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[drChengele]

the very reason they're fun to explore is exactly because they aren't as complex or realistic as the real world.

I would have thought it's because they are DIFFERENT from the real world, regardless of complexity or realism.

[shig]

the very reason they're fun to explore is exactly because they aren't as complex or realistic as the real world.

I would have thought it's because they are DIFFERENT from the real world, regardless of complexity or realism.

Exploring places in real life is fun, too. And if someone made a game that let me walk around an exact replica of, say, Tokyo, I'd find it a great experience.

so you're both wrong 

[drChengele]

Exploring places in real life is fun, too. And if someone made a game that let me walk around an exact replica of, say, Tokyo, I'd find it a great experience.
so you're both wrong  

Heheh. Of course most people can't afford a trip to Tokyo on a whim, or, say, a DC-9, so simulations certainly have their place. But it always struck me as a bit of a waste of medium's potential to make simulations.

This reminds me of my sister, who's been known to play Nintendogs for hours on end while neglecting HER REAL LIFE ACTUAL DOG.  

[__stdcall]

I know exactly the feeling.

exploring things meant to be explored (or specifically designed or engineered to be) is dull and hollow.
it should be all about excitement of something unexpected, something either I or even no one has seen before, revealing something share-worthy but for all - something new.

modern games tend to utilize vast procedurally generated worlds (terrain maps) as a mean of exploration-content, when in fact it's just the same thing over and over again - "been there, done that" sums up most of the "exploration" there is in AAA titles these days IMO.

However, there are games closer to my understanding of the above definition, like Minecraft for example (although I don't play it very much) - roaming various servers constantly stumbling upon some gems someone has build or whole new ideas of using blocks - that is inspiring.
if the same content were designed by the team to be "explored" by players, everyone would follow more or less the same path leading to the same locations, thus re-exploring the same things again.

and because in Minecraft everything is created by players, you can never know what you will find... - that's the point of exploration


now, extrapolating to high quality games - there is actually a problem with rising graphics detail level: how to deliver so much content, to allow players to freely roam and discover new and new things - in best case, without needing extra work on behalf of developers.
* take a look at Eve-Online - although the game is beautiful, every location (moons, deadspaces, unknown sec) looks practically the same - some random debris models scattered around inside a skybox. you can find exactly same thing on the other end of the universe in the game, there is absolutely no identity of regions.
* as for World of Warcraft - well, without a doubt the universe is vast and rich, but is specifically predesigned in every aspect and honestly there isn't any room for exploration, as everytinhg has already been explored in this games 1000 times. it's like a fore-mentioned "Museum"
* now look at Second Life - yes, it is a junkyard and you can find all crap in the world in that game, but, just like Minecraft, opportunities to find something new and outstanding are endless - because the worlds is endless (i.e. ever-growing)

My voice is for user-created content, but contained in the overall game's theme.
apart from that exploration will always be just a gimmick in games

[drChengele]

My voice is for user-created content, but contained in the overall game's theme.
apart from that exploration will always be just a gimmick in games.

I read an in-depth article once about the economics of MMORPGs and modern games in general. As years go by the amount of media and content that needs to go into a game has skyrocketed, and with that the number of man-hours that need to go into making the game. On the other hand, games cost only marginally more than they did at the time. Think about how much more detailed textures need to be, how much more smoothly modeled and animated the characters must be today. That is why games are becoming more and more expensive to make, they need to sell more copies to break even, they need more marketing, they turn to DLC schemes. And the games themselves become shorter because a 10 hour single-player campaign requires half the assets of a 20-hour one.

This is why the industry will sooner or later inevitably turn to user-created content or procedural generation - or crash horribly.

Ever since I saw Elite with its 8 galaxies FULL OF DIFFERENT PLANETS run on my Commodore 64 which had 48 kilobytes of RAM memory, I've been a fan of procedural generation. "Guided" proc-gen with a bank of predefined objects is the way roguelikes have been doing it for 20 years now and I wish modern games would take the hint. Those that did have become huge cash cows - loot grinding in Diablo or, later, WoW, comes to mind as a prime example of "guided" procedural generation. Weapons in Borderlands qualify too.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

exploring procedurally generated stuff never felt fun to me actually, because i knew it was just randomly made up -- it doesn't feel like it has a personal touch. there's a big difference to me between "exploring" a randomly generated rougelike dungeon and exploring in a game like seiklus or small worlds.

[jpgray]

exploring procedurally generated stuff never felt fun to me actually, because i knew it was just randomly made up -- it doesn't feel like it has a personal touch. there's a big difference to me between "exploring" a randomly generated rougelike dungeon and exploring in a game like seiklus or small worlds.

Yep.  The trade-off with procedural stuff is that you get a massive world to explore, but it is mostly generic, abstract, ugly and impersonal.  If you can tie a compelling narrative or thematic gloss over it, though, it can still be effective in increasing scope.  The more your game's focus is a well-structured narrative, however, the less reason a player has to explore the 99.9999% of the gameworld that has nothing to do with the game.  You could scatter your plot points all across it, I suppose, but since most of what the player sees will be abstract and generic, that would kill some of the pacing.

[gimymblert]

I do not agree, procedural don't have to be ugly, uninspired, random and abstract... it takes more time to came with an aesthetic oriented algorythm but's not possible.

Problem Most procedural are made by programmer and tend to programmer art. Artist that use procedural generally end up using what the programmer lay out for him.

We need artist with programming mind!

[drChengele]

Of course procedural generation cannot outright replace a good designer. I've seen this "PG tends to be boring" argument before.

Well, it's tricky. PG cannot create truly new content, only content within the parameters given to it by programming, and drawing from a pool of rules given to it. If the pool is too small and the PG content numbers too large, you will have relatively uniform appearance of every pool element and while random it will not feel new or exciting, which is the usual way PG is implemented in games.

Expanding on my earlier Elite example, Frontier and First Encounters had a procedurally generated galaxy. However, preventing the game from becoming boring (your mileage may vary), there was a number of very rare planetary attributes (civil war, imports radioactives, etc.) which really made all the difference in the world when you found one even though yes, they were procedurally generated. In addition to this there were non-generated, but premade star systems (Sol and its immediate vicinity, all the major stars of the galaxy such as Achernar, Sirius etc.). These two methods are a prime example of how PG can be useful as long as it is not the ONLY method you use to create games.

[gimymblert]

Of course procedural generation cannot outright replace a good designer. I've seen this "PG tends to be boring" argument before.

This is the silly conception i fight against: There is no PG without a designer, it cannot replace a designer because it is the designer who made it first. PG is a craft not a magic artefact. PG are just rules and game ARE actually PG experiences. It's just a new way of encoding informations, a paradigm shift. PG should be see like a style guide.

PG need to be designed in to begin with.

[Ben_Hurr]

Procedural generation is just teaching the computer how to make content for you, whether it be levels, models, or textures, music, and sound effects.

The trick is programming the computer to do such a thing with any sort of quality is harrrrrd.

I would absolutely play an exploration game with procedurally made environments, as long as it was of some quality.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah, me too -- i wasn't saying it's impossible, just that it's never been done well that i've seen. i've never yet seen a procedurally generated world that's as fun to explore as the average handmade world. maybe this will change in the future, if so, great. but i have to deal with what exists, not with what could exist.

[moi]

You just need to tell the computer how to procedurally do the game RIGHT

[gimymblert]

The real question is HOW!

I think part of the problem is the over reliance on "random" as a replacement designer. Design is everything but random, random is just a tool that is use like Photoshop filters, nice effect fast.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think you missed the sarcasm

[gimymblert]

no it was irrelevent  even things intend as sarcasm can bring good point 

[Ninja Disguise]

Shadow of the Colossus is probably the only game that I honestly enjoy just wandering around in. It's gorgeous and atmospheric, and lends something to the game. SoTC wouldn't be one of my favorite things of all time if that element wasn't there, even though it's simple and unimportant.

But playing FFXIII lately has also made me realize, all that bullshit "exploring" really does lend itself to pacing. Walking down nothing but linear pathways has made me miss the days when I walked into dead ends for no reason. Even though that's frustrating, I feel like I'm being robbed of control. It shrinks the scope of the game, and it never feels like I'm in a large area - just these tight little corridors surrounded by pretty objects. In fact, a lot of FFXIII's streamlining brought to light how much the standard bog of RPGs actually affected the game positively.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

you didn't beat ff13, did you. 2/3 of the game is non-linear open world, it's only the first 1/3 that is like what you describe.

(i also noticed this trend in reviews of the game -- people don't bother to beat games before reviewing them anymore, i guess)

[Mipe]

What is at fault here - the exploration content or our limited mindset?

[gunmaggot]

Many of the games that have best, uh, explored exploration are procedurally generated.  Roguelikes are awesome at it because of the way you uncover bits of the map at a time - exploration in Nethack is pretty damn addictive.
I don't think any game has done it better than Civilization, or even come close.
In these games you know that nobody has ever set foot where you just have, not even the designers.
Specially hidden secrets in games like Mario/Sonic/Metroid/Zelda/Doom etc. are irreplaceable though.
Personally, I don't think any game I've played has punished me more cruelly for exploring than Shadow of the Colossus - everywhere you go has some interesting path off to the side that looks like it leads somewhere interesting, so you take a look, be amazed ... and get kind of pissed when you find you were going to go there next colossus anyway.  Despite the vastness of the landscape, there are almost no places you won't visit during the natural course of events.