| GribbleGrunger said: Yes, that's likely the solar system you need to visit to actual get to the centre of the galaxy. There's just not enough variety of wildlife. Once you've seen one silhouette and animation loop, you've seen them all, regardless of any cosmetic differences. They need new animation rigs for more creature types, more tree types, bush types, flower types etc. That's why I believe they WERE using the superformula but had to pull it and fall back on premade assets. The superformula could produce millions upon millions of plant/tree variations and you wouldn't have seen the same plants/trees on hardly any planets at all. I can understand why some needed to be the same because of having to offer certain resources on every planet but there's a huge lack of diversity when it comes to flora. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ntnFQXYIfo And why didn't they tie upgrading in with the races? It seems an obvious thing to do. Instead of them being random drops or chance conversations, why didn't they make it so you could only get the upgrades in a certain order from different races and to do that you had to get a number of collectables, things that are actually in the game but serve no purpose other than to make money. I'm baffled by some of the missed opportunities for game loops. |
They took on a lot more than they could chew. The variety is still very impressive for such a small team, but true it could be better on many fronts. However I don't think the super formula is that easy as an answer. Sure it can produce tons of variations, the problem is without finding nice initial parameters most of them will likely be a mess. In that video you linked, are those really all that different. I've seen the same slight differences in shapes and sizes of plants, trees and animals in the game.
NMS could have easily used another year in development to work on behavioral routines, improved game loops, building/customizing you ship, variety between galaxies (Maybe there is, probably not, yet I don't seem to be able to get out of the Euclid galaxy. Are there more galaxies???)
Yet after all, it's still the most diverse procedurally generated universe out there. Gotto start somewhere. Perhaps some day we'll have a space exploration game with as much thought put into every single world as Alien planet did for one. Actual ecologies shaped by a planet's composition and orbit with simulated seeds of life spreading out and contaminating neighbouring systems. You'll need more than 3 years x 15 people for that.
To me, it's the birth of a new genre. Hopefully it will be allowed to grow, instead of weeded out prematurely :)
