Random mission generator?

[ed_silvergun]

I believe that those lovely chaps at <A HREF="http://www.ravensoft.com">Raven</A> are planning to include some sort of random mission generator in Soldier of Fortune II. I wonder if they'll do the same for JK II, or do you think this is just too much to be hoped for? If the technology's there, I don't see why they should use it...

[wardz]

how exactly would this work ed? I don't quite understand..

 

wardz

[ed_silvergun]

I don't know. It will definitely be a feature in Soldier of Fortune II:

 

From the recent <A HREF="http://www.trenches.org/features/action/sof2/story0_1.shtml">interview</A> on <A HREF="http://www.trenches.org">Trenches.org</A> with Raven's John Scott:

<STRONG>[john] The three major things we are adding to Sof2 are (a) riding shotgun in vehicles (such as a helicopter), (b) huge terrain based levels and © a random mission generator. Admittedly, some of these have been done in other games but never all together.</STRONG>

 

As to exactly how it works, I'm not sure. Does anyone else know?

[acdcfanbill]

well, this is just my guess, but i assume it would either be side-missions or each level would be generated. i suppose that there would be a bunch of set paramaters for each possible level, so then the game would randomly pick some of the mission details, and place them on the map. if it generated the ingame missions, i would assume that all the maps would be planned already, but if they were side, or historical, missions, then they might impliment some sort of map generator, but that would be some system that could randomly generate maps...

 

again, this is all just speculation.

[TornSoul]

Randomly generating maps has been done for other games. I'm not sure about 3d games though. I think the hardest part would be to make the randomly generated maps look good. If it's an open landscape you're in (like Delta Force), I don't think it would be that hard. Just randomly generate hills, put some small buildings, trees and bushes on it and you're ready. Randomly generating complex buildings would be harder I think.

[CaptainRAVE]

Maybe they'll just use that feature in multiplayer or skirmishes. It would be quite complex to do it in single player. Maybe thats why the SOF2 specs are so high.

[Guest digl]

Sure Itll be only for skirmishes

How could the SP campaign be randomly generated?

[CaptainRAVE]

They could randomly generate mazes and things i suppose.

[MadPoster]

It was done in Daggerfall, but it didn't work real well. I kept falling through the floor!

[CaptainRAVE]

I remember Hidden and Dangerous. It would crash every level and some levels you would fall through the fall and die, or you could walk through doors to complete your objectives....a very very bugged game.

[acdcfanbill]

i didnt mean generate the whole SP map, i ment generate item placement, or parts of it.

[Wilhuf]

UT supported random item generation. Level designer could randomize the item spawning if they wished.

 

There was a random map maker for quake2 and half life. Not sure how good the maps were that came out of those programs.

[nykel007]

This idea sounds great, kinda like the skirmish mode in XWA this be a nice addition in JKO.

[CaptainRAVE]

Only one thing....nothing can be random. There is always a pattern to something, just our human brains havnt got the intelligence to work it out.

[acdcfanbill]

uhh, i thought that computers can generate random numbers, and if, say each number was assingned to a particular value, then it would be able to generate random things. maybe not whole missions, but parts of them i would suppose....