Wayward Realms a spiritual successor to Daggerfall

[Jaymann]

This looks interesting. A so-called Grand RPG with a MASSIVE open world. Decisions have consequences. Progression is by use of skills rather than levels. Will be a Kickstarter/Early Access, hopefully soon. Here is an interview with the developer, a Bethesda veteran.

[Carpet_pissr]

Interested.

I’m sick of modern RPG rails.

[hepcat]

Same question as any other rpg I play: will there be a genital size slider?

[Isgrimnur]

Same question as any other rpg I play: will there be a genital size slider?

Nope. Strictly the EA Game "Face" technology.

[Rumpy]

And people complain about RDR2's map size...

Honestly, I tend to prefer smaller hand-crafted maps where there's more attention to detail. Maps like this one tend to go for quantity vs quality and are more likely to use lots of prefabs or in this sense procedural generation, but then lose out on a sense of uniqueness. In this respect, I wouldn't necessarily consider a huge map to be a plus. I'm not that fond of Daggerfall's design philosophy, especially given that now we can do so much better in designing things. The key of course will be in designing meaningful content. Give me a more concentrated map with some personality any day.

[Blackhawk]

FWIW, Oblivion had procedurally designed dungeons scattered all over the place, and was soundly criticized for it, which is why Skyrim's were designed by hand. The problem with procedural generation from a set number of pieces is that changing the order of the pieces doesn't really change the experience that much, and it doesn't provide storytelling/narrative with its design (a hand-designed dungeon can work in such a way that it communicates it's purpose, or what happened there before, etc.)

That doesn't mean that the game might not be a blast if the core mechanics (character building, combat, magic, progression, gear, etc) are polished.

[Rumpy]

Yeah, exactly. In practice, it allows them to quickly fabricate something, but in all honesty, comparing this one to Daggerfall actually turns me off, because Daggerfall has a lot of 'sameness' to it. It was quite an achievement to have such a large world back then, but I really don't think they should be using similar excuses in this day and age. In fact, I think one reason future Elder Scrolls games moved on to featuring single provinces was precisely due to the fact they could create smaller, more detailed games and have it mean something. And actually I'm quite perplexed at some of the talking points the guy has been making.

[TheMix]

There were so many little things in Fallout 4 (and the others) that would likely vanish with procedural generation. Like the teddy bears. Every time I ran into one of those little dioramas, it brought a bit of joy. Or stumbling upon something way out of the way and realizing that someone hand-crafted the moment. And then there is burnout. Every time I play Skyrim or Fallout, I initially try to avoid fast travel. But, invariably, I start to get game-fatigue... so much to do... so many quests... so much to explore... So I start fast traveling to try and minimize the distractions in an attempt to actually finish things.

I'm on my 4th (or 5th?) playthrough of Skyrim right now. This time in VR. And I'm pretty sure that a couple of the locations are new. Because they are memorable. If everything was procedurally generated, sure there might be thousands, but I'm going to get bored long before I even get to 100.

Though, as BH said, if the gameplay is great, I might not care. It will just be playing for the gameplay, not the content.

[Jaymann]

I kind of like the idea of never seeing the same dungeon twice. I played the snot out of Skyrim and got to know them all inside and out. I agree it all depends on the implementation.

[TheMix]

That's fair. But the question is really, how will it match up before you play the snot out of them? I can definitely see that if you play enough to actually know everything, that having more variety would be nice. However, if you only play a bunch, losing that individual creative touch is likely to be more noticeable. Basically, when you play enough times that you are no longer interested in the personal touches, then a procedurally generated game is going to have more to offer. But in the lead up, I worry that it would be lacking. When you get to the point that you skip all dialogue and cutscenes because you have them memorized, at that point you aren't really playing the story any more. You are playing the structure. You are playing for the gameplay, not the story. Which is fine, if that is what you want. I mean, I put a lot of time in Diablo 3 running rifts and ignoring all the story.

[Chraolic]

I kind of like the idea of never seeing the same dungeon twice. I played the snot out of Skyrim and got to know them all inside and out. I agree it all depends on the implementation.

I felt the same way about Daggerfall, to be honest. Sure, the dungeons weren't technically the same, but they were definitely samey. After doing a few of them you could tell within 10 seconds of entering where the boss was going to be.

[Rumpy]

There were so many little things in Fallout 4 (and the others) that would likely vanish with procedural generation. Like the teddy bears. Every time I ran into one of those little dioramas, it brought a bit of joy. Or stumbling upon something way out of the way and realizing that someone hand-crafted the moment. And then there is burnout. Every time I play Skyrim or Fallout, I initially try to avoid fast travel. But, invariably, I start to get game-fatigue... so much to do... so many quests... so much to explore... So I start fast traveling to try and minimize the distractions in an attempt to actually finish things.

I'm on my 4th (or 5th?) playthrough of Skyrim right now. This time in VR. And I'm pretty sure that a couple of the locations are new. Because they are memorable. If everything was procedurally generated, sure there might be thousands, but I'm going to get bored long before I even get to 100.

Though, as BH said, if the gameplay is great, I might not care. It will just be playing for the gameplay, not the content.

I consider The Witcher 3 a good example of a densely populated world with lots to do. In fact, it feels like every inch of the world in that game serves a purpose, as part of a visual storytelling. I thought the trend was to go for smaller more detailed game worlds, not bigger, especially in terms of RPGs. I guess I just don't see the appeal in a super-large rpg world that requires procedural generation to populate it. If people had complaints about the radiant AI in the Elder Scrolls games, I think this would be 10x worse. Imagine an AI-generated fetch quest that takes you half-way across the world. I dunno, it doesn't strike me as all that interesting to me. It feels like the opposite of what's currently trending. People get exhausted at the Ubisoft-style busywork, and they want to make it potentially even worse? I don't grasp the desire for it. I suspect something like this would have large patches of uninhabited land which would be too boring for most people.

I guess one way to make a vibrant world would be to have main towns that are handcrafted, with smaller villages and the like be procedurally generated on the outskirts of those main towns.

[Jaymann]

I understand that in Starfield there are hundreds of worlds that virtually no one explores. But they are there if you get the itch. I have a hunch this will be like that.

[Rumpy]

One of my favourite game worlds is that of Horizon Zero Dawn, but if there's one criticism, is that the world feels largely empty. I love the fact that the are large swaths of land to travel, but at the same time it felt like there should have been more to do in that world. I loved the side missions which added to the world-building, but there weren't nearly enough of them given the size of the world. That's where something like procedural generation could help, but I don't think the game should rely on them too much. One thing I'd love to see in an RPG is to see a town grow and evolve over time, rather than a static town, and I think maybe that's something procedural generation could help with.

[Blackhawk]

For something like that, it would absolutely be viable to have procedurally generated locations, but to then go back and have a human designer 'tweak' them and make them more unique and interesting. It could be a huge timesaver when done that way, without the usual problems with procedurally generated content (dungeon 1 has rooms A, B, C, D. Dungeon 2 has B, D, A, C. They're technically different, but you're still doing exactly the same things in exactly the same rooms.)

[Rumpy]

Yeah, exactly. It would need to have a balanced approach. I think procedural generation would work best as a tool, rather than be the primary method. And how cool would it be to have towns that could actually visibly change over time depending on your actions. Imagine this: A quest takes through a town. On your first visit, it might be a small village, but upon your return many game hours later, you could find that the town is bustling and has in fact expanded to twice its previous size, evident by more settlements and an increased boundary size. I'd love to see an evolution to town design that maybe both uses AI and procedural generation to have changing states.

[Blackhawk]

World of Warcraft, of all things, does that pretty extensively (growing/changing the area based on your actions, not the procedural element.) It was a big breakthrough in their design, essentially creating parallel phases of the world with different visuals based on your quest stages. Everyone at the same level of progression could see each other, but not people in different phases, too.

[Rumpy]

That's a pretty cool way of doing it,, but I imagine there'd be less overhead in a singleplayer game. It'd be so cool to see changes, some actual real changes beyond dialogue choices that could have an effect on the world. Say you're often trading in a particular town, enhancing their coffers and local economy, good deeds you've done attracting settlers, etc.

[Smoove_B]

Just an FYI, the KS launched today, estimated Alpha delivery is December 2025.

[Blackhawk]

It seems a little high for a crowdfunded indie game.

[Max Peck]

I want to believe, but Chris Roberts and Richard Garriot really put a damper on my enthusiasm for nostalgia kickstarters, and I haven't even looked at a kickstarter project in years.

On the other hand, David Braben didn't do me wrong, so...

[Max Peck]

It seems a little high for a crowdfunded indie game.

I dunno, $500k to fund a 40-person dev team for one year doesn't seem all that high to me. If anything, it seems on the low side, which makes me think it might be more of a barometer for gauging interest than for covering all the actual expenses they'll accrue over the year.

[Blackhawk]

It seems a little high for a crowdfunded indie game.

I dunno, $500k to fund a 40-person dev team for one year doesn't seem all that high to me. If anything, it seems on the low side, which makes me think it might be more of a barometer for gauging interest than for covering all the actual expenses they'll accrue over the year.

I meant a base-level buy-in at $40. They must be planning on selling this at full AAA retail price.

[Max Peck]

Ah, OK. It's been so long since I paid attention to Kickstarter that I don't have any real idea how much the price of a finished game is compared to the price for the you-get-the-game level of backing. That level seems to be about CAD $55 for WR, while a AAA title like Starfield is currently running me about $90 these days (without any sort of deluxe/season pass add-on).

They do mention on the project page that they originally intended to go the traditional publisher route, so it's entirely possible that they anticipate it being a "full price" game on completion.

[Blackhawk]

$40 is a fair backer price for a game that releases at $70, but I wouldn't expect an indie RPG from an unproven company to release at full AAA retail price.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, it's a fair price as long as you understand you're likely not going to be playing what you think and probably not before 2027.

[Max Peck]

I read through the whole pitch, and there are a couple of things that stood out to me.

Tell me you're using generative AI without saying those words:

Perhaps the most exciting feature we are working on, the Virtual Game Master—or VGM—is a system designed to bring roleplaying to the next level. Brought to life using the latest in machine learning technology, the VGM is meant to tailor a player’s gameplay experience to their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their preferences and choices.

I'm down for some GamemasterGPT.

They're not using the kickstarter to make the game, they're using it to make a demo that they can pitch to publishers:

We do want to make it clear, however,that our aim with your pledges is to fund full-time development for one year in order to produce an early access build. We would release this early access build to the appropriate backers and take feedback as we continue to release updates. We also aim to take this early access build to publishers to seek further funding, with the goal of completing the entire game.

So it sounds like they're explicitly using the kickstarter to fund a demo to pitch to publishers. If a publisher doesn't pick them up, then the game itself will likely never be completed beyond the early access alpha.

[hepcat]

Well, at least they’re honest about it.

[Max Peck]

I'm leaning toward backing this, but I'll hold off until the end of the month to see how things are shaping up. I have a lot of fond memories of the early Elder Scrolls games that Peterson and Lefay worked on, and I'm intrigued by some of the things they seem to be doing with AI. Generative AI seems like a good fit for the "virtual game master" role that they describe, and if they pull it off it'll be interesting to see how well it works.

On the other hand, Peterson's prequel novel is titled "Fool Me Once", which seems a little too on the nose given my previous experiences with some nostalgia-driven kickstarters...