Light No Fire – A Fantasy Game from the Makers of No Man's Sky
lightnofire.com
lightnofire.com
It seems odd to try to build an RPG in a procedural world. It’s hard to build an immersive world, when it wasn’t hand crafted to fit the story.
NMS was ambitious, and it’s definitely come a long way from when it started, but it still lacks the depth of a hand crafted story and world. But it’s a sandbox game from the ground up — a sandbox RPG seems like it would just result in a fairly flat experience.
Compared to, for example, Nier Automata or the Horizon franchise, where it’s clear what went into developing both the story and world.
The page from the link says:
> it brings the depth of a role playing game to the freedom of a survival sandbox
I guess you could argue it doesn’t directly state that it’s an RPG, but even claiming it has the depth of one seems to suggest a deep story that I’m arguing is typically hard to achieve with a procedural world.
I would argue Terraria’s depth is in its crafting mechanics and variety of loot, but not its story. I’ve not played Valheim, but have heard it compared to a 3D Terraria.
(e.g. in terraria you can get very different characters depending on how you play, but the difference is mostly due to swappable equipment)
Personally, I think it’s a combination of the things you list, plus a deep story.
Without a deep story, I think you’re just left with a sandbox adventure/survival/simulation game.
I would not consider Terraria an RPG. But others might.
For example Undertale goes 100% on "the story evolves around you even if your character essentially is always the same" but also a game that goes "experience tha same story with different mechanics and playstyles" would be an RPG
You would need to interface it with the environments etc, so that the LLM has something to work with. I could see LLMs generating good quests when each character has as much data as in Dwarf Fortress for example, but then you would need to do the work to add all of that.
cough caves of qud cough
The entire genre of roguelikes is a counterexample
I don’t really think of roguelikes as RPGs. But again, the definition will always be argued, and not trying to push my definition on others.
My main point is that, to me, RPG often implies a rich story, and I think a generated world (including those in roguelikes) has a tough time matching the richness of the stories in hand-crafted RPGs.
The same occurs playing tabletop as well. When the DM comes out with his whole big narrative and players with complex backstories, versus a vague broadly defined setting that is forced to dynamically adapt to player actions, the latter always forges a stronger bond with the character being played.
Though the risk with the game in question is that NMS is/was exactly not a dynamically adapting setting; when they said random generation they meant it, and with no internal consistency between various systems you end up with… random shit happening for random reasons and no actionable or narrative control over any of it.
Dwarf fortress is really probably the ideal in terms of procgen producing not just serviceable RPG narratives, but actually interesting ones
But man, I remember the No Man’s Sky announcement trailer and then the initial state of the game afterward.
It took a lonnnnnng time to restore trust.
I am cautiously optimistic but definitely won’t be preordering anything like this until I see more definitive reviews.
There’s almost zero reason the preorder games nowadays. That’s been the case since the move to digital, or even since the move from cartridge-based media to disk-based media (when supply became a non-issue).
They try to introduce DLC incentives, but those are almost always not enough, if you’re on the fence. I’ve only preordered if I already know I’m going to get it anyway (which is very rare).
Honestly, I ultimately always feel a bit cheated when I buy a game at launch because whatever bullshit day one DLC they give us is nothing compared to what I'd get if I'd waited a few years and picked up the "ultimate edition" or whatever that will include even more content and be mostly patched up so it's a less frustrating experience too and often the superior edition sells for less than the price at release.
It's like companies just punish people who give them their money as quickly as possible. Considering the backlog of games I've already got it's smart to wait, but there are a couple franchises where really don't want to even when I know I'll probably end up regretting it.
I would agree with you on this for AAA titles, but not for early access/indie titles. Though these games tend to cost much less so it’s worth a gamble and it’s nice to support indie devs. I’ve gotten so much ROI from buying Minecraft when the alpha was released for €9.95.
And then there is Kickstarter/other platforms. Most of the games I backed were released and some were amazing (Rimworld) but there has been some stinkers (Star Citizen, Shroud of the Avatar).
And kickstarter is funding, the game will probably not happen without it.
Compare to like the pre-order for Diablo 4, I believe you had like 2 days of closed limited beta test and could play 3 days before general release and that's it. Absolutly not worth buying before review imo.
Honestly, things would probably be a lot better for everybody if people held off on pre-orders and considered waiting for a few updates before buying even when there hasn't been a massive controversy with the developer's past releases.
Of course, here I'm opening myself for a valid criticism which might be constructed as "even if a game uses elements of previously told stories and settings, it might do a different spin or do it on a such a new level of excellence (story wise) that it becomes incomparable with previous attempts".
You could also point out that trailer can be manipulated in such a way by a talented director, that would make the game appear new and unique.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/976620/Enderal_Forgotten_...
No man’s sky has its problems, players complain about grinding or that despite procedural generation things get boring.
To consider a new game, I’d love to hear how they’re going to approach these aspects. For all I know right now, this could have been no man’s sky dlc.
As soon as I see a mechanic that is infinite by nature, e.g. a "radiant quests", repeatable randomised dungeons, infinite upgrade trees, etc, I lose interest.
If I wanted indefinite novelty I'd go back out into the real world?
The exception is roguelite games which have this concept baked into the design from the start. But things like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands' Chaos Dungeon, God of War's Niflheim (or Ragnarok's newly announced Valhalla), no thanks.
Of course. I lose interest too because the quests are samey. Instead I have to rely on the endless procedurally generated content from humans to keep me satiated.
If a game generated content from AI then the content can potentially be diverse enough to keep my interest for much loonger. Perhaps the AI can generate content that 100% matches human output.
For example, say I'm playing a game like No man sky. With AI One of the worlds that no man sky generates is basically an entire world with the detail and gameplay of Red Dead Redemption. Randomly generated. Of course this is the ultimate goal. The short term goal is we can generated worlds where each world has landscapes that look hand crafted similar to what we see in Zelda BOTW or red dead.
That's what I'm talking about. Not the procedural sameness we see today.
Generative AI is already producing pictures with enough novelty to be comparable to regular art. The next step is video. Then movies. And the step after that is entire gaming experiences.
I suppose I'll see if that changes in a few years once AI-driven game content becomes more prevalent.
What I what is varied gameplay, with meaningful choices and significant player progression.
E.g. other open world fantasy games have skills, spells, character classes, different but balanced builds, etc.
The components exist already. I'm just saying let's start with langscapes. Because right now even procedurally generated landscapes are sort of samey.
If they took NMS and took all the best parts and crafted a more grounded fantasy survival game out of that it could be really awesome.
I really wish that a game would come out that mixes all of the space and exploration of NMS but with the polish of a rockstar game like RDR, with the immersion of being a space explorer. I want fun combat with cover mechanics, I want trade and crime with NPCs, I want story (even if it is procedural), I want all of these things that NMS doesn't have. I look forward to this game because presumably they will have to focus on player combat and immersion more simply because there isn't a ton of space combat or similar. It looks a lot more "grounded", both literally and metaphorically, than NMS
Use the money saved from minimal marketing to build a better game. Heck, they'd get a lot of viral marketing for free anyway from the media companies falling over themselves to cover the surprising game release.
I think that’s the problem - marketing a game is relatively cheap.
That's easy: it would sell less.
> Heck, they'd get a lot of viral marketing for free anyway from the media companies falling over themselves to cover the surprising game release.
This went famously well for the Saturn.
It was once tried out by Edmund McMillen (of Supermeat boy and Binding of Isaac fame), who have basically dumped "The End is Nigh" on Steam with little to no promotion. From what he said later, it was a mistake, and the sales numbers were basically disappointing.
Give the game chance to breathe, spread by word or mouth, and maybe after relase have targeted marketing campaigns. This way you avoid self-sustaining hype growth, and your consumers are less disappointed.
I know nothing of marketing and/or buyer preference/behaviour.
But stealth launch with no marketing whatsoever very rarely pans out.
I'd be down to fly a dragon like a space ship from NMS too. Hopefully they blend some of MHW with melee beyond pew pew. Sadly EA/Koei totally botched Wild Hearts as a Monster Hunter in the mean time, so this could be cool.
Isn't that perfect though? Lets them focus more on a denser more focused experience. Lots of people would love that.
Games like valheim aren't popular because they have great graphics or endless content, it is because they have a tight and fun gameplay progression.
I don't know what to make of this.
Every encounter, point of interest, building, outpost or whatever feels like it was put there by an algorithm with very little concern for why something might be where it is.
Skyrim is my game of the decade because every little detail in the game feels like it has purpose. Every ruin has a history. Every house a story. Every path, sign, bandit camp and animal den has a purpose. The world feels lived in, and it makes you not want to use fast travel.
Maybe the magic recipe is procedural/llm generation, which is then crafted and moulded by people into something amazing.
Light no fire? Its the least you could do after burning us like that.
I think the release history warrants waiting until after the initial release to make a purchase decision (as people should with any game), but if it demonstrates the level of quality and polish I have come to expect from HG after patches I’ll have no problem forking money over for this.
NMS is a fun game with some flawed design elements. I hope that the designers address those in what looks to be a spiritual successor to NMS. If it’s just more of the shallow procedural saminess that indunated the first game it will probably be a pass from me though, I could just play NMS for that