Sounds like an accurate description of the work to me.
You can measure how difficult creation of game content can be by using foundry to create a mission, or by trying to model some ships. Actually STO model quality is not great. Procedural generation mechanics is already here. But i guess devs found their hands full dealing with bugs, because there is a lot of cosmetic issues that not yet fixed. Managing database, that could be challenging, but that's from my perspective.
Sorry... couldn't resist.
Anyways... STO is a game centered around combat. The older exploration clusters were buggy, especially ground maps where you might have an enemy group spawn underground where they can shoot you but you can't touch them. While I did like the touch of random, it was generally "kill 5 enemy groups" most of the time.
Actually, as the person claiming how "easy" everything would be, you should be the one providing numbers.
[...]
We both should. But as you brought up the financial aspect, it is only fair to ask you to put some flesh onto that skeleton.
Besides, I readily said it's a lot of work. But it is not a "challenge" in the sense that this word should be used. Automatic map generation has seen so many solutions in the gaming industry over the decades that claiming it was somewhat a riddle how to do that is just... weird.
And yet there isn't standardized solution that has found its way into literature, or an off-the-shelf component. Where as there are several game engines like CryEngine, Unreal and who-knows-what. Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky, Diablo II - they all use something "home-made".
And the same applies to mission generation.
Say, you define a mission template. The template I will use as an example is called "The Hunt": The player is supposed to capture a key person.
Player is hailed by $MISSION_CONTACT, and is being told that $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST1 [has escaped custody|has stolen a valuable artifact|kidnapped the princess|is urgently needed in the palace and is unwilling|is a suspect in a series of tribble murders|add a hundred other things here]. $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST1 has been last seen flying through this sector with $SHIP. Please find $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST1 and bring him (or her) to $HOMEWORLD for [trial|re-imprisonment|the crowning ceremony|whatever]. You can best start your search at $LOCATION1, where $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST1 has been last detected. $LOCATION could be any type mof map, space or ground.
There, you have an $ENCOUNTER, which could be a generated NPC to talk to, a trader who wants to sell you something, a robbery, a fight between two parties that you want to stay out, but can't, etc. At the end of that encounter, you aquire a lead to $LOCATION2, where your $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST is known to be at the moment.
At $LOCATION2, $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST1 [is in trouble and needs you to fight him out of it|needs convincing|readily surrenders, but only if you do $TASK on $LOCATION2's map|is running from you| add a hundred other things]. After that, you return to $HOMEWORLD and deliver $GENERATED_ANTAGONIST, where you [are ambushed by the antagonists's friends|must accept a reward, which involves a lenghty ceremony and a dance|the antagonist escapes and must be found on the map $HOMEWORLD before he escapes again.
Imagine all possible values for the various locations. If you have just ten options for every variable location and [action] I have given up there, then this single template alone will create 100.000 missions that differ from each other meaningfully.
For added fun, you could add 2-5 random encounters (in the old pen&paper RPG style), throughout each of the generated maps of that mission.
To quote a great thinker in this threat: It isn't rocket science.
No. It might be more complicated then that, actually. I mean, we can probably compare the lines of code used for the Apollo mission against the lines of codes from No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous. And those games don't have any real mission templates, as far as I know. (Other than "Capture NPC X").
Fun Fact: CryEngine 2 has more lines of code than the Space Shuttle needed.
You can measure how difficult creation of game content can be by using foundry to create a mission, or by trying to model some ships. Actually STO model quality is not great. Procedural generation mechanics is already here. But i guess devs found their hands full dealing with bugs, because there is a lot of cosmetic issues that not yet fixed. Managing database, that could be challenging, but that's from my perspective.
Indeed, you can get an idea of it. It's been some time since I tried my hand at Foundry content, but I was merely dabbling. But you can ask any of the Foundry authors what kind of effort they needed to put in their best-rated missions.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Season 11.5 is all about exploring. You explore the new skills revamp by paying real money to respec, this exploration leads you to explore new methods of how to increase DPS and power creep further. This latest update has increased my sci torp bomber from a sub 10k DPS to 25k+ DPS, it has no energy weapons at all. That's exploration........
Anyways... STO is a game centered around combat. The older exploration clusters were buggy, especially ground maps where you might have an enemy group spawn underground where they can shoot you but you can't touch them. While I did like the touch of random, it was generally "kill 5 enemy groups" most of the time.
They could have added more content for it, if they wanted to. But instead they did nothing to improve Exploration in any way as long as is was in STO.
I think the question should rather be, why was Exploration abandoned in the first place?
What made them think creating a new Featured Episode every two months or so was much more superior (and profitable) to completely disband a whole section of the game which was so greatly advertised.
Why not keep both and use the improvements made in each part to improve the other one too?
Don't get me wrong i'm not arguing against Featured Episodes, i try to identify Cryptics reasoning behind all this since it doesn't make much sense to me (especially since this is a Star Trek game).
Now they made Exploration a central theme of the new season but the only thing we get is more featured Episodes where you go somewhere (or travel in time) to kill some aliens.
So is this another wasted opportunity or can we really expect that Cryptic remakes the old exploration Clusters (or at least something similar)?
Of course this is total unrealistic but on the other hand, is THAT cryptics idea of Star Trek?
With the Iconian story arc they had a comprehensible reason to throw out one combat mission after another. But now since they put the term "Exploration" so much into the foreground, one should think that we finally get to see Star Trek like stuff like anomalies, mystery and other things like that, spiced up with a occasional space battle now and then. But is murder and killing already the end of cryptics creativity (or understanding of Star Trek)?
Is this is the only thing that draws most people to a Star Trek game?
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
As much as new actual content, not just pew pew the "bad guy" would be nice, it seems clear that cryptic and pwe are content with the revenue sto generates as is. If it cannot be monetized they won't do it. Why would they? They aren't in it for anything other than the least they have to do do get the most money for it. It's business sadly. If they would just be straightforward about it and come out and say it it would make it easier. The constant lip service they give is disingenuous at best. We do perhaps expect too much of them, they are peeps running a game for profit, not to make a great game or really embody what start trek was and was all about. It's sad but there it is.
[...] But it is not a "challenge" in the sense that this word should be used. Automatic map generation has seen so many solutions in the gaming industry over the decades that claiming it was somewhat a riddle how to do that is just... weird.
And yet there isn't standardized solution that has found its way into literature, or an off-the-shelf component. Where as there are several game engines like CryEngine, Unreal and who-knows-what. Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky, Diablo II - they all use something "home-made".
And you conclude from that that it must be hard? I would say, for the map generation part, that's rather an indication that it is easy (and it is), so that little could be gained from an off-the-shelf solution.
Yes, I do, considering most games do not come with automatic map generation, despite a lot of games potentially benefiting from it.
No. It might be more complicated then that, actually. I mean, we can probably compare the lines of code used for the Apollo mission against the lines of codes from No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous.
[...]
"Lines of code" is a rather bad measure for complexity of the code.
It's as good as a first order approximation as any, because ultimately, every metric has flaws.
You could have millions of lines of C code, and have them be well commented and documented, properly structured and easily readable, and it might be easier to work with and maintain than a 10.000-line-perl script written by a weirdo on speed.
And regardless of whether it's well structured code or completely chaotic perl scipt, the more lines it will have given the same level of structure, the more complex it is.
And even in the latter case, you could probably add new functions in clearly readable code without all too much of a hassle, as soon as you have figured out where to fit it in the existing code (which would be the hardest part).
Fixing a Bug: 1 line of code written in 30 seconds.
Figuring out which line of code and where to put it: 8 hours of work reading through 30 classes and methods involving 16 break points and 15 debug outputs.
"It might be more complicated"? Things are always more complicated than they seem to be, after all. The point is: It is doable, and it is worth it, almost regardless of the initial investment, because the output is just so reuseable.
That is not a belief grounded in practical concerns. Just because something might be doable and if it could be done would be incredibly worthy of doing doesn't mean it can be done now. Cryptic does not have inexhaustible resources. If they need to earn money each quarter, an investment that doesn't give them a return before quarter might mean they can't maintain the staff they need for development in the first place.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Reportedly they are working on some sort of exploration system, and reportedly this will take time because it is a lot of work. (as per Geko's P1 interview). I will just hope for the best.
After six years of STO, i have learned to doubt any rumors on what they MAY be working on. And even if it's true, i almost fear what they mean when they announce a "Exploration" system. I'm sure it would contain a good amount of carnage and bloodshed every freaking time you encounter an alien ship/anomaly/disease (you name it).
Agreed.
The funny thing is, sometimes DOFF or admirality missions seem to be much more interesting and Trek like than any of the stuff we a actively doing.
To be honest i'm so tired of the never ending pew pew.
All missions, if it's STFs or Fleet Actions seem to be the same to me lately, they always result in massive FX fireworks without any meaning (and they really start hurting my eyes).
@sirsitsalot
The difference between PvP and Exploration is that most people do not WANT to do PVP (which hasn't been removed from the game completely) in STO. The game is already competetive enough if you want to take part in this childish DPS record hunting that has become some sort of sport in this game. And btw, people can still do pvp matches against each other.
On the other hand, Exploration has been completely ripped out of STO even when people where playing it until the last day. My point: comparing both is a bit far fetched IMO.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I always found it very entertaining to note that the moment the team decided to get rid of the exploration system that was in place for this game, a couple of major media outlets started posting stories about No Man's Sky. So on the STO end you had some Cryptic folks saying Procedurally Generated Content was dead and not viable in today's gaming market and then you had this new game No Man's Sky, which is heralded as almost ALL procedurally generated content, being hyped up.
If No Man's Sky gets going, then yeah, the exploration system in this game should probably be given a second look.
I always found it very entertaining to note that the moment the team decided to get rid of the exploration system that was in place for this game, a couple of major media outlets started posting stories about No Man's Sky. So on the STO end you had some Cryptic folks saying Procedurally Generated Content was dead and not viable in today's gaming market and then you had this new game No Man's Sky, which is heralded as almost ALL procedurally generated content, being hyped up.
If No Man's Sky gets going, then yeah, the exploration system in this game should probably be given a second look.
I don't think Cryptic people said anything like "PGC is dead". STO never had procedually generated content, this is what people often confuse (I was thinking it was PCG until a dev explained it one or two years ago). The Genesis System didn't work that way. I agree however that removing the exploration aspect completely was a very short sighted move.
^ 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
To be honest I've rather enjoyed the 14 colonization sites you can run around to and do the 7-part Doff mission chain to settle.
I might enjoy carrying out the steps in person more, but they evoke the feel of hauling in and supporting colonists. Some of the non-chain mission at each site are amusing. I wish there had been 2-3 more of them in the Delta Quadrant map.
Fixing a Bug: 1 line of code written in 30 seconds.
Figuring out which line of code and where to put it: 8 hours of work reading through 30 classes and methods involving 16 break points and 15 debug outputs.
Isn't this the sort of thing that programmers get paid to do in jobs like this?
Sure, but the bosses of the programmers are to ensure that the programmers spend time doing stuff that generates "business value". Fix blocking bugs that cost you players, create features that retain or gain you new players, stuff like that.
You can do almost anything in software with enough development resources - but you want it to pay off, too.
But my real point here is that the less clue people have about programming, the less clue people have about the software internals of a game, the more likely they are to underestimate the complexity and the effort required to achieve any given goal. And the more complex the issue is, the more everyone is off with the estimate. That includes even the people that are tasked with actually implementing it and have the most knowledge about the topic, and it gets worse the less people actually know about it.
All the discussions about this that say "It must be easy", "it can' be that hard", "they just need to", "others did it, too" are from, quite frankly, pure ignorance and completely pointless. At worst they are implicitly insulting to the developers, because they paint them as incompetent and incapable of doing their job.
The initial investement may be high, but nobody said it would have to be implemented quickly, or all at once. The abovementioned templates could start with a single one, to be added to over time - initially, it could just be "the hunt", but later on, templates named "First Contact", "DIstress Call", etc., could and should be added, for instance, with the amount of options for each variable being increased with each season.
It is a common and logical approach to try to split a very complex task into smaller components. It's an essential thing to do, in fact. So on that much, you're on a good track.
BUT. I've also seen people make the wrong type of splits. Usually when they try to make a complex task simpler and split it into subtasks that don't actually work as sensible subtasks. (Usually in m work experience this happens when the developers give the product owner an estimate that's larger than she'd like, and she tries to think of ideas how to break it down into something smaller. The "breaking down" is usually something that needs to be done by the developers.)
I can only make an educated guess here, but I think this is exactly what you're doing here. Before you can have "different templates", you first need to have a system for having templates. Heck, before you need that system of templates, you need to have something the templates can be applied to - like those generated maps. This basic foundational work will already take a significant percentage of the total work required. You'll need to break this down into smaller components...
But here is a simpler question perhaps:
- How many mission templates has Elite Dangerous to offer so far?
- How many mission templates has No Man's Sky to offer so far?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I hated the old exploration clusters. Go scan 5 artifacts (placed in a line) or go kill 5 groups of enemies. Was so slow boring and frustrating. Did any of u guys play armada 1 of 2? They had a fog / shroud system. It felt like u were exploring. Would love a sector block like the beta quadrang added covered in this. Make it big n large. And so u can only see a little bit of the map at a time
Comments
You can measure how difficult creation of game content can be by using foundry to create a mission, or by trying to model some ships. Actually STO model quality is not great. Procedural generation mechanics is already here. But i guess devs found their hands full dealing with bugs, because there is a lot of cosmetic issues that not yet fixed. Managing database, that could be challenging, but that's from my perspective.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
*french accent* Right behind you.
Sorry... couldn't resist.
Anyways... STO is a game centered around combat. The older exploration clusters were buggy, especially ground maps where you might have an enemy group spawn underground where they can shoot you but you can't touch them. While I did like the touch of random, it was generally "kill 5 enemy groups" most of the time.
No. It might be more complicated then that, actually. I mean, we can probably compare the lines of code used for the Apollo mission against the lines of codes from No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous. And those games don't have any real mission templates, as far as I know. (Other than "Capture NPC X").
Fun Fact: CryEngine 2 has more lines of code than the Space Shuttle needed.
You explore the new skills revamp by paying real money to respec, this exploration leads you to explore new methods of how to increase DPS and power creep further.
This latest update has increased my sci torp bomber from a sub 10k DPS to 25k+ DPS, it has no energy weapons at all.
That's exploration........
I think the question should rather be, why was Exploration abandoned in the first place?
What made them think creating a new Featured Episode every two months or so was much more superior (and profitable) to completely disband a whole section of the game which was so greatly advertised.
Why not keep both and use the improvements made in each part to improve the other one too?
Don't get me wrong i'm not arguing against Featured Episodes, i try to identify Cryptics reasoning behind all this since it doesn't make much sense to me (especially since this is a Star Trek game).
Now they made Exploration a central theme of the new season but the only thing we get is more featured Episodes where you go somewhere (or travel in time) to kill some aliens.
So is this another wasted opportunity or can we really expect that Cryptic remakes the old exploration Clusters (or at least something similar)?
Of course this is total unrealistic but on the other hand, is THAT cryptics idea of Star Trek?
With the Iconian story arc they had a comprehensible reason to throw out one combat mission after another. But now since they put the term "Exploration" so much into the foreground, one should think that we finally get to see Star Trek like stuff like anomalies, mystery and other things like that, spiced up with a occasional space battle now and then. But is murder and killing already the end of cryptics creativity (or understanding of Star Trek)?
Is this is the only thing that draws most people to a Star Trek game?
It's as good as a first order approximation as any, because ultimately, every metric has flaws.
And regardless of whether it's well structured code or completely chaotic perl scipt, the more lines it will have given the same level of structure, the more complex it is.
Fixing a Bug: 1 line of code written in 30 seconds.
Figuring out which line of code and where to put it: 8 hours of work reading through 30 classes and methods involving 16 break points and 15 debug outputs.
That is not a belief grounded in practical concerns. Just because something might be doable and if it could be done would be incredibly worthy of doing doesn't mean it can be done now. Cryptic does not have inexhaustible resources. If they need to earn money each quarter, an investment that doesn't give them a return before quarter might mean they can't maintain the staff they need for development in the first place.
Agreed.
The funny thing is, sometimes DOFF or admirality missions seem to be much more interesting and Trek like than any of the stuff we a actively doing.
To be honest i'm so tired of the never ending pew pew.
All missions, if it's STFs or Fleet Actions seem to be the same to me lately, they always result in massive FX fireworks without any meaning (and they really start hurting my eyes).
@sirsitsalot
The difference between PvP and Exploration is that most people do not WANT to do PVP (which hasn't been removed from the game completely) in STO. The game is already competetive enough if you want to take part in this childish DPS record hunting that has become some sort of sport in this game. And btw, people can still do pvp matches against each other.
On the other hand, Exploration has been completely ripped out of STO even when people where playing it until the last day. My point: comparing both is a bit far fetched IMO.
If No Man's Sky gets going, then yeah, the exploration system in this game should probably be given a second look.
I don't think Cryptic people said anything like "PGC is dead". STO never had procedually generated content, this is what people often confuse (I was thinking it was PCG until a dev explained it one or two years ago). The Genesis System didn't work that way. I agree however that removing the exploration aspect completely was a very short sighted move.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I might enjoy carrying out the steps in person more, but they evoke the feel of hauling in and supporting colonists. Some of the non-chain mission at each site are amusing. I wish there had been 2-3 more of them in the Delta Quadrant map.
You can do almost anything in software with enough development resources - but you want it to pay off, too.
But my real point here is that the less clue people have about programming, the less clue people have about the software internals of a game, the more likely they are to underestimate the complexity and the effort required to achieve any given goal. And the more complex the issue is, the more everyone is off with the estimate. That includes even the people that are tasked with actually implementing it and have the most knowledge about the topic, and it gets worse the less people actually know about it.
All the discussions about this that say "It must be easy", "it can' be that hard", "they just need to", "others did it, too" are from, quite frankly, pure ignorance and completely pointless. At worst they are implicitly insulting to the developers, because they paint them as incompetent and incapable of doing their job.
It is a common and logical approach to try to split a very complex task into smaller components. It's an essential thing to do, in fact. So on that much, you're on a good track.
BUT. I've also seen people make the wrong type of splits. Usually when they try to make a complex task simpler and split it into subtasks that don't actually work as sensible subtasks. (Usually in m work experience this happens when the developers give the product owner an estimate that's larger than she'd like, and she tries to think of ideas how to break it down into something smaller. The "breaking down" is usually something that needs to be done by the developers.)
I can only make an educated guess here, but I think this is exactly what you're doing here. Before you can have "different templates", you first need to have a system for having templates. Heck, before you need that system of templates, you need to have something the templates can be applied to - like those generated maps. This basic foundational work will already take a significant percentage of the total work required. You'll need to break this down into smaller components...
But here is a simpler question perhaps:
- How many mission templates has Elite Dangerous to offer so far?
- How many mission templates has No Man's Sky to offer so far?