Using a new engine/software to it's fullest potential takes time to do. I could see people laughing at the original "classic" AI of EQnext a few years after launch when compared to the current content they will be releasing at the time.
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Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Well, it shouldn't though that's the thing. They are gearing it up to make it as easy to use as possible. They even go as far as saying they want it to be like a toy. And they will most likely do a good job with it. At that point, my only concern is will the industry use it for cheap/easily created procedurally generated content on a new lost cost denominator, or actually use it to it's full potential. Unfortunately with the way this industry has been going, there will be some VERY good content uses but only for a few select games, while (Only my opinion here) it will be abused as an easy content filler in an attempt to lower development costs across the board for a large majority of games. the MMORPG genre would be a main target for the second, and if it's the latter, it will be completely soul-less content. Similar to anything else out there that is procedurally generated.
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Well, inside of simpler games, like Minecraft, procedural generated worlds have been getting better and better. There is a lot of focus in the industry on engines that can pretty much make their own worlds, shit, even entire planets. I think this is the next step in content development. If they can execute this in a reasonable manner, I think it can bridge the gap that these games have been missing, time it takes to make compelling content.
Add to this the entire story bricks thing and the advanced AI models they are going with, I think this is the future. Even if this game ends up sucking because these systems are simplistic in todays vanilla tech. shit will get better and more life like the more time has been spent creating these systems.
And lets face it. Today's build as you go content is not enough and too expensive. Blizzard makes some sweet ass shit, but you have to wait 2-3 yrs between expansions and it probably takes Blizz hundreds of people to pull that shit off at endless expense.
Even if you were to take a hybrid system of sorts. Procedural content, but yet gone through by a team of people to make some areas even more special, etc... Its still better than the build as you go systems of today.
Add to this the entire story bricks thing and the advanced AI models they are going with, I think this is the future. Even if this game ends up sucking because these systems are simplistic in todays vanilla tech. shit will get better and more life like the more time has been spent creating these systems.
And lets face it. Today's build as you go content is not enough and too expensive. Blizzard makes some sweet ass shit, but you have to wait 2-3 yrs between expansions and it probably takes Blizz hundreds of people to pull that shit off at endless expense.
Even if you were to take a hybrid system of sorts. Procedural content, but yet gone through by a team of people to make some areas even more special, etc... Its still better than the build as you go systems of today.
Procedurally generated content has the potential to be really awesome. Combine that with advanced AI through programs like StoryBricks and there is possibility for some really cool stuff.
One question is: how do game designers take advantage of these new(breakthrough?) ideas? Exploring procedurally generated lands could be boring, if there is nothing of value to find.
Ai in MMO's has to be the worst of all games. Does that need to change?
One question is: how do game designers take advantage of these new(breakthrough?) ideas? Exploring procedurally generated lands could be boring, if there is nothing of value to find.
Ai in MMO's has to be the worst of all games. Does that need to change?
I think the trend in the near future is to have auto generated land masses that looks "natural" and then have nodes or modules that will plug in for the exciting points of interest. That way it greatly speeds up "wasted time" making vanilla outdoors type terrain while still having "cool dungeons", cities, whatever.
That's the best compromise I would like all landmarks to be made by hand but if you want the game to generate vast forests and swamps and shit randomly i'm all for it, as long as the dungeon I stumble across is cleverly made and filled with some sort of theme or story or Lore i'll be happy.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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I agree with you as long as it interesting content and not just a rinse and repeat of a lot of different independent variables spread throughout a world. For instance, Farmer NPC over in "West Karana" (Variable 1) has a "daughter" (Variable 2) that needs to be "married" (Variable 3) before she can leave the "castle" (Variable 4) to start a new "farm house" (Variable 5) to bring in more "income" (Variable 6) for Farmer NPC. If all of a sudden I now go to North Karana after finishing that quest and finding a husband for the daughter to shape the world a bit more, it's going to be ridiculously uninspired if I stumble upon another area where "Merchant NPC" (Variable 1) has a "Son" (Variable 2) who has an "insane wife" (Variable 3) and needs to "vanish" (Variable 4), before his son can "inherit" (Variable 5) the "Shop" (Variable 6).
I understand that supposed behavioral patterns will be affected by storybricks and what not, but it will need to make sense.
I just don't know how they will be able to make it interesting from a story perspective if they put too much weight into a procedurally generated content system without hand written/designed content. I agree with you Mkopec, a lot of the times good content doesn't come out from systems like these, but through a lot of dev hours and that is pretty tough to overcome from a monetary budget/timeline. But for me, I would rather see that and fewer games than a lot of games based upon random variables which make no sense within the scope of the world. (With that said, I am not saying this is how it will turn out for Storybricks, but the developers are only being handed the tool - and if they are being told to slam in a bunch of content 3 months prior to ship, they won't have a choice, and this tool will do that nicely. Leaving us with a lot of uninspired content because the system was being abused by a manager who fell behind schedule through no fault of the consumer. )
What I am looking for in regards to "modules" is hand crafted "Unrest" and not the variables like you mentioned Ut. I am not a programmer but you have some algorithm have trigger points where if X square footage of swamp is generated then place the "Haunted House" module randomly within that swamp. Granted that is vastly over simplifying things but you get the idea.
The thing is, that if that happens it will because of things you specifically have done in game. I might walk up to the "farm house" and be asked to do some hard labor to get the farmer to approve of me, and he may never give me that task/quest. The bricks in storybricks wont just form a limited path based on just my actions, but will form a huge jigsaw puzzle, based on every players actions that might affect the farmer. Farmer might end up hating all Dwarfs because Dwarf players keep stealing his chickens...just depends on the variables that are set.
I am probably being all fan boi about it, but from my understanding of what the storybricks guys have been doing, I am anticipating a game where almost no one ever gets a quest, or completes a quest, the same way another player does. There will just be too many factors, each being affected by your daily choices in game.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Procedural generation/population gives you awesome worlds, but not awesome stories.
And that's a big problem with the current MMO paradigm, in which you have stories lifted straight out of a single-player RPG (WoW) rather than an explorable world (EQ1). The virtual world paradigm got lost around DAOC, which started the heavy quested model that exploded with with the arrival of EQ2 and WoW, and dominates (due to WoW being the big boy, i.e. if WoW did quests, then my MMO must have quests).
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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The opinion that the initial use of Storybricks in EQN will be primitive and crude is spot on, simple because ANY feature will get better after the developers work with it for a few years more. You cant say you expect them to deliver "year 5" quality Storybricks implementation at release because you cant judge it in that way, and whatever they deliver will not be as good as what they themselves can deliver a few years later.
Having this feature to fill a (hopefully) huge world with more life then a scattering of bear ass quests would achieve is great, and they can still use handcrafted content wherever they like. I mean handcrafted can even be a very special npc with unusual storybricks elements that goes against his expected profile (a Sith Lord that doesnt backstab you when it's convenient for example).
Having this feature to fill a (hopefully) huge world with more life then a scattering of bear ass quests would achieve is great, and they can still use handcrafted content wherever they like. I mean handcrafted can even be a very special npc with unusual storybricks elements that goes against his expected profile (a Sith Lord that doesnt backstab you when it's convenient for example).
I'm not ready to concede that procedural generation and awesome RPG stories are incompatible.
hope they have some solver/logicprog for bricks.
and, to some extent, be able to script our own brick for our avatar.
and, to some extent, be able to script our own brick for our avatar.
zzeris
The Real Benny Johnson
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This game is the future of both Storybricks and the EQ franchise. While this will not be comparable to what Storybricks could do in five years, it will still be the best product they can possibly supply. I'm pretty sure this is a significant step forward in any light we want to shine it.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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But that's the thing. The developers of storybricks have already stated they don't want that learning curve. That's the whole point. So if they reach their goal of ease of use for it, the developers for EQN won't have an excuse as to why it's primitive and crude.
That's going to leave two simple reasons as to why it is primitive and crude.
1) Storybricks failed on being easy to use without a large learning curve.
2) SOE abused the tool for a rush of content to ship a title which has suffered two stop starts. (Source on stop starts: Smedley)
Let's hope it's neither and everything goes as planned.
And then my question to you would be if it is primitive and crude, and the entire game is based around it, why would we want to play it? And what incentive would we have to purchase anything from the online store other than just go play with Landmark for a while?
My personal belief is that there isn't much faith for me in this project when storybricks finally was able to solve the problem of story branching, while the entirety of EQN is riding on technology not in SOE's control.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fact they are trying something new. I can admit 1) I am jaded. As a lot of us are. 2) Without a tool in control of a developer/pub, it's about as bad as using a third party non in house engine for MMORPG development.
Daidraco
Avatar of War Slayer
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Procedurally generating a realistic world based on voxels, and then using mapping software to find the points of conflict/interest, Im sure, would just be a developers wet dream. That software just seems like it would drastically cut down on tons and tons of work. But I dont think Ill ever be a fan of generating content that the player is going to directly interact with, such as towns, quests, dungeons or raid zones. I feel like those areas, even if the base framework for them is generated, need to be populated by the developers. ... and of course, the world needs amazing lore to go along with it. I thought Copernicus was going to do well because so much money was invested into the lore of the world. I still wonder how big of a boat we missed with that failure.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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Do you really base your concerns on that? They can "not want that learning curve" until they are blue in the face but it is still going to be there. That is a fact nobody can seriously dispute. I consider that statement as a badly phrased "we put high priority on providing accessible, easy to learn software", because that is the only way to take it serious. There is just no way they literally mean anyone installing their software is an automatic expert at using it.
Even with a great Storybricks editor SOE can still scuttle this ship in various ways, and given their history rushing it out half-done would be one of the more likely reasons for a failure. Drawing such a binary conclusion like yours just from the badly worded Storybricks goal is a bit much though.
As for playing it even if one of or even the defining feature is simplistic and crude? Assuming character development, exploration and combat are OK or better, I probably will. A new approach to the genre would still beat regurgitating the quest style gameplay ad nauseum.
Not to mention the Devs for StoryBricks will expand upon the original version of the software over time leading to more and more complex behavior, I assume.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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From the video shown, it doesn't look all that intense to use and formulate with even a small amount of developer experience. That was my point. So if the tool fails it's because it isn't finished when the game launches, or SOE is fairly inept when using the tool itself. Either way, when making MMORPG's I think you can agree when you add possible points of failure outside of your control, it usually spells terrible. Take a look at Hero Engine and other 3rd party engines used for today's MMORPG's when fixes and engine problems are out of the hands of the developers making the game. Now let's take that a step further and base the entire content / world content system on a tool outside of your control.
From what I saw though, the system itself for Storybricks doesn't look complex on paper or in the interface shown.