Well, as physics gets more theoretical it gets more mathematical, and there are certainly mathematical objects that have a finite start point and infinite dimension. A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_%28geometry%29#Ray, is a two dimensional object of this kind. Our universe is actually has four dimensions. (From a give spacetime coordinate, you could define it as Up-down, left-right, back-forward, and time). It's a higher order space than is easily visualized, but it could be compared to a ray of sorts. (It is anologous to a ray in 4 dimensions.) However, we are most off topic. Even though this is a troll topic.

Agree to disagree?

That is true: giving players the tools to create their own experience is, by far, the superior approach. However, modern games differ vastly - they have VASTLY higher degrees of freedom (as steepledhat mentioned) - especially for open-world games like the TES series, where the player isn't being railroaded into a specific plot element. Consider the degrees of freedom available in a text-based MUD - up,down,left,right,action - versus the degrees of freedom in a modern 3D game. Is the player going to be trapped by a wandering tree branch? Is he going to clip with that alter? With degrees of freedom, comes exorbitant testing and quality assurance costs, one of the reasons why modern game design is so prohibitively expensive. Player expectations, due to competition, demo showings, etc are similarly lofty, demanding developers to make mechanistic sacrifices for aesthetic presentability.

Sorry that didn't actually answer your question, but it's part of the reason why most games make the design decisions that they do.

Be fortunate though that Bethesda is not EA (yet) and still finds it sensible to give developer tools to players (i.e. CK). And actually have moderators on their forums to address these questions, when there is absolutely no obligation for them to do so.

See, the thing I don't care for about all of the "infinite random possibilities" is that, while seemingly possible, there is no logical/reasonable basis for it.

A universe that continually expands or caused by a big bang, etc... it's saying that it's possible that a planet can be created exactly as a large-scale model of a Toyota Camry... with all of its inhabitants consisting of half-human-half-cat girls who speak perfect Japanese. That's utterly absurd.

As for computers, yes, the artificial intelligence can get smarter. But it will only do so if its original programming allows it to do so. You can't just program a computer with a few 1's and 0's to make it say "Hello World"... then leave it and expect it to do anything else. There must be intention... and it must have proper implementation.

It's the same reason that each post in this thread has relation to posts before it, even if it did go off-topic. There's a reason nobody has randomly blurted out something like... "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US... the cake is a lie... ihenLAnfaoepfjsd;dfopejrla." There is a logical progression to the conversation. Though, I must confess, some of the off-the-wall randomness can be quite entertaining!

That's... actually not outside of the realm of possibility. Though there's less certainty on that point. (Certain possibilites that the laws of physics need not be uniform over the entire universe still exist.) It's less likely, but possible.
Here's some good stuff to read if you are interested.
So, http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html

Oh, I know it's not easy... and it's very complex. But then again, that comes with the territory for computer programmers. Really, an open-world is still just like the text-based MUD, except you have a few more directions to move in. Granted you are asked which direction you're going to go a LOT more. It all comes down to "if the player chooses this, then do that."

I know it's not exactly fair to compare them, but if complexity were an issue, we would not have Windows. I don't even want to imagine the number of lines of code! But it's really the same thing as a game. It's like a miniature poodle compared to a great dane. They are both still dogs. They function the same.

I'm just thinking that 15 years to improve on Daggerfall's random generation system should certainly have resulted in MUCH improvement. It may not be perfect, but it should be EPIC nonetheless!



Hahaha, regardless of what is possible in other universes, I don't exactly believe that such a wondrous event is possible in this universe. If I'm mistaken, PLEASE tell me how to get to the Japanese cat-girl planet!

Lets not mistake possibilities (ideas of infinity) with potentials (what can happen). An ever expanding universe is still not infinite - especially if it had a beginning. What the mind calls infinite is just a way of not being able to measure - and a yearning for freedom from the bonds of suffering.

======

On new topic ... I was very let down by the so called radiant AI. I don't care if it is an NPC in town one or an NPC in town two that gives me a quest - if all that happens is I end up going to the same damn dungeon to get the same reward (and leveled list reward to pad that out). That is not all that unique at all. And it only held the magic for me until my mind caught the pattern. Now we have radiant quests being detailed on UESP.

What I'd like to see is different paths and different outcomes.

That right there would increase re-playability many fold. No need for infinite variety when there is just enough variety to hold the attention longer and make the pattern harder to grasp.

If at each step of a quest real choices are given that then provide more branches later. Then even fewer quests provide more things to do.

I'm tired of games promising this and only getting it so that we see right away the consequences. The only game that I've played that came near that is witcher.

AMEN!!!

Another favorite game of mine is Mount and blade warband - where most of what you see (other than factions and town locations) is generated (though again from menus and lists).

But you create the plot - you fight for who you want to fight for. I've played intense campaigns with that game and some really awesome mods for it. It really is an example of sandbox play as it pushes you to do nothing but survive. There is no main quest and everything comes down to what you want to do.

None of the TES games are sandbox. There is always a plot -- always something pushing you. You can take your time certainly, but you are eventually expected to do this thing.

So in addition to wanting real branching quests I'd think sandbox elements would be good too.

Like the idea of divorcing the main quest from the civil war. If the main quest were a true branched experience and then the civil war was left to its own as a sandbox - this game would be THE game. it would be complicated but I think with an eye toward watching faction relationships and MQ progress that could be done.

Perhaps if we get some real progress on other province mods then we can have alternate main quests - because in my mind being the dragonborn basically is a human/nord thing. If a high elf is the dragon born then how does that not turn the world on its head? Of course I've not finished the game so don't spoiler it for me - so don't answer that.

[edit] coming back to this after some reflection. Branching quests in this game with real and true different outcomes - could not be procedurally generated. With AI schedules and NPCs needed for other things (therefore made essential) this would have to be handcrafted. So I can see that for quests it is either hand crafted or procedural and very little could overlap. A limitation of the system.

I don't know.

While intelligent generation and branches of quests suits my need for variety, the freeform nature of something like mount and blade came with a natural consequence of bareness and repetition. I had the same feeling with daggerfall. Once you knew the individual parts, watching them combine never brought wonder and surprise. Two key components of immersion for me. These games are great, imo, but they don't bring me the sense of contentment achieved by playing skyrim and to a lesser extent oblivion and morrowind.

Perhaps I like the illusion of freedom more than the consequences of it's actual implementation within a reasonable timeframe. In skyrim the generated misc quests pad out an assortment of things you can do. However the crafting of content is the significant portion of the game, this means that something unpredictable and possibly meaningful might happen at any moment.

Branching tiers to misc quests (have a pool of starts, a pool of midways, and a pool of endings, interchange) is all I really want from skyrim. And I believe that will be moddable once the scene get's more hands on time with the tools/or/skse evolves a little further.

I guess what I am saying is, while i respect random generation, and a self craftable storyline. I've yet to see any implementation that made it create that same feeling of wonder, that watching something handcrafted brought.

Being able to roleplay within the confines of richly developed content, although an illusion, is a more convincing illusion.

Yeah I guess the only way to mix true sandbox with handcrafted quests in the same game is to have the components of one never touch the other.

But both mods would be interesting. I know for Oblivion the only mod that was truly a branching quest that approached having different outcomes was integration.

But having a mod that introduced new factions that was sandbox would be intriguing. But likely it could not overlaps much with other (maybe even vanilla) content.

IMO people should wait till Skyrim modding really takes off (it has a huge community of modders behind it coming from Oblivion&Morrowind and Fallout3&New Vegas) and then make comparisons.

That being said I disagree with what someone stated before regarding shadows in MW being better than Skyrim... from a technological point of view that is simply untrue. And aesthetically you can get some very good looking shadows with some INI tweaks and maybe ENB throw in there (which fixes a few meshes not generating shadows).

I loved MW, spent a lot of time in it but... between a "pretty game" (it looks horrible by today's standards IMO) and solid gameplay I'll take solid gameplay... Skyrim.

Take the even numbers. Divide them into groups and call each group a configuration.
Since the set of even numbers is infinite, every possible configuration will eventually come to be.
But there are groups of numbers that contain no even numbers.

Just because something is infinite does not mean it must cover every possibility. Indeed, there are fundamentally more possible configurations then there are "sectors" even in an infinite universe, so in fact it's not just that it might not cover all of them, it's impossible. (The proof of this is by a classic technique known as diagonalization) Indeed, one possible configuration would be "infinite in extent" - how do you propose fitting more than one infinite object into the universe!

Back on-topic: procedurally generated dungeons are not going to match hand-made ones for a while. I'd rather have fewer, but better options then hundreds of mundane ones.

problem simply is that beth refuses to get itself a new engine... they rather "tweak" that old thing from morrowind... added normal maps and AA and... well and thats basicly it lol...
its not like physiqued clothing or 3dimesnional waves would be that hard to create or very performance heavy either, it prolly wouldnt be perfect but doable...

however we gotta be fair, most of these mods are truly horrible performance wise, morrowind with MGE stuttered on my old rig whilst vanilla oblivion ran smoothly... just as an example

but we probably wont see any advance in gaming graphics/physics/engines in general as long as ALL games are based on the ancient xbox360 hardware... its getting ridiculous, compare witcher 2 with his really nifty graphics to skyrim, skyrim nearly makes my eyes bleed! beth couldnt even be bothered to add directx 11 or at least 10 support... at least for the pc version, they had a deadline and needed to get their stuff done... what we ended up with as pc users is hideous

in fallout fo example they introduced the "1stperson/3rdperson" model and texture system which used different quality levels for npcs and player items, that system is in skyrim too, however the 1st person high quality stuff is simply the ugly low poly, low quality texture 3rdperson/npc stuff, probably because those dusty consoles couldnt handle it at all, however they were too lazy or too time pressed to remove that system and hence the games filesize got bloated and the calculations on what to show on your screen got complicated and hence more performance heavy, they kinda kicked their own nuts and wasted valuable performance once again (again... fallouts animations in nif files were utterly useless for example but probably are artifacts from before they hardcoded animation slots to restrict modding)
i assume its not even the beth developers fault as those two examples show that they tried at least, but really that of publishers like zenimax, they make idiotic deadlnes like 11/11/11 and dont let the devs do their job properly and thourougly giving us a sophisticated product instead of a product barely held together with duct tape

Is it really two different models?

I was starting to think that the game just renders things differently as if it gives a priority to certain textures over others and then renders the higher ones better.

Like in Oblivion you could choose from the set up menu to have textures large or small - I was kind of thinking that it was doing that on the fly depending on what texture and what is happening.

nah it doesnt sadly...

all you have are:

-LOD (level of detail... aka distant objects)
for very distant objects IF the level designer made LOD models and textures, they aint generated automaticly, hit a certain distance to that obejct and they get replaced by the lowfi LOD stuff

-mipmaps
which are smaller sized versions of your texture, depending on texture quality these get activated and shown ingame, it doesnt seems to kick in depending on distance to object which would be cool, it does in egosofts x3 rfor example... never experienced it in a beth engine game, they aint generated automaticly on the fly either, however you simply check a box when you save a texture and theyre created automaticly then

-1stperson/3rdperson system thing
in fallout 3 and NV it was used to distinquish player weapons (1stperson model) from npc weapons(3rdperson model), doesnt really have anything to do with 1st or 3rd person view but who uses a weapon, nevertheless did its job...
the 1stperson model usually was still the 3rd person model but could have had more polies nevertheless, its just more work to create two models instead of one, the automatic algorythms to lower polygon count simply svck still for most jobs, hence they only used one, BUT the textures were different, 1024p textures on the player for example vs 512p on npcs, this obviously vastly reduced performance drops as a 512p uses up 4 times less performance than a 1024p texture...
in skyrim however all the weapons i checked used the same model AND texture for both versions
the system however is set up in a way that you need to pay tribute to it in your workflow or have no player or inventory objects, theyd just be invisible and hence increased workload for the devs and also performance load without gaining the advantage of the gain in performance by using lowfi stuff for places it doesnt matter and good quality in places where it does matter... heck skyrim game uses 512p textures! fallout had 1024p yet lol... damn consoles >.<

Going back to the point of this thread:

MGE does indeed have fantastic shaders. Seeing that there are already shader injectors that add SSAO (we need HBAO!) and HDR, perhaps good water shaders are within the realm of possibility soon. If only we could convince Ph.D. CG researchers to make more mods like Jorge Jhymanz's MLAA injector

Mount & Blade is a great series! I want a tweaked and fluid version of its combat system in TES! Have you play the new mod "The Last Days" yet for the original?



Yes, that's the danger of random generation. But that can have a lot to do with poor implementation and lack of variety. Sadly, it seems that a hand-crafted world can severely lack variety, though. If you've seen it once, you'll never have a new experience. It really comes down to how many unique "pieces" the devs put into random generation.

As for me, I'm trying to focus more on random dungeon generation. Not that I'd know how to get it in game, but just the logic behind making it work. I do believe someone made a random dungeon generator for either Morrowind or Oblivion. I fear I can't remember.

But just imagine if the "open-world" terrain was randomly generated. The game, if the engine could handle it, could go on forever! Then place random dungeons randomly throughout that random world. It would be a great modding tool if nothing else... then a modder could sprinkle hand-crafted elements such as towns and NPCs wherever he wishes without having to do all of the leg-work. Just release a new section of game-world every few weeks or so. Imagine what a full team could do with such a tool! Hand-crafted quests, companions, etc. It would even allow more time to make unique creatures and weapons that could be regionally located.


Ps. Didn't Bethesda make Oblivion's game-world by some kind of scripted or random generation engine?

This post has the link to mapping what was generated versus hand crafted in Oblivion.
The best random generated dungeons I've seen are the Diablo games.

No I've not played that mod for M&B - the last great mod I played was Prophesy of Pendor.

The MERP team were/are working on a M&B combat system for Oblivion and now Skyrim, but don't expect anything to be announced till after the CK is released.

Ah, now that is very interesting! Do they have a site? I'm starting to get excited!

There are some WIP videos http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1136004-wip-merp-blade/.

I think http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1204037-wip-merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-project/ - this is about much much more than just combat though.

Still I'd rather have some of Duke Patrick's combat mod action in Mount and Blade.

Thank you so much!
Did I REALLY just see spears in Skyrim? And jousting???

And yes, I do love Duke's stuff! I'm glad to see him already enhancing Skyrim!

But I also like the concept of Mount & Blade where one swing can end a fight!

To be honest, even though it completely against RPG roots, I still long for a day when health in no longer determined by hit points. Give me superficial, minor, major, and fatal wounds. Let combat effectiveness be based on those. Live by the sword, die by the sword

Die by the sword - now there is an old game.

No you saw all that in Oblivion. Those were videos on the oblivion engine.

Duke just released the start of his work tonight!!

There was a great mod for Oblivion called real health, but late it was shown to have issues - who knows what the CK will bring.

Silly me! I meant Oblivion, haha! I guess I'm getting too excited!

Ah, real health. Sounds promising! I hope Skyrim finds a way to get a functional version. I don't see myself being able to play Oblivion for a while... my PC just won't handle it. I'm shocked that Skyrim is playable

They did, and then they build on top of that. And the game felt barren in places as a result as was the second most complained thing next to "bandits in glass Armour"

The thing you have to consider is that random generation in diablo was on a 2d plane using prefab'ed assets. Mostly it combined already made block combinations and just placed the connecting ends of each to another pre-made block combination. In skyrim you have a world that has an entry point from every angle. Even a huge team of artists don't get every single rock to place correctly and you see underworld seams and such.

Daggerfall was mostly using sprite combinations, the actual tiles where already given sweeps as to what a certain location would be like. And honestly, imo, daggerfall was a huge failure in that area.

And think, that was using sprites. Placeables = ugh.

Short version of above, if you manage to pull it off you are a genus.

No it's comedy at it's finest.

Thanks for the smiles.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword