I really like that they have horizontal displacement on their procedural terrain (assuming that overhang we glimpsed was also procedural). It really gives the terrain a lot more character.
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Where did you see PG horizontal displacement?
All the rocks around the landing site are non-PG assets.
This can be seen at 8:20 onwards - all those white marks are non-PG assets, and the distinction between the PG terrain and the non-PG rocks is quite clear from overhead at 8:24.
Also when he mouses over them (8:50 onwards) their names show up.
The PG terrain looks very smooth and I canāt see any horizontal displacement.
Thatās a shame, I only watched the short video and assumed that all the terrain was procedural.
PG terrain also looks like an ugly primitive noise map and itās quality really clashes with that landing site they threw on the planet.
The quality difference is rather extreme. The fog is probably there not only to show that they have atmosphere but to hide how bad the terrain of the planet actually is, itās yet another thing they showed way too soon.
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Personally, although the screenshot is interesting and indeed shows (expected) differences between procedural terrain and the assets, I am possitively suprised that they already started dealing with the PG topic and have it pushed that far already (because it overall still doesnt look bad) and integrated it into their engine. And its the first iteration, so completely fine with me that there are still some issues like that.
Iām just super glad these games are trying to tackle PG planets. Improvements will only make it better and more convincing. I wouldnāt have believed anyone a few years ago if they said this would be happening now.
Itās awesome to see it on this game. I now donāt know what is missing in this incredible game. My dream of a big āWing Commander new generationā with more content and more possibilities is coming true itās awesome.
I dont see it to be honest. Besides atmospheric scattering, and that handmade terrain around the base, the PG looks inferior to Elites.
Well let me add the basic strong and weak points of the 3 games star citizen, elite dangerous, battlescape, in comparison to each other.
1.) Star Citizens strong point is ship design, attention to details, freedom. (no game (from the list) can beat them in this area), weak point, unstable game world, increase in dev time.
2.) Elite Dangerous strong point is universe scale and stable development. (no game beats it), weak point too repetitive and emptiness of gameplay.
3.) Infinity Battlescapeās strong point is planet generation and a seamless experience in the game world. (and no one can beat it in this domain) and weak point lack of resources.
so keeping things in perspective, previously star citizen never announced seamless planet landing, now they have included it, this means that given their beautiful art, and more freedom in game play plus a ton of game play mechanics with a ton of funds and an awesome marketing star citizen has now become the ultimate game. Among the list star citizen clearly wins in terms of features. They just have to integrate all their systems and make it stable.
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As someone who has never tried yet SCā¦ what do you call āfreedomā as one of the major aspect in SC? Because ED (previously E:D 
) does seem to me also give a lot of freedom to its players: become a pirate, merchant, bounty hunterā¦ Even some of the ships are modular enough to switch from one specialization to another. It gives you some much freedom (understand here: no constraints) that, as a newbie, youāre litterally lost in the first dozen of hours in play, trying to figure out all this faction gameplay and how mission works and what-notsā¦
I donāt know about SC, but Iād definitely put tutorials and user guidance as one of the extremely weak points of ED. Searching outside of the game for advanced gameplay techniques is fine (and still I could argue with that). Searching outside the game for basics is very wrong.
As for I:B, we havenāt seen that much yet. Itās not even an alphaā¦ - no, not even an earl dev access and youāre already speaking of weak and strong points.
Phrased like that, every game has tons of āfreedomā. Go ahead and describe call of duty in the same way, āyou can be a mercenary, breach doors, infiltrate cartels! Pick your weaponry and dispatch hundreds of bad guys in a diverging timeline of our world, the player is the focus!ā Sure, your character is doing all these things, but is the player? No, the player isnāt really making the decisions that make doing any of those things remotely interesting. Iāve always considered ED to be really lacking in this area. There are a ton of very basic limits on everything the player does. You cant transfer money to another player, you canāt build anything of your own, you canāt influence markets enough to ever really manipulate them (eve does this), you cant store materials off your ship, theres are a hundred harsh limits on things in ED that completely kill player freedom. Sure, there arenāt tutorials for āhow to be a bounty hunterā but thats because there is no depth to bounty hunting go to generic place, kill 20 things, come back, the first time you do it and the last time will always be the same. The combat skill ceiling is so low you can hardly improve your gameplay. Same goes for trading, exploring, and mining. Woops, i just described the entire extent of the gameās gameplay. Everything is shallow as a puddle.
The hope is that SC will be different, so far it seems that it will be the case. You can just jump out of your ship anywhere and go floating over to a station, board someoneās ship, go into your cargo bay and throw a coffee cup at your buddy, steal a noodle machine from a derelict station.
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Iām not even talking about āhow to become a bounty hunterā, Iām talking about how to accomplish simple missions. Our friends and me had search on the web to understand that āsalvageable wreckageā where the places to search to find these damn āblack boxesā and that sometimes you had to search a few of these signals.
Same for pirate hunting: when you donāt yet have an FSD interruptor, your best bet is to go on āweak / unidentified signalsā.
None of the above is described in any tutorial in-game or in their youtube channel. Thatās why I was being a bit sarcastic about āso much given freedomā.
As for the constraints you describe: yeah, sure there are limits. Then again, I donāt want toxic players / cartel player putting a monopole on some merchandises, so Iām OK with that. Transfering credits is arguably good and not good. Iāve never had a problem in World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 about items being āaccount-boundā; since in E:D the credits are the only way to upgrade your gear, Iām also OK with it.
Iād rather try to focus on teamplay with your newer friends rather than have credit transfer.
Anyway, absolute freedom doesnāt exist. It is always guaranteed by laws, either moral or natural. Anarchy for instance is not absolute freedom: the strongest, of the fittest, gets to do what he wants but not the others. A republic with laws restricts their citizens freedom on specific domains so that the same rules apply to everyone, therefore everyone is free.
Same goes for games: absolute freedom is nothing but anarchy. This is why Minecraft communities can be suspicious of new comers and the larger server simply install plugins against grief.
In your example, I fail to see how throwing a cup of coffee gives any gameplay. Itās closer to emotes in WoW in that matter.
Itās literally the definition of freedom. I didnāt watch the video but I assume you can pick it up and hopefully throw it. If it was given a damage model you could literally board and pirate a ship armed with coffee mugs(or defend!). If thatās not freedom of gameplay I donāt know what is because thatās amazing.
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Itās funny the argument against EDās shallowness is āuse your imaginationā but they have to give me some tools firstā¦tools like a coffee mug or rice maker. I could take over a galaxy with such a tool!
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If what you want is a ātoxic and cartel free environmentā thats up to you, there are countless games that neuter their gameplay for that. Not neutering gameplay to preserve peopleās feelings leads to more interesting and impactful decision making. I for one, enjoy displaying the heads of my carebear enemies atop spikes. In Haz iād skin my enemies and wear them as a leather jacket, before subjugating their population and refusing to give them any medication as they died en masse from the plague.
The coffee cup thing was just an example of a lack of hardcoded limtations. In ED even if you eject your cargo to someone they get it marked as āstolenā because the game doesnt want you trading at all. It contrasts heavily with the freedom to go in and mess with individual cargo pallets and objects and stuff.
LOL, now Iām imagining a SWAT team IRL storming a building with coffee cups in hands, throwing them at the besieged hostage takers, because you know, we have freedom IRL, why not. 
Thanks for the chuckle.
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Also in haz, glue guns were the most powerful handheld weapon in the game for years. I shouldnāt need to describe how much fun slaughtering enemy empires with a legion of glue gun toting footsoldiers was.
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The West American Trading Company is here to give you some freedomā¦with coffee.
Shores of Hazeron still pisses all over every other multiplayer space gameās chips on the āabsolute freedomā front. I still view it as an example of the very best and very worst of MMO gaming. Oh, while youāre there Mattk50; is HAXUS still raving mad?
Might want to leave Haz out of the discussion. 
Heās attempting to charge $15 a month for the broken husk of the game that survives, you tell me if heās raving mad. Thereās a reason im not using the full title. Cant help but use it for examples when this topic come up, it was a good experiment.
The only game iāve ever played where it was recommended practice to kill the tutorial agent, butcher his carcass and use his skin to make a backpackā¦ Shores was odd.
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