Taziar

Can't say I am surprised by the Dev's statement, but it does kill any remaining hope I had for this game rising from the ashes.

What about using research to kill 2 birds with one stone... Research requires (the resources of) creating and destroying many copies that items as part of the process. That would create an ore sink not directly tied to ship destruction.

I addressed that two sentence later in that post, but I will lay it out more clearly.. A grind shouldn't feel like a grind. A grind needs to feel rewarding.

Yes, because the Devs lack a fundamental understanding of MMOs and human psychology. MMOs = Grind. That is a near universal fact. The key is it shouldn't feel like a grind to players, or the payoff needs to feel worth it. If you remove too much of the grind players will say "There is no end game" and stop playing. As to autominers exclusively in PVP areas, that is equally as tone deaf. PVP contested resources already have an innate sense of tension and excitement built in(with popular games with active PVP) and is a matter of balancing risk vs reward to make it worthwhile for players, it is not a boredom issue. Mining in PVE is far more likely to be considered work, so PVP autominers would be a solution applied to the wrong problem. It could even make it worse as it likely would further devalue their labor.

Yes, prices are determined by supply and demand. But supply is also determined by supply and demand, as well as effort. In other words if demand for ore is low, fewer people will mine, which leads to a decrease in supply, which leads to prices stabilizing and possibly rising. People don't want to waste their time for little profit. But automated mining is automated. A one time expense. Once there, it will continue to supply with zero effort. So ore if prices drop, it just takes a little longer to recoup expenses but still no effort. No reason not to spam them. And unless there is some hard restrictions in place, or maintenance expense, there are two likely outcomes. They will produce more than is destroyed and permanently cripple the economy, or they will be nerfed to the point of uselessness. Manual labor is basically self-balancing, automated resource production is not. It is very, very hard to get right and nothing I have seen so far shows me the Devs have the economic expertise to pull it off.

Yes, correct, this game needs gameplay to encourage the building of civilizations or other creative endeavors. But the idea that the motivation comes from PVP is where your point collapses. PVP is analogous to war or crime, depending on the type. Neither of those things is what leads to growth of cities. Walls, sure, cities not so much. You even referenced Rust which works against you. What do people build in Rust? Meta designed clusters of crap designed solely to make raids more expensive at the cost of functionality, appearance, and creativity. The only exceptions are when a clan/org becomes totally dominant on a server. Why? Because that is what always happens with PVP. The focus becomes meta and efficiency. If staircases are cheaper than walls, you build your base out of them. If covering entire surfaces with torches prevented players from getting in, that would be the prevalent design. PVP brings singular focus to adapting to PVP. The closest thing they would build to a city would be a fort or military base. Or more likely bases owned by powerful Orgs. Cities exist because of resources. The acquisition, exchange and sharing of resources. Those resources could be things like food or crafted items, or could be skills such as doctors or craftsmen. The city grows based upon the need of those resources which draws people in. Those people then have to provide something in exchange by offering goods or services which then creates additional resources the city has to offer, which draws more people in. Ultimately to create a city you have to have need. Need of resources that the city can more easily provide to create draw, reason to go there. I agree the game doesn't currently create that motivation. So I agree that without need, all you have is a full scale model of a city, basically an art project. Kind of like every MMO that has an always-empty tavern that just serves as a prop. Still doesn't work as an argument for PVP though. Unless you are only interested in creating a wartime industry but that just supports factories which can be created and managed by a small org, no need for others because there is no need for supporting services. And in case you want to use the destruction brings creation argument, sure after a war ends there is often a period of growth. But that is after a war ends not a battle, so that would would be akin to a PVP server disabling PVP.

Sense of danger is good, though I prefer it to come from PVE, not PvP as that generally devolves to griefing. Getting randomly murdered or robbed is not really a fun game mechanic. In order for it to be PvP and not just griefing, there would have to be risks/rewards on both sides and that is never the case. Sure, I could catch and kill a thief (if avatar combat was in the game) then loot their corpse, but you and I both know they would have nothing on them when they go on a griefing spree. Now, if you add in a prison system where if I catch a criminal/scammer then they get locked out of the game for a week (increases based on times caught), sure, I am down with that. I mean, you said there needs to be danger, that should apply to the criminals as well, no? I know they would just sign into an alt and continue playing, but at least their griefing account would be locked for awhile and that would bring me joy. I think it is perfectly fair. If there are going to be game mechanics to be a criminal, non-criminals should have mechanics to punish said criminals. and not just death where they respawn 15 seconds later, but something that causes as much annoyance and frustration as their victim would have experienced had the thief gotten away with the loot/ship. But since that is unlikely to happen, I hope they add in PVE, because I agree, there needs to be risk as well as more gameplay elements.

Every person you see will be a human player - Todd Howard, Fallout 76. Sometimes blindly adhering to a 'vision' bites you in the ass. Sometimes you need to read the writing on the wall and adapt. As to NPCs, something like 99% of games in existence have them, even when developed by a one man team working part time. They could easily have a prototype in a week. It would take longer to flesh out but they could even involve the community in the process. Major parts of NPCs development are AI, pathfinding and encounter design. Lets focus on the last one. In this game the major work of encounter design is really SHIP DESIGN. Hmm, how are they going to create a diverse enough selection of ships to keep encounters interesting? Super easy, barely an inconvenience... Have players submit ship designs that could be spawned as NPCs. Maybe make a contest out of it. They would save money on content creation and create player engagement at the same time.

Someone built a small city (including monorail) in this game, it is not as different from Second Life as one would imagine. It just has a bit more focus on actual gameplay (which feels odd to say considering the state of this game). You are right about the territory claiming, we just disagree about the solution. There are Safe Zones in this game, so all that will happen regardless. Safe Zones will sprawl or have no vacancies for new players. (This is often addressed with instancing or additional servers but... single shard). The solution in this game should be Rent/Taxes with progressive rates based on how much you own. Your method requires a full loot type of PVP. If someone can lose their land and everything they built on it, nobody would build anything beyond a mine and walls of turrets. Excepting a few large orgs, perhaps. Everything else would be built in safe zones. They could eliminate safe zones, but that would basically kill the game.

Copying EVE is like trying to make a viral video. A fools errand. What is good/special about this game? Voxels/Ship Building/Civilization Building - Basically the Creative aspect Industry - which they destroyed, and intend to keep destroyed in the name of 'longevity' So, they can either embrace its strength, the creative side, and develop gameplay loops around that, or they can focus on things this game does poorly (PVP, etc), redesign them and then build game around that. What they can't do is keep pretending they can do all of it without going bankrupt or having the game implode. I don't particularly care which route they choose, successful launch or launchpad explosion, popcorn is salted either way. But it seems that other people still see the game as it was pitched rather than what has actually been created. I predict much disappointment in their future.

"Care to share say 12 of them? I doubt you can give me that many successful open world persistent single shard MMO titles that do not have PVP or where PVP plays a minor part." That is a lot of words to say Eve Online. I couldn't name a dozen single shard open world MMOs, never mind successful ones, even without factoring in type or existence of PVP. Which is unsurprising because they are massively problematic (and not just on the technical side), but that is another discussion.

There are tons of MMOs either without (OPEN WORLD) PVP or where it plays a small part. Consensual PVP with very limited death penalties is pretty much the norm these days, most people don't want to go back to the early days of WOW where there was true open world PVP. Turns out getting randomly one-shotted by high level players wasn't all that popular. And Games like ESO have a fenced in PVP zone. Fallout 76 had to quickly nerf their PVP even with small instanced servers. Sure they can keep safe zones but if they have resources exclusive to PVP, non-pvp players won't be happy, and if they don't then it is harder to make (open world) PVP worthwhile. Really they just need to pick a direction. The player base and game design for Second Life is vastly different than say Rust and trying to squash the two together in a single game is gonna end poorly. Creative, Social, PVE, and PVP can all be fun but they don't always play together well. And to your point, they need to decide on their marketing strategy. Long term niche players works for some games, like DDO. Some games benefit from attracting from a larger pool even if they don't stay for years. Catering to one often has consequences for the other.

Personally I think (open world) PVP is bad for this game. PVP brings along baggage that is incompatible with some games. PVP games come with heavy game balancing requirements. PVP comes with a strong need to squash 'exploits'. PVP comes with more strictly imposed limits. Sure, these are true of all games to a degree, but the scope of them in PVP that is vastly different, as well as the impact (In single player/PVE you are not targeting players with exploits, just NPCs). Ever look at the patch notes of a PVP MMO? Constant miniscule tweaks years after launch to prevent a singular 'Meta'. This is not an attack on PVP, it is just that PVP is inherently highly competitive in nature and it incentivizes many things that can quickly become a headache for developers. Headaches that require specific types of changes to address, which would conflict with the current game design. What makes this game less suited to PVP? Freedom and flexibility. The less rigid a system is, the more prone to exploiting. The more a player has access to, the more prone to exploiting. So creativity and customization do not pair well with PVP. Scripts? Good luck keeping them from turning into an exploitive nightmare. The Devs will likely end up with two choices, restricting the creative aspect, or leave the PVP players to fend for themselves, either way, someone will end up very unhappy. Creative (actual creation, not dress-up) just pairs better with PVE and Social gameplay. In PVP, creative is actually optimization. It is about finding and perfecting the Meta to exploit the game mechanics. Not bad, just very different. Now if they what to shift the focus away from creative, PVP (open world) could work. The 'player economy' model works well with PVP and is similarly sensitive to balance and exploits. Or they could keep PVP sandboxed, such as with arenas, which would allow for slightly different rules/restrictions for PVP such as limiting scripts and the like that wouldn't affect the entire player base.

Not sure exactly how they are finding the fun. Surface mining is currently tedious as hell, and an ugly blight on the planet) that feels like a mobile mini-game without the game part. Nearly featureless ground spammed with a sea of various colored rocks you have to click on, with no creatures or threats of any kind. Doubling down on that seems an odd choice unless you completely rework how it is done, and not simply making it more lucrative. It is currently a gameplay loop nobody wants or uses beyond the first few hours. Ground mining is tedious as hell and feels like the first couple of hours of Space Engineers... before you build cool machines to help you mine and start having fun. Your fix is to... plop down an auto-mining machine? This will give us easier Quanta, but kinda makes one of the few gameplay loops in the game redundant. Why not make it fun instead of automatic? So we will have automatic leveling, automatic mining, where is the draw to play? Where is the fun? Asteroid Mining is new, so I have no idea of the mechanics. But IF it is just the ground mining moved to an asteroid then there will be no net gain for miners. It could be good for PVP, assuming the risk is worth the reward, but that is a tough balance to achieve, as too little value and people won't do it, and too much value and the economy will be flooded by off-hours miners and/or dominated by orgs who simply have sheer number advantage to insta-delete any threats. There is at least potential with this one. PVP... Not my thing so I don't have too much to say. While I like Arena PVP combat (or other skill based PVP), most open world PvP is actually PvV (Players vs Victim), which doesn't interest me, though some people love ganking so this might add some fun for them. The graphics definitely do need an update but is really the least of this games issues. So meh? Overall, I don't see many additions of fun for most players. Slightly less tedium due to easier quanta, but not much in the way of actually adding fun (Asteroid mining mechanics being an unknown). PVP is really the only thing I see getting a possible fun boost, but PVP is one of the hardest things for an Indie game to sustain. Most Indie PVP fails hard because there is a minimum active population required otherwise it simply dies. Something indie games with smaller player bases struggle with. Overall nothing really bad, but nothing all that impressive either.

Yea, once your player base is hydrated, it's time to throw in the towel. (Aw, you edited it now my post won't make any sense)

Of course your opinion is as important as mine... as long as it's an actual opinion and not simply personal insults, which you were blindly jumping to defend two posts consisting entirely of personal attacks and nothing about the actual game. Your latest post is an example of an opinion on the game and equally valid to any of mine. Not that I completely agree with it. Focus is good. Focusing on PVP would be a disaster. They should embrace their strengths. Considering that the creative aspect is one of the few things this game does decently and uniquely in the market, going all in on PVP would make no sense. They have not shown an aptitude for it and not offered anything others in the market haven't already done far better. As to why I am here, it's simply because I choose to be.

My posts, whether you agree with them or not, were actual thoughts about the game. Not posts consisting entirely of "Waaaaaaaahhh". Though I find it interesting that you, a brand new account jump to the defense of another brand new account and between the two of you have not talked about the game at all, and instead directly target people critical of it. I originally made the Dev comment somewhat in jest, but ...

I agree with Blaze. This is clearly a generic customer pacification message. "We hear you and will make stuff better" Seriously, the their three goals are ... 'Gather feedback earlier' - They have been getting constant feedback since launch. "Change their process to allow them to take feedback into consideration" - What? You need a process to allow you to stop ignoring feedback? "Improve the quality of releases" - They are going to do this by postponing releases Yes, slower content releases is what this game needs. So basically stop ignoring customers, and actually test updates. I mean, not that those are bad things, but they are kinda basic practices every business should do, not something that will save a game on life support. And yes, I saw the part 1/3... Just above a month old post about 0.24 Phase One.

Personally I think they need delivery as an in-game system, not player controlled. The logistics involved in timely deliveries on such a scale would be difficult for players to do reliably and consistently (not to mention a source of griefing). But I do agree, the market trips is not my idea of fun either, and one of the major deal breakers for me (which unfortunately the schematic system forces you to do). Basically implement a postal service (even early WOW had that). If players want to create a Fedex service as competition, cool, but at least we would have base functionality guaranteed.

"never despawn ships from the game, breaks connection with realism" This is going to bite them in the ass in a major way. Or would if the game became popular, so in a way I guess they found a solution to that problem. Space is big, but for the game to feel like a civilization simulator you need people to congregate. Those places can quickly become cluttered and laggy. In normal MMOs, it can be hard to click on vendors because of the swarm of people on mounts blocking your view. This game adds in collision to mounts, mounts being the size of a spaceship, and mounts staying there after the person logs out. Oh, and they removed instancing so it concentrates people even more. Not saying those can't be solved, but they should be at the implementing stage at this point, not still figuring out solutions to problems that the industry solved by specifically NOT designing the game like NQ did.

Yup. This game is a mix of an unfinished space MMO, and Second Life (or VR Chat, or any other 'social creative space'). The latter facing similar issues to the screen lag, and they address it by allowing the player to disable other player's 'effects' from appearing on their screen as they cause lag, and/or griefing issues. It is almost like the vast majority of problems they face could have been predicted by having experience in the MMO gaming industry. Which is why I see a mountain of issues this game will face in the future.

"Plus he has been working many years on this game, so technically that is many years of experience on a big game. " Working on a game is not the same as completing/shipping one. The people who have started something and those that have completed said thing are in very different categories. Also, negativity in this forum is the least of this games worries. And really, I think they need a wakeup call which will certainly not be a fountain of positivity. There are many things they have either done wrong, or will otherwise bite them in the ass at launch. It is almost like they have never played an MMO before.

That giant ship illustrates a much larger issue. This game is basically designed to allow players to grief others.

You keep moving the goalposts and mixing arguments to cover different issues. Will compactifying help. Yes, because it automatically removes all constructs not being actively redeployed, ie, left for long periods of time, which is the majority of them. What about people who redeploy them? Well, if they are willing to redeploy them it really isn't any different than moving them 5 feet to reset the deletion/free salvage countdown. That is an entirely different problem. People parking advertisements requires a totally different solution, unless they consider it emergent gameplay and encourage it.

There is a reason why every other game uses instancing instead of a single universe, and it was never about server technology. This parking issue is minor compared to what will happen if the game actually succeeds.