How is this even possible?

[Mouthwash]

This is a new space-simulator MMO that's been in development since 2004 or something and is going to start being tested over the next few years.


Link to video.


Below is the galaxy it will be set in. A few thousand stars will be placed according to their real-life positions and the rest (200 BILLION) will be procedurally generated. Each one of those points will be a visitable solar system with their own uniquely generated planets (I'm not sure what percentage of them will have planets, but it will probably be realistic). Most of them, obviously, will never be explored by players.


Link to video.

But, how is this possible? How can a game achieve such huge proportions? Why hasn't this been done before?

 

[Murky]

If no players are there then you don't need to display the data. If the data can be reliably generated via random seed then you can generate a newly discovered system on the fly. The star field could just be a trick to display a galaxy when it's actually just a abstract display. A good Space Artist can fool your eyes into seeing a lot of stuff that isn't there.

 

[Leoreth]

Didn't ELITE have a similar scope back in the day?

 

[Mouthwash]

If no players are there then you don't need to display the data. If the data can be reliably generated via random seed then you can generate a newly discovered system on the fly. The star field could just be a trick to display a galaxy when it's actually just a abstract display. A good Space Artist can fool your eyes into seeing a lot of stuff that isn't there.

No, because you'll be able to go to every star system in the game in every corner of the galaxy. Obviously that's what procedural generation does, but the galaxy won't just be a "trick."

 

[Mouthwash]

Didn't ELITE have a similar scope back in the day?

Yeah, that's what this game is based off of. But it wasn't 200 billion, I don't think.

 

[Patroklos]

What the he'll are you supposed to do?

 

[Mouthwash]

What the he'll are you supposed to do?

What?

 

[Joecoolyo]

At first I was like, "huh, just looks like EVE", and then he began to enter the planet's atmosphere and I was like "THAT WAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IVE EVER SEEN".

I want this.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I sure hope you can turn off the background music.

 

[Mouthwash]

I sure hope you can turn off the background music.

'Palace of the Stars' is one of the best soundtracks for a game I've ever heard. Go listen to your Chris Brown.

 

[Patroklos]

What?

The video just shows you flying around. Is it just a giant scenery tourism sim?

 

[Mouthwash]

The video just shows you flying around. Is it just a giant scenery tourism sim?

From the website:

Open ended gameplay: Unlike many other games, Infinity does not force you to play in any specific way. Infinity lacks both races and classes, and does not utilize skills in the traditional sense. You can play as a merchant, trade, mine ore from asteroids or minerals on planets, explore the galaxy, do scientific research, create your own industrial corporation, or, if you are more into action, play as a pirate … at your own risk.

Real-time fighting ( twitch based ): Most MMOs today use a semi-turn based, timed "cooldown" approach to combat. In Infinity, you are directly controlling your ships movements and weaponry in a twitch-based way, targeting your every movement. Your own skills and dexterity as a player make the difference, not a list of stats or skills on your character sheet!

Persistent universe: Infinity is a massively, multiplayer online game. The universe is completely persistent. When you are not playing online, the game does not stop. Other players continue to play, your characters actions within the universe continue to evolve, and new things are always happening 24h/24.

Exploration: Players are not restricted as to where they can explore. Land upon and explore every square centimeter of any solid stellar object you encounter, discovering the oceans, ridges, craters, and mountains dynamically generated by the Infinity engine, even active flora and fauna on biologically active planets. In addition to the more natural scenery, players can establish player-developed cities and interact within the numerous existing NPC cities, in and among the hundreds of other unique details that can exist on every planet.

Storyline and missions: Infinity offers a wide range of missions available in space stations or cities through the engines intricate contact and reputation system. But sometimes you might want to try something more challenging, by engaging in the core missions and objectives of the Infinity storyline. Unlike normal missions, the core missions and objectives of the Infinity storyline are unique, and can only be accomplished by a single player (or a group of players). Once a core mission or objective is completed, it disappears forever from the game and is no longer available to other players. Be the first to complete a core missions or objective to earn fame, credits, rewards ... and much more.

 

[warpus]

They're not generating the entire galaxy - they're going to be doing that "on demand".. well, probably.

It would be pointless to generate everything. As a programmer I'd just use the "bubble of interest" thing games do, but just make it a bit more dynamic. At close distance I'd generate everything - continents, atmospheric composition, type of terrain, etc.. but if you were outside of an unexplored solar system the planets might just have a couple variables here and there.. Far away stars might not even have planets defined, depending on the scale of this project. You could hypothetically have a "probability soup" of data expanding this sort of thing into a universe filled with as many galaxies as we have. But that's incredibly elaborate conjecture..

Since this is a MMO, the explored part of the galaxy might be use distributed data of sorts, with each client contributing its own chunk and a p2p type thing going on there.. I'm really not sure if you'd want to store all of that centrally, especially if people are constantly exploring this galaxy and forcing you to create data.

 

[Mouthwash]

They're not generating the entire galaxy - they're going to be doing that "on demand".. well, probably.

It would be pointless to generate everything. As a programmer I'd just use the "bubble of interest" thing games do, but just make it a bit more dynamic. At close distance I'd generate everything - continents, atmospheric composition, type of terrain, etc.. but if you were outside of an unexplored solar system the planets might just have a couple variables here and there.. Far away stars might not even have planets defined, depending on the scale of this project. You could hypothetically have a "probability soup" of data expanding this sort of thing into a universe filled with as many galaxies as we have. But that's incredibly elaborate conjecture..

Since this is a MMO, the explored part of the galaxy might be use distributed data of sorts, with each client contributing its own chunk and a p2p type thing going on there.. I'm really not sure if you'd want to store all of that centrally, especially if people are constantly exploring this galaxy and forcing you to create data.

You might want to look here; there are design notes. They stopped updating a loooong time ago but they're still working on the game (which, in my opinion, proves that this isn't vaporware).

EDIT: Found it.

 

[innonimatu]

Yep, content will probably be created "on demand", I agree. In the end it all derives from relatively simple algorithms anyway. The only difficulty is in storing state if/when players interact with generated content and expect the result of their interactions to persist. But depending of the degrees of freedom players have even that can be a trivial problem. It's one thing to advertise "persistent universe", quite another to store state in detail. Though if we expect that data storage capability and price will keep improving tremendously as it did until now even that is and will remain a simple problem to solve: if some databases already can can store every piece of content that goes through the Internet daily, how much easier it will be to store interactions of much fewer players in a simulated reality with a limited and strict set of rules?

Not ready for running on a PC, certainly ready for a company to try it on a MMO.

 

[Formaldehyde]

'Palace of the Stars' is one of the best soundtracks for a game I've ever heard.

Is that supposed to impress me, or make me change my mind?

You do realize that interest in music is a matter of personal opinion, and varies greatly from person to person. Right?

 

[Souron]

It's a fractal. Zoom in, and you get more detail. Return to the same spot, you get the same detail.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yep, content will probably be created "on demand", I agree. In the end it all derives from relatively simple algorithms anyway. The only difficulty is in storing state if/when players interact with generated content and expect the result of their interactions to persist. But depending of the degrees of freedom players have even that can be a trivial problem. It's one thing to advertise "persistent universe", quite another to store state in detail. Though if we expect that data storage capability and price will keep improving tremendously as it did until now even that is and will remain a simple problem to solve: if some databases already can can store every piece of content that goes through the Internet daily, how much easier it will be to store interactions of much fewer players in a simulated reality with a limited and strict set of rules?

Not ready for running on a PC, certainly ready for a company to try it on a MMO.

They were having a discussion on the forums about what would happen if missiles or lasers that were used in battle went careening off into space were to keep going along their trajectory. Obviously it would be immensely taxing on the server and there might be freak accidents where a player flying through deep space gets struck by a laser bolt that had been traveling for years after some forgotten battle.

I mean, the sheer data storage that alone would require...

 

[Mouthwash]

Is that supposed to impress me, or make me change my mind?

You do realize that interest in music is a matter of personal opinion, and varies greatly from person to person. Right?

No it isn't.

 

[Mouthwash]

At first I was like, "huh, just looks like EVE", and then he began to enter the planet's atmosphere and I was like "THAT WAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IVE EVER SEEN".

I want this.

The scale is distorted, it's actually almost realistic scale. When he appears fly close to the ground he's really flying at about the level of a small skyscraper. This is because details and scenery haven't been put in yet and the spaceship is traveling very fast. Just look at the shadow.