• The procedural world of XCOM: Enemy Unknown
    18 replies, posted
[url]http://www.shacknews.com/article/72737/the-procedural-world-of-xcom-enemy-unknown[/url]
[quote]While levels won't look different, there are other "procedural aspects." DeAngelis explained: "The aliens will be placed differently. They will move around dynamically on the map, even when you can't see them. So it will be a different flow every time you play, even if you're playing the same map. There will be different enemy types, you might have different spawn points for your soldiers."[/quote] Got my hopes up for fully procedurally generated layouts until here. Still, I'm not one to judge at this point if just changing the enemy placement/classes won't totally change the flow.
That sounds really disapointing.
It's Firaxis, no matter what they do it'll still be a good game.
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;35023255]It's Firaxis, no matter what they do it'll still be a good game.[/QUOTE] Except all the stuff we've seen is on the XBox, so we can be guaranteed that it's going to look outdated and the gameplay will be dumbed down.
[QUOTE=Foda;35024651]Except all the stuff we've seen is on the XBox, so we can be guaranteed that it's going to look outdated and the gameplay will be dumbed down.[/QUOTE] The Xbox and PS3 are not the root of all the evils of gaming, people need to stop acting like they are.
"scan" for new missions? Uhhh what? That isn't how this works, fuckers. You shoot down alien aircraft and then storm it with commandos and kidnap/kill them and steal their shit. The only "scanning" done is with RADAR to detect the aircraft and on very rare occasions you get reports of aliens terrorizing specific locations. "Different spawn points for your soldiers" Bitch, my soldiers spawn in the aircraft they arrived in. How fucking hard is it to retain all the goddamn features of the original. Are the Xenonauts devs seriously the only devs that understand this?
I really really hope that "scan for missions" equates to "terror missions"
[QUOTE=Rahkshi lord;35024744]The Xbox and PS3 are not the root of all the evils of gaming, people need to stop acting like they are.[/QUOTE] Never said they were, but it's obvious they are designing this game for the Xbox. Why else would they demo and show all the screenshots from the Xbox build?
[QUOTE=Foda;35027729]Never said they were, but it's obvious they are designing this game for the Xbox. Why else would they demo and show all the screenshots from the Xbox build?[/QUOTE] Because everyone does that.
[QUOTE=Rahkshi lord;35027748]Because everyone does that.[/QUOTE] But the PC is much more powerful, they could use much higher res textures and Dx10 + 11 features and shaders.
A good game is not necessarly defined by graphics, beside console games have also amazing graphics. But back on topic, maps are the same? That is really a bummer, this will greatly reduce the replayablity.
[QUOTE=Foda;35027835]But the PC is much more powerful, they could use much higher res textures and Dx10 + 11 features and shaders.[/QUOTE] they use the consoles for screens so that the console players don't cry at them when the game looks awful after they saw PC screens.
[QUOTE=junker|154;35028710]A good game is not necessarly defined by graphics, beside console games have also amazing graphics. But back on topic, maps are the same? That is really a bummer, this will greatly reduce the replayablity.[/QUOTE] Beg your pardon? The maps were like this in the first game. And the second. And the 3rd. Didn't hurt replayability one bit.
[QUOTE=GunFox;35024974]"scan" for new missions? Uhhh what? That isn't how this works, fuckers. You shoot down alien aircraft and then storm it with commandos and kidnap/kill them and steal their shit. The only "scanning" done is with RADAR to detect the aircraft and on very rare occasions you get reports of aliens terrorizing specific locations. "Different spawn points for your soldiers" Bitch, my soldiers spawn in the aircraft they arrived in. How fucking hard is it to retain all the goddamn features of the original. Are the Xenonauts devs seriously the only devs that understand this?[/QUOTE] To be honest, when I played apocalypse the only times I ever actually entered an enemy aircraft was when I had to. So much better to raid and loot those pesky sympatisers :P
[QUOTE=GunFox;35024974]"scan" for new missions? Uhhh what? That isn't how this works, fuckers. You shoot down alien aircraft and then storm it with commandos and kidnap/kill them and steal their shit. The only "scanning" done is with RADAR to detect the aircraft and on very rare occasions you get reports of aliens terrorizing specific locations. "Different spawn points for your soldiers" Bitch, my soldiers spawn in the aircraft they arrived in. How fucking hard is it to retain all the goddamn features of the original. Are the Xenonauts devs seriously the only devs that understand this?[/QUOTE] Not gonna lie, that was one of the more annoying features, I once got a 5 month period of nothing... And didn't Terror Squads just sprout up randomly, like there was no UFOs or anything being tied to them.
[QUOTE=VengfulSoldier;35045194]Not gonna lie, that was one of the more annoying features, I once got a 5 month period of nothing... And didn't Terror Squads just sprout up randomly, like there was no UFOs or anything being tied to them.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure there were UFOs with the "Terror" objective. You could shoot them down but they were huge.
For those who want to know, the original's map generation worked like this: There are a bunch of 1 by 1 and 2 by 2 terrain squares for certain tileset (city/forest/desert/et cetera), and depending on the mission's location (Terror Missions are in cities, Farms Fucking Everywhere, everything else is rare to see) it will use a certain tile set. The rest of the map is randomly generated within 5 by 5 (I think) terrain squares. So, basically the maps were always randomly generated from pre-formed tiles. The aliens moved from node to node on those tiles, absolutely randomly, with only actual "conscious" actions being firing/mind controlling. However, after a certain turn, the aliens would receive a path towards your agents. Same for civilians, except they always randomly ran around (and no, they never actually ran away from the aliens).
Xenonauts will use the same system, the world generator has different pre-existent buildings, structures, plants, decorations and much more at it's disposal. Then when you load up a map the generator will create a new world with those pre-existent tiles. It is a neat system, you might see the same structures a lot but they always change which is really cool. But only spawning enemies on different spots sounds somewhat disapointing for such a game with so much potential. The random maps were a keypoint in the genre.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.