Opinion: Stop dwelling on graphics and embrace procedural generation

Polygon - "New consoles (so sweet!), 40,000 polygons (many emotions!), really textured rocks (wow!).

Have you ever seen concrete pipes so... beautiful? We've done it, we've made graphics look "real," let's go home. We've hit a point where it takes huge increases in detail just to produce a tiny improvement in perception, and huge numbers of people to achieve that."

[wishingW3L]

procedural is not all great and good though... If not done properly you would end up with a bunch of uninspired and generic looking areas that kind of look way too much like each other.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

True dat. Warframe is like that.

[M1ST4K3]

Exactly! Warframe feels so generic... Every area feels the same as before...

Procedural creation has to be carefully applied OR very detailed (with an huge amount of variables that are highly distinguishable)...
If you don't assure that THIS planet WILL be different than THAT planet it will most likely feel generic and copy paste of a human's work over and over instead of "procedural creation"...

No man's sky may change that, as the world created will be the same for everyone, so they can highly tweak that world that they are creating procedurally...

[Sarcasm]

I agree, Warframe does start to feel "samey" after awhile.

It's strange because the core game mechanics is actually pretty good. It's fun until, yeah you start feeling "Didn't I do this already?"

[ShinMaster]

Art direction, style and design > realistic graphics.

[Godmars290]

Just the way most graphic based games fail to deliver with gameplay. Some fail to deliver with graphics.

Edit:
Isn't Warframe nothing but a co-op shooter with superpowers?

[M1ST4K3]

Some fail to deliver on variance (is this the word!?)...
Like... Ryze or Killzone (only played the later)... Great graphics, gameplay it's pretty OK (IMO) but damn... the whole game seems so generic :( Just do the same thing over and over again... (Even if the world around you changes...)

[Qrphe]

That is also because there hasn't been much exploration into that area in gaming. If many developers started trying this out you could see tremendous breakthroughs in procedurally generated content.

[Irishguy95]

There is defintely potential in the area. But so far only Diablo has managed to use it well. Proceedural generation(PCG) has become a buzzword recently. When PCG was announched for Deep down is somehow became the new 'wow this is amazing it makes everywhere different'. When in reality, PCG has always meant. "Quanity" instead of "quality".

And example of when PCG has been bad and used simply for quantity

Mass effect 1
Handcrafted worlds - main worlds with good stuff
PCG worlds - barren wastelands which were VERY boring.

Oblivion ES4- The caves where almost entirely PCG'd, and some of the landscape too. Ever wonder why the dungeons were so poor in that game. Now you know.

PCG is basically a cheap way to get alot of content.

Again the creation process has potential. The first company to master it is the first company that has a game make itself.

Entire games made out of PCG is a bad thing for me anyway. It should be used sparringly compared to handcrafted content. I would even goes as far to say as it should only be used for 'extra content'

Edit- Also to the author of the article. It has nothing do with graphics. PCG is always and I do mean always, of lesser quality that handcrafted areas.

[NegativeCreepWA]

Starbound uses it well.

[KonsoruMasuta]

Having good graphics doesn't mean an area can't look uninspired or generic. Most of that falls upon the shoulders of how good the level designer is.

[Timesplitter14]

There's something else too that I've personally experienced in my game design attempts : procedurally generated worlds turn game design in a nightmare.

It's easy to just think about a game where everything is generated and ready to be explored, but once you reach the point where you have to design the gameplay in details, things get really complicated.

- Is your character just going to run in one direction, fighting random enemies once every X minutes?
- How will you handle difficulty progression?
- How can you pace the gameplay?
- How will you make sure the levels will remain interesting throughout the whole game?

It's not impossible to make, but it poses quite a lot of limitations. If ou want a procedurally generated game, it has to be about exploration, and not combat or story. Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, etc... are all exploration games

[Irishguy95]

Yeah I have to wonder what No mans sky are gonna do to keep it interesting. Love ship upgrades, mining planets etc. And a good combat system would really help

[Volkama]

There is a lot to be said for the personal design touch, the work of an artist. But I'm sure clever people out there will keep advancing procedural generation techniques until eventually they meet or even exceed (through sheer scale and detail) an artist's standard.

[Dogsuferer24]

Even so procedurally generated content will never beat out hand crafted ones. It may sound new and nice on paper but it is not the future.

[Dark_king]

It's not new by any means hell Daggerfall used it way back then.

[MonopolyRSV]

You aren't even getting great graphics yet because developers are wasting all the horsepower trying to make everything 1080p when they could be going crazy with particle effects and explosions etc.

[Destrania]

What are you talking about? PS4 already has both those things.

[MonopolyRSV]

Could be alot more.

[Jovanian]

Why not both

[ThatOneGuyThere]

minecraft.

[XboxFun]

This is what I am talking about. Instead of boasting and worrying about 1080p for next gen, games like this one is what we should be asking and looking for.

We need games that push the boundaries and add something new/different to gameplay and design. I really hope No Man's Sky can deliver on that because this is a game I can't wait to get my hands on and if all is true it will probably be the only game I'll ever play ;)

[memots]

wonder why 1080p is not important anymore...

[XboxFun]

Because gameplay is more important. 1080p wasn't important during the 360/ps3 when PC elitist were told to shut up by certain fanboys.

But if you would prefer to play the same game again and again just in 1080p then by all means go ahead.

[Nerdmaster]

Any game that says that has procedurally generated anything, it's a huge turn off for me and I dont' buy it.