Well Jabberwocky, rest assured the mathematical equations for procedural creating star systems will as long as your arm full of diferent parameters and other stuff.

So, they're at billions of star systems by now. Even for a MMO, think that this is overly ambitious. Then again, I consider Infinity to be overly ambitious, something that might easily spell it's downfall.

One problem with that amount of space in a persistent universe is the hardware required to handle it. Yes, it's procedurally generated, but if half the features they have planned are implemented, quite a few of those systems will be given an extensive makeover by the players, increasing the amount of data associated with each system.

From a gameplay point of view, it's iffy at best - while I hate unconsensual PVP, it IS a selling point for a lot of people, and given the sheer amount of space, you're unlikely to have much success stalking players - with a generous playerbase estimation of maybe 300K players, there's still more than half a million systems per player in the game. While I'm pretty sure that some systems will be fuller than others, that's still akin to finding a needle in a haystack. As a matter of fact, the game might be more of a solo experience, despite having 300K+ players on on server. You're pretty unlikely to encounter anybody once you head out.

The next "problem" (I don't have any problem with this fact, but others definitely will) is that everywhere will look pretty much the same. The systems are procedurally generated, and due to the sheer numbers involved, systems will likely resemble each other - don't expect amazing and wonderous sights. After the 20th binary system you'll likely have a far more prosaic approach to the next one you find.

"Suns, 2, one red, one white. Planets, 4. 1 terrestrial, mainly blueish vegetation. Only common resources. 1 gas giant. Guess I'll use that to refuel and check the next system."

"Suns, one, yellow. Planets, 3. Traces of former habitation. Someone named the terrestial planet "Yermomsmells" and built a station there. According to scanners, no jump drive activity within the last 4 months of realtime."

The whole place will have a "been there, done that"-feeling once you've seen your share of systems. EVE has pretty much the same problems (space looks pretty much the same everywhere, despite the color variations), but has chokepoints built into it and is generally rather small - the game encourages turf wars on various scales. Whether or not this is your cup of tea remains disputable, but it does force the players to interact in one way or another.

Infinity, however, is unlikely have those chokepoints if it intends to keep this number of systems.

In a way, the idea sounds great. There is enough space for everyone, and whole empires might form in the great void. On the downside, it's unlikely that anybody will find or care too much about these empires. Due to the vastness of the playing field and the tendencies of today's players, you're more likely to find fortified systems that are capable of producing ships and equipment, and the owners of said systems who will go to extreme lengths to get something to shoot at.

The next issue will be keeping the player busy. So you have all of those wonderful systems. How can you interact with them? What kind of challenge will they provide to a player when no other players are around? Will interacting with them be fun at all?

One of the main complaints about sandbox games is that there is nothing to do. (I strongly disagree with that, since it's about setting your own goals instead of following the theme park ride, but I agree that getting thrown into deep water and being told "just swim already!" is intimidating.) You need to provide common goals in order to get the players to cooperate, and still make being a lone wolf trader/mercenary an option. Which is infinitely harder to do in a sandbox than in a theme park MMO, where you just need to dangle some shinies and tell the players that they'll need a tank, a healer and some damage dealers to get said shinies.

Some AI ships could spice exploration up a bit. Yet overdo that and basically require the players to form throngs of 40+ ships in order to make it somewhere alive and in one pice, and you've basically generated all that space for nothing, since only a handfull of your playerbase will ever get to see it.

You need to keep all the players busy. Busy enough to keep them coming month after month, with this being a MMO. A big empty space won't do the trick, not at all. It's an interesting starting point, however.

Right now, Infinity is busy with getting the universe to run. I wish they'd put more thoughts into getting the game behind it to be fun as well.

-Blackthorne

😀

Best line...ever!

this is quite facinating, whats the status of this game?

It's been pretty silent since the Infinity folks came out with that video a few months back.

semi vapor ware or just taking a while to form up (IE coding is tedious and boring)

I got the impression that they were trying to form a more professional development studio to make the game or licence out the game engine.

a few updates follow kieth innovae on twitter

they have setup a professional company and now have 8 staff on theri books

They have funding ( all hush hush) being provided by a fairly large game studio to get this game to beta status

So the engine now is licensed has millions being backed behind it and keith and co are working on the game

Latest video a few days ago shows as direct X 11 planet graphics game engine my mouth was watering. And other aspects of the game are coming along strongly

Good to hear they have started again hopefully we will be getting some more news from them.

Yeah the terrain engine looks great so far and hope eventually we could see some weather effects and vegetation/life on some of these planets.

If you make exploring suitably dangerous despite the size the area inhabited by people will be much more manageable.

Faced with danger people tend to congregate together I think its' one of the great things about eve when you head out you are genuinely nervous.

Would be great to have a similar sense of danger in Infinity.

If a billion star systems comes with no cost I'd say go for it otherwise 5,000 would still probably blow your mind.

hehe,

If you guys think a billion stars is annoying. You don't want to know about Limit Theories setup then, as it truly is infinte. It never ends...

Hi Straker

Nice to see you posting again, and yes LT (I've backed it), I wonder what Frontier Developments thinks about it. Star Citizen wasn't direct competition for Elite IV, but LT does seem to be. Led by a bright young man with big ideas, sounds just like David Braben himself back in the 80s.

I've said this before and will say it again, this is a great time to be a space sim fan! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//girl_crazy.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

... wish i had 200 billion seconds time left for my life...(on second thought iam not really sure..)

back to topic - although iam a fan of large - open sand box style games - with no apparent boundaries

i still like being able to remember where i have been in a game (especially useful for traderoute calculations, returning to that weaponsdealer once you have enough credits, and hunting for the next big ship)

and this is usually less compatible with procedural generated content that would be needed to generate 5+digit numbers of star systems

Try being a completionist playing the Discovery mod for Freelancer - there is "only" a 3 digit number of systems - but most especially the vanilla systems are very memorable.

After some long journey or exploration when you get back to the core systems - you have almost that "finally back at home" feeling.

Generating lots of starsystems thats so old - frontier already did that for the extreme - if you zoomed out of the galaxy map really far enough you could see more galaxies (though i dont know if they were just mirror images)

Would like to see generated space ships / stations / infrastructure that wont look like random triangles and at least the ships should be buyable. (Thats right i really mean the models and according stats)

Well if it cost nothing why not. But it still stands.

Also there noting wrong with artificial wall. Especialy if gamers can't reach them. Or doesn't interfere with normal gameplay. It just reduce a lot of extra work that has not much value to the game. That why there are artifical walls.

A bad example of artificial wall would be GRAW. A fps shooter in a town where you aren't able to flank from the next streets. That is a wall gamers collide on. A example wich solve this is the way you hop from mission to mission in crysis. Lot of freedom to flank. And a bit more freedom then you realy need.

Games where flankin is a tacktic as part of the gameplay. The play field just need room to flank.

A example of your galactic overkill is. Having Farcry2 with a play field as large as whole earth. reduce to whole africa.

Overkill a bit reduced is still overkill. No much colliding of gamers with that artifical wall.

Beside in space the fastness off space just act like a natural wall of nothing. Compared to mountains and Ocean's.

In X3 the universe map is abstract restricted and simplefied. That wil do for bulk of gameplay it offers.

But each sector it just seams you can go on and on in a direction. There isn't much value in that. As game engine you could set a artifical wall if you travel for a month real game time in a direction. But then again wich gamer would do.

The question is. "Is it necessary?"

The game does not have 200 billion star systems, it has the capability to produce 200 billion star systems. All that it means is that if you go in one direction and keep going, when you reach the end of known space the game will keep generating more content for you. Seeing as the original area was generated on the same procedural engine, it's impossible that beyond that space there would be any space that was any more or less interesting, minus the players.

In this respect, its a bit like minecraft but on a interplanetary level. Personally, I think the devs haven't released any content in a LONG time and that's pretty telling though.

Welcome to the forums Gen.

Infinity were thinking about doing a Kickstarter for a smaller, combat game, don't know if their is any more new about that.

Personally I think in a universe many systems wouldn't be that interesting in real life. Maybe only for extracting the resources of them for a period, but after that it becomes a useless system.

In that sense, I think that the capability to make so many systems can easily facilitate this. Many systems wouldn't be interesting at all. And would just be filler for the skybox or for a small mining outfit to mine there for a short time. Some systems (especially those with rich habitable planets) could be far more interesting, and eventually form market hubs and such.

For a vibrant MMO community in a big universe, 5000 players can already be enough to make it a sustainable community. Heck, hazeron has far less, and still has a vibrant community, with their own 'culture' if I may name it so. It all depends on the type of gameplay, and the way how players get together. And in that sense I don't see any reason for having all of the systems having semi-permanent or permanent habitation. Likely only a few will have that, and others will just be temporarily inhabited for as long as its residents find benefits in it through resources, as a hiding spot, or whatever.

In that sense so many systems could really become viable if you manage to reach a 100.000 to 200.000 active playerbase.

I hope they do include that many. If you want solitude, travel out but if you want others to be nearby, stick to the hubs. I don't want to see an Eve clone where the best materials are grabbed and held by the veterans with bases, sovereignty and huge mofo Titan ships while the newer players don't even get a look in unless they can PVP like a pro.

I would prefer to see a system where you have the ability to lose yourself in a distant corner of the universe to make your fortune. Somewhere that, if you go far enough, you will rarely see another player and have it all taken from you by them. In my mind, building up a nice little empire for yourself and having another player come along and destroy everything you've accomplished overnight is the biggest game breaker, it should be very hard, even as a group, to destroy your base. Since there is enough space for everyone, they can persist and risk losing their own ships or move on to settle on another system.

My ideal game would be MMO but allowing you to solo to build up skills and experience in things other than combat to offer other players you wish to group with and make a guild. Otherwise, it's simply a case of: I'm just another noob with nothing to offer who wants to join up. By allowing people to disappear into the vast reaches of space, they can become hermits to learn more about the commerce and industry side of the game without having to worry about requiring PVP combat skills, esepcially if they suck at PVP combat like me. When they join a guild/clan or whatever, they can leave the combat to players with more skill to do it while the non combat players continue to build ships and equipment for them to fly in combat. The non combat players can also work on base defences and repairs during a battle.

What I hated most about Eve was that, you couldn't learn about the game without coming across so many others just waiting to blow your ship apart for the fun of it. Yup, that's real fun, but only for you, I fly an industrial with no defence and you fly a cruiser. I get blown up at gate camps every time I want to traverse the distance between the base and the main hub so basically, I am a prisoner with no means to get what I've manufactured/mined to a place to sell it. the alternative is to stick to the hub and never gain any experience in mining the top end ores/ice, moon mining, building anything larger than a battleship and so on. So much fun that I soon quit playing.