Random Gaming Thoughts

[prfsnl_gmr]

I agree about the lack of sub-forums too.

I think the lack of sub-forums is a genius idea. It brings all the gaming talk into one area and exposes people to concepts, news, and genres they normally wouldn't know about or think would be interesting.

First, you hate Fairune, and now you espouse getting rid of sub-forums! What's next?! A well-reasoned defense of kitten murder?!

[RCBH928]

I think if games development ceased to exist today, there are enough games to entertain humanity for eternity.

I will assume the PS2 has 1500 games, and you will average one game per 2 weeks, then thats enough games for 62 years of constant gaming.

[Exhuminator]

A well-reasoned defense of kitten murder?!

Reasons? We don't need no stinkin' reasons!

Farmer Rat Frederic's final solution for Mitten's disregard of his carefully cultivated flowers.

[Snatch1414]

Okay I have to get this off my chest about No Man's Sky after watching an 18 minute gameplay vid:

There will be a catch. I don't know what it'll be but it will be there. This game looks ground-breaking and if it delivers on its promises it will be in the conversation for greatest game of all time. I really believe that. Thing is, tell me how many times you've heard that before.

Billions of planets stretching miles and miles each (hundreds? thousands??), most or all of which have their respective moons as well? Seamless travel between all of these without load times? How exactly is the PS4 going to do this? Maybe a better way to answer the question: How is it that this tiny developer has all of a sudden surpassed every other company in the industry in terms of game size, scope, and technical achievement? Have every single one of them been holding out on us this whole time? As profit-centric as some of them are, I have a hard time believing that.

Feel free to tell me what I'm missing as I am not programming savvy in the least, so you could argue my opinion holds little to no water. At the same time we've all seen this before and never was there a time when the actual release was anything like we expected or were promised. I feel like I'm sane in an insane world because it seems like I'm the only one waiting for the other shoe to drop based on the fact that we've been over this so many times in the past with games.

Like I said, I don't know what the catch will be. Maybe it'll be load times, or a lack of diversity in the worlds, or not enough gameplay, or maybe the game will just be kind of a snooze-fest after you play it for a few hours. Could be a weak argument, but I have history on my side.

[Sarge]

Sometimes I get annoyed by too many subforums, too. It's lots of different places I have to go to keep track of things that I'm interested in. Why, we should have one single subforum that only talks about the things I'm interested in!

(No, don't kill the kitten! Kittens (and cats) are awesome!)

[fastbilly1]

Like I said, I don't know what the catch will be. Maybe it'll be load times, or a lack of diversity in the worlds, or not enough gameplay, or maybe the game will just be kind of a snooze-fest after you play it for a few hours. Could be a weak argument, but I have history on my side.

Several years ago there was this great little PC game called Terraria. When the developer called it quits on the PC version in 2012 (he later came back and released three large updates and a host of smaller ones), another company started working on a follow up game, similar style but "infinite". This game is called Starbound. It has been in Playable Alpha/Early Access for the almost two years now. It is Terraria, with infinite planets to explore and a whole host of creatures and landscapes. However after you get off the third or fourth planet, you realize that your character is pretty much strip mining planets he goes to and there is little reason to continue once you get to X level planets. So much hope, no real reason to play it. And with the patch a few months ago, it started lagging everyones machines - I went from 40ishfps to a solid 10fps, so I stopped playing.

So I view No More Sky will be just like Starbound. It sounds beyond awesome in concept, but in execution there is little there but tourism and strip mining. That said, I really hope they can prove me wrong.

[Exhuminator]

How exactly is the PS4 going to do this?

Streaming procedural generation. You don't need a PS4 for this. There are other games that have done this since long ago in the past. For example, 1986's Starflight:

McConnell hired colleague Dave Boulton, who had an idea for using fractals to generate an endless virtual universe, along with Kercso, Gonsalves, Lee, and Johnson, all of whom were first time game designers. The group designed what they called a "fractal generator", which took six man-years to develop and allowed them to increase the number of planets in the game. They created a separate ecosystem generator over the course of two man-years of work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight#Development

This is not a new concept for a game even in the slightest. It just seems new because no one's done it in a while, or ever this pretty.

How is it that this tiny developer has all of a sudden surpassed every other company in the industry in terms of game size, scope, and technical achievement?

Because the developer is utilizing randomized creation of the game's universe. It's not hand crafted. You want to talk about real procedural generational technical achievement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger

Feel free to tell me what I'm missing

The reality that randomized games using procedurally generated elements lead to bland and mechanical environments that quickly become boring due to repetitive banality.

Also dead kittens.

[noiseredux]

So I view No More Sky will be just like Starbound. It sounds beyond awesome in concept, but in execution there is little there but tourism and strip mining. That said, I really hope they can prove me wrong.

plz don't forget about the dinosaurs.

[fastbilly1]

So I view No More Sky will be just like Starbound. It sounds beyond awesome in concept, but in execution there is little there but tourism and strip mining. That said, I really hope they can prove me wrong.

plz don't forget about the dinosaurs.

Starbound has dinosaur aliens aswell.

[Ack]

Starbound has dinosaur aliens aswell.

It does. And robots. You're basically playing as the Borg anyway, so you might as well get into it.