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Traceur

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Everything posted by Traceur

  1. I think this is natural in sandbox MMOs, though not quite the same as IRL, because there's no permadeath or bloodlines, but there are some similarities. Initially you have small groups of friends that all get to know each other, there's usually a natural leadership but it's anything but absolute and easily challenged. Then a few of those start growing and have "inner spheres" where the original founders go and "outer spheres" where the new recruits go, which is kind of equivalent of nobility, though often it's separated by titles like officers or executives or whatnot, and it's a lot easier to dismiss anyone who doesn't like the leadership. Those who do change leadership, communism and shared pools of resources become rather common. Democratic systems are rare, but I have seen elections happen when the alternative was breaking a large faction apart.
  2. One of the things I think SE screwed itself over was by integrating the physics all too deeply under the skin, instead of setting it up as an attribute. This is one of the reasons they had such a huge difficulty with pistons and rotors, the reasons wheels are so buggy and why they gave up so early on rails (Even though they had the basic models for them). Contrast this to the rather smooth implantation of moving parts into StarMade, where physics isn't much of a concern. Which reminds me... If DU has any videos demonstrating mechanical parts, even early prototypes, I'd love to see that. I don't care if it's just a mechanic at this point and your only model to stick it on is a spinning squirrel, it would still be awesome to see.
  3. I realize it might be too early, but if it all possible, I think showing us a working multicrew situation could be a huge kick to the kickstarter, since even in the current space sim flood that is something which still stands out as rather rare.
  4. What about 3D print tokens? You could use them on creations you later make in-game to have a 3D model printed and sent to you. It could also help with the marketing by showing the creative emphasis. What about 3D print tokens? You could use them on any creation you make to have a 3d model printed and sent to you.
  5. What are the chances it would be abated by Wednesday?
  6. About warp bubbles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKTgNCGhq9Y
  7. I am hoping I can just plant an alien tree and throw a big cube on it.
  8. I am currently a bit in love with the interior design of Palisade Property Bank from Deus EX, might try to recreate that as a building in someone else's city.
  9. I request that all my donations go towards @NQ-Nyzaltar paycheck for actually answering my dozen multi-part questions (Thank you). TBH I am a bit worried after the Planet Nomad kickstarter having so few backers, and people might currently be a little bit turned off from space games because of the No Man's Sky backlash (IGN constantly comparing the two certainly doesn't help). I will make my pledge, but I hope they have a plan B, or at least an early access strategy as a low bar minimum goal in case they wont get enough for the full development cycle.
  10. I am not sure what you mean by "finally", between Mass Effect, the Star Wars & Star Trek franchises they seem to be a staple, and one that is very difficult to do with any level of justice. My personal preference is a world of gods and beasts: Almost anything we'd find out there would either be millions of years ahead or millions behind, so you could see alien drones harvesting materials from suns while completely ignoring you, and you could see alien animals roaming on other planets and feeding of vegetation guarding their nests or wondering whether you are edible, but nothing in between, nobody that is going to fit right within the human range and relate to you as an individual.
  11. Or you can leave it at the hands of players. If you make the initial breakthrough a finding that you can either share or not, an innovation can become globally spread, exclusive to an organization or a trade secret in the hands of very few players depending on the choices the player makes. If players are able to research an unknown element or resource if they find it (Possibly with related skill requirements), then it provides both a way for introducing new technologies and spreading them around, and a motivation for conflict when trying to prevent or delay it from spreading.
  12. Can I ask about yours? Vision I mean, at least on a more abstract level (even if the particulars are still fuzzy). Right now it's all too easy for anyone of us to fill in the blanks with whatever dream mechanics we might envision. Having some idea about the role you want research to have in the game and the purpose of the mechanics would make it a lot easier to discuss it constructively. Is it about finding an immersive way to introduce new elements to the community as you develop them? Do you see it as another layer of character progression, or as something a group should be able to share? Do you view it as something that must be achieved individually or something that could be a traded commodity? Is it meant as a reward? If so what would you rather reward? time spent in the game, exploration, economical contribution to the in-game economy, social cooperation, alien-rat tooth collections?
  13. They've already said that voxel planets will basically just remember the editing, and there are also quite probably a lot less factors dependent on the location of a voxel. For structs there is every other calculation and voxel-check. Total mass (almost certainly), center of mass (probably), center of thrust, energy, damage, any level of co-dependency and communication, really any attribute you can apply to a block that can influence or be influenced by any other block.... There's a lot of data that instead of simply getting stored in a database ends up recalculated again and again in case the struct changes in the worst case scenario, or some hefty onStructChange event listeners that would almost be doing the same thing calculation wise. Planets that can be built on (Structures connected to the planet) and environments that you can build within, not quite the same topic.
  14. Actually their would be huge advantages to limit building to certain zones, performance-wise, since a lot of the code going over your structs and working the construction tools wouldn't have to be constantly running. (I am pretty sure that you will be able to build anywhere as seen in the trailer, which is altogether fantastic - there's a lot of gameplay benefits for having it this way and it's part of the appeal of the game, but you said no reason, and I don't have enough will power to leave that alone).
  15. Talkin' 'bout floodgates... Is that a power ranger?
  16. From what the dev's described, there is no special "station mode", a ship is basically a station with an engine. I suppose you could have geothermal-powered weapons and shields requiring a level of energy that wouldn't be realistic for a ship to achieve though, or something of that nature.
  17. I haven't voted yet. I like the idea of cryobeds or ragdolls (Even though I question the later's viability), but the idea of absolutely having to log off at a certain place isn't really viable for a lot of people: You have parents playing while their kids play in the background, you have people playing at off times at work or while waiting for something to finish, you have a lot of various life conditions where you might need at any point to get up and leave the computer because real life. If DU requires that you make scheduled full times breaks from your life where you do nothing but play DU, I'd be lucky if I could get 3-4 sessions a month.
  18. I think we all know where those noodles came from:
  19. But he does: After years of laying in the shadows of themeparks, survival sandbox games have skyrocketed in recent years since minecraft made the sandbox metaphor that much more literal. But most of these have come through single player games and small scale multiplayer, and the acceptance of such mechanics hasn't yet truly penetrated the MMO market. There's going to be resistance. Right now here in this conversation he is the loudest of those resistance, but the inherit conservatism of the stance means that if you are hoping both sides reach the topic with an open mind considering all points of view, you are unlikely to get what you wish for, and despite that fact this is an important process, every change needs people with a conservative mindset to resist it so that we have the pressure to examine it and see whether it's a desirable one. It isn't a pleasant process, but it's a vital one. (Except in this case where the dev's most likely have already formed their own ideas on how they'd like this implemented and if not outright coding them already into the game, so this conversation is most likely futile. But you know, in general, in society and such) .
  20. And the next day's most common search terms for DU subscribers: "What is food?" "What does it mean to not need food?"
  21. I am hoping at some point in the near future the dev's release a survival devblog with their decisions on this matters. Hopefully earlier then later, considering this seems like it could be a deal breaker for people on either side of the isle, and it's better to have the fanbase of the game you want to make rather then a huge wave of people leaving later on because it wasn't what they were hoping for. The problem is that right now, we have this: And the words "we are considering" is a huge call to arms for anyone against this, suggesting that this is their opportunity to fight against it's inclusion.
  22. It's funny how superstitious they were at the time: To believe that the very essence of how we now build our environments came from a one hit pony, such a ridicules belief.
  23. So I am just going to ask and put it out there... The middle east? It's fairly common for people here to hide where they are from online in international communities, otherwise it becomes a huge headache and you can't answer a simple "S/L/A" question without everyone having opinions and political debates about it. Also something about the style of your English... If you are, then I offer you the common middle eastern online handshake, in which it's probably safe to assume we are from warring countries with some degree of bad blood, so we agree to never go into the nitty gritty details on which we might disagree on and instead blame it all on the politicians at the top while sharing a plate of virtual humus and continue peacefully for as long as nobody brings up the question of who really invented Falafel. Either way, welcome to DU.
  24. Even if we put aside that the need for shared infrastructure and basic supplies is a huge factor in people coming together socially to form factions and have the emergence of politics, I seriously doubt they are going to decide what feature or not to implement based on how easily it fits within the confines of an abstract synopsis of the game design. I remember all too well the people arguing against oxygen and fuel and even planets in SE because its a game about engineering in space. Ofcourse this is only used selectively for things people dislike personally, as none of those were arguing against the inclusion of combat and piloting. Even if used the otherway around, "This is a dual universe game, its supposed to be a universe! Thus realism", it would still be pretty bad. I really can't think of a case where this type of argument would be a reasonable one, gaming or otherwise. Do people apply this elsewhere? Would you stop watching an historical drama and shout "it isn't a comedy!" because a character made a joke? If it gets any more common it's going to deserve it's own fallacy entry (Edit: Sorry if that sounded aggressive, my beef is with the phenomena, not with you vylqun, in general the vast majority of my beefs are with phenomena, or burgers, the occasional steak or kabab, but usually phenomena). To the issue at hand, I think making it cheap & easy to provide with infrastructure but difficult without would strike a really good balance, which is fairly realistic since theoretically most of those resources should be renewable. A lot of the ideas provided so far could actually work in favor of this. Simply having bigger bars means you can take care of them less frequently, Connecting supplies to log-in "life pods" could mean you wake up with more then enough for the average play session, and producing supply packs that contain all the oxygen/water/food you might need for a given time would mean you don't have to babysit each and every bar even when you do go out of missions, at least assuming you are prepared for them. My personal favorite is a system that pass a certain point would ration your supplies the less you have of them, giving you increasing disadvantages but not outright killing you (At least for quite awhile).
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