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Devs don't understand what "procedurally generated" means?


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Procedurally generated maps/worlds are those generated on the fly by the game.  This means no input necessary, the game creates content AS THE GAME IS PLAYED.

In ARK, maps are NOT procedurally generated.  Instead terrain is randomly pre-generated, much like in the old school game simcity 2000.

At best this is an unfortunate misnomer.  At worst it is false advertising.  Either way it should be renamed because it is not an accurate, but somewhat deceptive description.

Was anyone else disappointed by this?

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Nah, not disappointed. Procedurally -  A series of steps taken to accomplish an end

Could be anything really, even how it currently works. I know a lot of people were hoping for stuff like an endless map (or nearly endless) like in Minecraft.

I think they did what the current engine could support without too much modification.

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Procedurally

adjective

1.
of or relating to a procedure or procedures
 
Procedurally generated just means its created using set procedures and intelligent design, not just randomized patterns.
 
It doesn't mean its generated on the fly.
 
If you are getting confused with infinitely randomly generated maps like Minecraft, those work off of noise installments to create the world. 
 
The Unreal Engine can not handle anything Infinitely, that's common knowledge.
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You are wrong. First procedural generated game was Elite (original one, released in 1984), and it pre-generated entire universe. Currently existed Elite Dangerous generating new stuff on fly, true. But only because that actually easier. Since there 400 billion systems, and pre-generating it all and store information about entire universe would be simply stupidly ineffective. It generates everything only once though. Once generated - info is stored and used further as it.

Another example of upcoming game with PG tech implemented is Star Citizen. But devs goes even further in there. Let engine PG each planet once (waaaay before even game released), and then careful observing every single one of them, and manually editing everything that doesn't look nice.

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Procedural generation is basically a way to create the same content given the same starting parameters. What Ark has is a system that basically allows you to tweak everything that goes into the formulas, rather than just a simple 'seed' like Minecraft or a few other games I've seen has had. 

As someone who has programmed procedural generation systems, I actually found it nice to have more options and hope they add even more with the new biomes. I would admittedly like to just turn off the snow and redwood biomes though... (Color confusion issues)

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Your problem is you apply your own view of the definition and say it has to be with everything else the same.

This is a multiplayer Game and you have to pre-generate content or how should we see bases of other players?

Your described system would not work because you need to account for changes of other players and thats not really possible without loading new data.

In Ark it would consume too much effort/memory to generate the map on the fly and then load all changes from the server because every stone you pick up or every berry bush your harvest is a change from the generation.


Procedural generation means i can use the exact same settings and the generated map is the same (random elements excluded ofc)
It has nothing to do with generating on the fly like no mans sky, they just made a big hype with "their version" of it.

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??? Lol interesting, I can't believe someone thought "procedural arks" we're just going to be infinite, with only so many people per server, what would be the point in that? Wouldn't be much of an ark then would it, might as well call it "entire dang planet generator" honestly we get this awesome feature and you're complaining about it.

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On ‎29‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 2:24 AM, Sov said:

Procedurally generated maps/worlds are those generated on the fly by the game.  This means no input necessary, the game creates content AS THE GAME IS PLAYED.

In ARK, maps are NOT procedurally generated.  Instead terrain is randomly pre-generated, much like in the old school game simcity 2000.

At best this is an unfortunate misnomer.  At worst it is false advertising.  Either way it should be renamed because it is not an accurate, but somewhat deceptive description.

Was anyone else disappointed by this?

Ehm... no. Would be great, but doesn't means that.

This is just ridiculous, first study computer engineering and then return to talk about this.

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On 10/28/2016 at 7:24 PM, Sov said:

Procedurally generated maps/worlds are those generated on the fly by the game.  This means no input necessary, the game creates content AS THE GAME IS PLAYED.

In ARK, maps are NOT procedurally generated.  Instead terrain is randomly pre-generated, much like in the old school game simcity 2000.

At best this is an unfortunate misnomer.  At worst it is false advertising.  Either way it should be renamed because it is not an accurate, but somewhat deceptive description.

Was anyone else disappointed by this?

What a fast search showed for Procedurally generated maps also known as Random Generated maps shows that you are so very wrong OP. I thought the Steam forums was where all the liars gathered. Below you will find the real definition of the term Procedurally generated maps not the one that generated in your mind. 

Source of Fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

 

n computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually. In computer graphics, it is also called random generation and is commonly used to create textures and 3D models. In video games it is used to automatically create large amounts of content in a game. Advantages of procedural generation include smaller file sizes, larger amounts of content, and randomness for less predictable gameplay.

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On 10/28/2016 at 6:04 PM, Sov said:

"Procedurally generated" is an industry term that refers to games like 'no man's sky' that generates content on the fly.  You can talk semantics all you like but that is the game industry definition.  You can make the same senseless argument against many terms and phrases, but in context, the definition is clear.

I'm confused.  Aren't you talking semantics, while telling someone else that they're doing it?  Seems strange.

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Definition;  In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually. In computer graphics, it is also called random generation and is commonly used to create textures and 3D models. In video games it is used to automatically create large amounts of content in a game.

 

In the case of ARK PG maps, the user or host, gets to adjust the variables to their liking. It is still a procedural map, you can generate 2 maps on exactly the same settings, and get 2 entirely different maps.

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8 hours ago, epochdei said:

Definition;  In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually. In computer graphics, it is also called random generation and is commonly used to create textures and 3D models. In video games it is used to automatically create large amounts of content in a game.

 

In the case of ARK PG maps, the user or host, gets to adjust the variables to their liking. It is still a procedural map, you can generate 2 maps on exactly the same settings, and get 2 entirely different maps.

Except that it's not random generation. If all the settings are the same and the algorithm is computed properly, every computer will come up with the same result.

There's many ways to do it as well

- Pre-generation (Ark, Simcity, Diablo 1 and 2 I think did this too). In this scenario the entire gamespace is generated by a complicated algorithm, the results of which get saved in a cache and then reloaded faster. The advantages of this system are more complicated gamespace geometry. The downside is how long it takes to generate, which is why it gets saved and cached. An advantage of this system is the ability to load those caches and manually edit them to look better.

- Edited Generation. This is where the initial conditions are generated procedurally and then edited by a series of rules or manually. Eve online used this for the universe generation and then techs went through the cluster generated and added features manually. At one of their player gatherings, they even showed off the software that generated the stars, their connections, celestial bodies, and other features. They then ran a series of rules they designed to populate the systems, adding in the npc factions, deciding other rules. It resembles a Pre-generation system in that it all gets saved at the end.

- On the fly generation (Like Minecraft, No Man's Sky and Elite:Original did it. ).This only works on (relatively) simple landscapes made of voxels (Blocks or chunks).  It is one of the more complicated methods however, as it's usually tasked with creating immense gamespaces or limitless terrain. This method runs into the problem of storage and permanence of areas already explored. While theoretically the world of Minecraft is infinite, you will eventually run out of hard disk space or memory to store all the changes made. The patterns also tend to repeat, as was seen in No Man's Sky and Elite. More advanced algorithms reduce the chance of repeat, but nothing removes it entirely. This is why I explain that the 'seed' used to create a minecraft world only really changes where 0,0,0 is located in the overall pattern that is the Minecraft world. If you go far enough, you will eventually run into a chunk that is identical to the one you started on or one that was created with a different 'seed.' The number is enormous though, and I think they resolved this issue by having the world wrap around eventually.

I had supposed early on that they would use an On the Fly system as well, like the original poster suggested. When I saw they went for a pre-generation system instead I understood that they were going for a higher visual quality system and it made sense. Now all that's really needed is to add in some of the Edited Generation rules to add things like the Obelisks and Caves to the PGM's and I think they will really be ready.  I would also love to see some editing tools get into the hands of users so they can modify the maps and convert them into .ark files of their own.

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I've personally used what is called a Xor shift random number generator. By taking over the algorithm for generating random numbers, you control the process and ensure that the system generates things in an organized and controlled fashion. It's the same way regular random numbers are generated as well, though a lot of things are always asking the system for random numbers via the generic method (Which uses the system clock as it's seed value). That's why you create your own way in your program, so other programs (or threads) can push the random number to the next integer in it's sequence.

:) 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 10/28/2016 at 9:54 PM, Sov said:

Procedurally generated maps/worlds are those generated on the fly by the game.  This means no input necessary, the game creates content AS THE GAME IS PLAYED.

In ARK, maps are NOT procedurally generated.  Instead terrain is randomly pre-generated, much like in the old school game simcity 2000.

At best this is an unfortunate misnomer.  At worst it is false advertising.  Either way it should be renamed because it is not an accurate, but somewhat deceptive description.

Was anyone else disappointed by this?

It's Procedurally Generated before you start playing. No Man's Sky is also Procedurally Generated, but on a grander scale. Both are created before you play, but only one we have control over. No Man's Sky was procedurally generated with a specific seed. We get to choose our own.

 

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On 10/29/2016 at 0:30 AM, Wyrm said:

You are wrong. First procedural generated game was Elite (original one, released in 1984), and it pre-generated entire universe.

Actually the first game to use PG was Beneath Apple Manor in 1978. Followed by Rogue in 1980.

I was always under the impression that PG games generated content on the fly since that is originally what procedural generation was. It was used due to computer limitations at the time. Maps etc did not have to be generated up front and were done on the fly, using less memory in the process.

Since that time, it has come to mean anything that is randomly generated, either on the fly or generated up front.

 

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  • 3 months later...
On 11/11/2016 at 6:40 PM, Mystalias said:

Except that it's not random generation. If all the settings are the same and the algorithm is computed properly, every computer will come up with the same result.

There's many ways to do it as well

- Pre-generation (Ark, Simcity, Diablo 1 and 2 I think did this too). In this scenario the entire gamespace is generated by a complicated algorithm, the results of which get saved in a cache and then reloaded faster. The advantages of this system are more complicated gamespace geometry. The downside is how long it takes to generate, which is why it gets saved and cached. An advantage of this system is the ability to load those caches and manually edit them to look better.

- Edited Generation. This is where the initial conditions are generated procedurally and then edited by a series of rules or manually. Eve online used this for the universe generation and then techs went through the cluster generated and added features manually. At one of their player gatherings, they even showed off the software that generated the stars, their connections, celestial bodies, and other features. They then ran a series of rules they designed to populate the systems, adding in the npc factions, deciding other rules. It resembles a Pre-generation system in that it all gets saved at the end.

- On the fly generation (Like Minecraft, No Man's Sky and Elite:Original did it. ).This only works on (relatively) simple landscapes made of voxels (Blocks or chunks).  It is one of the more complicated methods however, as it's usually tasked with creating immense gamespaces or limitless terrain. This method runs into the problem of storage and permanence of areas already explored. While theoretically the world of Minecraft is infinite, you will eventually run out of hard disk space or memory to store all the changes made. The patterns also tend to repeat, as was seen in No Man's Sky and Elite. More advanced algorithms reduce the chance of repeat, but nothing removes it entirely. This is why I explain that the 'seed' used to create a minecraft world only really changes where 0,0,0 is located in the overall pattern that is the Minecraft world. If you go far enough, you will eventually run into a chunk that is identical to the one you started on or one that was created with a different 'seed.' The number is enormous though, and I think they resolved this issue by having the world wrap around eventually.

I had supposed early on that they would use an On the Fly system as well, like the original poster suggested. When I saw they went for a pre-generation system instead I understood that they were going for a higher visual quality system and it made sense. Now all that's really needed is to add in some of the Edited Generation rules to add things like the Obelisks and Caves to the PGM's and I think they will really be ready.  I would also love to see some editing tools get into the hands of users so they can modify the maps and convert them into .ark files of their own.

Thank you so much. Its people like you who let devs..let us...tinker. I meen thats part of ark to begin with right? Tinkering. Tweaking. Being an overall ocd mofo haha. I dunno maybe its just me. But i always love developers or accepted 3rd party software that allows us to tweak the game we see fit. But within their guidelines as to still keep ark....ark and not something else. Which brings legallity into it. Like the private WoW servers that got shutdown..even tho they wernt charging accounts, They were accepting donations...which is a very thing grey line. But i seriously love that...all the mods created...skyrim went with it. Thats a great addition to that title(mods) they bring lots of life into the game. More than the devs would ever think possible. And thats nothing but good for them. Weither someone trues and breaks it or makes it better. Tge devs can use that to their advantage every time

 

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On 10/28/2016 at 8:31 PM, wildbill said:

Nah, not disappointed. Procedurally -  A series of steps taken to accomplish an end

Could be anything really, even how it currently works. I know a lot of people were hoping for stuff like an endless map (or nearly endless) like in Minecraft.

I think they did what the current engine could support without too much modification.

Yeah it has a lot of potential but there needs to be a lot of optimization before it could meat up to its true name.

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