Volkier

I would think it's more of an issue with the modern gaming industry's definition of what "alpha" is, compared to the gaming industry ten to twenty years ago. You were bloody lucky to get into 'beta', the game would be pretty much complete by then with the reason for beta being to stress test the environment, hardware optimisation, focus on balancing and gameplay stuff, see how certain features are reacted to and maybe finish or add one or two of those in, and iron out any bugs missed in the alpha. The players who did get lucky to be a part of beta testing, were ALWAYS those who were passionate for the project, it's success, and treated their presence in the beta purely as a means to better the end product. There was no mentality that "that area there is bugged so I won't go there" - it was "that area is bugged, so I'm going to go there - repeatedly - and try to provide the developers with as much information as I can with what actions activate the bug, how it's duplicated, what actions don't activate it" and so on. As for alpha, you actually had paid testers who did it as a job, and treated it as such. The thing is, somewhere in the past decade, "early alpha" became the "norm" and the expectation of players - most of whom see it as simply "playable version of the game is released, and stuff is going to be added in gradually while I play it". Of course there are pros and cons to this. The pros are that developers get options for massive feedback and 'guinea pigs' very early on, as well as a sizeable injection of cash for their work without having to spend years working for free first (and of course you no longer need to pay professional testers to alpha test your game). The cons are, a lot of developers have sadly taken advantage of this while abandoning half finished games or constantly changing their mind and the direction they want the game to take, in order to "appeal to as many groups of people at different points of time", and of course the vast majority of players no longer realising what the terms "alpha", "beta" and "testing" mean, and the importance of them. Which is exactly what you outlined the 'many problems with early alpha' as being. People 'wanting' to 'play' the game, when the purpose of alphas is specifically 'needing' to 'test', with the ball being firmly in the developers' - and not the players' - hands. Not having a go at you or disagreeing with what you said - you were spot on. I'm not suggesting we should go back to the whole 'pay for alpha testers' model either. I'm simply saying that people need to go back to treating a game in an alpha stage, as a game in the alpha stage of development, understand the importance of their 'job' of finding and reporting problems, and hold out until at least the beta release (which no longer seems to happen) if they don't want to commit their time and effort into that. Star Citizen does provide a good example of this, you are right yet again. I would however almost dare say that having two branch system seemed to have slowed their progress down as a whole. I dunno, I'm probably wrong there, but it just feels like it would. You are working with two platforms, the 'stable' would still have issues that went through the 'test' batch, you now have to consolidate and prioritise information from both sources, figure out whether bugs from both of the 'batches' are related to another one etc. I just don't see how it wouldn't slow the development....

I'm too scared to ask that, though I know how you feel

Why not both? I don't mean 'sound effects' for stuff like doors opening and whatnot, people walking, laser firing - factual stuff existing in the physical universe, obviously that should never be 'altered' by the player. But why not configure how your ships' various alarms sound for instance? Really? I think Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor would perfectly suit the ambience of a crippled battleship floating in space, where the entire crew died and the captain - the sole remaining survivor - sits at the helm of the lone control room, contemplating on the simple question of "why" over several bottles of alcohol, while through the last ditch effort of what is left of the thrusters drifting towards certain doom in a manner of a destructive anomaly, as a final act of defiance and sacrifice.

I think it's not just the server, but also the fact that you would then need to code in variable fields of gravity, varied points of gravity throughout space, collision vs inertia = stress relations in zero gravity and so on. It would be a lot more complex to do than on a flat surface. BUT it would be so frigging awesome. Just probably would need to be coded / done differently (I would assume).

I don't think that would actually be a BAD thing to be honest. Overmined barren planets in certain parts of space would simply add to the whole aesthetic aspect of things. Might even be awesome of this idea is expanded on further and planets eventually "die" after they get mind out completely, turning into large hollow asteroids devoid of all life. Kinda like if you take out all of the water and trees from Earth and drill it full of holes.

I suppose it is a good point, though you are not necessarily 'sharing' it if the other players if you are not giving other players the option to download the file. There is also the argument that if you go to someone's house, and they are listening to something which you overhear, there is no copyright violation as it is not a crime to hear - and as the curtain between reality and virtual reality becomes more and more transparent... well you get the idea. I'm quite sure as long as there are systems in place which would prevent users from "sharing" the files, it is worth a shot. Alternatively, having an 'approved library' of sorts of NCS music that players can submit more to would be a start. Or alternatively as someone else suggested, connect to services already available. I understand there are many ways to go about the same thing to achieve a 'similar' - though not necessarily exactly the same - result, but if I feel it's something that's worth discussing. It's bound to happen sooner or later after all.

Can I vote "kroons"?

Category: Space hobo shopping cart Type: Mobile home (plus amenities) Specifications and design: Let your imagination run wild

Giant space unicorn that shoots lasers out of it's eyes! YAY!! I'm kidding I'm kidding. Something like a mini-carrier with a fully enclosed 'bay' for the smaller ships (probably no more than two). Style-wise, I do prefer practical designs that look less 'alien' and more like futuristic (but rustic/metallic) 'human' kind of ships. Other than that, I would rather keep an open mind. That way I'm not limited by something as boring as a 'plan' when this game is finally released

I apologise if someone has already started a discussion on this - did a quick search, and while this idea is definitely not 'new', from what I've seen it's usually mixed in as a side-note on a 'bigger and better' idea kind of thing. So I thought it's something worth having a specific look at. I'll try to keep this simple: System: - Ability to store mp3 files that can be played in game to be used on your ship / starbase / hut on a planet, which every other player in the vicinity can hear as part of the 'ambience' of where-ever it is they are. Problems: - File size on server. - A large number of people uploading a large number of songs / music (ie. bandwidth issues). Solutions: - Specific in-game item able to 'store' data (like mp3's). This allows the developers to dictate how much storage space such items can have, how 'common' they are, whether certain items are able to hold more 'data' etc. - Spacial 'translation' points, required to 'encrypt' said data of a players system onto the in-game item. This allows the developers to dictate the bandwidth load, designate a certain server (where the area with such a point is located) for such tasks, as well as other configuration-based tasks exclusively etc. - You could further expand this to having such items single use one - ie. once you have 'injected' the item into whatever you ships' player system's are, you will need a 'new' such item if you want to use a different mp3. This will prevent people having a gigabyte worth music library on their ships (which, while would be awesome, is impractical to achieve due to the sheer volume of playerbase vs. server size). Expanding further: - Could use same mechanic for .jpg files to include 'holo' portraits in your ships' hallways (if you so chose). Just seems like since you are already building your own ships, it may make sense to make your creations just that extra bit more personal. Also - why not? Someone's gotta / gonna do it sooner or later on such a scale. Why not DU?

The voices... Are just... too... strong....

This is going to be subscription based? AWESOME! I'm personally sick and tired of pay to win.... err I mean "free" games where you end up paying for a bunch of useful stuff anyway. Maybe we will finally get some consistent good quality game, decent customer service and a community that is passionate about, and want to actually play the game - like we used to have back when pretty much all decent MMOs were subscription based. I'm loving this project more and more by the minute, the more I hear about it.

How "realistic" are the planets aimed to be though? For example, would they have a molten core, atmosphere, orbits etc. Because I would guess this would dictate how much you could do with one. I know I'm new, so I'm still wading through the forums reading the various discussions with relation to the above, but I would focus on that rather than how "overpowered" it would be. Why put limits on something that strives to have none?

Just stumbled upon a YouTube video showing this, and I'm bloody impressed. Beyond words. Quite literally, I've typed and deleted lines in this post for about half an hour not knowing quite what to say. So just well done devs.