It's all in your head, Part 7

[xander]

Technically, Diablo was a clickfest with RPG elements :P

It contained RPG elements? Man, I must have been so busy clicking that I missed those. :\

xander

[Pox]

Technically, Diablo was a clickfest with RPG elements

True that. But aren't all RTS-control RPGs clickfests? I can never understand how people play pausable DnD games.

[wwarnick]

...
Where are the stadiums? the lone "tallest" skyscraper? The parks? I realize that oftentimes these are the bits that are handpicked for location... but given all you've done, it seems the next obvious step, even before street-level detail. What about taking into account what's "off" the map: a major highway route would have more along it than other parts of the city.

Like I said, while it all looks fantastic, it seems to lack that last bit of variety, that human touch that I'm sure you could put in. What about the slums? Chinatown? Waterfront property: harbors, docks... Industrial complexes, surrounded by mostly roads and terrible, small housing. These are the bits that strike me as most important. Navigating a city such as the one generated in the video would be nigh on impossible except by street name. A true city would be one where when you woke up on a bench not knowing where you were, you could tell what part of the city you were in.
...

You're criticizing a work in progress. Moreover, you're criticizing progress that hasn't even been made yet.

wwarnick

[QuadeHale]

I wouldn't say I'm criticizing progress that hasn't been made yet, I'm more curious as to whether these things are being looked at. It was mentioned that the next step is going to street level - when it doesn't seem like that should be the next logical step, if you're after a realistic city. Then again, I, along with the rest of us, have no idea whether this city's even supposed to BE realistic or not for sure. From the sounds of things, it is supposed to be, hence my "pre-criticism". If it's not, then may the good lords of gaming strike me down.

But really, to reply to you: there's no point in criticizing a finished work, is there? At that point, nothing can really be done about the criticism, since it's finished.

That being said, this is a comment thread regarding this post. I don't think my reply was out of line whatsover. I praise the work being done here, and I made that clear. But if you were daVinci, painting Mona Lisa not smiling, just as a portrait, and someone said "maybe she should smile"... would you reject that opinion/idea based solely on the fact that they don't know what you're planning? That it's a work in progress? Only a fool would, and certainly daVinci didn't.

Sorry for going a bit off topic. It just didn't make sense much

On a second off topic, I played through Darwinia again yesterday. Still one of the most original, entertaining games I have ever played.

[KingAl]

From the sounds of things, it is supposed to be...

You really think so?

And finally, Rendering : This is our first attempt to render the results in a moody style more fitting to the game. Lots more work to be done here, but we're happy with what we have so far.

That suggests to me that IV are going for the anonymous corporatism of Uplink, and as such both landmarks and realism may be undesirable. Notice the buildings are actually semi-transparent, which makes complex textures seem unlikely. Also, you'll note that in the other blog thread which you've commented in, Drinking from a perfectly rendered Poison Chalice, Mark has shown a certain level of hostility to unnecessary realism. I can't for a certainty say that they won't aim for a realistic city, but it's looking doubtful.

When it comes down to it, though, whatever you predict of the final game, heed Chris's warning: "It's all in your head".

[Cooper42]

Apologies if this has already been posted. Given that urban theory was once my background, I've been interested at various attempts to (re)create and (re)present virtual cities grafted by pre-defined relations or procedures. If only from a cultural aspect, games such as SimCity and GTA give an idea of what certain societies think urban areas are like both aesthetically and functionally. Procedural generation, where notions urban development are made apparent as they are the ground tools for generating cities, rather than hand-made creations defined by more nebulous concepts, are particularly interesting.

In that respect, there's some interesting work noted here:
in an EDGE article on procedural city creation
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8206&Itemid=51

Original site:
http://www.gamr7.com/

[skull13]

*too lazy to quote*

Anyhow, I don't know where this could go. I wouldn't put it past Introversion, with all of their creative genius, to actually make a Subversion-based map editor for multiwinia. Set up armour on top of skyscrapers. Oh, and grenadiers.

[deadly_cookie]

Looking good. I agree with adding variety, but I have one thing to say: Geniality of simplicity. Adding too much variety (harbours, rivers etc) can ruin the magic. (subtle) variety in (library of prefabbed) buildings sounds good, as well as parks, traffic lights. Other than that I would like it to remain simple. Too much emphasis on realism for todays games.

[skull13]

In other news, a possible setting has occured to me:
It takes place after Uplink, in which Revelation has wiped out the Internet.
Not knowing who to blame, corporations now have trained military forces and battle it out, as the government has foolishly relied on corporations to rebuild the internet. Now, each one wishes to be known as the "father" of the second internet, and the objectives are to weaken locations to get into their networking equipment.
What do you think?

[Pox]

In other news, a possible setting has occured to me:
It takes place after Uplink, in which Revelation has wiped out the Internet.
Not knowing who to blame, corporations now have trained military forces and battle it out, as the government has foolishly relied on corporations to rebuild the internet. Now, each one wishes to be known as the "father" of the second internet, and the objectives are to weaken locations to get into their networking equipment.
What do you think?

Eh... I doubt it. IV aren't into sequels, and I'm thinking this is going to be mostly a simulation-oriented thing from the comments the devs have made.

[skull13]

I don't know... A SimCity type thing is a bit low for IV. (If I misunderstood, sorry)
All I know is that if it does involve simulation, different disasters should be present. And not just the "blow 'em up and watch 'em die" varieties either. I'm talking disease, recession, you know, things like that. (Dear God! TOO MANY COMMAS!)
Anyhow, this whole thing won't work on my computer if Chris doesn't optimize it. See part 8 if you don't know.
Hang on:

These particular city shots have between 30,000 and 50,000 buildings in them and currently bring my decent PC to it’s knees. It’s dealing with around a third of a million textured and lit quads – which is to say almost 700,000 polygons per frame. Running hypothetically at our target of 60fps, this would equate to 42 million triangles per second – extremely hard work for even the best graphics hardware. (Although you’ll often hear graphics card manufacturers and console developers quoting hundreds of millions of polys per sec, this is usually only the case in extremely optimal conditions that only ever seem to occur in marketing departments.)

[xander]

Methinks you don't really understand what the word "simulation" really means...

xander

[Pox]

I don't know... A SimCity type thing is a bit low for IV. (If I misunderstood, sorry)
All I know is that if it does involve simulation, different disasters should be present. And not just the "blow 'em up and watch 'em die" varieties either. I'm talking disease, recession, you know, things like that. (Dear God! TOO MANY COMMAS!)
Anyhow, this whole thing won't work on my computer if Chris doesn't optimize it. See part 8 if you don't know.
Hang on:

These particular city shots have between 30,000 and 50,000 buildings in them and currently bring my decent PC to it’s knees. It’s dealing with around a third of a million textured and lit quads – which is to say almost 700,000 polygons per frame. Running hypothetically at our target of 60fps, this would equate to 42 million triangles per second – extremely hard work for even the best graphics hardware. (Although you’ll often hear graphics card manufacturers and console developers quoting hundreds of millions of polys per sec, this is usually only the case in extremely optimal conditions that only ever seem to occur in marketing departments.)

Relax... optmization does exist.

[wwarnick]

A little late for a reply, but:

It was mentioned that the next step is going to street level - when it doesn't seem like that should be the next logical step, if you're after a realistic city.

IV has done research on the subject. Have you?

...there's no point in criticizing a finished work, is there? At that point, nothing can really be done about the criticism, since it's finished.

That's usually when the criticizing happens.

...if you were daVinci, painting Mona Lisa not smiling, just as a portrait, and someone said "maybe she should smile"... would you reject that opinion/idea based solely on the fact that they don't know what you're planning?

A better example: say he hadn't yet painted the smile and someone was saying, "That's anatomically incorrect. She's supposed to have a mouth." A work in progress means "We're working on it. We're not there yet".

wwarnick