After playing multiplayer CoD for the last few weeks I have come to the conclusion that doing well in CoD (and almost all other FPS games) has more to do with how well you know a certain map then how adept you are at manipulating your character. Skill with a keyboard and mouse is important but if you don't know a map 100% you might as well be a complete fps noob using the arrow keys to look around imo.
Anyway, I got to thinking what would really make a game like CoD interesting is if it had randomly generated maps. Whether they just added a large number of variables that determined object placement or created completely different maps every game though is a question of theoretical achievement at the moment. I know how maps are made in modern fps games, I've mapped with both QERadiant and UnrealED. I know how long it takes to design, let alone compile a map. What I'm wondering is if randomly generated maps are simply a question of clock-speed (aka when cpu's are fast enough to render a quake map in a fraction of a second or even 20 or 30 seconds) or if there is some way to implement this with current technology.
I know games with random maps like diablo 2 use premade terrain and interior features that fit together like lego's but are different everytime. I don't know if this would be possible in an fps but even if it was, people would eventually figure out all the nooks and crannies of the premade stuff and it would just then be a matter of recognizing which type of unit you were in.
Can anyone with experience programming 3d engines (or if you are just an armchair programmer like me
) comment on what kind of difficulty/impossibilty we're looking at here?
Anyway, I got to thinking what would really make a game like CoD interesting is if it had randomly generated maps. Whether they just added a large number of variables that determined object placement or created completely different maps every game though is a question of theoretical achievement at the moment. I know how maps are made in modern fps games, I've mapped with both QERadiant and UnrealED. I know how long it takes to design, let alone compile a map. What I'm wondering is if randomly generated maps are simply a question of clock-speed (aka when cpu's are fast enough to render a quake map in a fraction of a second or even 20 or 30 seconds) or if there is some way to implement this with current technology.
I know games with random maps like diablo 2 use premade terrain and interior features that fit together like lego's but are different everytime. I don't know if this would be possible in an fps but even if it was, people would eventually figure out all the nooks and crannies of the premade stuff and it would just then be a matter of recognizing which type of unit you were in.
Can anyone with experience programming 3d engines (or if you are just an armchair programmer like me
) comment on what kind of difficulty/impossibilty we're looking at here?
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