Citizencon 2017: Procedural Cities & other highlights

MaxBacon

Citizencon just ended and it's time to get one overview, to start in my opinion was the best conference they did to date, the expanded format, and a much better demo after one weaker Gamescom shown off what is under works beyond Alpha 3.0, being the highlight of this the first demo the Arccorp landing zone finally integrated in a procedural city planet.



Here is the actual Procedural City demo, including the WIP Arccorp and Hurston (23:50):


Aside of the keynote demo, it's worth noting the new format included a hands-on playable build of 3.0 (in one of 3.0's moons) in a 24 player server setup. The 2nd booth allowed to try out the FOIP.

In other announcements it is now stated they will be moving to a date driven release schedule instead of feature-driven, releasing what they have ready by then, it's to be seen if they can keep up with this after 3.0 releases.

PANEL 1: Enhancing Mocap Data with Procedural Systems

PANEL 2: Graphics and Tech Development for Star Engine

PANEL 3: The Art and Tech of Stanton

PANEL 4: Xi'an from History to Language

PANEL 5: The Consolidated Outland Pioneer

The Intro "Box to Planet" pretty much:


The Pioneer (colonization ship):


The Sabre Raven (Intel Octane SSDs related):

• Interview with Erin Roberts
• http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/comment/7239178/#Comment_7239178 Interview with Chris Roberts
• Sean Tracy clarification on building interiors (city-related)
• Re-Watch stream of presentation by CIG employee, talking specific points and answering questions

Erillion

ArcCorp Landing ... 2017 version. Blade Runner Flashback ....

And so it begins ...

Low orbit orbital plates like in Warhammer 40K ...

Next stop : Lorville on Hurston

New Quantum Travel animation. Travel time reminds me of Elite: Dangerous. Not instant travel.

8 minutes of Quantum travel for roughly 23.2 million km. Filled with a presentation of tools. With 4 minutes of setting seeds, they created a HUGE High tech city. WITH interiors. WITH shops. WITH NPCs. :-O

From Trantor to Ruhrgebiet 2.0 ... huge mines instead of planet spanning city.

CR specifically compares the main building in Lorville with the Tyrell building in Blade Runner.

Walking the planet and examining the vegetation.

Tron style bike racing through the city with a Nox.

Entering a factory. Workers. Guards. People taking a break and watching their smartph... errr... MobiGlas.

Creepy fauna ... Headcrab scavenger thingies ....

No crashes, no mentionable bugs besides a bit of Nox jitter when unpiloted.


CR thanks the team and drags em on stage. DOZENS of people !

And now ... CAKE !  And singing ....

CR thanks audience - in Capitol and online.



Have fun

MaxBacon

Erillion said:
With 4 minutes of setting seeds, they created a HUGE High tech city. WITH interiors. WITH shops. WITH NPCs. :-O

Yeah that's what impressed me, pushing the tech to one point and scale to allow them to generate a city, the whole district approach that even with the repetition that was there at this stage. The result seeing Arccorp with those visuals and scale, then the pull from surface to space... really cool seeing what this tech is achieving.

Doesn't it bring you back to 2015 when PG was announced and we saw that initial algorithm height map?

Erillion

Even if there is repetition in there:

I recently visited China. Quite abit of flying over the country at 11 km height. It is amazing how repetitive these Chinese megacities look like from a plane. Same look, same colours, same shapes.

We may view ourselves as unique and individuals. We may view our cities as unique and special. But from high up you do not see individuals at all and most city layouts are following standard patterns, most buildings have similar looks if situated in the same area. So that repetitveness is actually closer to reality than what we imagine.


Have fun

MaxBacon

Erillion said:

Even if there is repetition in there:

I recently visited China. Quite abit of flying over the country at 11 km height. It is amazing how repetitive these Chinese megacities look like from a plane. Same look, same colours, same shapes.

We may view ourselves as unique and individuals. We may view our cities as unique and special. But from high up you do not see individuals at all and most city layouts are following standard patterns, most buildings have similar looks if situated in the same area. So that repetitveness is actually closer to reality than what we imagine.


Have fun

Should also be around that.

As they shown on the editor this works via districts merging together, adding more variety and continuing to improve it can get the visuals to a point you won't notice that factor unless you really look for it.

The adding that generation up to the horizon then seen from above https://i.imgur.com/BETwEEa.jpg really gives Arccorp a believable scale being it a big planet completely urbanized.

Octagon7711

I once saw a video about cities in China.  Apparently having more cities was a government mandate.  The problem has been the cost of owning or rental there.  So a lot of the cites are empty except for maintenance workers and a very few  shop owners. It looked strange to see big cities with little to no people in the malls and streets.

MaxBacon

Octagon7711 said:

I once saw a video about cities in China.  Apparently having more cities was a government mandate.  The problem has been the cost of owning or rental there.  So a lot of the cites are empty except for maintenance workers and a very few  shop owners. It looked strange to see big cities with little to no people in the malls and streets.

I think he was mentioning the layout of said cities.

Like their cities are laid out in a very repetitive way, the districts and all, so if you see it from top down you see the repetitive design on the layout of the city, like this:

Orinori

I thought you had just the tool creation vid........

w/e still blown away.

MaxBacon

In other announcements it is stated they will be moving to a date driven release schedule instead of feature-driven, quarterly, releasing only what they have ready by then, it's to be seen if they can keep up with this after 3.0 releases.

This means that next week when the schedule updates the 3.X roadmaps no longer apply, yet what is completed in the 4 months timeframe after 3.0 (or its likely hotfixes) release.

MaxBacon

Smaller bit before the actual big panels get proper short versions, the launcher:



Not sure if the one with 3.0 or the one beyond it, the coming with 3.0 is the delta patching but not spectrum desktop last heard.

So it shows a multi-game launcher by design, SC, SQ42, Star Marine, Arena Commander and I think Racing.

Octagon7711

MaxBacon said:

Octagon7711 said:

I once saw a video about cities in China.  Apparently having more cities was a government mandate.  The problem has been the cost of owning or rental there.  So a lot of the cites are empty except for maintenance workers and a very few  shop owners. It looked strange to see big cities with little to no people in the malls and streets.

I think he was mentioning the layout of said cities.

Like their cities are laid out in a very repetitive way, the districts and all, so if you see it from top down you see the repetitive design on the layout of the city, like this:

Right, just additional information about them.

Octagon7711

MaxBacon said:

In other announcements it is stated they will be moving to a date driven release schedule instead of feature-driven, quarterly, releasing only what they have ready by then, it's to be seen if they can keep up with this after 3.0 releases.

This means that next week when the schedule updates the 3.X roadmaps no longer apply, yet what is completed in the 4 months timeframe after 3.0 (or its likely hotfixes) release.

I thought they changed from the original dated schedule because they nearly always delivered late.  So they had decided to do major updates instead of a lot of small ones which required a lot of reworking previous updates.  With the larger updates reworks wasn't needed as much.  Now they're going back to smaller updates that are dated?  

TalulaRose

They went from major updates to small updates back to major updates....3.0....nothing said.

Look at the shiny stuff that wont be ready anytime soon and buy more stuff.

MaxBacon

Octagon7711 said:

I thought they changed from the original dated schedule because they nearly always delivered late.  So they had decided to do major updates instead of a lot of small ones which required a lot of reworking previous updates.  With the larger updates reworks wasn't needed as much.  Now they're going back to smaller updates that are dated?  

I don't think we're going back to something they properly did before.

So, with the updates being feature-driven, just like 3.0, the downside is that if those features face unpredicted problems and struggles during dev the update will be pushed back until they work it out.

Before we had dates, BUT, we had them over one announced feature-set, so it would result in the same problem when the feature front forced pushbacks.

The way I take this is:
- More of a compromise with having one update aimed at a quarterly basis.
- Less of a compromise over what will be in the said update.
- That would mean what is implemented in the build by then would be what gets released.

Octagon7711

MaxBacon said:

Octagon7711 said:

I thought they changed from the original dated schedule because they nearly always delivered late.  So they had decided to do major updates instead of a lot of small ones which required a lot of reworking previous updates.  With the larger updates reworks wasn't needed as much.  Now they're going back to smaller updates that are dated?  

I don't think we're going back to something they properly did before.

So, with the updates being feature-driven, just like 3.0, the downside is that if those features face unpredicted problems and struggles during dev the update will be pushed back until they work it out.

Before we had dates, BUT, we had them over one announced feature-set, so it would result in the same problem when the feature front forced pushbacks.

The way I take this is:
- More of a compromise with having one update aimed at a quarterly basis.
- Less of a compromise over what will be in the said update.
- That would mean what is implemented in the build by then would be what gets released.

I see it as better damage control.  People who go longer without seeing updates become more grumpy. This way there will always be something to look forward in a month or two.  Sounds better then six months to a year.

Octagon7711

OK so who bought a Pioneer?

MaxBacon

Octagon7711 said:

I see it as better damage control.  People who go longer without seeing updates become more grumpy. This way there will always be something to look forward in a month or two.  Sounds better then six months to a year.

It is damage control yes, it responds to the backlash the 3.0 delays caused upon them. If they really pursue this then a dejavu of 3.0 won't happen again, likely both in scope and delay.

Mind he said quarterly, seem more within the lines of what the 2.X updates took in-between.

TalulaRose

You cant have a delay if you make no commitment...and you cant make a commitment if you don't mention it. Watch the vid of the con as an example.

Look at the faces of everyone there. Bored and waiting for news on 3.0 which never came. Everyone was stunned when he invited everyone on stage and said good-bye.

Let them eat cake......

MaxBacon

Octagon7711 said:

OK so who bought a Pioneer?

Lead of my org did.

I think this ship was the most successful one they ever launched, it came out more fleshed out than the concepts they did before, sold all made available asap.

When this was branded a gamechanger it wasn't a joke, I can see now how they are adding a point to planets over just the shiny and scale factor, the creation and ownership of refineries, mining operations, farms, factories, etc... is likely to play a role in the economy.

Time ago was one joking they would grow weed in SC to smuggle around, guess what xD

Erillion

TalulaRose said:

You cant have a delay if you make no commitment...and you cant make a commitment if you don't mention it. Watch the vid of the con as an example.

Look at the faces of everyone there. Bored and waiting for news on 3.0 which never came. Everyone was stunned when he invited everyone on stage and said good-bye.

Let them eat cake......

You see what you want to see.

My friends that were attending the convention were absolutely not bored. 

The  audience did not need 3.0 news. They played it right outside in the Atrium on two dozen computers. 

And getting everyone on stage that helped was considered as a much earned THANK YOU to all the hard working volunteers. And appreciated.


Have fun

Tamanous

Camera pan out over audience ... not a female in sight.

Erillion

Tamanous said:

Camera pan out over audience ... not a female in sight.

I saw about half a dozen ladies. But yes, it was about 98 % male audience. 


Have fun

Cotic

Regarding patches.

In 2016 they tried monthly patches which lasted for approximately 4 patches.
In 2017 they were going to try quarterly patches after the delivery of 3.0 at the end of 2016.
In 2018 they are going to try quarterly patches after the delivery of 3.0 at the end of 2017?

Right.

MaxBacon

Cotic said:

Regarding patches.

In 2016 they tried monthly patches which lasted for approximately 4 patches.
In 2017 they were going to try quarterly patches after the delivery of 3.0 at the end of 2016.
In 2018 they are going to try quarterly patches after the delivery of 3.0 at the end of 2017?

Right.

Because and that was the problem they still committed with a feature-set sometimes months before the patch, so if that feature-set wasn't ready and they weren't willing to cut it, it would push back the update.

Quarterly seems more affordable because that's what the 2.x updates already felt into. But it still falls into those problems, if a feature is complete but depends on Y tech that is still not ready then they can't release it, or they cut it out of the update scope or they push the update back...

As long they overlap the testing phases with it, that would easily mess it up.

MaxBacon

TalulaRose said:

Look at the faces of everyone there. Bored and waiting for news on 3.0 which never came. Everyone was stunned when he invited everyone on stage and said good-bye.

hmm... "face analysis argument".

Anyway, about 3.0:
- Gamescom was already about 3.0, no idea why have another showcase of 3.0 at Citcon.
- The 3.0 planetary slice was playable in one of the booths this Citcon.
- As everyone knows 3.0 is still in ETF and still isn't ready for PTU, the production report weekly reports on what's ongoing in that front.

The only true expectation was they announcing the PTU during Citcon, but the report/burndown was already pretty clear about its status it was not going to happen, what the multiple Evocati members in that audience know in first hand.

I'm not sure what "everyone waiting for news on 3.0" is, expect the "I want it all and I want it now!", the news and clear updates on its status are there, so it's a matter of being informed.

kikoodutroa8

So is this city full of npcs with groundbreaking AI, creating procedurally generated missions and all?
Or is it just some ground mapping like in Flight Simulator?