Edit: I agree this thread contains a lot of negativity and I agree it's too early to make any calls on this particular game, which does look fantastic.
Since so little can be said of this game the discussion is more "why have so many tried to do this, and failed"?
So I'll try:
Why is "procedural" used as a sales pitch? The only thing cool about procedural is that you can make something extremely vast. But then "vast" should be the sales pitch!
I'd much rather buy a game that promised "ten thousand planets carefully modeled by artists", than a game that contains millions of random ones. I fact, I'd probably prefer a sim with a designed world much smaller than that.
The thing with procedural environments is that they leave everything to game mechanics. A well designed world can support a basic or boring mechanic (such as a linear shooter). Procedural worlds need a game mechanic so deep and brilliant that only very few games have managed it (minecraft and a few of its inspirations, for example).
There isn't much that can be said about mechanics from the trailer, so we'll see.
I think (sadly) it will be the prettiest in a long line of "let's make an elite style universe sim where the game mechanic will probably/hopefully emerge from the sheer awesomeness that is an enormous space sim".
Since so little can be said of this game the discussion is more "why have so many tried to do this, and failed"?
So I'll try:
Why is "procedural" used as a sales pitch? The only thing cool about procedural is that you can make something extremely vast. But then "vast" should be the sales pitch!
I'd much rather buy a game that promised "ten thousand planets carefully modeled by artists", than a game that contains millions of random ones. I fact, I'd probably prefer a sim with a designed world much smaller than that.
The thing with procedural environments is that they leave everything to game mechanics. A well designed world can support a basic or boring mechanic (such as a linear shooter). Procedural worlds need a game mechanic so deep and brilliant that only very few games have managed it (minecraft and a few of its inspirations, for example).
There isn't much that can be said about mechanics from the trailer, so we'll see.
I think (sadly) it will be the prettiest in a long line of "let's make an elite style universe sim where the game mechanic will probably/hopefully emerge from the sheer awesomeness that is an enormous space sim".