Spore

[GoreBag]

Oh, does anyone know when it comes out?

November.

[Mikeus Caesar]

November.

Really? Where'd you get this information from?

[doc_bean]

Yeah, it sounds like a master server grabs the designs you've created on your hard drive, and stuffs that into a master database. Then when you need an AI opponent (you climb out of the ocean, or discover another planet), the game grabs a design (at random?) from this database and starts running it.

That is a way cool idea.... although I don't know if there is any vetting for quality of the design. People vary in their creativity, and there could be a lot of really bad designs out there. But maybe the random quality makes up for it? You'd never know if your next AI opponent would be something really cool and nasty in an "Alien" kind of way, or a giant pink fluffy bunny, or a sentient Taco with extra hot sauce... or.....

It is supposed to fill in the "gaps" in your game world: predator, herbivore, weak, strong etc. so that you get a kind of ecosystem.

Personally I'm planning on making a whole lot of non-PG characters (is that a leg or... ?) and uploading them

I've also seen November listed, but I doubt it will be November 2006, the game has only been shown at the GDC so far...

[Kraxis]

Personally I'm planning on making a whole lot of non-PG characters (is that a leg or... ?) and uploading them

If enough people are like you, then it should prove to be a major success I would think. Or if they were just playing seriously.

I do however fear a lot of crap-creatures to pop up, something like an eye with a single leg and a mouth on an arm. I just hope the server will have some sort of rudimentary pruningsystem to weed out the useless creations.

And I'm still planning on going centaur and mantis.

[GoreBag]

Really? Where'd you get this information from?

1up.com

[Zalmoxis]

Well, lets hope they are right, can't wait.

[Moros]

I do however fear a lot of crap-creatures to pop up, something like an eye with a single leg and a mouth on an arm.

how did you know I was...

I don't think they'll be selected on looks much because you can't expect that they are going to hire people to rate every creature. The game probably will select it based on a few stats. (So you wouldn't have to much of the same type of creatures on one planet.) But it's quite difficukt for a computer to rate the prettyness of something so that's not going to happen I'm afraid.

[Kraxis]

No, I didn't mean looks. I actually think that if the creature works then it is cool. But undoubtedly there will be people who create creatures that just can't perform properly.

[Phatose]

It looks cool. I just hope the stages affect one another.

[Papewaio]

No, I didn't mean looks. I actually think that if the creature works then it is cool. But undoubtedly there will be people who create creatures that just can't perform properly.

Since it is procedurally based... it may be an art form to make retarded creatures that the game has a hard time making move.

[Kraxis]

Since it is procedurally based... it may be an art form to make retarded creatures that the game has a hard time making move.

Well, sometimes people do take a pride in such things...

[Papewaio]

Well, sometimes people do take a pride in such things...

To know ones limits, it helps if you go past them occassionally.

[econ21]

Since it is procedurally based...

The presenter kept mentioning that term "procedurally based" - what does it mean?

Great video, by the way. The game concept is impressive (although I'd never want to play it) and the presenter was great.

[doc_bean]

The presenter kept mentioning that term "procedurally based" - what does it mean?

Great video, by the way. The game concept is impressive (although I'd never want to play it) and the presenter was great.

Say you have 2 bars connecting so that rotation in one direction is allowed. Traditionally you'd tell the computer all the positions it can be in and how it should move from one position to another (eg what the next and previous position should be). 'Procedurally based' means that the computer analyzes the system and determines what positions are possible and how it can move.

That's at least a very simple explanation of how I understood it.

[GoreBag]

The presenter kept mentioning that term "procedurally based" - what does it mean?

Great video, by the way. The game concept is impressive (although I'd never want to play it) and the presenter was great.

Essentially, it means that the game's engine is more concerned with the physics of the creature and its surroundings, and creates the animations to match it, instead of having a huge library of animations from which to pick and display.

[BelgradeWar]

I have this feeling that the whole procedural thing will take it's toll in hardware requirements:(

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

If they're smart it shouldn't be too bad.

I imagine it could work like this: every time something is "defined" procedurally there is some data stored in a library somewhere, maybe online. Then it accesses that file every time, instead of continually regenerating content. Kind of like how your computer stores temporary internet files so you don't have to keep downloading them.

Of course, that's only my speculation.

[Zalmoxis]

Will people without internet connections be able to get that content?

[GoreBag]

If they're smart it shouldn't be too bad.

I imagine it could work like this: every time something is "defined" procedurally there is some data stored in a library somewhere, maybe online. Then it accesses that file every time, instead of continually regenerating content. Kind of like how your computer stores temporary internet files so you don't have to keep downloading them.

Of course, that's only my speculation.

I doubt it. If the game itself has the capability of understanding the mechanics of movement for any given creature, it would probably just store them locally and use the data in-game, so long as it's still valid. The cache would be replaced when the creature was changed.

The online stuff is just to share your creatures, buildings and worlds with other people, who can interact with it as they wish. My worry is the the amount of space that a galaxy of the entire gaming community's content would need...

Zalmoxis, I don't think there's any other way for someone to access another player's content if it's not stored on a central server.

[hoom]

Procedurally generated stuff is where you have a formula and variables that can can define a shape.
If you change the variables it creates a different shape.
eg if you have a formula for a cube all you need to tell the software is the side lengths and location relative to zero point & the computer can calculate its shape.
The same formula could make a brick or a pyramid with different variables.
Point being that you only have to store a couple of numbers instead of a whole mesh etc.

Fractals are a common form of procedural content.

The awesomeness of procedural stuff can be seen here (especially .kkrieger) and here, these being the demo scene he talks about in the videos.

[BelgradeWar]

So, this should actually lower the requirements? Or at least digging through the hard drive?

[Abokasee]

This game looks amazing. Holy crud though, Will Wright says "Ummm" like 1000 times! That guy is pretty dam good at what he does and you can tell he's intelligent despite umming a lot.

I'm looking forward to this game a lot. The evolution in the game actually is somewhat closer to ID than science but conscious interference for a player is what makes a game fun so I don't really care a bit. I hope to spend a lot of time in the animal stages of the game too. I'd love to make a large sea creature that then shrinks and gets onto land or whatever. The game doesn't look like it supports mullusks and maybe not flying creatures. I think that would be awsome if it did. Imagine making a race of giant slugs that conquer the universe. Also making a species of intelligent plants might be ver interesting too but the game is pretty expansive as it is and I won't harp at its limitations. It looks groundbreaking.

Thanks for the link Doc_Bean.

it is ok to umm.

Listen to arlbert einstien!!

[doc_bean]

more

[Zalmoxis]

I saw the video for that. I'm excited, yes, but the wait is killing me.