Having had technology and the acquisition of technology be one of my foremost hobbies over the past decade or so, I’ve come to a very distinct realization: Technology, at its core, is just a tool. Seems simple, right? A tool is just an implement used to carry out a particular function. Like a hammer is just a tool. In game development, designers use multiple tools in their creative works, one popular tool of late is Procedural Generation.
Procedural Generation, at its heart, is the process of programming an application to design the content of a game using and working within a specified set of parameters. The use of procedural generation in video games goes hand-in-hand with the genre itself. Games like Rogue (1980), of which the term Roguelike is derived, was nothing but procedurally generated dungeons, one after another, that the player was meant to explore. This gave the game a never-ending appeal, where a little bit of code gave you a game that was always different than the last. Procedural generation has been used to do everything in gaming from creating environments, to dungeons, to loot lists, to sprawling towns and populations. In the end, though, it’s just a tool.
I finally found a creature larger than a horse and different enough to share.
Everybody’s Sky
Kyle, one of the writers here at Sub-Cultured, has been enamored with No Man’s Sky. For good reason, too. No Man’s Sky, first off, is gorgeous. The art styles, the visuals, and the chance of seeing things nobody else is seeing are some of the game’s big positives. I also picked up the game within its first week of release and had some fun exploring the few worlds that I found, but in the end I found myself quickly losing interest. Yes, the worlds themselves could, at times, be very pretty, but I had a hard time feeling that anything I was accomplishing was meaningful or significant.
I was exploring all of these places that had already been explored before, I was re-naming animals and plants that were located around small settlements and surrounded by floating machines, constantly scanning them, and I was learning languages that, even after learning a metric ton of words, I still couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. Nothing I was doing felt like it had any impact on anything, or at worst felt like I was just already going where everyone had already gone before.
Overall, I blame the procedural generation and how heavily they used it. It is the hallmark of the game, how what you were seeing was never seen by any other player and it was special to you. Except that it had been seen before. When I came across my 50th giant tooth shaped plant (and was naming it ‘Yet Another Giant Tooth’), or my 30th wolf-looking creature with fungal spores all over it (‘Yet Another Diseased Wolf’), I had reached my limit.
No Man’s Sky‘s use of procedural generation, their hammer, felt like the only tool they were really using seriously, and when it duplicated assets, it was glaring. Any “story” was coming at what felt like a snail’s pace, and progression was also a slow process. This means that the way the developers wanted you to play involved just hitting one procedurally generated planet after another. Which means also seeing the same formations over and over in maybe varying colors or sizes. I’m not sure which writing outlet first used the phrase “18 Quintillion Bowls of Oatmeal“, but it certainly feels apt.
Daggerfall, one of the first 3D attempts at mapping seen in a video game. Not a great attempt, though.
ProGen Behaving Badly
Let’s be real, though, No Man’s Sky isn’t the first to overuse procedural generation. One of the biggest games of all time, literally, is one that used procedural generation to launch a franchise: The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall. Coming off of the successful Arena, Bethesda wanted to make a game that truly felt like a world. Some sites posit that the full landmass of Daggerfall reaches a staggering 62,394 square miles! I started playing it not long ago and it isn’t kidding around. If you were to walk from one town to another, even if those towns were right next to each other, it would take you HOURS to do so. With 15,000 towns, cities, and villages to explore, the game wasn’t messing around. The first thing you bought was a horse and a wagon, because without them you were hosed.
The landmass of Daggerfall wasn’t even the worst of the procedural generation, though, it was the dungeons. Daggerfall‘s dungeons took multiple dungeon “sets” and patterns and hooked them together to form an overall dungeon. Combined with an uber-confusing three dimensional mapping system, Daggerfall would turn a simple low-level dungeon into an hours long slog through random-mob infested hallways, where sometimes monsters well above your level would lie in wait to wreck you. To put it lightly, Daggerfall‘s use of procedural generation was simultaneously complete overkill, frustrating, and completely unforgiving.
Yes, I play American Truck Simulator. My truck is awesome, don’t judge me.
Randomness Isn’t Really Exploring
One of my favorite things to do in games, though, is exploration. I will look behind every nook and cranny, every little path, every little tiny area, and in most games that exploration is nicely rewarded with either a nice sight, some extra loot, or some easter egg. They are specifically placed on the game map by the developers, though. When you start making everything through procedural generation, you lose those little rewards. Everything you could possibly encounter by checking every nook and cranny is just as available as any other point. The entire gaming world gains a homogeneity that stops rewarding exploration simply by its very nature.
There was a poll given by the developers of Star Trek Online on their forums once that once asked the players “What do you really want to see in Star Trek Online?” The biggest response back was simply “Exploration”. Since the tagline of Star Trek is “To boldly go where no one has gone before”, though, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The problem was that the game already had an “exploration” system. They combined random scenarios, randomized enemies, randomized aliens, and placed them on some randomized maps. To the majority of players, although what you were seeing was fresh, it didn’t “feel” like exploring.
I don’t blame the players, though, it truly *didn’t* feel like exploration. To hit this home, the game that I play that hits that exploration button the best is American Truck Simulator. Sure, ATS uses some procedural generation to save time on creating the environments, but it’s seeing all the specific locations and special places that makes the exploration worthwhile. It isn’t what is random that taps that exploration feeling, it’s what is purposefully placed that you’re seeing for the first time.
A BLANK?! Why, thank you! I’ve always wanted a BLANK!
ProGen Is A Good Tool, But Shouldn’t Be The Only Tool
If you take a look at some of the best games of our day, though, like Diablo, you’ll see that they all use procedural generation. However, their use becomes reserved to creating large, similar themed environments without sacrificing development resources and isn’t a crutch. Procedural Generation isn’t going to go away anytime soon, and it really shouldn’t because it’s such a useful tool.
What makes a great game, though, is using many different tools in its construction. Use some ProGen, some story, some good mechanics, decent audio, music, setting, etc. and put all together you have a great game. Relying on any one tool will make that tool stand out and show its flaws.
No Man’s Sky I feel was relying just too heavy on the procedural generation, and it was their downfall. Even compared to a game like Elite: Dangerous that also relies on space exploration and a ginormous universe, Elite feels more fleshed out and your actions feel like they have more weight.
I hope that we haven’t heard the end of No Man’s Sky, though. It has so much potential and can be so much more than it is. It’s at a good starting point and can only go up, but it will definitely need something more than just procedural generation to get players back.
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E3 is the stuff that gamer dreams are made of, even nearly a month after all the announcements. It is never too late to report on hype, so here I am sharing the E3 experience, as told by some guy watching from his couch. I have been following the event for 14 straight years now, and it is customary for me to been write out my thoughts and reactions to all of the announcements. This is my gamer holiday, my gamer Christmas…E3 is my gamer Mecca. Allow me to take you through my journey of E3 2016, and why I think it was one of the most successful trade shows in the history of the business.
Living Through the Hype
There is nothing quite like the Electronic Entertainment Expo for a passionate gamer like myself. Every year E3 acts as a temperature check for hype of the industry, but more importantly it proves that this industry isn’t going anywhere. It is as healthy as it has ever been and while a trade show like E3 may not be around forever, it will take a new form in terms of being a hype generating machine. We need trade shows and press events like this, and while more and more studios, companies, and developers drop out in turn of trying out their own personal conferences, one thing is for sure, there is nothing in this world quite like the week of E3.
This year there weren’t any “next gen consoles” to announce, it was just all about the games, and boy howdy were there some interesting looking experiences. Sure Microsoft tried to sneak in a few words about their slim line system as well as their .5 step up labeled the Scorpio, but they did it with class and it took up minimal time of the press conference. You would think Sony would have spent so much time on showing VR games that are near impossible to show in a press conference setting, and while they did show up with some news, it was such a small fraction of time that they took up. Everybody who showed up for E3, including EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda and Nintendo, came to win. They came to murder the competition and explain why their games are the experiences you should be playing this fall and going forward. I think all of them had strong showcases (with a few major stumbles from EA) and delivered on the one currency that matters in this industry…hype.
As an agent of hype, I go out of my way to be overly excited about any and all games. Pushed release dates, games that won’t come out for another 3 years, and completely out of context CG trailers do not put me off. Speculating on these games that are not out yet is one of my favorite activities to do. I like to build my own story and elevate my own hype on these experiences that are years out, and then the payoff of getting them when they finally do arrive is unmatched to any feeling this industry can evoke. Has my hype ever turned against me? Sure every once in a while, but I don’t let that ruin future potential to be excited about something. I’d rather be excited and let down than spend the road to launch being pessimistic and worried. Gosh that just seems incredibly draining; I’ll take the hype any day. So we all get it now right? We are on the same page? E3 gets me hyped and now it’s time to break this year’s conferences wide open. I just want to focus on my personal High and Low of each conference.
EA Conference
This was the first conference of the week and by far the weakest, but I think it set expectations correctly for my mind (and hopefully yours) to be efficiently blown by the coming conferences. What was not lacking however was how they started the conference. That first game announcement is the hook, and blowing out Titanfall 2 at the top of the show was an amazing idea. That game showcased so well, and the single player trailer got me more than hyped to get back into this series. I really enjoyed the first game, and it is quite easy to tell we live in a post Titanfall FPS world now that all games have taken their locomotion mechanics. It’s hard to find a shooter nowadays that you aren’t jet-packing, double jumping, and wall running around, and that’s totally okay but just remember who pioneered it! Titans seem to have personalities and characteristics now, and I have a feeling that will be on full display in the story mode. It is very hard to top the new whip though, which adds to your maneuverability as well as works as a melee weapon. Gosh, the end of that trailer where the two pilots are in the sky and whipping towards one another…that’s how you evoke mass excitement!
Unfortunately I have some negative things to say about this conference. A few things really rubbed me the wrong way, and the biggest offender Mass Effect. This was the year to show that game; this was the time for a blowout. Mass Effect Andromeda is coming out next year and we already suffered a delay this year. After the trailer showed, we knew nothing more than what we did a year ago and that is a MAJOR issue. Did I enjoy the trailer? Of course I did, I will enjoy anything with Mass Effect in it. Was it a tease? Overwhelmingly so. We need to know more about this game, and this little trail of breadcrumbs is just not enough. We need facts, we need gameplay…we need some real news Bioware.
The upsets did not end there however, EA was nice enough to bring up the Star Wars games and that is pretty much all they did with them. They might as well have just had somebody come on stage and say, “They exist!” I love seeing Amy Hennig with Visceral talk about Star Wars, and I love seeing dudes in mo-cap suits playing with lightsabers with the Respawn logo in the background. Seeing glimpses of in engine screen shots is always welcomed…but I just needed more to get that level of hype I love to dwell in. If wanting more is the worst thing I can say about this conference, then to me I’d say they still did pretty well.
Bethesda Conference
From the Prey Trailer
Bethesda really knew how to pick up where EA faltered. They came out strong with a Quake announcement and then it never let up until the conference’s end. The high point of Bethesda’s hour for me was the new Prey trailer. I had no idea I was watching a Prey trailer until I saw the title reveal. I was never a big fan of the first game but was excited about the idea of the sequel announced a few years back. Well now that’s out and this reboot/rebrand is in. The narrative that the trailer showcases is awesome. I was so drawn in by this man who ends up speaking to himself by the scene’s end while living a Groundhog’s Day experience as he relives the same day over and over. Who is this man, what is happening to him, and how does he fit into the real story? I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. The trailer sets a tone that I am interested in and I cannot wait to see how it all pans out.
Comparison of Graphics
I wanted to give Skyrim Special Edition as my high for this conference but I have put 300 hours into the original, and despite me being the one of many who feverishly asked for this game, I would feel bad to give it a highlight spot when something new and fresh like Prey should get some of my much deserved limelight. So while Skyrim SE is probably what I am most excited for, Prey is the real show stealer here.
It is hard to nail down a low point for this conference, and heck pretty much every conference going forward. At gun point I would have to say there was a bit of a stumble with announcing the Fallout 4 DLC. I thought it showed well, but it was too quick, and I guess I figured there would be a much bigger announcement. Perhaps those expectations are unfair because Far Harbor DLC did just come out, but for a conference I guess I just hoped for something a bit more than adding working conveyor belts to your settlements. This just comes off nitpicky and that is because it is. The conference was great and it is hard to find anything negative about it. For the new kids on the conference block (this is only their second year at E3) they really knocked it out of the park.
Microsoft
Microsoft was up next on Monday and just like the last few years, they really came out swinging. Sure they opened with an announcement of a slim model which is good, because it just gets it out of the way so the focus can turn to what matters, games. After watching this conference I thought there was no way that Sony had the lineup to usurper Microsoft this year. More on how that turns out later.
Microsoft had so many highs that it’s hard to pick one. It is so easy to go with something like We Happy Few which felt like a completely Bioshock inspired game. Every fiber of my being is shouting at me to write about Scalebound and their awesome presentation…but deep down I know that what wowed me the most was Sea of Thieves. During the entirety of it’s on stage demo (and its following hands on impressions from trusted industry types) I was just thinking of how many friends I knew who owned a Xbox One…and how do I get them to buy this game so we can all go on swashbuckling adventures together. Luckily it will take no convincing because the game speaks for itself. Want to meet up in a tavern and drink with friends? Go for it. Find a treasure map on the island you are on? Go look for it! Want 
to rob people coming out drunk from the local tavern? By all means do it. The real meat and potatoes is boating up with a crew and hitting the high seas. Out there you can run into sea monsters, or worse, other ships with their own crew. Each crew member has a function. One needs to man the sails, the other the anchor, somebody needs to be in crows nest navigating, and a trusted pirate friend needs to be at the helm. Everybody has a function, and everybody must be communicating to ensure that the dangerous ships and crews you face out there will not lead you to a watery grave. The first thing I am doing? Loading up my boat with booze, pals, and instruments, and we will sing sea shanties all the way to Davy Jones’ locker.
There were next to no low points in this conference. I feel that I do have to point out that I thought ending with the big Scorpio reveal (Microsoft’s .5 console) was a misstep. Really Microsoft? This is the thing you were most excited to show us? Well, I was not excited and while I understand why these .5 systems exist, I do not care to upgrade at this moment in time, especially if all games will continue to work on the current versions of the consoles. Was it a bad announcement? By no means, I thought they did a good job at giving us the information…but I just don’t feel it was the announcement to end on.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft, Ubisoft, oh where art though Ubisoft? Seriously this is the Ubisoft I have always wanted. No annual Assassin’s Creed to slow the conference down, and the weird ecstasy filled dance party at the top of the show was their only “weird moment.” Never before has Ubisoft came out so strong at E3, and that is probably why they are suffering form a corporate hostile takeover by Vivendi. You’re looking too good these days Ubisoft! In any case, Ubisoft focused on all the right things and ended their conference with a big new IP. Sure at surface level Steep seems just like a snow extreme sports game, but is much deeper and you have a community enriched experience filled with so much freedom in terms of traversal and activities. While this was a big moment, it is far from game of the show material.
The moment of hype comes in the form of, South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Not only is this an insanely fun title to say and type, but it also showcased wonderfully. Trey and Matt (the creators of South Park) came out and discussed their heavy involvement in the game. They gave us a very funny trailer which completely satires the blueprint of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase system. If that wasn’t enough, we get three awesome gameplay snippets. The demo itself was filled with great South Park jokes, and Matt and Trey themselves just seemed so excited to show off this game. It was such a treat to see them so passionate about this project. They were very vocal about how demanding The Stick of Truth was and it seemed like they would never do a game again…yet here they are. Guys and gals, it is more than we deserve as gamers!
The low point was hardly low. If anything this is just another positive masquerading around as a negative. I am not a big Watch Dogs fan, so there was not much the sequel could do to get me on board. I thought the first game was hollow, the main character to be as interesting as a wet rag, and found every single mechanic to be less than a game like Grand Theft Auto V. However, this showcasing of the sequel actually has me looking at the game in a much more positive light. The game seems fun, the new character comes off as interesting, and all the little mechanical gripes seemed to have been fixed. Am I back in? Nope, but I can and will recognize that this game does seem to be in good shape. I feel the demo went on a bit long but in the end it did what it set out to do, and that was showing off that they were indeed listening to the fans and their complaints of the original. That is classy as hell Ubisoft.
Sony
Sony my Sony, my sweet and fair Sony…you had so much riding against you this year. You have constant lack of first party games, and all of your delays on properties announced last year are more than noticeable. I had little hope you would take the W this year. Well that’s what I get for thinking. I had figured that they would come out; talk too long about VR and their new .5 system upgrade. Instead you pulled the rug out from underneath us all, and proved why you are still leading this generation.
Where do I even begin in breaking down the major highlight of this conference? How do I choose one? Heck, I could not even choose a game and instead talk about their incredible pacing of their showcases, or even their choice of not resting on their games announced last year. Hell I would even love to gush about the live orchestral performance that lasted through the entire conference. Instead of hearing about Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy 7, and Shenmue 3, we get a totally new roster of awesome announcements. Some we knew of, while others were major surprises. Is it worth me dwelling on how much God of War rocked me? Never been a fan of the series, but what I saw had me caring in a big way. What about the Heavy Rain inspired game Detroit: Become Human? Sure it was impressive but it was just validating what I already knew.
Sony Bend’s Days Gone
The show opened up with Syphon Filter’s developer Sony Bend studio and their new game Days Gone. While the trailer itself had a very Last of Us feeling, the real bread and butter came from the end of conference gameplay. Wow what an impressive stage demo. The game’s enemy, whom can only be described as the zombies (don’t call them that though!) from World War Z, moves like cascading water in tandem with one another like a wave of bodies. Well look at that, it seems this may have been my highlight of the conference. Sometimes you just have to work these things out on paper before realizing what really wowed you the most. It would have been so easy to talk about how awesome Horizon showed, or talk about the big Resident Evil 7 reveal with a PT like marketing demo. While all of these announcements are game of the show worthy, I truly feel that the surprise of Days Gone landed in a big way for me. The fact that so many people did not feel the same way alarms me, but we like what we like.
It is hard for me to pick out any moments where I felt the pace of the show was hindered. The show was nonstop trailers with minimal talking or presenting, so when those slow moments came with the Skylander’s reveal and the minimal VR…it was necessary to slow that heart rate. The amount of excitement that they built through the run-time of the show was so intensely satisfying that the down time ensured our poor little hearts wouldn’t breakthrough our rib-cage. Do I care about Skylanders? No I do not; I could not even begin to care less. Do I want stage time on VR? Not particularly, but they didn’t dwell on it long and moved right past it and back to their original pacing. What I am trying to say is, that I had little to zero issues with this conference and it should be the defining mold of E3 press conferences moving forward.
Living Post Hype
So with E3 now in our rear-view mirror, a lot of us have that post E3 depression. We’ve all heard so many good things about so many games that aren’t even close to being out. So you may ask, Kyle, how do we even cope with knowing we are so far away from so many great experiences? My answer, give into the hype. I am not saying blindly love and be excited for all of these things until they reach unobtainable levels of interest. What I mean is just give into the excitement, ride the wave of hype all the way to release. The excitement you get from pondering on a game on the horizon is unlike anything else. You will never have this road to excitement other than now, so why even fight it? Excitement and hype are good. For me there is no such thing as “over-hyped.” It is a term I see thrown around all too often. While the game may not have lived up to expectations, nothing can take away those moments of pure concentrated excitement that you felt all the way up to launch. It is a good feeling, so embrace it. E3 is a time where we all as gamers come together and get excited for our healthy industry. I feel that pessimism is in low reserves during this week. Of course it is re-birthed the week after and the internet goes right back to its awful self, but in that moment…we all have E3…we all have the hype.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
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Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
With the busy summer convention season behind them Funko has begun to crank out new sets of Pops to win over collectors. If you think that just because these aren’t glittering SDCC exclusives they are less amazing, you’d be missing out on some of the best figures of the year. Come find out which Funko Pops I think are going to make waves this Fall!
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Like the Ritz box says: Open for fun.
I was fourteen, currently in the third year of my hiatus from videogames. The experience that drove me away? Moonwalker, on the Sega Genesis. In case you never had the pleasure, go ahead and Wikipedia this little pop-coated gem, in which the player “follows Michael Jackson, using various music and dance related abilities, on a quest to save kidnapped children from the hands of the evil Mr. Big.”
Yeah.
Curiously, it’s still a popular game with the NAMBLA crowd. I’d tell you to google who that wholesome group is, but you probably don’t want the FBI checking out every porn file your IP address has accidentally gone to. From when that cat jumped on your keyboard. Ten minutes
ago.
Anyway, Moonwalker was already an old game by then, not exactly in the top tier of offerings. But with the bitter, world-weary cynicism that comes from entering middle-school, I judged an entire medium based on its worst example and proceeded to shun it. A skill I would later use as an adult when dealing with minorities, and women. But videogames deserved better.
REVIEW | Salt and Sanctuary
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
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Review | Re-Exploring No Man’s Sky Next
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I was a freshmen when the Elder Scrolls first entered into my life. It was 2001, and I was at target looking for a new game. That’s when I came across The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It was love at first sight, truly. I played the game for hours, I seriously could not put the thing down. I didn’t stand a chance, the game sunk its teeth into me and since then every new Elders Scroll‘s title is quite literally what I game for. Why? I have to say it’s mainly based on how open the world is, how limitless its opportunities seem. I owned Morrowind for a year before I even started on the main quest…I admit, I went a bit overboard. However, the games are just impossibly huge! The Nords were always my race, so the news of Skyrim was an absolute dream come true! Now, just over 10 years after my first introduction, I hold in my hand a copy of Bethesda’s new game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I’ve only played the game for two hours, but already I can tell this is Game of the Year material, but with a few flaws. (more…)
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