How to make a game without requiring copy-pasta'd terrain.

[kukurumei]

I would like to point out another way to save memory while making large, detailed worlds. I can't remember the name of the technique, but there is an algorithm that causes very distant objects to be rendered in simple fashion, and gradually become more complex as the player approaches them. The idea is that it is pointless to have these very distant objects finely rendered, since the human eye can't discern the difference in detail at long distance. (few people have better than 20/20 vision) It's a fairly new technique, but it was used pretty well in Halo: Reach to make some impressively large maps. (Forgeworld alone was ginormus for a FPS mutliplayer map, and large even when compared to campagin levels for example)

Otherwise commonly termed "LoD" (level of detail). You swap around low resolution textures with high resolution textures in a streaming data flow.

None of it has anything realistically to do with copy and paste terrain(Lod is strictly a memory saving trick, and works with anything. Look at Drake's fortune for instance), unless they have a problem with HDD space.

Copy and paste terrain...is copy and paste. What else did anyone expect?. Nothing is going to solve it without good old grease work, or other wise known as paying your graphics artists.

Sure there are tons of work on procedural generation (otherwise known as random dungeon effect), but realistically, it's very hard to have a computer trick the human mind. It's easier and sometimes cheaper to have a human trick other humans.

They probably didn't want to pay the bill, so ended up copy and pasting. Either that or you had very stupid QC people that got tricked by their employees...given the horsebird incident I'm not willing to rule it out.