City Generation/Construction

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Should cities be generated by the computer?

Poll ended at Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:46 pm

Yes, cities should be generated as part of terrain generation, similar to how villages generate now.
1
10%
No, cities should be built by players.
9
90%
 
Total votes: 10

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City Generation/Construction

Post by Keon » Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:11 pm

This was a topic that came up in the skype chat. I'm making a thread so it can be discussed more.
Last edited by Keon on Sun Jan 19, 2014 3:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Chairman_Tiel » Fri Jan 17, 2014 7:35 pm

idk.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Iv121 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 4:26 am

There is no reason to say no to it.

You have your standard FC gameplay with open world and all the other futures, but in addition to it you spread across the systems some planets with cities on them. Now it is physically impossible to make a real MC city either way you look at it which is why when you try to land on a world like that auto pilot takes over and takes you to the space port (Yes when you fly a plane in real life you don’t try to land on roads either, you go straight for the airport).

Once you land you are basically given access to a limited area just like in mass effect with all the stuff you will ever need in a city, with the scenery of the city outside. It gives FC a feeling of a living world, a real world as well as a new type of place you can visit and it doesn’t effect any other gameplay aspect besides of that. It is true you have no freedom to explore all of the city you see (because it is not actually real, scenery just like in ME) yet it didn’t take your freedom outside of that planet, making it a good addon on the gameplay without ruining the rest of it. As such there can be hardly a reason against implementing a city system, its not that hard to code in either.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Prototype » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:39 am

I think the only place cities should be generated is the FC home world, the main world on the main server.

The rest of the worlds is down to the players.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Ivan2006 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 6:57 am

Prototype wrote:I think the only place cities should be generated is the FC home world, the main world on the main server.

The rest of the worlds is down to the players.
Makes sense, but I am not sure if the central server will even have a place for people to be or just serves as a hub for communication/date exchange between servers.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Prototype » Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:49 am

Ivan2006 wrote:
Prototype wrote:I think the only place cities should be generated is the FC home world, the main world on the main server.

The rest of the worlds is down to the players.
Makes sense, but I am not sure if the central server will even have a place for people to be or just serves as a hub for communication/date exchange between servers.
Well we'll have to have a first planet, why not make the city there?
Of course nobody (except maybe devs, mods and long time supporters) would spawn there but people could always journey to it.
Hell, we can always call this planet earth, or earth 2.0
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Keon » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:57 am

I sort of like the idea of having a pilgrimage server in the same way the EVE Gate is a pilgrimage spot, but again; a hub server isn't needed.

Basically, what I think Iv means is that we should generate cities on worlds to simulate life. I would vote no to this for several reasons: First of all, the math behind making a coherent structure will be difficult. A normal MC village is hard enough already, so making a 4 km squared skyscraper city is impossibly hard. Secondly, if we accept that each person who joins the server will want a house, then it makes intuitive sense to expect cities to form, especially if the server is more or less united into 1-4 powerful factions. We can further boost the growth of cities by doing what others were talking about and making transportation of industry products harder. That way, warehouses will pop up, factories will pop up, power generation plants will pop up, and before you know it, poof, a city.

As for generating the world on FC Homeworld, that's a heck of a lot of work for one city. I'd say we just get together once the mod is done and build a city.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by  ҉  » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:07 am

Keon wrote:A normal MC village is hard enough already, so making a 4 km squared skyscraper city is impossibly hard.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/171 ... enerators/
Very old mod, but he did an excellent job of it. His cities aren't futuristic, but they could be adapted to be so.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Iv121 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:13 am

Again the "cities" you can build in MC are nothing compared to what I can offer. No matter how much you try to "boost" cities it just wont be as big, it will be mere villages. You will never be able to build a populated city of that size and I doubt there will be idiots who will be wasting so many resources on it, you could build a few dreads with that much crap.

You say it is impossible to generate such stuff ? Just watch me. Actually you don’t even have to generate it the way you generate terrain in MC.


Honestly I cant see a reason why you insist on not having them. You only tell me "Don’t need we can do on our own" , we both know you cant, you say "You cant do that either" and we both know I can (or at least I know), so what is the problem ? Or you reject the very notion and try to justify it ?
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Keon » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:35 am

Iv121 wrote:Again the "cities" you can build in MC are nothing compared to what I can offer. No matter how much you try to "boost" cities it just wont be as big, it will be mere villages. You will never be able to build a populated city of that size and I doubt there will be idiots who will be wasting so many resources on it, you could build a few dreads with that much crap.
When I see a minecraft server, the spawn is often a city. Now imagine everybody in that minecraft server built their house in that city, or at least the suburbs. Soon, you've got a big city. When you say you'll never be able to build a populated city of that size, you are probably right, but I fail to see the point in a city in which every house is populated by a villager but no players. And keep in mind, it won't be humans placing these blocks. Is it equally impossible to build a city if you could drag and drop holoblock buildings into the world and have robots construct them?
Iv121 wrote:You say it is impossible to generate such stuff ? Just watch me. Actually you don’t even have to generate it the way you generate terrain in MC.
Please elaborate - I've said that I dislike cities, but the ability to have ruins or abandoned worlds might be amazing. So if you have a way to do that, it sounds great.

Iv121 wrote:Honestly I cant see a reason why you insist on not having them. You only tell me "Don’t need we can do on our own" , we both know you cant, you say "You cant do that either" and we both know I can (or at least I know), so what is the problem ? Or you reject the very notion and try to justify it ?
You say we both know I can't, but I really don't see the proof. I suppose I do reject the very notion; I feel that Futurecraft would be better if everything in it was player-generated right down to the cities they lived in. That way, we don't have to railroad players into one type of city. If some players have a building style that consists of upside down pyramids for houses and giant walrus statues, I think that if enough people get together, they should be able to make that city.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Saravanth » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:57 am

No, Iv, it's not impossible to generate that stuff, we know. The general point we're trying to show you is that we perhaps don't want to start in the space age, or have NPC-factions instead of pure player ones. Without those things, generated cities are not fitting. Especially, if you just want to make them scenery like in ME. Although, having city ruins on some planets wouldn't be that bad. That's something that wouldn't conflict with the generation of such structures.

Also, I mentioned before that it wouldn't even be impossible for players to build a city themselves in the game. Resources should be kind of prevolent, not restricted by rarity but by means to harvest them, which should go quite easily at a latter point of the tech tree. A creative/worldedit like player hosted instance, in which blueprints are made, can be paired with constructors which are automating the work. No, cities can't be built overnight, but it shouldn't take longer than a week or two to build a decent, actual city, given that the players are far enough technologically. To give all that a function, NPCs should require habitats to live in, which would be exactly those buildings (I know they can't be actual entities, but more something like mechanical horses).

As for that "futurecraft homeworld", or some starting world in general, just no. Why would players lead such a place, if it has everything they need? Why bother building a city somewhere else? By doing this, you're draining the remaining universe of players. Even if it's only one per system. The players HAVE TO start at the bare vanilla minecraft, surrounded by wilderness, progress further and further and in time, cultivate and civilise their environment. That kind of cities would, one, be so much more immersive, two, evolve naturally on its own, and three, make much more sense in a sandbox game like this. Really, for once you be the one to justify your opinion against this way to do it, Iv, and that goes for anyone else supporting generated NPC-cities. I see what you mean, when you say it doesn't "take anything away", but it does, and would have quite some subtle galaxy-wide effects, negative ones at that. Just as an example, less players in other places and shorter playtime/less things to do. Don't you want to see player collaborate on such projects? Well, I do.

Edit: I agree with Keon
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Prototype » Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:18 pm

cities can totally be generated, anyone remember the Zombieland mod?
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Keon » Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:26 pm

Prototype wrote:cities can totally be generated, anyone remember the Zombieland mod?
Never said it wasn't possible, it's just that it's a bit difficult. I feel that it would take a lot of time and it wouldn't help that much. It depends, but I'd much prefer to have ancient derelict ships and dead crypt-worlds with broken cities to explore than generated ones that players all live in. So I suppose I support generating these, but not the idea that the world is already settled by things other than humans.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Iv121 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 1:35 pm

Not in the slightest, it is actually harder to generate naturally looking terrain. Also sara no matter what you say the game is set up in the space age because people are not going to play for 3000 years to get to it, even if you start with stone tools it will still be space age , even if you make the player create tribes and learn how to get fire from lightning reducing thousands of years of evolution into dust it will still be set in the space age because nobody removed space ships in the end of the path, might as well make it a better space age !

If you tell me ONE thing you will loose from adding cities I might reconsider my approach, you will find NONE, simply because of the very nature of the proposal. It doesn’t change the core of the gameplay in any way, it only adds to it, thus it cannot effect the core gameplay or in other words you are not loosing anything , only gaining immersion.

Finally it is true that you can put a veto on cities in FC and I wont be able to do much, but if you refuse to go on compromises keep in mind I can also put a veto on your ideas.
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Re: City Generation/Construction

Post by Saravanth » Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:04 pm

Iv121 wrote:Not in the slightest, it is actually harder to generate naturally looking terrain. Also sara no matter what you say the game is set up in the space age because people are not going to play for 3000 years to get to it, even if you start with stone tools it will still be space age , even if you make the player create tribes and learn how to get fire from lightning reducing thousands of years of evolution into dust it will still be set in the space age because nobody removed space ships in the end of the path, might as well make it a better space age !
Nobody ever said three thousand years had to be relived. But you cannot go and craft a plasma gun out of dirt blocks. You are ridiculing what I said.

You don't have to go all the way from stone age, but the earliest part one gets to after the basic minecraft is the industrial age, which is the base for the whole of modern society in reality. After that little hassle the whole of the "future" is open, and it does actually make sense, then.
Iv121 wrote: If you tell me ONE thing you will loose from adding cities I might reconsider my approach, you will find NONE, simply because of the very nature of the proposal. It doesn’t change the core of the gameplay in any way, it only adds to it, thus it cannot effect the core gameplay or in other words you are not loosing anything , only gaining immersion.
Saravanth wrote: As for that "futurecraft homeworld", or some starting world/hub in general, just no. Why would players leave such a place, if it has everything they need? Why bother building a city somewhere else? By doing this, you're draining the remaining universe of players. Even if it's only one per system. The players HAVE TO start at the bare vanilla minecraft, surrounded by wilderness, progress further and further and in time, cultivate and civilise their environment. That kind of cities would, one, be so much more immersive, two, evolve naturally on its own, and three, make much more sense in a sandbox game like this...
...Just as an example, less players in other places and shorter playtime/less things to do. Don't you want to see player collaborate on such projects? Well, I do.
(This proves you didn't read properly read my post)
No, it doesn't change the core, but affects the players and their actions. Immersion you may gain at first, but it's like steroids, it helps you speed up that process (The same would be achieved after a time through player cities), but does funny things with your balls. Also, you won't be able to (like Ivan already said) look back at that old stone pickaxe and say "Look, look how far I've come". That sense of accomplishment is an important factor. And, to quote Keon, it would railroad the players into one type of city.
Iv121 wrote:Finally it is true that you can put a veto on cities in FC and I wont be able to do much, but if you refuse to go on compromises keep in mind I can also put a veto on your ideas.
I am not putting a veto on cities in FC. I thought I made myself clear about that subject. I veto the generation of populated cities. If you can let the game generate city ruins, that would rock, but populated, functional cities, or just scenery, would do more harm than good.

This time, would you kindly read it properly?
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