[strken]

Pretty sure Minecraft uses Perlin noise for terrain, while Noita uses entire pre-made tiles. They both have setpiece structures dotted around the terrain, but I think lelandfe was making a distinction between Wang tiles vs a gradient noise generator.

[hammyhavoc]

You have ignored the original point made entirely that intentional level design is generally far more interesting than anything algorithmically generated.

Specifically, yes, but my point was more that there's pre-created elements thrown in there too. It's a very surface-level argument of generative art versus intentional art, the technology itself isn't what's being discussed, it's the output and how interesting it is or isn't.

I'm not even saying procedural generation et al is bad, it has its place.

People use stock/library content in games all the time, whether it's textures, rigs, whole environments, or even mechanics. Can interesting things be made? Yes. Are the usually unique or innovative? Well, generally no.

What made Minecraft so interesting for most people was what people made within it, the world seeds themselves were really whatever for most people. If they were so interesting then people wouldn't be importing schematics for models, wholly pre-built worlds, hubs, and even some creative mode servers. Sure, some people like exploring the procedurally generated stuff, but once you've done that for a few tens of hours, it's boring and you've largely seen what's worth seeing.

I spent more time using WorldEdit than screwing around with seeds because I knew exactly what I wanted my server's main area to be like rather than relying on a seed.

[strken]

I was responding to the "literally how Minecraft works" part rather than the discussion further back.

That being said, world generation is a bit like a toybox, or a backdrop to a play in a theatre. Minecraft's world gen isn't worthless, and so improving the backdrop is worth discussing. The differences in the output of implementations matter a lot (to me, at least) and I think Minecraft would be much less compelling if the world was generated using a 3d implementation of Wang tiles. "A few tens of hours" is a lot of content.

Would Minecraft be even more compelling with neural networks doing some of the content creation? I think it might. Would that totally replace the need for human input and invalidate everything players build? No, but that doesn't make it worthless.

[hammyhavoc]

Perhaps!

But a few tens of hours is very little versus the quite literally thousands of hours spent running a server for 8 years and using plugins on it. Truth be told, I think even if a Minecraft world was literally a blank base plate and it was digital collaborative LEGO, it still would have been a hit.

I guess the thing with Minecraft is that it was many different things to different people. Some people loved "Hunger Games" style worlds/modes on servers, others like single player mods, or even just vanilla Minecraft.