[MUD-Dev] Procedural content

[Mike Rozak]

Eric Random wrote:

> Is Will Wright creating a new age of procedural content
> generation?  No.  That has been a part, large and small, of
> commercial game development since, at least, the 80's, and has
> been increasing with complexity since then. Does anyone assume
> that it's -not- going to play a large role in the future?

It is the way of the world for one generation to invent the wheel,
and have another generation (with more marketing) reinvent the wheel
and claim it was their idea. Of course, the first generation I
mentioned didn't really invent the wheel either.

As far as procedural, the VW I'm developing has:

  - Procedural voice (text-to-speech)

  - Procedural music (music sysnthesizer built into Windows)

  - Procedural sky

  - Procedural terrain

  - Procedural trees

  - Procedural buildings

  - Procedural rocks

  - Procedural waterfalls

  - Procedural caves

  - Procedural textures (grass blades, tree leaves, wood flooring,
  brick, eyeballs, chainmail, etc. can all be done procedurally)

  - I would do procedural content too, if I thought the content
  would be any fun to play. (Rogue/Hack games are procedural
  content. Monster spawns are procedural content.) Besides, the
  content's download size is actually quite small.

I have as much procedural stuff as I can throw in because procedural
stuff is faster to author and download than an equivalent .WAV,
.JPG, or model file. Unfortunately, a procedural X is inferior to a
professionally hand-crafted X.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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