeon generation, just as 1 and 2 did, but with plenty of predesigned set pieces scattered throughout.
The problem still seems to be that the set of things that you can generate on the fly and all result in something fun is fairly small. The other interesting thing is that we're seeing the opposite trend in terms of the growth of user-created content as a central game component (thanks Minecraft).
Procedural generation will certainly be used to keep games replayable (D3's dungeon and loot generation, L4D's director AI, etc), but to claim that it will replace designers in any way is silly.
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#9As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing an exploration and combat based space game, with an astronomical number of locations. (Much, much greater than billions) These locations will also contain procedurally generated alien technologies that can be incorporated into ship designs, resulting in emergent ship capabilities and gameplay. Such a large universe also means that there will always be a frontier for…
I know that generally, the cost of generating a thousand levels is roughly the same as generating a billion of them, but I just don't see this as being a huge selling point. Never mind that no one lives long enough to visit a billion things period, most people don't stick with a game for more than a couple years. In that time, how many locations will they visit? How many of them will turn out to be duds? And if e con…
I just don't see this as being a huge selling point.
The point isn't for someone to visit all of the worlds. One problem I experienced in Eve Online is that even with thousands of worlds, with a well populated MMO with powerful and well established factions, the new territories are gobbled up pretty quickly. I want to make sure there's always room to start building from scratch.
Im just saying that the games I adore the most are the ones with just even a few levels that thrilled me, likely because of the human genius that pored laboriously over every detail.
I aim to create a system where players can encounter such efforts, but generated by fellow players, not by a pool of devs.
Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games
#10 It is interesting that more games have not used this in re-release of older games. I can think off the top of my head 3 games that I want more content to extend the replay-ability.
-Mario-Kart with procedural generated race tracks after you beat all the levels and gain all the trophies.
-Multi-Player Halo. An option for one of the random games to have a procedural generated map. With a player vote at the end of the game. Top maps added to the rotation.
-Burnout paradise- Use the city generator to create random games. Again players vote at the end of the game. Top maps added to the rotation.
Bonus-Left for Dead and make it through the random city.