Procedural Generation

I'm glad that my post brought discussion. Though I'm offended that Matt thinks my opinion should be completely dismissed. He doesn't justify why.

We can go deeper and deeper, thinking that minecraft is something big. But when we simplify it, then really it's just a virtual version of lego. Then again a house is just a pile of bricks, but if you inject imagination in your perspective then it becomes a house. That's the magical thing about the human mind. Imagination.

Because you didn't give an idea. You gave an opinion. There is nothing wrong with said opinion, but if a game programmer were looking for things to put in a procedural generation game, one's opnion over the genre wouldn't be all that helpful.

What I said was a joke anyways. Sorry if you took it the wrong way, but it was based around the fact that the thread asked for ideas and you gave an opinion, and not an opinion in favor of the genre either.

Let's put this all behind us. (holds out hand)

 

We can go deeper and deeper, thinking that minecraft is something big. But when we simplify it, then really it's just a virtual version of lego. Then again a house is just a pile of bricks, but if you inject imagination in your perspective then it becomes a house. That's the magical thing about the human mind. Imagination.

Again, I disagree. Minecraft is much different than Legos, for many reasons.
To start, you don't have any control over many parts of the game (time, what mobs spawn, what minerals you'll find when you mine, etc.). This is what makes it a game instead of a toy. A house in Minecraft may be a pile of bricks, but so is a house in real life. If it has floors, walls, a roof, and some windows, we call it a house, because of a thing called heuristics, or artifacts. Think of a chair. How many legs does it have? 4. Think of a tool. What tool is it! Probably a hammer or a screwdriver. It is using our imagination, granted, but not any more than we use in real life o:

 

I meant if you break it all down to the mechanics of the game.

 

That means you get the same old towns. I mean EVERYTHING, "except for maybe rooms in towns, but they're randomly placed".

Well true, I never said Castle of the Winds was identical to what you described.

Many people look for freedom in games, but what they fail to realise is that there is no freedom there. Randomness doesn't bring freedom either.

As someone else already said, there is freedom in (for example) Minecraft, but it's not because of the randomness. It's the lack of rules. There is less freedom in (for example) Rogue/Nethack, which despite being procedurally generated and fairly freeform still have the overarching goal of "get to the bottom of the dungeon".

I mentioned my adventure game type generation to a friend and now he's trying to make an engine for it. To add the artists touch I was thinking of premaking all the chuncks and assigning labels to each side which determin which pieces can go together. It would be work, but it would certainly be more original. It's more proof of concept than anything else so I'll let you guys know how it goes.

This sounds like the exact opposite of procedural generation; is that correct? It sounds almost like you mean each level/zone/area/whatever is like a painting, and they link together in a certain way. I don't know if that's truly original; it's likely it has been done before, though not on any major games since it would be very time-consuming.

On the other hand, perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant.

EDIT: Oh yeah. The thing about randomly generating a society: When you have randomly generated characters to interact with, you can create a randomly generated plotline and a much more realistic focus for yourself. You'll be able to gain and lose power by interacting with the society.

I think most of the people who play things like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress do so for the ability to do whatever they want, not for a potential plotline. That's not to say a plotline has no place in a procedurally generated game though (and in fact Castle of the Winds with its randomly generated dungeons does have a plotline).

IBut when we simplify it, then really it's just a virtual version of lego.

Minecraft is a lot like virtual Lego, but that's only if you disable all aspects of survival mode. That is, if you use TooManyItems, an external inventory editor like InvEdit, or server commands to give yourself all the items you need and disable the spawning of creatures, then yes, it's a like virtual version of Lego.

 

Spoiler

Life is freedom.

Spoiler

The only shackles that hold you, are crafted by no one else but you.

 

I REALLY misspoke. Well, more like I've rethought what I meant.
I shouldn't have said plotline. Randomly generated plotlines DO indeed take all the point out of random generation. I mean more, "If you do something, the society reacts in a realistic way, allowing you to shape your destiny in an unpredictable and randomly generated manner."
I sort of can't explain it well, so hopefully you all understand.

 

So life is just one gigantic roguelike game. Except you can only play it once, and everything's permanent.