Are Procedural Universes in games over-rated?

[Whirligig Girl]

We all know procedural "random" world generation, right? Minecraft, Elite, Space Engine, No Man's Sky, they all use procedural generation to create their universe. Yes they are beautiful, sure, sometimes Minecraft can create jawdropping structures, and sure it can make the universe feel bigger, but is it really needed for a good space game? To be clear, I'm talking about complete procedural-ness, not something like Kerbal Space Program where terrain detail is aided by procedural bits, but overall the planets are designed by the developers.

The thing is, procedural generation can not create real uniqueness. In a randomly generated universe, there will always somewhere be another planet or terrain area that feels the same. Selena planets in Space Engine or Desert Biomes in Minecraft, for example. This doesn't have to be a bad thing of course, but you have to make sure it will really help.

Let's compare to designed universes. For examples I will use Kerbal Space program and The Outer Wilds.

Every single location in Kerbal Space Program is unique, one way or another. Eve is a purple planet with ocean-filled craters, Kerbin is the green and brown and blue planet that reminds you of Earth. Duna is the red one with the white ice caps, Jool is a gas giant. A green gas giant for kraken's sake! Vall is the valley-mountain-range ice moon, Laythe is the ocean-covered moon, Tylo is the one that's hard to land on.

The fact that they are all specially designed means that there is only one place like it! Everyone will have the same challenge by going to the purple planet, and be able to share it properly. In a procedural universe, however, separates player experience. However, procedural worlds do allow players to be the first to discover a given object.

Even more awesome perhaps is Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds has tiny little planets in its solar system. But they are also all unique, even more so than in Kerbal Space Program. The green-brown-blue planet is covered in these deep craters, somewhat normal. Then you get to the other planets. The gray one is literally falling apart, and has a moon that's spewing lava everywhere! The gas giant is actually a huge ocean world with sea creatures the size of small moons, the dark bramble is literally a mass of thorns! Thorns! There's so much variety here that you don't know what to expect (unless you read this paragraph before playing the game, which you shouldn't have.)

I don't know why I wrote this. But, like, if you're gonna make a game, maybe this helps or something.

[Flymetothemun]

I think it can be great for some games, good for others, and crap for the rest. I don't like it being used as an advertisement buzzword, though, It's just another way of having a world for the player to be in. I think, especially in this age of quickly-evolving computer hardware, that procedural generation might be sacrificing disk space for processor load, sort of a "cut off the nose to spite the face" situation, and that that processor load might exclude a large portion of computer users who aren't involved in the high-performance gaming world. I do agree with you about the advantage of designed worlds having the same challenge to go to the same place or do the same things.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Flymetothemun

[vger]

Wait for No Man's Sky to be released. Then I'll decide on that question.

It's just another way of having a world for the player to be in. I think, especially in this age of quickly-evolving computer hardware, that procedural generation might be sacrificing disk space for processor load.

The computer could extrapolate the procedural data and then convert it to files, if that became an issue.

A sort of "temporary internet files" for recently visited worlds.