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GameSpy: Other games have tried to do randomly-generated content without much success. Why is it that Diablo can make it work?
Jay Wilson: I honestly think that randomness is incredibly hard to do, and incredibly expensive. And so, to a certain degree -- and I hate to throw it down to just this -- it's a resource problem more than anything else. If you're going to make a really cool dungeon -- let's say a good-sized dungeon probably would be, if you use our dungeon as an example, 12 to 15 rooms is what you need to create. Maybe even a little bit less; we find six to eight rooms can take you 15 to 20 minutes to get through. That's actually a good amount of time for a single level. Maybe you repeat it a couple so times so you get up to 20 [rooms]. It takes about 80 rooms to make a truly random dungeon -- a dungeon that feels random. So you look at that, and it's about four or five times the amount of content. And the creation of background content is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the creation of games.
When you look at games, they don't have problems creating characters. Animation is a bit of a bottleneck, because there's so much animation required nowadays, but if you look at any game company and see who they're trying to hire at any one time... I don't know anybody who isn't trying to hire background people. Part of it is that there's so much background to create, and part of it is that most people would rather create a big, giant monster than a tree. But boy, what we wouldn't give for some good tree creators! People who love to create trees are worth their weight in gold!
Is blizzard uniquely able to create enjoyable, semi-randomized levels? Is their art design uniquely pleasing, in the RPG industry? Or are their whole games just so good that we tend to think every element is great, when maybe it's the whole > sum of the parts?
My opinion, the bottom line will be their expectations of how the levels should look and ultimately feel. Randomising means joining things together so you can't tell they were originally separate entities (map chunks).
It's like in project management where you have to first work something out (the predecessor) before starting something else. You can't build levels until you know how the chunks of levels are meant to come together. If the formula for level generation is wrong then a lot of work on levels (graphics) would either require a complete rework or dump. So if they are talking about this now then that's not a good sign for level randomisation imo.
Yeah, it all comes down to the horrible HR's Blizzard has. I saw so many people making totally amazing objects, be it trees, textures, and what not, but does Blizzard hire them? No. They want someone "popular" and what not. So they get what they deserve.
randomization eh? well the new game Left 4 Dead is running an engine that makes every playthrough new and awesome. i forgot the name of the engine though. but the game rocks and is different every time. LOVE IT
randomization eh? well the new game Left 4 Dead is running an engine that makes every playthrough new and awesome. i forgot the name of the engine though. but the game rocks and is different every time. LOVE IT
Left4Dead uses a modified version of the SOURCE engine. The Director AI controls where the enemies spawn and how difficult the map is depending on how well the players are doing.
It's not really the randomized dungeons that do it for me. I thought it was a nice feature for its' time in d1. But now, I just find it's something that requires me to keep the big ugly map on all the time.
I'd like to see more randomized monsters appearing in the levels though.
And, there is TOO much randomization for weapon rack drops. You often get a tiny claw or throwing knife off a big huge rack. Remember the Armories of Hell in d1? Those were the good old days. You knew what you were going to get.
The randomisation of levels could be done better though. The D2 way is not the only nor the best way of having this sort of dynamics in the game. They could do with better randomisation of monsters but I do fear what impact this would have on the feel of levels. I'd like to see more grades of monsters rather that just unique/champion/normal. It would also be great to see a group mentality evolve with monsters that involves morale checks. These are all missing in so many rpg ai.
I'd like to see more randomized monsters appearing in the levels though.
Do you mean stats wise? Visual wise?
I could see Zombies looking different. The game chooses what head/body/legs/arms the zombies get and base the stats on the choosen part. For example a big, fat boy means he has double HP. Arm X means he gets a random weapon and Arm Y means he uses his fist/claws to attack.
Would be awesome.
Linear Mode
