Just a theory here, I haven't had time to catch up on the previous ~100 pages but people have said no data is sent to the server regarding player position. Have they tested this when on the same planet as another player? It seems like an obvious optimisation to me not to bother sending location to the server unless there is another player in the vicinity. Again, just an idea, maybe someone has done this and I missed it.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
A polite discourse amongst friends on the importance of MP-elements in No Man's Sky
- Thread starter flkraven
- Start date
- Status
A lot of things are possible and some of them might even make sense, but the question is whether they are probable. And when a developer talks about "ecosystems", "Newtonian physics" and a certain other topic that might be in the thread title, all of which very obviously don't exist, I don't think light diffraction being in this game is very probable.
How can it know there is another player in the vicinity if it does not keep track of where players are? A simple way that it should work is that it keeps track of which star system each player is in. When you go to a star system, it checks if anybody is currently on that star system. If there is, it attempts to instance the two into a server. This requires that both players' positions are being recorded.
Just wanna say thanks for all the work you've done, and I appreciate that you are giving HG some benefit of the doubt and being considerate in regard to the crazy launch they just dealt with. I look forward to their thoughts on this and their roadmap for the future, because it is a cool little game in and of itself.
Outrun
Member
The smartest thing I have seen all day.
This is such a victim-blaming argument. I'm playing and enjoying this game too, but that doesn't keep me from recognizing the issues that this game has compared to what they said. Either the feature is dead, delayed or not working. Just say what it is. The only huge issue I would have is if they just completely scrapped the feature and didn't tell anybody.
I did not. Please read my posts again without being angry.
I think you misunderstood me. I'm... Not sure how to be more clear, so I'll just repeat the idea you seem to have missed: the idea is that the GENERATION ALGORITHM calculates the diffraction through whatever means, and then stores the information in a much simpler format, so that the graphics rendering engine has a simple way to deal with it. At no point during that quote does he say these things are done in real time.
Hopefully you get it now...
I thought you were reasonable until you defended the quote about green sky being made up of a special in game periodic table of the elements.
Edit: amazing quote
"I honestly don't think it matters of they send out a tweet. People will continue to be angry either way. Better to ignore the stress of that and focus oh what they CAN fix."
Tell me how this is not saying that some people cannot be made happy either way, so it's best to just ignore them all. A lot of people want answers. Some don't really care what the answer is and just want to be mad, others want answers because they care about what the answer is. You don't think that matters and think the former people dictate what the latter deserves.
I thought you were reasonable until you defended the quote about green sky being made up of a special in game periodic table of the elements.
Edit: amazing quote
I didn't say the sky was made up of anything. Neither did he.
I engaged in good faith and you continued to be disingenuous...
Please read my posts again without being angry.
The usual "Us or Them" bullshit rhetoric, theres a moderate middle ground which as usual gets excluded. But kudos on the amazingly self aggrandising post, the thread really needed an injection of hearty partisan rhetoric.
So what exactly do you think they redesigned in order to create green skies in the game?
As I said above, the algorithm...
Ain't that the truth. People here keep assuming I disagree with them that Sean should address the issue(s), even though I never said any such thing.
I understood you perfectly. Seems the opposite isn't true, though. Because I never wrote something about real-time diffraction.
Please stop assuming I'm angry and actually answer my question. Just because you side with Sean Murray doesn't mean you have to act like him too.
Do you think the algorithm has values for refraction and specific elements that it uses to calculate sky color?
I don't side with Sean Murray hahaha.
If you understood me perfectly and you know I'm not talking about real time calculations, then I honestly can't even begin to understand why you're confused.
I don't have enough information to know one way or the other. I certainly don't believe Sean is a liar, and I can state with 100% certainty that what he described isn't even really that insane of an idea for procedural generation. Pretty simple, in fact. Light refraction isn't some unknown phenomenon. It's known how it works. That knowledge makes it an easy thing to implement. Easier than generating landscapes, for damn sure.
It's probably best you just leave like you said you were gonna, because you're just backpedaling and hand-waving now.
I never said I was going to leave. O:
Not did I backpedal or hand wave.
You've made multiple (false) assumptions about the things I've said and my own personal beliefs. Maybe you should leave!
Well I'm pretty sure I wasn't until now, but yes, now I am. What exactly would I have been confused about before?
Yes, about as much as Newtonian physics.
...okay, I'm pretty sure you meant to answer the other way around, because newtonian physics is very much a known thing...
The game isn't refracting light. It's just choosing a color based on parameters. Do you have any idea why real-time light refraction ON THE SCALE OF AN ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE would be a challenge for a game? Light is incredibly computationally expensive. The likely case is that certain parameters make a planet have a particular atmosphere with particular elements. When an atmosphere has an atmosphere mostly of element X, it has a light refracting atmosphere color Y. Nothing is actually being refracted in real time. It's just a mapping of elements to color.
Yeah, I meant "About as much understood as Newtonian physics". Which isn't in the game, by the way.
Holy fuck I'm not talking about in the game.
Anyway that other guy agrees with me, so you can have it out with him now. This is a little silly at this point.
Iva Demilcol
Member
Please, stop being angry.
You're defending the quote in question by handwaving "but algorithm!", as if that leaves for the chance that he's maybe not completely lying since we don't know the algorithm. Algorithms aren't these magical black boxes that make the impossible happen. Unless their algorithm created new elements, simulated their reaction to space particles and reaction to other chemicals in the atmosphere, then he lied.
I'm angry?
Like I said, we agree!
EDIT: except that last sentence, he never said that
Jacksinthe
Banned
That's exactly what he's talking about.
But to see if any data is sent about player location at the very least system or planet, data has to be sent when arriving or leaving a system. If that didn't happen then that means no tracking under any circumstance.
The method used would more than likely be system since you arrive in a ship. Ship location would be set first (are you in the zone). If anothet player enters the system the two would then P2P to sync location data along all axis at variable polling rates based on distance between the two vectors to save bandwidth. I would assume for NMS 1/10 polling rate would be more than sufficient for basic interaction.
StefanTheMongol
Member
I can't believe anyone thought a small company that made an Excite Bike clone, could deliver a Universe sized-multiplayer game. I am still sitting here waiting for the features I want, to be patched in, and I will happily wait till it is $17.99 on STEAM this fall to purchase it. Anyone who bought it before the reviews deserves what they got.
Have fun pointing your lasers at rocks for the next 30 hours.
Have fun pointing your lasers at rocks for the next 30 hours.
Err... what? If it's part of the algorithm, i.e., the generation process, then it's part of the game. Doesn't mean it's real-time.
Netherscourge
Banned
Wouldn't the color of the atmosphere be based on Radiation, Heat, Cold, Toxicity, etc...?
I'm sure they tied some parameter in between certain art assets and the type of atmosphere a planet has.
I'm sure they tied some parameter in between certain art assets and the type of atmosphere a planet has.
Before the 9/10 reviews?
Hah. I'm talking about actual real world light refraction. We understand how it works, yes? (Not like 100%, but enough to be accurate within what we do understand.) There's a physical phenomenon that we can predict for sets of parameters. Right?
Okay so, given those parameters, plugged into some formula, you could calculate light refraction. Right?
Well that's what the algorithm does. Runs that formula once per planet. Stores it as a simple color value (like two words is saying, although it's possible it's more than just one color), and then that value is used to render the graphics you see on the screen. See, it's not that complicated. It's a one time deal, computers are fast enough to do that. Right?
I'm not at all saying it's calculating light refraction for every position on the planet. Maybe that's where the confusion came from?
EDIT: And honestly, compared to generating the landscapes, caves, etc of the planet itself, basic light refraction would be super simple.
Iva Demilcol
Member
I never said that. I just threw random accusations then I'm planning on back pedaling a little to make people look irrational. Hope you understand.
Yes, and I'm saying even what you described isn't in the game, because much simpler things they talked about in that same article aren't as well. Such as Newtonian physics, ecosystems and of course the multiplayer.
I don't! Explain.
Newtonian physics are a real time thing and ARE HARD AS FUCK TO MODEL ACCURATELY.
Multiplayer is a real time thing and is HARD AS FUCK TO DO WELL.
Ecosystems are infinitely more complicated and HARD AS FUCK TO MODEL REALISTICALLY.
These other things you're talking about are so much harder in terms of concept AND execution. I've programmed a physics engine, man. That shit is fucked up!
At this point, this just feels like a random-planet-generator. There feels like very little actual order to the procedural generation. I have to do way too much "I dunno, it's space so maybe it's just somehow works." when I see illogical constructions of environments and the species in them.
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
Then... stay on your middle ground? I don't understand how you turned my post into an attack on you? What, btw is your middle ground and where do you think I am and why?
Look, as far as I am aware, there are those that want answers and then those that don't care. What else is there? I was just asking if you don't care then please respect those that do. Which you failed admirably at.
Thats good. I'm glad you brought up that you don't know for sure.
It turns out I am pretty good with optics because of my day job. I deal with microscopes and do a lot of work trying to take very high quality images of cells at specific wavelengths. One of the problems we face is light scattering, particularly Raman scattering.
Because of dealing with this I am also very familiar with Rayleigh scattering, which as it turns out is responsible for the color of the sky on Earth.
In fact, refraction of any light will result in the spreading out of all the wavelengths within that light. Refraction is responsible for rainbows .
It is impossible for refraction parameters of an element to make a sky green, because this would require all of the light being refracted to already be green, in which case you would not see the sky, just the star or light source creating the green light.
This is separate from diffraction , which also has nothing to do with the color of the sky and would result mostly in colors the same as the source of the light or spreading the light into all the colors of the spectrum like refraction. This is most frequently seen in soap bubbles which are very colorful due the interference of all the spread out wavelengths of light.
For the same reasons as with refraction, diffraction cannot make a sky green.
So, what I am saying is technically that quote is a lie, and that there is probably no advanced periodic table of elements or light physics being simulated and instead it is just a value in a spreadsheet that corresponds to green (probably 255 RGB style colors).
But you are right in that I cannot know for sure that they did not invent their own rules of physics governing their system and instead simulated that with very advanced set of new equations and fictional periodic elements with different diffraction values.
It emphasizes the point that they built up the game to have these complex systems, which in reality do not exist (at least not in the color of the sky).
As a side note, I still think the game is great and probably worth $60 to many many people. I really loved fable too, but there's no question as to how much was lied about in marketing to try and sell the game.
You obviously have never seen a true "randomly generated" thing.
Ultrabum, nothing you said disagrees with anything I've said except for the tone apparently implying disagreement. So... Thanks for not disagreeing? I think? You're post is weird: "here's a bunch of information that doesn't price you wrong but you're wrong".
Okay, but does that excuse them for lying about it?
Right, but certain parameters should be obviously made that don't exist. Things like:
Maybe a planet supposedly below -70C shouldn't have a jungle of life?
Maybe a planet's temperature shouldn't wildly change over a range of over 100C in mere footsteps. It's probably better to have an algorithm that has a much smaller possible deviation of instantaneous temperature change.
Maybe make the poles of planets colder than the equatorial areas.
Maybe make animals of a certain taxonomy only show up in certain temperature parameters.
"Randomly generated" doesn't mean it's not governed by certain rulesets.
I didn't say it was one. I said it feels like one. Sean Murray heavily emphasized that this is a procedural world, not a random world. He said their algorithms focus on creating order and that randomness just creates messy nonsense. I'm running into too much messy nonsense. I get that procedural constructions aren't going to be perfect, but there are some things that are just blatantly bad. And they are the kinds of parameters that would be far more simple to fix. It seems like the parameters that control weather and life are not tightly coupled at all. The two feel entirely independent, which is nonsense.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked