Can we get bigger maps? (DLC)

[jbanto]

DLC is great and all, but I don't know how we're supposed to fit everything into the 96x96 map without making a giant boring rectangle hospital. I think 128x128 should be good enough to give us some room to breathe and play with roads more.

[TheReal4TheWin]

+1 or even you can decide how big your map should be

[jirka_oxymoron]

I am afraid that max size 96x96 is set due to technical limitations. I would recommend expanding to the upper floors.

[Torcai]

Originally posted by jirka_oxymoron:

I am afraid that max size 96x96 is set due to technical limitations. I would recommend expanding to the upper floors.

Is there a technical limit on how many floors we can build?

[MWRGaming]

Originally posted by Torcai:

Originally posted by jirka_oxymoron:

I am afraid that max size 96x96 is set due to technical limitations. I would recommend expanding to the upper floors.

Is there a technical limit on how many floors we can build?

9

[MedJet]

Originally posted by jirka_oxymoron:

I am afraid that max size 96x96 is set due to technical limitations. I would recommend expanding to the upper floors.

weak sauce. you've been delivering quite a bit of bad news lately Jirka.

[UbiquitousIngot9734]

Originally posted by MedJet:

Originally posted by jirka_oxymoron:

I am afraid that max size 96x96 is set due to technical limitations. I would recommend expanding to the upper floors.

weak sauce. you've been delivering quite a bit of bad news lately Jirka.

And it's quite disappointing too! I honestly don't feel like 96x96 is a technical limitation but that's purely based on the fact we've never been told why .

I have high-hopes for this game, and I feel like we've been given quite a lot of disappointment; but not actually explaining why.

[Cas]

I kind of get the limit on map sizes - would add too much to pathfinding and could lag the game quite badly.

Other problem is it can already take some of the staff quite awhile to get from map entrance to their workspace and larger maps would just make this worse.

[mrgeorgeallison]

Originally posted by Dan:

I kind of get the limit on map sizes - would add too much to pathfinding and could lag the game quite badly.

Other problem is it can already take some of the staff quite awhile to get from map entrance to their workspace and larger maps would just make this worse.

This is why I had asked to be able to slowdown the in game clock.

[jirka_oxymoron]

Some additional context is that during the development, several larger maps were tested and map size 96x96 appears to be the largest possible while everything still working smoothly. Also, different ratios of sides existed in the past, camera rotation currently works only for square maps. Bigger maps also mean higher HW requirements and we would not be able to guarantee that the game meets the minimum requirements. Another limitation is that value 96 is hard-coded in quite a few places as the maximum limit. So it would mean some extensive changes. My apologies for the first (I must admit a little bit short and insufficient) answer.

[Sound Zero]

I'm glad jirka responded a second time, I was about to answer it myself.

Back in the day, a long time ago now, I was on the development team for a little ARPG called Titan Quest.

We made decisions back then that today seem silly, but it was always due to one of three reasons. Limitations of the game engine, limitations of the hardware resource pool, technical difficulty outweighs the game value.

Often the game engine itself would require extensive changes to accommodate what seem like they would be minor changes. And the worst part is that you can't rush that kind of work, it will just lead to serious bugs in the final compiling of the game. Sometimes, a change is significant enough to the rest of the games workings that you can justify the changes needed, and get the coder reworking the engine to accommodate it...but not usually.

If you ever wonder why games drop sequels instead of expansions, this is usually why. Or even a stand alone expansion, because often you are going to sell the product for a a value that can justify putting the work in.

The hardware resource pool is different, because no two PC's are alike...even when they have the exact same components. So when you're building a game, you assign everything a resource value, and you have to stay within those values to end up with the system requirements you choose to develop for.

Most companies won't make a game that is designed to push even the most powerful of systems, because you are isolating a huge chunk of the market. It may not seem to be true, but on a global scale, the average PC is four years old. Americans tend to have new system hardware within a two year rotation, but markets like China and Korea, for example, have users who have ten year old systems. If you want to be available for those markets, you have to have a game that allows for lower end systems.

This is good and bad, because on the good end you need less work on animation and such, because you use simpler, lower resolution art. It makes it easier to do changes to complete rosters of art work...but, it's also not that appealing to those who have new hardware.

There was a time when graphics were king, can you imagine that? People had two thousand dollar video cards and wanted to make them sweat. Something that can run on three year old hardware just wasn't appealing to them.

But the bad side of things is that, as well as the fact that as hardware improves, and the average age of user hardware improves, the game really shows it age. You've seen those videos right? Where someone talks about older games that didn't age well? Yeah, those games would need a remake with new art to really look today, because the hardware just seems wasted on their old formats.

But every item in a game, on screen or that will be on screen, takes up part of your system resources. Windows, if that's what you're using, needs some of those resources too. Your internet connection, anti-virus software...etc.

If you create a beautiful animation for a spell, as an example, that ends up being over-budget, it can cause serious gameplay issues. Now, over-budget in this issue isn't the cost of making the art, but the amount of resources that animation takes to render on screen, load in memory, or etc.

Every sound, motions, input...everything, it has a budget.

A super simplified example is imagine you have 1000 bytes of data you can spend on screen objects at one time. Then you create a sword animation that uses 500 of that. Then you add a sound, which adds another 200. You have 300 left for everything else needed.

SO, lets say that sword has options for customization...maybe yours is fire and another is ice. To have those effects show, also adds resources. Maybe, that last 300. Most of the time, you can get away with it. But what if another player, or an enemy, had the same sword and it had a different effect on it? Now you have to render that sword twice. Or a clever programmer could have it load only the effect of the ice, since it's all that is different...but now you're over your resource budget, because that's 1300 resources. Now, granted, that is better than the 2000 it could take for two separate renders...but it's still over-budget.

So, the lead designer has to decide. Is the effect worth it enough to allow for the usage of more resources? If so, where will those resources come from? Are you going to lower sound quality in that space? Lower frame-rate? Maybe you just expand the resource pool and up the system requirements?

This is the part that relates to this threads question. They test the maps at a certain size, and they determine how many different objects can occupy that space. What would it take to run this smoothly if the most resource intensive objects are on screen at once? How big can we go before we exceed our desired system requirements.

Objects that have interactions, animations, unique sounds, are clickable or moveable...etc...they all take more resources than a static object that does nothing in game.

And then you are allowing save games, which save the entire state of the game, which requires resources as well. You have to load pathfinding...etc.

I don't work on this game, but I know this is part of why the game doesn't have an "undo" button. The resources to make it work were more valuable if used elsewhere.

When you sit back and think about each object in the game, you get a larger picture of what it takes to make the game operate. A janitor who uses a cart, they put it back at the end of the shift. The game has to track where that cart came from. It has to "remember" so that it goes back where it was. That's one example.

In the grand picture, it's a few kilobytes of data being tracked for that, but now imagine you have 40 of them working at once.

And each janitor using it has a shift, an assigned workplace, they have needs that are tracked. They have to find a path to where they need to be. The AI that makes them work in the first place, takes resources.

You turn the camera, the memory unloads the previous view and loads the new view, and it takes less than a second to see the change on screen. But maybe you've seen a game where you spin the camera and things freeze for a second. Or you do a rotation like in this game, and it takes a couple of seconds to load the new view...it's because the resources are spiked and the game needs to do a larger dump of data for the new data.

Developers that stick to their budget tightly, have smooth transitions like this game has. It loads and moves swiftly and smoothly, assuming you meet the specs it requires.

And yes, there is always room for some stretching of those resources, but you have to also consider that allowing modding means you really need to not stretch. You need to leave that resource space open whenever you can so that mods won't extend the game beyond the reach of most players.

Sure, I'd love larger maps...make a huge complex. But at the same time, I don't want the game to require me to have the most powerful hardware on the market to play it either...or make me miss out on mods.

Sorry if this offends anyone. Just trying to share some light on how games are made, what happens under the hood, for those interested. Things have changed a lot since I was in the business, but it's essentially the same today at the core of things. The processes are mostly the same, it's the execution and organization and efficiency that's changed.

Cheers!

[MedJet]

Originally posted by Ghostmane:

I'm glad jirka responded a second time, I was about to answer it myself.

Back in the day, a long time ago now, I was on the development team for a little ARPG called Titan Quest.

We made decisions back then that today seem silly, but it was always due to one of three reasons. Limitations of the game engine, limitations of the hardware resource pool, technical difficulty outweighs the game value.

Often the game engine itself would require extensive changes to accommodate what seem like they would be minor changes. And the worst part is that you can't rush that kind of work, it will just lead to serious bugs in the final compiling of the game. Sometimes, a change is significant enough to the rest of the games workings that you can justify the changes needed, and get the coder reworking the engine to accommodate it...but not usually.

If you ever wonder why games drop sequels instead of expansions, this is usually why. Or even a stand alone expansion, because often you are going to sell the product for a a value that can justify putting the work in.

The hardware resource pool is different, because no two PC's are alike...even when they have the exact same components. So when you're building a game, you assign everything a resource value, and you have to stay within those values to end up with the system requirements you choose to develop for.

Most companies won't make a game that is designed to push even the most powerful of systems, because you are isolating a huge chunk of the market. It may not seem to be true, but on a global scale, the average PC is four years old. Americans tend to have new system hardware within a two year rotation, but markets like China and Korea, for example, have users who have ten year old systems. If you want to be available for those markets, you have to have a game that allows for lower end systems.

This is good and bad, because on the good end you need less work on animation and such, because you use simpler, lower resolution art. It makes it easier to do changes to complete rosters of art work...but, it's also not that appealing to those who have new hardware.

There was a time when graphics were king, can you imagine that? People had two thousand dollar video cards and wanted to make them sweat. Something that can run on three year old hardware just wasn't appealing to them.

But the bad side of things is that, as well as the fact that as hardware improves, and the average age of user hardware improves, the game really shows it age. You've seen those videos right? Where someone talks about older games that didn't age well? Yeah, those games would need a remake with new art to really look today, because the hardware just seems wasted on their old formats.

But every item in a game, on screen or that will be on screen, takes up part of your system resources. Windows, if that's what you're using, needs some of those resources too. Your internet connection, anti-virus software...etc.

If you create a beautiful animation for a spell, as an example, that ends up being over-budget, it can cause serious gameplay issues. Now, over-budget in this issue isn't the cost of making the art, but the amount of resources that animation takes to render on screen, load in memory, or etc.

Every sound, motions, input...everything, it has a budget.

A super simplified example is imagine you have 1000 bytes of data you can spend on screen objects at one time. Then you create a sword animation that uses 500 of that. Then you add a sound, which adds another 200. You have 300 left for everything else needed.

SO, lets say that sword has options for customization...maybe yours is fire and another is ice. To have those effects show, also adds resources. Maybe, that last 300. Most of the time, you can get away with it. But what if another player, or an enemy, had the same sword and it had a different effect on it? Now you have to render that sword twice. Or a clever programmer could have it load only the effect of the ice, since it's all that is different...but now you're over your resource budget, because that's 1300 resources. Now, granted, that is better than the 2000 it could take for two separate renders...but it's still over-budget.

So, the lead designer has to decide. Is the effect worth it enough to allow for the usage of more resources? If so, where will those resources come from? Are you going to lower sound quality in that space? Lower frame-rate? Maybe you just expand the resource pool and up the system requirements?

This is the part that relates to this threads question. They test the maps at a certain size, and they determine how many different objects can occupy that space. What would it take to run this smoothly if the most resource intensive objects are on screen at once? How big can we go before we exceed our desired system requirements.

Objects that have interactions, animations, unique sounds, are clickable or moveable...etc...they all take more resources than a static object that does nothing in game.

And then you are allowing save games, which save the entire state of the game, which requires resources as well. You have to load pathfinding...etc.

I don't work on this game, but I know this is part of why the game doesn't have an "undo" button. The resources to make it work were more valuable if used elsewhere.

When you sit back and think about each object in the game, you get a larger picture of what it takes to make the game operate. A janitor who uses a cart, they put it back at the end of the shift. The game has to track where that cart came from. It has to "remember" so that it goes back where it was. That's one example.

In the grand picture, it's a few kilobytes of data being tracked for that, but now imagine you have 40 of them working at once.

And each janitor using it has a shift, an assigned workplace, they have needs that are tracked. They have to find a path to where they need to be. The AI that makes them work in the first place, takes resources.

You turn the camera, the memory unloads the previous view and loads the new view, and it takes less than a second to see the change on screen. But maybe you've seen a game where you spin the camera and things freeze for a second. Or you do a rotation like in this game, and it takes a couple of seconds to load the new view...it's because the resources are spiked and the game needs to do a larger dump of data for the new data.

Developers that stick to their budget tightly, have smooth transitions like this game has. It loads and moves swiftly and smoothly, assuming you meet the specs it requires.

And yes, there is always room for some stretching of those resources, but you have to also consider that allowing modding means you really need to not stretch. You need to leave that resource space open whenever you can so that mods won't extend the game beyond the reach of most players.

Sure, I'd love larger maps...make a huge complex. But at the same time, I don't want the game to require me to have the most powerful hardware on the market to play it either...or make me miss out on mods.

Sorry if this offends anyone. Just trying to share some light on how games are made, what happens under the hood, for those interested. Things have changed a lot since I was in the business, but it's essentially the same today at the core of things. The processes are mostly the same, it's the execution and organization and efficiency that's changed.

Cheers!

"If you ever wonder why games drop sequels instead of expansions, this is usually why. Or even a stand alone expansion, because often you are going to sell the product for a a value that can justify putting the work in."

this is fast emerging as the more pressing issue when it comes to simulation games. I have played countless simulators for over two decades -- and still do. Frankly, the capability of hardware is really not the primary issue these days*. It's predominantly on the game development side. As time has moved on I have come to look for more robust AI in the simulation games I play, and in so doing have found myself realizing that I must temper and or even eliminate my expectations for significant improvements moving forward. I've played countless sim releases in the past couple years only to find a real definite struggle to interact with "competent AI." A few games pull it off, and many fall somewhere on the spectrum of: "nice try but not quite to horribly buggy and inconsistent." In the process of coming to reflect on what's happening and why simulation games really seem to be largely (not completely) falling behind as time moves on. I realized exactly what you stated above. Thus, I significantly temper my expectations. Fewer and fewer sims in the future will really be able to deliver on fairly smooth gameplay that approaches anything rich in AI. I enjoy this game and find that it too has significant limitations. I'd love to be wealthy enough to fund a venture that really pushes the boundaries as far as possible when it comes to engine, coding, and gameplay AI implementation. I'm not. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the decades to come though as the gulf between simulation gameplay expectations and economic feasibility continues to widen. Can't say I'm optimistic.

*for those that can afford the latest and greatest hardware w/o monetary limits.

[Sound Zero]

Originally posted by MedJet:

"If you ever wonder why games drop sequels instead of expansions, this is usually why. Or even a stand alone expansion, because often you are going to sell the product for a a value that can justify putting the work in."

this is fast emerging as the more pressing issue when it comes to simulation games. I have played countless simulators for over two decades -- and still do. Frankly, the capability of hardware is really not the primary issue these days*. It's predominantly on the game development side. As time has moved on I have come to look for more robust AI in the simulation games I play, and in so doing have found myself realizing that I must temper and or even eliminate my expectations for significant improvements moving forward. I've played countless sim releases in the past couple years only to find a real definite struggle to interact with "competent AI." A few games pull it off, and many fall somewhere on the spectrum of: "nice try but not quite to horribly buggy and inconsistent." In the process of coming to reflect on what's happening and why simulation games really seem to be largely (not completely) falling behind as time moves on. I realized exactly what you stated above. Thus, I significantly temper my expectations. Fewer and fewer sims in the future will really be able to deliver on fairly smooth gameplay that approaches anything rich in AI. I enjoy this game and find that it too has significant limitations. I'd love to be wealthy enough to fund a venture that really pushes the boundaries as far as possible when it comes to engine, coding, and gameplay AI implementation. I'm not. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the decades to come though as the gulf between simulation gameplay expectations and economic feasibility continues to widen. Can't say I'm optimistic.

*for those that can afford the latest and greatest hardware w/o monetary limits.

Ya know, before I left the business, we had the idea to create an MMO, ya know they were a popular and rising genre at the time. Our largest issue was that we needed a very competent AI to make the game work.

The simple premise was two factions, one made of nightmare creatures. Vampires, Werewolves, Owlbeasts...the like. The other of those who hunted them.

We had heavy inspiration from Star Wars Galaxies, in the idea that the players could do everything from be a hunter to open a shop. We wanted players to be able to set up home inside the game world, and let everything they do be permanent and persistent.

The largest issue, we found, was NPC's that worked. Our solution was to basically use hired players. To literally hire people to play the game, following our scripts, and interact with players. We had a great formula setup that allowed dialog and decisions to proceed similar to Mass Effect and other games, where you have a choice wheel for dialog options.

This wheel would apply to both players and employees.

You'd never truly know if you were speaking with a bot, or a game master, feeding you content.

We wanted perma-death, with a succession system, to make every decision important. The way we were planning it, every choice mattered, and the majority of people wouldn't just waste their time doing things to disrupt the game world.

Things like Vampire families might be upset if you burned down the store of the popular drug store. Maybe he was unknowingly selling blood to some important members of that family. Nothing like being hunted, only to be wanted by the vampires too.

Anyway, the idea was that we would have a roster of employees play the game with the players, so that where we would have issues with AI not being convincing, the employee players would fill in those gaps.

The rough mock and concept designs showed great promise.

But publishers, they didn't think anyone really wanted a realistic monster simulator...so we never got a green light to go any further.

Now, no doubt we'd have been limited by the technology of the time, and the publishers weren't necessarily wrong...it was a huge undertaking.

Today, it could be done much easier, but sadly the MMO market kind of imploded and the odds of such a game every being made now are highly improbable.

[pispis]

I just bought new DLC and have no space to build the new rooms:(. My hospital reached 8 floors limit, Sorry to say but I would not buy any more DLC because there is no space to expand the hospital - big loss, so sad. I was hoping to buy many many more future DLCs. Any solution for that?

[EndlessSauron]

maybe they can give us more floors to work with?

[MWRGaming]

hopefully they add more floors when they add helicopters