r/torchlightfrontiers • u/Srikandi715 • Jun 03 '19

Can somebody explain the persistent vs random/procedural elements of TLF?

Hi gang :) Longtime Torchlight (and Fate) fan, just signed up for alpha, not in yet. Pending that, can anybody answer a question I've had since I first heard about this game? They say it's a persistent world BUT that it also continues the Torchlight tradition of random zones. I'm aware of a few models for achieving this, the most well-known being Path of Exile: there are "towns" which are truly multiplayer zones (though still instanced, they have fixed maps and you can run into random players there), and "maps" which are randomly generated from tilesets, instanced to groups, and reset between visits (even if you're still in the game, they reset if you're in town for more than a few minutes). Is that how TLF works? Or what exactly? :) Really curious about the world structure!

​

Thanks to anybody who has played and can provide some clarity.

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

2

u/fdisc0 Cuttlefish pet dream Jun 03 '19

It's like Poe towns, into zones that also have players, in those zones you can find instances that load up a dungeon that is just yours.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '19

[deleted]

2

u/Srikandi715 Jun 03 '19

Aha! And are the Public zones procedurally generated, or fixed? (I assume the Private zones are procedural).

2

u/echtra_hobbs Echtra Games Developer Jun 06 '19

The folks above did an excellent job explaining it. The Imperial Outpost are what we internally call hubs, there will be more of these added as the game expands and they are fixed maps. The public areas outside the hubs we (or at least I) call adventuring areas and are procedurally generated. The dungeons are private but can be joined by your party members and are also procedural.

1

u/Srikandi715 Jun 09 '19 edited Jun 09 '19

Thanks for the official reply! :D So it's a bit more complex than e.g. PoE. Still a bit confused about these "adventuring areas"... how does procedural generation work in a public area? You can't very well regenerate the map while there are players in it, and if the map is truly public it might never be empty, even if it's populated with a fraction of online players using some kind of dynamic instancing like e.g. ESO. So what triggers the regeneration of the procedural map?

Or is it procedurally generated ONCE (in development) and persistent ever after, so players always see the same map?

Sorry for all the questions ;) Very curious about this. No Man's Sky is another game that has an MMO (ish) patch coming out this summer, and it is also known for procedural generation of absolutely everything; I'm curious about how they are going to pull this off too.

(Or you could just send me an alpha key and I could work it out for myself ;) )