I think one of the things that made the old exploration system feel like exploration was that you could follow a lead and come up with nothing to show for your trouble. When you actually found a point of interest and felt that small rush of curiosity as to what you might discover on further investigation - there was a feeling of achievement, of searching and finding, of heading blindly into the unknown, of exploration! Would you be thrown into a combat situation on warping in? Perhaps you'd be tasked with scanning anomalies. Or exploring a signal planet-side. As simplistic as it was, it was the only thing in the whole game that wasn't rote, providing a much needed alternative to the absolutely rote STFs and episode replays. Typically the content was refreshingly short and rewarded well.
A new exploration system could learn a lot from what drew many to the old. Randomness is key. Dead ends are key. As is brevity. I could easily imagine intertwining a revamped exploration system with a new Rep category as others have suggested. I could also see the possibility to seed the mission pool with short missions that continue on from one another, forming a mini-story; similar to how the DOFF system has a number of chained missions - but the trick would be to randomize the outcome so that sometimes they might allow you to progress to the next step and sometimes the trail would go cold and the chain would start over the next time you stumble across it. Not knowing what might happen next is key. It's a critical part of the thrill of exploration.
I really do hope there is going to be a fun, unpredictable exploration system returning to the game. Adding more diverse gameplay for the players to immerse themselves in would be a good thing.
(...)
It's a legitimate question whether Arc has the wherewithal or talent to add such a system to an aging game propped up mostly by a legendary IP. If not... well, No Man's Sky is looking pretty interesting.
I agree with what you said, but please note that "Arc" is just a platform, neither a company nor the developers of this game. That's "Cryptic" for devs or "Perfect World Entertainment" for the publisher. It's odd when people (happens more often than you think) ask this mysterious "ARC" to do or fix things...
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
I'd say that's an understatement. A whole season of the procedurally-generated "beam down, pick flowers, scan things" missions would suffer from a severe lack of interest.
I'd say that's an understatement. A whole season of the procedurally-generated "beam down, pick flowers, scan things" missions would suffer from a severe lack of interest.
On your part, perhaps. I wouldn't mind a sector devoid of indigenous sentients, where the goal is to find habitable planets, unload those colonists in your passenger lounge, help build colonies, terraform, catalog resources, set up trade routes and delve deeply into all the mundane details that pew-pew players leave to their DOFFs. The Star Trek universe is plenty big enough for multitudinous forms of gameplay, if the will exists to create them.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
I agree with what you said, but please note that "Arc" is just a platform, neither a company nor the developers of this game. That's "Cryptic" for devs or "Perfect World Entertainment" for the publisher. It's odd when people (happens more often than you think) ask this mysterious "ARC" to do or fix things...
Point taken. I've been playing on and off since Beta, but I got a little lost and confused when PW took over.
On your part, perhaps. I wouldn't mind a sector devoid of indigenous sentients, where the goal is to find habitable planets, unload those colonists in your passenger lounge, help build colonies, terraform, catalog resources, set up trade routes and delve deeply into all the mundane details that pew-pew players leave to their DOFFs. The Star Trek universe is plenty big enough for multitudinous forms of gameplay, if the will exists to create them.
I don't believe it's a question of the will existing or not. I'm sure Cryptic would love to create an expansive exploration system with procedurally generated worlds and the like. It's more a question of money and time.
Heh. Devs are like, "Let's create the multiverse!" and money people are like, "No. Make us another Candy Crush". I know that song.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
SWG is my go to example of a sandbox game. However, STO can never be a sandbox because of how it is built. SWG was a huge open world. STO's world is made up of a million instances. Every single mission is an instance. There is no open world in STO. And that is something so fundamentally different than it can't be changed at this point; a game would have to be made that way from the start. So if any of your ideas of exploration and randomly generated content require an open world like SWG, that can never happen in STO. The same goes for any other game you cite that is an open world, because STO simply wasn't made that way.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
SWG is my go to example of a sandbox game. However, STO can never be that because of how it is built. SWG was a huge open world. STO's world is made up of a million instances. Every single mission is an instance. There is no open world in STO. And that is something so fundamentally different than it can't be changed at this point; a game would have to be made that way from the start. So if any of your ideas of exploration and randomly generated content require an open world like SWG, that can never happen in STO. The same goes for any other game you cite that is an open world, because STO isn't.
The fun aspect of procedural generation is that you can create and recreate vast areas of simulated 3D environment from a tiny mathematical seed. It would probably be instanced under the STO architecture, but you could have a HUGE instance and you could store it plus any modifications caused by player actions with a relatively tiny allocation of disk/memory space... a persistent instance. It's not the ideal "open world" framework, but it may be close enough to integrate with the existing codebase.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
SWG is my go to example of a sandbox game. However, STO can never be that because of how it is built. SWG was a huge open world. STO's world is made up of a million instances. Every single mission is an instance. There is no open world in STO. And that is something so fundamentally different than it can't be changed at this point; a game would have to be made that way from the start. So if any of your ideas of exploration and randomly generated content require an open world like SWG, that can never happen in STO. The same goes for any other game you cite that is an open world, because STO isn't.
The fun aspect of procedural generation is that you can create and recreate vast areas of simulated 3D environment from a tiny mathematical seed. It would probably be instanced under the STO architecture, but you could have a HUGE instance and you could store it plus any modifications caused by player actions with a relatively tiny allocation of disk/memory space... a persistent instance. It's not the ideal "open world" framework, but it may be close enough to integrate with the existing codebase.
That sounds nice in theory, but I have to repeat my earlier point: that will only work for environments with no story. Yes, you can randomly generate a planet with some animals on it. It's the same basic principal as hitting "random" on the character creator and letting the system assemble a bunch of random parts. But if you want ANY kind of story, someone has to actually write that. If there is ANY dialog, someone has to write that. If it is randomly generated, it won't make sense. So again, if all people want to do is run around scanning rocks or shooting animals, random generation can work. But if they want any kind of story or dialog in their exploration, random won't work.
That sounds nice in theory, but I have to repeat my earlier point: that will only work for environments with no story. Yes, you can randomly generate a planet with some animals on it. It's the same basic principal as hitting "random" on the character creator and letting the system assemble a bunch of random parts. But if you want ANY kind of story, someone has to actually write that. If there is ANY dialog, someone has to write that. If it is randomly generated, it won't make sense. So again, if all people want to do is run around scanning rocks or shooting animals, random generation can work. But if they want any kind of story or dialog in their exploration, random won't work.
Would you explain again what your point is? I must miss that. Yes, someone has to write dialogue for certain missions that might occur, but I don't understand what your point is.
Most of the time it would require basic dialogue to sketch out the missions and encounters. There could be certain varieties written for "agressive aliens", "neutral aliens", "distress call" etc with blanks for names illustrating what the mission is while the map and location of those events is entirely random. In continous maintenance and patches, more dialogue variation can be added, maybe even special occasions with heavier scripting to mark milestones in your progress or whatever. Nobody says that a procedually generated random enviroment throws together text by randomly chaining together words...
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
That sounds nice in theory, but I have to repeat my earlier point: that will only work for environments with no story. Yes, you can randomly generate a planet with some animals on it. It's the same basic principal as hitting "random" on the character creator and letting the system assemble a bunch of random parts. But if you want ANY kind of story, someone has to actually write that. If there is ANY dialog, someone has to write that. If it is randomly generated, it won't make sense. So again, if all people want to do is run around scanning rocks or shooting animals, random generation can work. But if they want any kind of story or dialog in their exploration, random won't work.
Would you explain again what your point is? I must miss that. Yes, someone has to write dialogue for certain missions that might occur, but I don't understand what your point is.
To put it as simply as possible, randomly generated exploration won't really work unless you only want to explore environments. If you want ANY kind of story at all, randomly generated missions won't work.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
SWG is my go to example of a sandbox game. However, STO can never be that because of how it is built. SWG was a huge open world. STO's world is made up of a million instances. Every single mission is an instance. There is no open world in STO. And that is something so fundamentally different than it can't be changed at this point; a game would have to be made that way from the start. So if any of your ideas of exploration and randomly generated content require an open world like SWG, that can never happen in STO. The same goes for any other game you cite that is an open world, because STO isn't.
The fun aspect of procedural generation is that you can create and recreate vast areas of simulated 3D environment from a tiny mathematical seed. It would probably be instanced under the STO architecture, but you could have a HUGE instance and you could store it plus any modifications caused by player actions with a relatively tiny allocation of disk/memory space... a persistent instance. It's not the ideal "open world" framework, but it may be close enough to integrate with the existing codebase.
That sounds nice in theory, but I have to repeat my earlier point: that will only work for environments with no story. Yes, you can randomly generate a planet with some animals on it. It's the same basic principal as hitting "random" on the character creator and letting the system assemble a bunch of random parts. But if you want ANY kind of story, someone has to actually write that. If there is ANY dialog, someone has to write that. If it is randomly generated, it won't make sense. So again, if all people want to do is run around scanning rocks or shooting animals, random generation can work. But if they want any kind of story or dialog in their exploration, random won't work.
Cryptic already did it, in a very primitive way, with City of Heroes. That was just a "mad-lib" system that pretty much plugged a random villain group into a mission template and sent you on your merry way. But nobody's taken it to the next level.
There are only seven basic plots, one dominant dramatic structure, and a scant double handful of stock characters who populate the vast majority of popular fiction. A computer can carry on a basic if not scintillating conversation without being a Turing-compliant AI. You can't replace a human writer with a computer, but there's no reason a computer can't tell a story. And as long as you get the core elements aligned, it could be a pretty good story.
It may be beyond this company in this incarnation, but it's far from outside the realm of the possible. The pieces are all there. They're just waiting for somebody with the insight to put them together.
Cryptic already did it, in a very primitive way, with City of Heroes. That was just a "mad-lib" system that pretty much plugged a random villain group into a mission template and sent you on your merry way. But nobody's taken it to the next level.
There are only seven basic plots, one dominant dramatic structure, and a scant double handful of stock characters who populate the vast majority of popular fiction. A computer can carry on a basic if not scintillating conversation without being a Turing-compliant AI. You can't replace a human writer with a computer, but there's no reason a computer can't tell a story. And as long as you get the core elements aligned, it could be a pretty good story.
It may be beyond this company in this incarnation, but it's far from outside the realm of the possible. The pieces are all there. They're just waiting for somebody with the insight to put them together.
I think the problem is a system like you are describing has to be built into a game from the ground up. You can't take a game like STO that was built to be virtually the opposite of what you describe and then try to turn it into that 5 years later. Don't get me wrong, what you describe sounds cool. But regardless of whether the devs would like to do it or not, I doubt the technical capability of changing the game STO was made to be into something that different at this point.
Cryptic already did it, in a very primitive way, with City of Heroes. That was just a "mad-lib" system that pretty much plugged a random villain group into a mission template and sent you on your merry way. But nobody's taken it to the next level.
There are only seven basic plots, one dominant dramatic structure, and a scant double handful of stock characters who populate the vast majority of popular fiction. A computer can carry on a basic if not scintillating conversation without being a Turing-compliant AI. You can't replace a human writer with a computer, but there's no reason a computer can't tell a story. And as long as you get the core elements aligned, it could be a pretty good story.
It may be beyond this company in this incarnation, but it's far from outside the realm of the possible. The pieces are all there. They're just waiting for somebody with the insight to put them together.
I think the problem is a system like you are describing has to be built into a game from the ground up. You can't take a game like STO that was built to be virtually the opposite of what you describe and then try to turn it into that 5 years later. Don't get me wrong, what you describe sounds cool. But regardless of whether the devs would like to do it or not, I doubt the technical capability of changing the game STO was made to be into something that different at this point.
You may be right. Legacy codebase can be a beach to work with. And even if it's possible, it might make more sense from a marketing perspective to launch a new product to hype rather than to renovate an existing one.
Still, maybe someday, some developer will think to herself, without remembering that she ever saw this thread, "Hmmmm.... I wonder...." On that day, my work will be done.
I think the problem is a system like you are describing has to be built into a game from the ground up. You can't take a game like STO that was built to be virtually the opposite of what you describe and then try to turn it into that 5 years later. Don't get me wrong, what you describe sounds cool. But regardless of whether the devs would like to do it or not, I doubt the technical capability of changing the game STO was made to be into something that different at this point.
Just for reference, Mission Architect was added to City of Heroes in 2009, five years after the game launched.
Anything is possible, it's just a question of time and money. The Devs have always said this time and again over the years when people made various claims about the engine not being able to do this or that.
Mission Architect has nothing to do with what we are talking about, or what I said in the post you quoted. Like the foundry, Mission Architect was an extremely simple version of the tools the devs use to make missions. What we have been talking about in this thread, and I was talking about in my post, is a hypothetical system that randomly generates content that is actually fun to play. Such a hypothetical system is a completely different thing than Mission Architect, or the foundry. They have nothing to do with one another.
Procedural generation of content has been around since the dawn of the MMO genre. Not only can it be done with current tech, it can be done well, and it's actually hella fun to code (tough, but fun). The trick is to get somebody on your team with a deep understanding of dramatic structure and theory as well as game design, and you ought to be able to crank out dynamic plots that are at least as compelling as an IP tie-in novel (low bar, but you've got to start somewhere). Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Name a single MMO or RPG that actually reaches the mark you claim is so easy to reach.
You vastly overstate the capabilities of current procedural generation.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
And Mission Architect has nothing at all do do with what we are talking about. Mission Architect, like the foundry, is a extremely bare bones version of the actual dev tools that the devs use to make the missions. What we are talking about is a system to randomly generate content that is fun to play. Those 2 things are completely separate issues.
Yes, I know. I just added that for information.
Regardless, the answer is still the same - it's a question of time and money.
Not just time and money, but also return on investment. Let's say just for the sake of argument that Cryptic could spend the exact same amount of time and money creating a new expansion with the Cardassian faction or creating some type of exploration system. I think it is safe to say they would make far more profit selling all of the new ships and various gear that is part of a new faction than they would from people simply playing the new exploration system. My point: Cryptic probably has the time and money to do an exploration system, but has other things they would rather spend that time and money on instead. And as a business, I can't fault them for that.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
Taco, I've always thought I understood this point, but I'd like to clarify it now if possible: the Genesis system was intended to make mission building easier(by creating "random" environments that did not have to be hand made), not actually create fully functioning missions, correct? Because some people seem to think it was actually supposed to create unlimited playable content, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I believe that, at most, it was supposed to save time creating the maps the missions took place on. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
PS: and no I did not miss your comments above about the work involved with dialog/lighting/etc. My question is about the actual goal/intent of the system, not whatever the reality was.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
I did say it was tough. Admit it, though... when you get an algorithm that works, and things just start popping into existence, it's like... uh-mazing, isn't it? I built my first terrain generator about twenty years ago, and my only regret is that I didn't quit my day job on the spot and start making games.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
So please clarify...are you working on *any* kind of an exploration system, or has the idea been taken off the table, at least for now?
I personally hope it will NEVER swing back to the thirty generic boring and ugly missions again. But I would like at least 7-8 good, solid and handcrafted ones. As we definitely need more content for our hard paid ships...
I personally hope it will NEVER swing back to the thirty generic boring and ugly missions again. But I would like at least 7-8 good, solid and handcrafted ones. As we definitely need more content for our hard paid ships...
You mean like "Sunrise"? Because you just described every single featured episode they release.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
Taco, I've always thought I understood this point, but I'd like to clarify it now if possible: the Genesis system was intended to make mission building easier(by creating "random" environments that did not have to be hand made), not actually create fully functioning missions, correct? Because some people seem to think it was actually supposed to create unlimited playable content, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I believe that, at most, it was supposed to save time creating the maps the missions took place on. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
PS: and no I did not miss your comments above about the work involved with dialog/lighting/etc. My question is about the actual goal/intent of the system, not whatever the reality was.
The Genesis system was able to spit out fully functional missions. However, the mistake most people make, is assuming that it was able to do that in game, on the fly. It was a generator. It would spend some number of minutes (can't remember exactly) putting it all together, and spitting out a map and a mission. But most of those were quite boring/repetitive, and anything that actually made it into the game, required some clean up.
It did save time, but it didn't make very good, or very interesting missions. It was vital to the launch of STO. We could not have launched without it. That said, no one was ever satisfied with the output of the system, and support for it pretty much stopped at launch. By now, I think all genesis content has been pulled out of STO, and replaced with newer, hand crafted missions/maps.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
I did say it was tough. Admit it, though... when you get an algorithm that works, and things just start popping into existence, it's like... uh-mazing, isn't it? I built my first terrain generator about twenty years ago, and my only regret is that I didn't quit my day job on the spot and start making games.
It's "uh-mazing" that it's spitting stuff out, but the sheen is quickly wiped away when you start looking more closely at the output. Genesis (and other systems I've seen) were GREAT at outputting something. They were not great at outputting something good.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
So please clarify...are you working on *any* kind of an exploration system, or has the idea been taken off the table, at least for now?
I, personally, am not working on anything to do with Exploration. I don't know about other teams. It is still on the plan, last I heard, but I don't know specifics of anything, let alone when you could expect it.
And let's be honest, even if I did know, I couldn't tell you anything.
My comments are specifically about autogeneration of maps and missions, and have nothing to do with the future of STO Exploration.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
Taco, I've always thought I understood this point, but I'd like to clarify it now if possible: the Genesis system was intended to make mission building easier(by creating "random" environments that did not have to be hand made), not actually create fully functioning missions, correct? Because some people seem to think it was actually supposed to create unlimited playable content, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I believe that, at most, it was supposed to save time creating the maps the missions took place on. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
PS: and no I did not miss your comments above about the work involved with dialog/lighting/etc. My question is about the actual goal/intent of the system, not whatever the reality was.
The Genesis system was able to spit out fully functional missions. However, the mistake most people make, is assuming that it was able to do that in game, on the fly. It was a generator. It would spend some number of minutes (can't remember exactly) putting it all together, and spitting out a map and a mission. But most of those were quite boring/repetitive, and anything that actually made it into the game, required some clean up.
It did save time, but it didn't make very good, or very interesting missions. It was vital to the launch of STO. We could not have launched without it. That said, no one was ever satisfied with the output of the system, and support for it pretty much stopped at launch. By now, I think all genesis content has been pulled out of STO, and replaced with newer, hand crafted missions/maps.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
I did say it was tough. Admit it, though... when you get an algorithm that works, and things just start popping into existence, it's like... uh-mazing, isn't it? I built my first terrain generator about twenty years ago, and my only regret is that I didn't quit my day job on the spot and start making games.
It's "uh-mazing" that it's spitting stuff out, but the sheen is quickly wiped away when you start looking more closely at the output. Genesis (and other systems I've seen) were GREAT at outputting something. They were not great at outputting something good.
Adding world/mission autogeneration to an existing engine would not be impossible. However, the creation of the creation system itself is a monumental undertaking. I've seen a few attempts at it, and none have gone well. Genesis being the most fully fleshed out.
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
So please clarify...are you working on *any* kind of an exploration system, or has the idea been taken off the table, at least for now?
I, personally, am not working on anything to do with Exploration. I don't know about other teams. It is still on the plan, last I heard, but I don't know specifics of anything, let alone when you could expect it.
And let's be honest, even if I did know, I couldn't tell you anything.
My comments are specifically about autogeneration of maps and missions, and have nothing to do with the future of STO Exploration.
YOU'RE KILLING ME SMALLS!
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Here is the problem with exploration: if you want it to have any kind of STORY, that story has to be written. All dialog has to be written. Meaning, none of that can be randomized, or the dialog won't make any sense(Borg 3rd Dynasty). Yes, you can randomize environments, but all you can do in a randomized environment without a story is scan and kill. So if people want to scan and kill, Cryptic could definitely give us that. But I have a feeling people would say that isn't what they wanted; they wanted to discover new species and make first contact. Well guess what? That's story, which has to be manually written. And that is exactly what the newest FE is.
The STORY is in my head. I know some people don't like the idea of players being able to explore randomly generated content while using their imagination, but if you don't like the random content I have good news, you don't have to play it.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Here is the problem with exploration: if you want it to have any kind of STORY, that story has to be written. All dialog has to be written. Meaning, none of that can be randomized, or the dialog won't make any sense(Borg 3rd Dynasty). Yes, you can randomize environments, but all you can do in a randomized environment without a story is scan and kill. So if people want to scan and kill, Cryptic could definitely give us that. But I have a feeling people would say that isn't what they wanted; they wanted to discover new species and make first contact. Well guess what? That's story, which has to be manually written. And that is exactly what the newest FE is.
The STORY is in my head. I know some people don't like the idea of players being able to explore randomly generated content while using their imagination, but if you don't like the random content I have good news, you don't have to play it.
And if dev time were not finite, that would be fine. However, the reality is they have to choose between developing your randomly generated content system and doing something else. So don't be surprised if they decide to spend their limited time on something they think will appeal to the most customers.
Hmm. I'm going to put this under, "if you want that, go play another game" category. PVP is under it by the way.
More to the point that STO in its design, just isn't made for the type of exploration we'd be wanting and to make it well made would probably be so costly that you'd be looking at making a new game entirely (probably).
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Comments
A new exploration system could learn a lot from what drew many to the old. Randomness is key. Dead ends are key. As is brevity. I could easily imagine intertwining a revamped exploration system with a new Rep category as others have suggested. I could also see the possibility to seed the mission pool with short missions that continue on from one another, forming a mini-story; similar to how the DOFF system has a number of chained missions - but the trick would be to randomize the outcome so that sometimes they might allow you to progress to the next step and sometimes the trail would go cold and the chain would start over the next time you stumble across it. Not knowing what might happen next is key. It's a critical part of the thrill of exploration.
I really do hope there is going to be a fun, unpredictable exploration system returning to the game. Adding more diverse gameplay for the players to immerse themselves in would be a good thing.
I agree with what you said, but please note that "Arc" is just a platform, neither a company nor the developers of this game. That's "Cryptic" for devs or "Perfect World Entertainment" for the publisher. It's odd when people (happens more often than you think) ask this mysterious "ARC" to do or fix things...
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Can you cite a specific MMO that has the type of system you are describing? I want to take a look at it and see if it has what people might want in STO.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
I'd say that's an understatement. A whole season of the procedurally-generated "beam down, pick flowers, scan things" missions would suffer from a severe lack of interest.
On your part, perhaps. I wouldn't mind a sector devoid of indigenous sentients, where the goal is to find habitable planets, unload those colonists in your passenger lounge, help build colonies, terraform, catalog resources, set up trade routes and delve deeply into all the mundane details that pew-pew players leave to their DOFFs. The Star Trek universe is plenty big enough for multitudinous forms of gameplay, if the will exists to create them.
The first such in an MMO of which I am aware was the original quest system in Ultima Online. It was primitive and broken and suffered a lack of attention because the emergent forms of play created by the players themselves were much more compelling than anything a designer could imagine. Still, the base elements were there.
Star Wars Galaxies amped procedural generation to the next quantum level, creating the terrain for entire (albeit small) planets. The points of interest were canned, however.
City of Heroes had a reasonable quest engine that slotted random enemies into a preset template. It was crude, but it was another step in the evolution.
After that, a lot of the really innovative work started popping up with small indie projects like Wurm Online, as the big companies decided that the WoW themepark model was the cash cow of the future. I've got nothing but love and respect for the indies, but they just don't have the resources to deliver the type of performance and quality I expect in my gameplay.
As for procedurally-generated story, I'm vaguely aware of a handful of indies that have started playing with it, but no specific titles come to mind Personally, I think it's inevitable and necessary for the MMO to survive long-term. Lovingly handcrafted content is wonderful, but it's far too expensive to produce. Eliza + Rogue + Spore + Aristotle + Campbell + Minecraft + Random Plot Generator = ??? Maybe junk. Or maybe salvation from stagnation.
Point taken. I've been playing on and off since Beta, but I got a little lost and confused when PW took over.
Heh. Devs are like, "Let's create the multiverse!" and money people are like, "No. Make us another Candy Crush". I know that song.
SWG is my go to example of a sandbox game. However, STO can never be a sandbox because of how it is built. SWG was a huge open world. STO's world is made up of a million instances. Every single mission is an instance. There is no open world in STO. And that is something so fundamentally different than it can't be changed at this point; a game would have to be made that way from the start. So if any of your ideas of exploration and randomly generated content require an open world like SWG, that can never happen in STO. The same goes for any other game you cite that is an open world, because STO simply wasn't made that way.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
The fun aspect of procedural generation is that you can create and recreate vast areas of simulated 3D environment from a tiny mathematical seed. It would probably be instanced under the STO architecture, but you could have a HUGE instance and you could store it plus any modifications caused by player actions with a relatively tiny allocation of disk/memory space... a persistent instance. It's not the ideal "open world" framework, but it may be close enough to integrate with the existing codebase.
That sounds nice in theory, but I have to repeat my earlier point: that will only work for environments with no story. Yes, you can randomly generate a planet with some animals on it. It's the same basic principal as hitting "random" on the character creator and letting the system assemble a bunch of random parts. But if you want ANY kind of story, someone has to actually write that. If there is ANY dialog, someone has to write that. If it is randomly generated, it won't make sense. So again, if all people want to do is run around scanning rocks or shooting animals, random generation can work. But if they want any kind of story or dialog in their exploration, random won't work.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Would you explain again what your point is? I must miss that. Yes, someone has to write dialogue for certain missions that might occur, but I don't understand what your point is.
Most of the time it would require basic dialogue to sketch out the missions and encounters. There could be certain varieties written for "agressive aliens", "neutral aliens", "distress call" etc with blanks for names illustrating what the mission is while the map and location of those events is entirely random. In continous maintenance and patches, more dialogue variation can be added, maybe even special occasions with heavier scripting to mark milestones in your progress or whatever. Nobody says that a procedually generated random enviroment throws together text by randomly chaining together words...
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To put it as simply as possible, randomly generated exploration won't really work unless you only want to explore environments. If you want ANY kind of story at all, randomly generated missions won't work.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Cryptic already did it, in a very primitive way, with City of Heroes. That was just a "mad-lib" system that pretty much plugged a random villain group into a mission template and sent you on your merry way. But nobody's taken it to the next level.
There are only seven basic plots, one dominant dramatic structure, and a scant double handful of stock characters who populate the vast majority of popular fiction. A computer can carry on a basic if not scintillating conversation without being a Turing-compliant AI. You can't replace a human writer with a computer, but there's no reason a computer can't tell a story. And as long as you get the core elements aligned, it could be a pretty good story.
It may be beyond this company in this incarnation, but it's far from outside the realm of the possible. The pieces are all there. They're just waiting for somebody with the insight to put them together.
I think the problem is a system like you are describing has to be built into a game from the ground up. You can't take a game like STO that was built to be virtually the opposite of what you describe and then try to turn it into that 5 years later. Don't get me wrong, what you describe sounds cool. But regardless of whether the devs would like to do it or not, I doubt the technical capability of changing the game STO was made to be into something that different at this point.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
You may be right. Legacy codebase can be a beach to work with. And even if it's possible, it might make more sense from a marketing perspective to launch a new product to hype rather than to renovate an existing one.
Still, maybe someday, some developer will think to herself, without remembering that she ever saw this thread, "Hmmmm.... I wonder...." On that day, my work will be done.
Mission Architect has nothing to do with what we are talking about, or what I said in the post you quoted. Like the foundry, Mission Architect was an extremely simple version of the tools the devs use to make missions. What we have been talking about in this thread, and I was talking about in my post, is a hypothetical system that randomly generates content that is actually fun to play. Such a hypothetical system is a completely different thing than Mission Architect, or the foundry. They have nothing to do with one another.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Name a single MMO or RPG that actually reaches the mark you claim is so easy to reach.
You vastly overstate the capabilities of current procedural generation.
Not just time and money, but also return on investment. Let's say just for the sake of argument that Cryptic could spend the exact same amount of time and money creating a new expansion with the Cardassian faction or creating some type of exploration system. I think it is safe to say they would make far more profit selling all of the new ships and various gear that is part of a new faction than they would from people simply playing the new exploration system. My point: Cryptic probably has the time and money to do an exploration system, but has other things they would rather spend that time and money on instead. And as a business, I can't fault them for that.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
After months of development on Genesis, we had a system that could autogenerate a map, yes. However, only maybe 1/5 of those maps would be usable, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had to be touched up by an artist before it was remotely presentable.
There is a lot more subtlety to creating a convincing environment than random placement of objects. You can get away with that to an extent outdoors, but anything made by people has a much more rigid structure to it.
And all of that is even before we get into missions, or dialog, or characters, or lighting.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a viable system. I'm saying it is tremendously difficult, and after months of development, as someone else stated earlier . . . what does it actually gain us monetarily.
No, money is not the only thing we look at during development.
But we have a choice. After 6 months we can end up with 30 ugly, boring missions, or 5 good, solid, handcrafted missions.
We at Cryptic (and STO Specifically), have tried both ends of that spectrum.
In the future, the pendulum may swing back the other way, but at this time, we find it much more worthwhile to handcraft things.
Taco, I've always thought I understood this point, but I'd like to clarify it now if possible: the Genesis system was intended to make mission building easier(by creating "random" environments that did not have to be hand made), not actually create fully functioning missions, correct? Because some people seem to think it was actually supposed to create unlimited playable content, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I believe that, at most, it was supposed to save time creating the maps the missions took place on. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
PS: and no I did not miss your comments above about the work involved with dialog/lighting/etc. My question is about the actual goal/intent of the system, not whatever the reality was.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
I did say it was tough. Admit it, though... when you get an algorithm that works, and things just start popping into existence, it's like... uh-mazing, isn't it? I built my first terrain generator about twenty years ago, and my only regret is that I didn't quit my day job on the spot and start making games.
So please clarify...are you working on *any* kind of an exploration system, or has the idea been taken off the table, at least for now?
You mean like "Sunrise"? Because you just described every single featured episode they release.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
The Genesis system was able to spit out fully functional missions. However, the mistake most people make, is assuming that it was able to do that in game, on the fly. It was a generator. It would spend some number of minutes (can't remember exactly) putting it all together, and spitting out a map and a mission. But most of those were quite boring/repetitive, and anything that actually made it into the game, required some clean up.
It did save time, but it didn't make very good, or very interesting missions. It was vital to the launch of STO. We could not have launched without it. That said, no one was ever satisfied with the output of the system, and support for it pretty much stopped at launch. By now, I think all genesis content has been pulled out of STO, and replaced with newer, hand crafted missions/maps.
It's "uh-mazing" that it's spitting stuff out, but the sheen is quickly wiped away when you start looking more closely at the output. Genesis (and other systems I've seen) were GREAT at outputting something. They were not great at outputting something good.
I, personally, am not working on anything to do with Exploration. I don't know about other teams. It is still on the plan, last I heard, but I don't know specifics of anything, let alone when you could expect it.
And let's be honest, even if I did know, I couldn't tell you anything.
My comments are specifically about autogeneration of maps and missions, and have nothing to do with the future of STO Exploration.
YOU'RE KILLING ME SMALLS!
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
The STORY is in my head. I know some people don't like the idea of players being able to explore randomly generated content while using their imagination, but if you don't like the random content I have good news, you don't have to play it.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
And if dev time were not finite, that would be fine. However, the reality is they have to choose between developing your randomly generated content system and doing something else. So don't be surprised if they decide to spend their limited time on something they think will appeal to the most customers.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
More to the point that STO in its design, just isn't made for the type of exploration we'd be wanting and to make it well made would probably be so costly that you'd be looking at making a new game entirely (probably).