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The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com

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Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#11

Post by teamonkey »

tmurray wrote: post #8

Look 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 piece…

I see procedural generation as a tool in a designer's armoury, not a replacement.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#12

Post by Argorak »

tmurray wrote: post #8

Look 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 piece…

Huh? Borderlands gun system was unpopular? Its as good as the loot system in any other Hack&Slay: some things don't really combine or do not fit your style, but technically, it worked really well. I see the procedural gun system as one of the biggest achievements of the game, especially because it yielded guns that were shooter-worthy and totally nuts at the same time.

That said, I think the problem is not only level layout, but designing interesting architecture. D3s levels could be played on white squares with properties, but a custom-built staircase makes the game interesting.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#13

Post by v0cab »

I never saw the point of procedural generation in games like Diablo. Seems to me something only programmers would be interested in. What would have been wrong with getting a level designer to do it? Then gamers could talk more about shared experiences.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#14

Post by iends »

chargrilled wrote: post #4
stcredzero wrote: post #3

As 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?

Would also be interested in more information.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#16

Post by gloob »

mkramlich wrote: post #15

I was playing games with "procedural content generation" back in the 80's. Heck I was making computer games that did it. Sigh. One of the joys/annoyances of ignorance and new generations is that everything old is suddenly new again.

Given that the entire website this article lives on is about roguelikes, and the author is also the developer of a roguelike (Unangband), I imagine he is likely aware of the history of randomly generated levels.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#17

Post by Retric »

v0cab wrote: post #13

I never saw the point of procedural generation in games like Diablo. Seems to me something only programmers would be interested in. What would have been wrong with getting a level designer to do it? Then gamers could talk more about shared experiences.

It adds to replayability by preventing players from memorizing the shortcuts without making it feel like grinding. Many classic RPG's have a shortest path that's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/40th the average play-though and once you get close to it the game becomes a platformer vs. an RPG. But, randomize locations and you get to relive the hunt the hunt on the next play though. It also tends to make a wider range of things useful, vs letting people optimize the effort of finding stuff vs it's usefulness.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#18

Post by chc »

tmurray wrote: post #8

Look 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 piece…

I thought people generally liked the Borderlands item system. They're keeping it for the sequel that's coming out later this year. There were some useless items, but that tends to be the case even when designers make the weapons if the game is the sort that boasts a huge number of them. Crap finds go hand-in-hand with big item catalogs, because the point of that kind of system is to create a sort of lottery.

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#19

Post by ido »

tmurray wrote: post #8

Look 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 piece…

I think the higher you go in the level of production (like the AAA games you mentioned) the harder it gets.

But how about Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress or DCSS?

Re: The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games

#20

Post by jamesaguilar »

ido wrote: post #19
tmurray wrote: post #8

Look 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 piece…

I think the higher you go in the level of production (like the AAA games you mentioned) the harder it gets. But how about Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress or DCSS?

The effect you're noticing is that it is a lot easier to get variety into random content when you don't have to provide graphics for it. It's also easier to make a world feel real (w.r.t. the baseline the game is establishing via its interface).
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