Felonu

It’s really difficult to have any actual productive conversation with this name calling and assumptions made on both sides. I am not a carebear because I think offensive and defensive measures need to be balanced. I am not someone who wants to play alone because I want people who start the game to be able to have defensive tools that will allow them to get in and start enjoying themselves before making a decision on what organization they might want to join. Also, EVE does have a reputation for being inhospitable to new players, and not because it’s complicated. My outsider understanding of EVE is of people starting playing it and not knowing anything about it getting ganked constantly which made it not fun. There are plenty of other similar experiences in game reviews. Other complicated games have ways of being fun while you learn the intricacies. This may not be a fair representation of how the game is, but it is the reputation as I have seen it. My previous point was that there is a very limited playerbase for games that require you to do research and study if you want to survive to the point it becomes fun, and if you don’t have the time to figure out what a game is about before you either have to trust an organization you know nothing about to help you survive or last through a gankfest until you learn how to survive on your own that the player base will be severely limited. These issues can be addressed by adding defensive systems and giving new players some time to get in and learn the game. How often people get attacked at random will naturally be dependant on the cost of offensive and defensive systems. A very simplistic and extreme example is that if it takes 1000 bullets to wear down a shield, and the shield takes 1 unit of resource to power and the bullets take 1 unit of resource to make then it takes about 1000 times the resources to attack as it does to defend. This makes attackers have to decide whether it’s worth it to attack or not. I do not think the system should be this lopsided, but use an extreme example to make the point clear. Systems like these don’t take anyone’s freedom away. They can be built to let the game have it’s PVP danger and excitement without it devolving into a game where the amount of fun you have is directly proportional to the size of your gang.

I agree with your fears. Despite what some people say, EVE does have that reputation, and it's why a lot of people don't even give it a try. If this game turns into a new version of EVE, then I don't think it will do very well. It would be splitting the player base of people willing to try a game that has a reputation for being almost impossible for new players to start without being bullied, or griefed. My solution to these problems would simply be to increase the power of defensive systems over offensive systems. If you have the right balance of defensive tools/offensive tools it will take more than someone being bored to grief you. If you give defensive tools earlier than offensive tools, that helps too. This balance can have a major effect on the gameplay and it isn't something that we know any actual information on yet. I am waiting for some discussion by NQ about the weapons systems and how they will be applied before I make up my mind. I am extremely excited and hopeful, but I can very well see the possibility of the game community making the game simply not fun for new players.

Why not post your preliminary sketches, and ideas (colors, and themes), and see what people run with? I’m not a design specialist, but sometimes do a thing for the heck of it, but I’d like to know your direction before taking a stab at a design.

If you mean that you just don't see the point, then I can agree that is one viewport. For others maybe they want the feeling of getting better with a specific construct vs getting better equipment. Some people not seeing a reason for a thing isn't a reason not to include it.

This is assuming a Kill = xp model of leveling the ship. If the ship were to level based on time of ownership/usage or something similar you could mitigate this type of play if you are against that type of grind. In my opinion all games have grind of some sort. It's just s question of whether it is the type of grind you like.

Join in with some other people, and try to have fun. You will find your place in the DU. Remember that a lot of talk is based on personal ideas and expectations, and that people are just coming up with ideas and discussing possibilities. There might be some subject matter experts here, but a lot are likely to be based on experiences in other games and MMOs. Try to take in the conversations and pick up some information, but remember that a lot of what is said is speculation, and interpretation.

Foreign Aid can always be handled by Organizations in game. It is something you could try to get your org to do if you feel strongly that it should exist. In the RW aid doesn't come from magical sources. Other countries put it together to send to countries in need. There are many reasons to do these types of things (better your perception, get future profit from that other organization, hide a smuggling operation in your aid shipments, gather intelligence about actual personnel numbers and locations, or just doing what you think is right). This is the system I think we should see in the game if anything. NQ seems to understand that any in game systems they implement take away emergent gameplay options from players to take care of these things, and I hope they continue with a generally hands off approach.

This is the purpose of things like the smooth tool. You can also place other shapes than rectangles (i.e spheres). Look through the videos released by NQ and you’ll see these and that building is much more advanced than placing rectangles. Anything more than what’s in those videos would be covered by the NDA that was agreed to by everyone outside NQ who has had access to the game.

This is the purpose of things like the smooth tool. Look through the videos released by NQ and you’ll see the building is much more advanced than placing squares.

Unfortunately the NDA covers all game information, and I don't know of any place in the public information where they have mentioned anything on how leverage is applied. Sorry.

Hah Welcome Fierwerk! Enjoy the discussion!

The only information we can give you per NDA is based on what was in the dev diaries. The 25 x 25 x 25 smallest voxel size. Any other sizes would be information from the game that we agreed not to talk about.

I would like to see something for prototyping existing. Lethys, you seem to have taken the quote from NQ out of context. They were describing the pros and cons of not having a prototyping system and you seemingly pointed to one of these as somehow proof that they want people to have to waste resources to build large ships. The conclusion in that quote literally tells us that they believe a prototyping system is a positive thing, but that it won’t likely be in the game until after release.

Everything you have mentioned is already talked about in the dev diaries. These are all planned features.

Travel will only take such long times until jumpgates are in place. This adds the ability for an org that specializes in logistics to send travelers to further systems and set up gates, and then be able to charge for the use of the gates. This seems like an important aspect of the economy to me, and I would be surprised if NQ decided to remove it.

I don't personally have an interest in newspapers per se, but to have the ability to share and communicate in different ways could have plenty of benefits to players. Whether that is producing types of periodicals that you can send to other players in game, or communication feeds that can be sent out and displayed on monitors. I can understand that this may not be important enough to actually make it into the game, but I do believe there is some value to the ideas. It doesn't benefit any attempt of communication to make assumptions of what other peoples reasons or motivations are for the views they express. That is a way to shut down conversations, and build division.

I believe it would be more analogous to college accreditation. The more respected the institution that provides the certificate, the more likely it will carry across more borders. An idea like this is what makes immergent gameplay so exciting for a lot of us. If you have an idea like this, then try building an org or a branch of an org dedicated to it. Advertise your proficiency in some aspect of building, and see if you can get people to come to you to certify that they have sound practices making similar types of things.

Do you know of any instances of NQ mentioning having mining equipment? I kept waiting to hear about something but when JC mentioned the time it would take to cut the world up in the radio interview he said something about not giving tools that could make major changes to planets in any reasonable timeframe.

I'm saying NQ would have to add complexity to the system, to make it work for virtually no real difference. I also didn't imply a preference either way, I was just saying that I doubt the cost/benefit analysis on this would make it worthwhile.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if this type of cloaking is what they go with. Not that there could be more realistic ways to handle the cloaking, but when all is said and done the outcome is the same. If someone built their ship with proper heat, radiation, and visual camouflage and with ceramic/plastic exteriors, then they would have the same benefits as the person with what you call magical harry potter cloak. Your system you are talking about adds a bunch of complexity on the engine side of assigning different materials different values of shielding of several different types, and using physics to determine how the external shielding would affect the signatures, and several other complex systems for what basically has the same affect as put a cloaking device on the ship. I know your reaction to this is likely to be a reiteration of what you said, and call me names imagining that I don't understand you, or grandstanding by saying this would "ruin" the game. Hopefully others with cooler heads will realize that I'm stating my opinion, because none of know what this mechanic will look like yet.

Ok, I have to ask. I have seen you say rouge mechanics in several different posts now. I originally thought you were just misspelling rogue, but I have to assume you wouldn't do that this many times. What is a rouge mechanic?

Emergent gameplay doesn't mean that there can be no intervention. If the game deflates to the point that mining isn't fun anymore people will stop mining, and the price might go back up after a while, but the game could lose playerbase during that time period. This is just 1 example of how a little outside interference might be beneficial to keep the game fun and keeping the player base around. Personally, though, I hope NQ does mostly leave the market alone. I trust that NQ will do their best to find a middle ground between too hands off and to much manipulation.

You could build a hovercraft with basic line following scripts and voxel "rails" to mark the paths. The line following would be a pretty basic script, and you could use logic gates connected to sensors to control the rails (like redstone in MC).