Lendrigan Games said:
the Pet Rock was an absolutely stupid concept that sold literal millions through brilliant marketing.

That idea has been around several times, most recently as NFTs.

MIOLO said:

ONE : maths = what do you think of a routine where the ITEMS/NPCs/etc… used in a game could auto generate themselves at proper random biomes ? if you already can do this with terrain/mapping/solar systems/etc … base for the final idea of daily new points of interest in a game.

Skipping over the flame war, my current strategy goes something like this. …….. First I've seen many people say, including in this thread, that procedural stuff tends to be more bland. However I think there might be a compromise. For my terrain I'm implementing a lot of general procedural routines. However when I actually use them I want to hand code the parameters until I get something that I like. This means that while planets will not be 100% randomly generated, I will still get the benefit of of not having to store vast amounts of data for each world. I will also be able to somewhat hand tailor any given world, at least at a high level.

Nagle said:
That idea has been around several times, most recently as NFTs.

Some ideas are so old, it's hard to tell if they are ideas at all, or if they just existed since the beginning of video games, e.g. the levels of Pitfall!.

But NFTs are great to illustrate what to expect:

We see those images are generated from a set components with variations for each. Same nose shared across many apes.
We can do this for 3D models too, so this solves the harder problem (populating stats from random numbers is easy).

Each kid in the game can have it's own, unique sword.
But because each other kid has a unique sword as well, it's no longer something special or desirable. That's where Miolos vision of milking kids by placing random apes everywhere feels flawed to me.

The current take of the industry to utilize this is a bit different: The motivation is not to have a unique ape, or to collect all of them.
Instead, the player wants a certain ape, reflecting what the player wants to be. It's an option to express yourself in a virtual world, where you actually can be what you want to be.
This works much better, but it is not random. We can make it random, so the player needs time and luck, we can even make it a gamble.
But the better way is customization, e.g. character editors. We extend this to customizable clothes, weapons, and even toilets.

That's all fine, but it's no new ideas. It's just what we do anyway, so you can not really stand out or have a brand new start from things we already have.

Same for other ideas like populating procedural stuff respecting biomes or environment. It's an old hat. Ofc. we do this.
And now that we have dynamic time of day and weather, ofc. the weather will affect some things, e.g. farming stuff. It's obvious, nothing new. Nothing that gives us a new killer game or system seller.

I see this a lot among ‘amateur game designers’ (actually gamers): They get lost in RPGs, but no RPG is perfect. So they mix and match to their personal preference. They recombine features from existing games to make up a personal wishilst, and then they think this wishlist is the recipe for the perfect game which everybody wants. They feel innovative, like doing actual work, and able to do better than the always disappointing industry, which gets everything constantly wrong, and cares about the wrong things.

It's tiring, even i'm disappointed myself.

The interesting aspect here is, if we compare this to music industry, they don't have this problem there.
Nobody picks up a guitar, plays 3 chords and then claims: ‘I can do better than Hendrix, just listen!’
It does not happen because it's instantly obvious that nobody can match the talent and skills of Jimi Hendrix.
In games, wannabe devs never get to the point where they could prove and compare against the oh so bad standard. They just say ‘if i had the money, i would make the perfect game, and it looks like this: blah.’
They never realize that they have no idea. <:/

Gnollrunner said:
First I've seen many people say, including in this thread, that procedural stuff tends to be more bland. However I think there might be a compromise.

Yeah. I work on procedural content myself, and i do believe it's the future, because it's the only way i see.
Probably my ideas are lightyears ahead from Miolos, although i'm still far from success.

It's just pointless to mention or discuss anything related to him. ; )

MIOLO said:
still you are based on your narrow vision from your immense lack of passion of a gamer perspective.

I work on games for my whole life. Why do you think i'd do this? Probably because i'm a gamer myself?
Don't you think there probably is enough passion on my side, beside the knowledge and experience to make games, instead just playing them?

MIOLO said:
One UNIQUE sword generates a whole trading desire.

No. I'll show you again:

1,1,1,1,8,1,1,1

8 is unique.

8,5,9,1,3,7,4,

Nothing is unique. Nothing is distinctive or desirable. It's the reason of why we usually use random numbers at all. Path tracing works because random numbers give a random, but uniform distribution. Same for generation of procedural patterns.
This is not a matter of personal opinion, but simply math, leaving no place for discussion.

So we need to discuss on how to solve this, assuming you are able to accept the fact that randomness by definition is not interesting, and not meant to be.

We could for example make each sword more powerful. Which does not work, because then again one sword is like the other.
To solve this, we make many weak swords and some powerful swords.
That's ok, and the standard solution used in games. It's fine, but i fail to see any new idea, which is the topic of our discussion.

And if that it is a problem for your only own annoyance, you could still put a limit to the random generated items.

Notice this proposal, contrary to what i've just said, offers no solution but just the obvious clipping and scaling on random numbers we always do anyway.
It looks like you can not teach us anything. Maybe you should first learn how games work, before you consider to be a leader aiming to recruit followers to make your non-ideas a reality.
It's well possible outsiders can have talent, good ideas, and skills to lead a team compensating their lack of knowledge. But for that, you need at least a good skill to transport your vision to your devs, and i can't see that either.
You use bold language, but you say nothing. There is no idea, no message. There only is a desire to rule and guide others, assuming those others could use or even need your help. The truth is: Those others have the same ideas as you have, plus some more, at least.
That's the reality as i see it. Consider you waste your time and work on something else. Or get serious, and gather at least basic experience.

MIOLO said:
Again, still you couldn´t point ONE single game published with my ideas

The same applies to my ideas. No game uses them all in one place.
Does that prove our ideas are good?
No. It just increases the probability that our ideas are actually bad.
And that's indeed what i expect. My ideas won't work. But as i try them out, the failure will give me new ideas. And after a long path of failures, i might get a good outcome in the end.

So the path of failures is expected, and the way to go.
But you can not go that path by just dreaming about games while eating shrimps. You have to work on actual, playable prototypes.
And nowadays we have game engines for free, doing the bulk work, so that's not even hard anymore. There is no more excuse to NOT working on games, if all you want is to make those games.

Go this path to get beyond the state of the useless idea man, or let it be. Your choice.