Randomized Dungeons :)

[Kosmos992k]

Well, it sounds like a really good idea. However, whats easier to create? A completely random dungeon or one with set passages and lore attached to it and different keys you have to find?

Clearly a procedurally generated dungeon using existing tile sets and assets is potentially easier to create, but to ensure that the dungeon generated makes a modicum of sense, it's necessary to apply some level of programming to the procedural generation as well as do some play testing to ensure that what results is playable.

A more complex version of an existing map with gates/doors, keys, puzzles, switches, etc.. can be more planned in execution and possibly requires less programming and testing/balance effort to create. I guess what I am saying is that it depends on the actual content which is easier to implement.

Remember, this is only one dungeon. If you follow a completely randomized formula I only need to make one dungeon, then I can just put different building blocks and textures in it to appear in different areas and change mob placements. Just like Diablo III does with its rifts.

Rather then make a dungeon, they made a system that "creates dungeons" for them so they don't have to.

WKC sort of did this with it's own rift space, but the basic layout of spaces within those quests remained largely unchanged, which was a missed opportunity because you have no lavish backgrounds to keep consistent and the ground is the ground is the ground, so you are much more free to randomize things. On the other hand, such consistency and uniformity leads to boring levels and grinds which may in the end counter balance the random layout and enemy.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Clearly a procedurally generated dungeon using existing tile sets and assets is potentially easier to create, but to ensure that the dungeon generated makes a modicum of sense, it's necessary to apply some level of programming to the procedural generation as well as do some play testing to ensure that what results is playable.

A more complex version of an existing map with gates/doors, keys, puzzles, switches, etc.. can be more planned in execution and possibly requires less programming and testing/balance effort to create. I guess what I am saying is that it depends on the actual content which is easier to implement.



WKC sort of did this with it's own rift space, but the basic layout of spaces within those quests remained largely unchanged, which was a missed opportunity because you have no lavish backgrounds to keep consistent and the ground is the ground is the ground, so you are much more free to randomize things. On the other hand, such consistency and uniformity leads to boring levels and grinds which may in the end counter balance the random layout and enemy.

Its been done on games that were in the 1990s. Like Daggerfall, it IS complicated, but once you have it down...

[Kosmos992k]

Its been done on games that were in the 1990s. Like Daggerfall, it IS complicated, but once you have it down...

With respect to those games from the 90's, tile based randomized dungeon crawlers are not even remotely in the same league as FFXIV....

You could get away with tile based maps when having 3D environments you could free roam in was new, but you can't really get away with that now. Hell, the faces on our characters have more textures and polygons than the entire image above.

I agree with the broad idea of more randomized elements to create variety, and even a semi-random dungeon that never quite looks or runs the same each time compared to the last. But I can't accept 90's dungeon crawling as an exponent of procedural generation of content.

Rogue was great in the day, as was Mines of Moria, both games (and 100s of Rogue-like games since) consisted of entirely 'random' maps generated procedurally. Of course neither had a particular story, and neither game engine suited story driven content. The 90's games that use this technique similarly used it for non-story driven content and produced labyrinths of uniform stone walled corridors and square rooms.

I think the technique could be used to generate variation in the content that we face in dungeons, and alter paths, puzzles, etc. But other than doing a dungeon as a tribute to dungeon crawlers of the past, I don't see a completely random, procedurally generated dungeon happening.