So we've had a few people start to realise why we're so excited about this game, and it's to do with the infinite game world... So we thought we should write up this blog entry to explain it a bit further...
So you've been seeing lots of "overworld" stuff in the game, like this:
And you're possibly thinking to yourself "Wow, that's really well designed! It's very pretty!" but it wasn't designed by us....
You may have also seen the dungeons, like this:
And thought "Very cool! That's a well-designed dungeon! Very labyrinthine". But, once again, it wasn't made by us...
The truth is that the GAME ENGINE is what made these levels. We have no level designer on the team, as our procedural engine that we've written builds the world for us. Towns, dungeons, countryside... It's all made by the game, and it does this INFINITELY.
But let me clarify that...
We've had a lot of people think that when we say "infinite world" we mean "randomly generated world". This is not the case. Everyone who plays Malevolence will experience the same world as everyone else who plays Malevolence, just in the same way that everyone who plays Skyrim plays in the same world as everyone else who plays Skyrim. It's not an MMO, it's singleplayer, however everyone is in a copy of the same world. That world, however, is genuinely infinite.
We can already hear a lot of you going:
So let me give you this example... Let's say that two people, each with their own computer, install Malevolence, start a new game (both, coincidentally starting in the same location), both walk North for a million miles, then both turn East and walk for another million miles. When they stop walking, they'll both be in EXACTLY the same place. If there is a town there, they will both be in that town. If there's a tavern there called The Stinky Pomegranate, they'll BOTH see the Stinky Pomegranate.
So if you have Malevolence, and a friend of yours has Malevolence, and you find a PARTICULARLY awesome dungeon, you can tell your friend Bobby Joe about it and where to find it (no matter HOW far you've traveled to find it yourself) and if he follows your directions he will be able to find it himself.
Loot, on the other hand, is spawned based on a time coefficient, so it will be harder to direct people to a particular item. But you'll be able to direct people to any NPC, town, dungeon, crypt, mountain, ocean, island, or any fixed thing like that.
And yes, throughout all of this, it's infinite.
"Impossible!!!" you say? Well, it's actually working just fine, but it's all in raw data format so it's quite boring to look at. All we're doing now is going through and attaching the 3D world to it (the easy part, comparatively)
Are you of a more technically minded nature and would like to know a bit more about how it's done? Then feel free to read this blog article we did about it. We don't go into TOO much detail (naturally, we don't want everyone stealing our technology) but it should give you enough of an outline to let you know that we're not TOTALLY crazy (just a little)
And remember, you can follow more regular updates on this game (as well of heaps of extra stuff not shown on the blogs) by following us on the social networks!
Also, for something different... Would you like to help out the project with a donation? It's easy to do, thanks to PayPal! You don't have to, of course, but to scavenging indies like us, every little bit helps!
All you have to do is visit the FAQ page on our homepage and scroll to the button :)
Gotta love that 4th dimension! Not only does it allow the whole dang universe to run in a measurable fashion, it allows for a formula to predictably and accurately generate and place terrain, buildings, flora, and fauna in an effectively-infinite fashion. Plus, because the method is so predictable, you don't need to store too much in memory at any one time - meaning you don't have to worry about the thing running like Crysis in 1080p (a shaky 30-45FPS on the best graphics cards as of this comment) just to render an infinite world!
:) Good to see I've managed to explain it right this time! I'm really quite terrible at describing things of a complex nature :S
I hope, having read about it, that you can forgive us for not having randomly generated worlds!
On the contrary, I should be asking you for forgiveness for my gross lack of farsightedness! :)
On an unrelated note, the 60's-style meme in the newspost made me wonder about how moddable the game is (or will be). It would be rather interesting to see a Fallout total conversion for this game - especially since the game world would be infinite!
that would be amazing
We've had a few questions about that... To be completely honest, when we started making this game, and were creating the foundation code for the engine, we REALLY didn't expect it to be as popular as it has become, so we didn't make it moddable at all. The engine's just not set up for it... However, that being said, if the game is popular enough we have plans to release a couple of expansion packs and then a sequel. One of the expansion packs will likely include a full engine re-write to allow user mods, since we'd really like to see what people come up with! :D
In my opinion, you and your team should talk more about how to include modding support when possible because I don't think people will enjoy having to pay X amount of money just to play mods - especially if said mods are very good and/or award-winning! Instead, I think simultaneously releasing the expansion with a base-game mega-patch for mod support would be the best choice. Of course, another option would be to release the expansion as a sort of "The Adventure So Far" standalone release, with the base game and all previous expansions included and mod support.
For the latter, you could offer discounts based on whether or not people who bought the base game also bought 1 or more expansions (more expansions mean a deeper discount) - similar to what Bohemia Interactive Studio is doing with their ARMA X: Anniversary Edition compilation.
Unfortunately, we all have full-time jobs, so we can only do so much before the release date :P
Well I am just wondering, cant we generate our own world? The technology is there.
Yes, it is, but given that the world is infinite, there are always new places to explore (literally, always) so it's really no different to random generation, or having unique worlds for each game. If you're bored with the part of the world you're in, you can pay money in the underground to go through a 'chaos portal' which will fling you into a random part of the infinite world. You could end up ten million miles away from where you were!
*puts Chaos Portal salesman on speed-dial* ;)
hahaha they're VERY illegal in the game, so you'll need to find the "underground" people who will open them for you. Magical travel is strictly controlled by the Mage's Guild... But that doesn't stop people ;)
*Buys pre-paid cell phone out-of-province* XD
hahaha :D
Can't you become a high ranking member of the mage's guild and use it than?
You can indeed ;)
That's cash, can not wait.
So... I still thinking with myself... "Dude, WTF ?"
Really? What's unclear?
So... why the game is generated if it will be always the same local ? What's the point ?
I'm sorry, I'm not really sure what you're asking... The game needs to only generate the world around the player because it's impossible to generate an infinte world all at once.
If you're wondering why the world is generated instead of hand-made if the world will be the same for anyone anyway, have you ever created an infinite world by hand? ;) Creating something that is infinite is impossible for someone who(m?..) is mortal.
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Haha, amazing blog post! Haven't read something like this in a while.
Anyways, looking forward to it!
lol sorry that it's a bit "Look... Just... Just listen..." but we really want people to understand why we're so excited about this game!
wow at first i thought it was just a random genrated world in a limited area (kinda like daggerfall), but after reading this, i think the game will be that much better
We're certainly glad you think so! :D stay tuned!
The blogpost (link) was a good read. I work with the same stuff as you guys so it was quite informative for me.
Very glad to hear you liked it! :D
I must admit I wasn't exactly looking forward to this game before this blog-post. It looked good, but I wasn't particularily intruiged.
Now, though, you've got me. I've been hooked. I love everything I can think of about this system, and am greatly looking forward to hearing more concerning anything about the game.
G'luck!
Well you've come to the right place! :D Thank you for your support! We're glad to hear you like it. I'm thinking that we should do an extra-large blog-post fully detailing precisely what this game is and will do!
My question, how can there be a planet of infinite size? Surely this must be one amazing fantasy realm, mmh an infinitely large planet must take up alot of space in the universe ^.^'
There are many possible explanations, both scientific and fantastical, but I think slightly paraphrasing the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) Mantra will do:
"It's just a game, I should really just relax."
heh, that's a good question. But the world in the game isn't a planet. It's a fantasy world being created within the imagination of a magical, sentient sword, called The Sword of Ahkranox :) Hopefully that explains it for you!
It does thanks.
No worries :)
I don't want to sound like jerk, but... in the previous 2 or 3 new posts you post over and over the same stuff. It won't make it easier for people who didn't understand it before to understand it now if you repeat almost the exactly same stuff every time.
And seriously, it sounds to start like some propaganda in some remote dictatorship. You used the same wording in every of the last few news posts, what you don't understand is: If someone don't understand what you're explaining to them, you should NOT repeat it, but repharse it as it's obviously badly explained, right? ;)
Also you use terms which are common for programmers like me (procedural) but the average joe user has no idea what it means. For example instead of writing "procedural content generation", you could say "the content is generated by a special/unique algorithm" and that "this algorithm always create the same world, when you feed it with with the same data" (what we programmers know as seed)).
I'm sorry you feel that way, but everyone else seems to follow along fine. I know we've gone over similar topics a few times, but it's been because we keep getting sent messages asking questions. Like I said, everyone else is enjoying the posts just fine, and seems to be able to follow along. Procedural generation isn't a foreign word to most people these days!