Ritzboof
Member
i wanted to take a moment to look at what the game accomplishes on its own merits. lets forget about the controversy for a moment, and examine what the game actually accomplishes with its procedural generation; environments in particular
peeps kinda feel like the universe loses its wonder and mystery after a while, but im not sure if getting the kinda feeling from a video game thatd compare with exploring our own real life earth is possible. after all, at the end of the day, everything is just generated on the fly and doesnt actually mean anything. the fact that the game sorta lacks assets and creature depth really encourages this feeling, i think; it can e immersion breaking. the planet generation in NMS really is something else, though, and i cant think of another game that compares. certainly not minecraft
back when i first started playing the game on release, there was a moon in my system that had me amazed and fascinated by what the game was capable of making. it was lush, watery, and all around serene. there werent any animals, just the sound of sentinels floating about. the terrain didnt have any particular rhyme or reason, but every corner had another magical area to explore. everything just worked together so well to make a beautiful and awesome environment. having the nearby planet engulf a portion of the sky made things even more magical
the algorithm has improved since then, allowing for more varied terrain (i.e. taller mountains and deep seas). thats made a lot of things look much better and start to make a lot more sense. the game has environments that have their own little stories if you take a moment to appreciate whats going on. the following pictures show terrain with shit that isnt just the way it is because a computer decided it was this way; the terrain is eroded, the canyons represent a place where there used to be water flow. youve also got this area where there was clearly a meteor impact far, far in the past, creating this little secluded beach
i also installed some mods at some point, which do a variety of things like fucking with terrain generation further, implementing unused assets, or altering the fauna to generate way larger, which makes plantlife much more dense and amazing. simple mods like this do a lot to bring out the wonder that NMS is supposed to provide; it helps when everything around you is way bigger than you
if anyone here is interested in exploring, i highly recommend that you try to get mods working and just go off and see shit. ive run into some genuinely fascinating and engaging environments. bonus points if you can barely survive there and the rain is too strong for you to take decent pictures; theres one i really wish i could show, but i didnt document it and i dont intend for this to be a screenshot thread
another thing worth noting is that, after the last update (i think?), they jacked up the saturation of colors, which makes things look great. only a few of these pictures show it off, but some of following do. in any case, heres a variety of other environments, just to try and drive the point home:
i dont mean to make this a thread where i just show off pictures ofc, i genuinely feel like NMS has some of the most ambitious procedural generation in video games
peeps kinda feel like the universe loses its wonder and mystery after a while, but im not sure if getting the kinda feeling from a video game thatd compare with exploring our own real life earth is possible. after all, at the end of the day, everything is just generated on the fly and doesnt actually mean anything. the fact that the game sorta lacks assets and creature depth really encourages this feeling, i think; it can e immersion breaking. the planet generation in NMS really is something else, though, and i cant think of another game that compares. certainly not minecraft
back when i first started playing the game on release, there was a moon in my system that had me amazed and fascinated by what the game was capable of making. it was lush, watery, and all around serene. there werent any animals, just the sound of sentinels floating about. the terrain didnt have any particular rhyme or reason, but every corner had another magical area to explore. everything just worked together so well to make a beautiful and awesome environment. having the nearby planet engulf a portion of the sky made things even more magical
in an effort to keep things neat said:
the algorithm has improved since then, allowing for more varied terrain (i.e. taller mountains and deep seas). thats made a lot of things look much better and start to make a lot more sense. the game has environments that have their own little stories if you take a moment to appreciate whats going on. the following pictures show terrain with shit that isnt just the way it is because a computer decided it was this way; the terrain is eroded, the canyons represent a place where there used to be water flow. youve also got this area where there was clearly a meteor impact far, far in the past, creating this little secluded beach
http://puu.sh/x6Op8/da816485e8.jpg a mountain covered in erosion
http://puu.sh/x6ORQ/9a430a7245.jpg a larger view of the crater
i also installed some mods at some point, which do a variety of things like fucking with terrain generation further, implementing unused assets, or altering the fauna to generate way larger, which makes plantlife much more dense and amazing. simple mods like this do a lot to bring out the wonder that NMS is supposed to provide; it helps when everything around you is way bigger than you
if anyone here is interested in exploring, i highly recommend that you try to get mods working and just go off and see shit. ive run into some genuinely fascinating and engaging environments. bonus points if you can barely survive there and the rain is too strong for you to take decent pictures; theres one i really wish i could show, but i didnt document it and i dont intend for this to be a screenshot thread
another thing worth noting is that, after the last update (i think?), they jacked up the saturation of colors, which makes things look great. only a few of these pictures show it off, but some of following do. in any case, heres a variety of other environments, just to try and drive the point home:
i dont mean to make this a thread where i just show off pictures ofc, i genuinely feel like NMS has some of the most ambitious procedural generation in video games