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

[Jynx]

I'm sorry but I watched that video back at release, it's gotten far less witty now and was pretty bad at release as well.

I'm sorry but using the term "Copy-pastad" like he couldn't afford to use the brain power to say pasted just strikes me as a terribly bad rant no matter how good of a point he had. He threw away all his credabillity when he resorted to talking like a drooling fool.

*edit*

I see you didn't actually use that terrible Copy pasta video. Either way this type of map doesn't work as well for a MMO.

[Kaedan]

That fuel game was quite bland. And you can't really use procedurally generated maps in an MMO.

Every MMO utilizes copy paste. They have to. With the exception of Gridania, FFXIV's copy pasted terrain is no different from any other MMO. However, what SE failed to do was disguise the copy-paste. In other MMOs, they disguise their copy-paste with buildings, natural wonders, and different structures. SE didn't do that with FFXIV.

Now personally, I like the realistic, natural scenery of FFXIV. But I can definitely see how some people might find the relative lack of structures bland.

[Cairdeas]

Name one modern game that doesn't use Prefabbing (Copy/pasting) and I'll bake a cookie for myself.

[kukurumei]

Mapping terrain isnt hard. Surely it's more difficult to make it so it all fits together nicely.

Technical limitations are obvious reasons for the cloning. So i think some degree of cloning is necessary (using algorithms to mask it or by repeating the structures themselves). It would have been forgiveable if SE had cloned wisely.

Nope. If we take it on theory, then yes, maybe, but in this case, big fat nope.

We can clearly see where the "loads" are, because the maps are "boxy". That's an old engineer's trick, and that should have been most of what they needed. The copy and pasting on top of that smells of rush jobs, and laziness.

And they didn't even work that hard to hide the "box" trick.

What is the box trick? Look At the maps. big open area, long corridor, big area, long corridor, aka choke point, for a seamless load. Characters moving through that corridor = loading in background.

It's easy to spot, because the moment you look on the map, people will look for "short cuts" of course they are quick to realize, there exist none, because each section is closed off followed by a "tube" that connected to the next region. That is where the technical trick is.

Copy and pasting is a whole separate issue it seems, and one likely attributed to money.

[gifthorse]

Nope. If we take it on theory, then yes, maybe, but in this case, big fat nope.

We can clearly see where the "loads" are, because the maps are "boxy". That's an old engineer's trick, and that should have been most of what they needed. The copy and pasting on top of that smells of rush jobs, and laziness.

And they didn't even work that hard to hide the "box" trick.

What is the box trick? Look At the maps. big open area, long corridor, big area, long corridor, aka choke point, for a seamless load. Characters moving through that corridor = loading in background.

It's easy to spot, because the moment you look on the map, people will look for "short cuts" of course they are quick to realize, there exist none, because each section is closed off followed by a "tube" that connected to the next region. That is where the technical trick is.

Copy and pasting is a whole separate issue it seems, and one likely attributed to money.

I agree that it could have been disguised better, but the point I was making is that making a series of individual discrete objects and then fitting them together is more difficult than just making one giant discrete object. One object would require more data than several repeated ones, hence why SE chose the latter. Their attempts at disguising it failed though.

The goal is to make several smaller objects and then fit them together or superimpose them in such a way that it gives the impression of one, greater unique object. SE failed at fitting their smaller individual objects together, they didn't fail at making them.

After all, they can't just make infinite amounts of discrete objects with today's technology. I mean they can if they want to, but their engine can't load them all in. SE faces technological constraints on the amount of data they can load in. Using another engine may have helped, but they would have to then compromise on graphical quality.

I think those zone margins within the greater zones are more network-based, and probably don't alleviate as much stress on people's video cards and ram as you think. The mini zones within the zones are still using the same textures, and whatnot. The tunnels which conveniently separate the areas are most likely there so people can load in the arrangement of the objects while travelling rather than to help load in entirely new objects.

[kukurumei]

I agree that it could have been disguised better, but the point I was making is that making a series of individual discrete objects and then fitting them together is more difficult than just making one giant discrete object. One object would require more data than several repeated ones, hence why SE chose the latter. Their attempts at disguising it failed though.

The goal is to make several smaller objects and then fit them together or superimpose them in such a way that it gives the impression of one, greater unique object. SE failed at fitting their smaller individual objects together, they didn't fail at making them.

After all, they can't just make infinite amounts of discrete objects with today's technology. I mean they can if they want to, but their engine can't load them all in. SE faces technological constraints on the amount of data they can load in. Using another engine may have helped, but they would have to then compromise on graphical quality.

For example. A shack, if it was procedural, it would have been scaled, reshaped and maybe even colored differently or the arrangement of the camp would have been mixed and matched. None of that was even there.

I think those zone margins within the greater zones are more network-based, and probably don't alleviate as much stress on people's video cards and ram as you think. The mini zones within the zones are still using the same textures, and whatnot. The tunnels which conveniently separate the areas are most likely there so people can load in the arrangement of the objects while travelling rather than to help load in entirely new objects.

That's a a little far fetched to me. Since we know that Lod is indeed used in the engine, and the objects in general aren't very procedural in FF14. There isn't that much procedural work done, rather repetition, which begs the question, of what they are they trying to optimize here.

You would have a point if there is aggressive use of procedural work, which would lead to the conclusion they needed to squeeze that memory requirement, but given how the game is programmed, it's more of a question why didn't they use more of it to squeeze that memory requirement.

Copy and pasting objects as a technical solution is a last result ideal. The fact the game wasn't even squeezing it, and having regular old trees and tents and shacks put around over and over leads to different conclusions.

For example, if it was procedural, we would have had changed shaped, scaled, and maybe even different colors. That shows there were simply being dumped on to a scene, rather then manipulated like most procedural work.

Even then that's rather minimal compare to the graphics requirements. Server load balancing hand outs is like...a drop in the water to put a 3 minute corridor. There is no reason to be doing that unless the client is flushing the memory of behind, to load, in front.

We can always easily blame it on the engine, but then we can blame the engine for everything as ultimately, it's always a limitation of engines. The sad fact here is, there's too much and too overly done.

Something isn't adding up here. There are too many holes in the story where any decent graphics designer would immediately have made his living.

[Ilean]

That's LOD, and FFXIV has it.

It's not to save memory by the way, it's purpose is to lighten the stress on the video card.

LoD is texture filtering related, the term you are looking for is tessellation http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPU...chapter07.html
(LoD is actually a used term for it but in the GPU graphics context they call it tessellation)

Sadly FFXIV isn't using it, it's a DX11 feature (FFXIV is DX9) so it would have to be done in software and there is nothing that even hints at it being used.


Edit:
If any form of tessellation was used they wouldn't need a background quality option, which actually decreases resolution of the world outside a certain range.

Also the purpose of tessellation is not really to lighten GPU load, but not to waste it on objects that are too far (drawn too small) for the details to be appreciated.

[Lamhirh]

The problem with landscapes, is that nature is actually monotonic and boring, and mostly looks copy pasted. I personaly find area around limsa awesome. i love grasslands, and this remembers me place where my grand-grand parents lived ( i visit there every now and than) seriously iof yuo ever left hopme and like go for a mountains you will find, that even after full day of walkin the landscape is kind of the same. the viev changes, but landscape is more or less same. What i dislike in XIV is lack of real forest. This labyrynth around gird doesnt coumt. i mean real forest you can just walk between trees.

[Xquiel]

ffxiv's maps are large, not too large but it's allright. so, what's the problem here?, easy, The game do not make us to use it correctly. The 90% of players are in uldah, broken water and horizon. Coherthas it's really cool, my favorite place, but why I need to go there?, what have coherthas that I do not have in thanalan?... that's the problem, nobody needs to go to another place, bc in thanalan we have everything we need.

[indira]

funny thing is to stream you need a stong processor cuz it has to cache somewhere(ram/hdd/processor) and be pulled from that place and ffxi recomended processor is a i7 and thats in a static world how are you guys running pentinum 2's or laptops gonna play the game if it was streaming ? and recomended hardware is for playing the game at a decent setting, not high.

square should just stick to what they know and stop listening to people. people are gonna like or hate the game regardless of what they do, plain and simple cant make everyone like you.