MookMcMook

The Cluster sounds like a brilliant idea to enjoy DU via. G'luck!

It's too granular for current development: Sounds like "death by a million cuts" adding in every small peccadillo. Give NQ more time and ask again. As it is Nanoformer device is all the cosmetic you need for voxel manipulation which should be brain-stimulating enough without icing on top. Then again if NQ make guns maybe they can make mining equip too? I don't know about ship mining: I thought there was going to be a career for mining and skill-training the player: How that then moves onto how the player who has skill-trained mining actually does it: Using ship equipment or BASE-BUILDING more likely with specialized equipment/machine? Idk. But the main principle is that it is not automated but requires player activity. You'll find mining an interesting game play option considering all the planetary bodies and associated space bodies are made of voxels...

The video is really spot on pitch for "backing the vision if you like what you see and we're showing you what you WILL see." Really good that it's informative-oriented in style and emphasising info + showing (not glossing over). I bought a 2nd hand bike this week. I aim to back for A2 next week at a respectable 60 after my paycheck clears. I think at that rate, it is a good and honest vision to pledge to support with some benefits thrown into the price/value of the transaction. That is essential for the category "pre-pledge/pre-payment" before a product is fully made/manufactured for market. Thank you very much NQ and I hope the pledges inspire your work further.

Thanks, I like clear expectations on times - if times are handed out. This is a good message.

You're not missing anything as the game is in Pre-Alpha which also means an NDA is in place. Check back for the Supporter Pack Announcement coming very soon (there will be some video footage to go with it too, worth watching). And then probably just wait for Alpha when obviously given the above we can see more footage from the game. Pre-Alpha is working on the server performance to handle more players and longer, is the drift I get from the current dev communication and to also ensure when it hits Alpha, footage is representative of the game in a positive light to ensure positive initial impressions. Some of the current backers who are testing the pre-alpha have gone quiet on the forums: Probably a good sign.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess the idea here is a a better version of the nanoformer on a construct not for voxel creation but voxel destruction (or least feeding such into the back of the construct for replacement in larger and faster quantity)? The use of such would be to re-adapt the landscape back to closely fit the surrounding ground and remove "eye-sores" and waffle-crater landscapes etc.

Quick Question: Is this TOPIC added to the TRELLO system already? Namely: Is there a gameplay function/system for "cleaning up environments" via voxel changing planned? If not, would it be a good suggestion to add? If so, how does one submit such an idea to TRELLO? Does one have to be a pledged tester currently? I noticed in that blog it made no mention how ideas get put onto TRELLO in the first place.

I agree. 1. Orgs will make tutorials anyway... at some stage and maybe even in-game tutorials via lua. 2. Pure survival game mechanics are too granular and not good at scaling. Whereas converting various inputs eg food into macro economic factors does tend to scale effectively for promoting mass scale interactions. Other survival mmos are grindy too with not enough uptick in fun for such grind. 3. Players need to having fun asap and socializing postively asap too. 4. Subsequent arkships for new starter zones seem likely in different areas in the future.

I found a couple of interesting ones in the last year:- * Wolf and Spice: The economic discussions are fun. The Wolf character: First the translation is ve to English is very good as the articulation is very strong and the voice-actress is sincerely superlative conveying the wit, poise and sass of the character. I usually prefer listening in Japanese with English subtitles so this says quite a lot about how much I enjoyed the language in this one. * Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below: The animation quality mainly an the imagery are all very arresting amd very high quality. * Wolf Children: The story is charming about kids obviously with a fantasy twist, simple tales like this often work best I find. * The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Again the every-day-setting with solid animation of ordinary things, very satisfying. * The Garden of Words: Felt the most satisfying visually and in terms of temp and pace: A small vignette of a story that could be one of those invisible stories that happens all the time. I often find most anime tends to lose it's form and structure either story and/or aesthetic rules. So these above felt a bit like shining stars by comparison. Alone or Lonely? One would tend to choose to be alone as opposed to ending up lonely. I prefer to be alone for example after dealing with large number of people, in a day!

Touche. And with a wave of your magic wand: "Eve 2.0"! Try a fencing sword next time, my friend. EVE is built around its economy and conflict. It's probably a very different game than DU will be. The reason they're compared is because there's so few "true MMOs" ie at scale, that EVE is alone and DU might add to that list. So I still think there's plenty of space for EVE in the future and talk about it being in the past are "greatly exaggerated" to (mis-)quote Mark Twain. The utility of this argument is not "having the last word" or "winning"; it's to provide CLARITY and CLEAR WATER/SPACE between EVE and potentially DU on the one hand and other completely separate genres on the other hand SC, ED, NMS etc etc etc... That is useful information because it's accurate and helps people make better informed decisions about how they want to spend their leisure time.

We've already seen ~1,000 bots on the landsurface. I'm sure NQ's prototyping with the server tech also did some other scenario load balancing concerning spaceship construct density of clients. So, 1. We'll see mass combat of avatars on land and in bases - that's already a big positive right there. 2. We'll see some order of number of spaceships in close density fighting as well as lower density of higher numbers with suitable performance. 3. These will have crews adding more clients. 4. The "price" is going to be slower combat abstracted to a higher level. That's still a stretch and a long shot from EVE, but then it does NOT even have to fully emulate EVE as a ship only type of game. It's doing a lot else different for different ends and different experiences. Another good thing someone already mentioned is, even if the combat is not that great, it will visually look "Spaceship Du Look!" (ever afterwards to be known as "Spaceship Deluxe" SD) good, given the 3dness of it all, so even at the graphical and least significant level (imo) it will still have a bonus to it. We're going to see some snaps of fleet battles that I feel will sell the imagination of the game very well. This segues onto SC's ace: the graphical fidelity. But that's also it's biggest achillies heel along with the engine and gameplay choice: Those RESTRICT massively what it will end up doing with respect to networking. Oddly enough DU will end up producing the space opera scenes that LOOK SO GOOD even when every one seems so duped into thinking you need high fidelity graphics to look good: Wrong. Anyway back to DU: Even "just" 25 spaceship vs 25 ALL player built and design differences is going to be rewarding on that basis let alone sheer numbers up or down. The big argument is not numbers hence: It's how to make crew in ships fun gameplay: That's the big one and again it's challenging but I think the rewards are huge if it can be made fun. I think it comes back to:- 1. Avatar battles planetside and underground / buildings or inside ships and space-stations 2. Small constructs or atmospheric constructs land and air in planets 3. Orbital constructs much larger crew requirement - Inter-planetary 4. Inter-stellar constructs and truly large spacestation structures etc Crews will be one section of this "slice". But given the POWER of orbital control: A very powerful section and hence very important to make FUN.

Good idea here, just a bit early for me to be touting for business atm, so I'll hang back.

Yes I add my thanks too, Brian. I enjoyed reading it: I really liked your ability to convey the AI, very, very skillfully done. I'll try to write up something in my leisure time for DU, and without any time pressure, though I doubt it will contain any dialogue, whatsoever, not something I can do.

I think your information may not be that great if you do not mind me suggesting? How much do you know about SC? Just read the last dev communication on networking ["Obviously this is a much simplified implementation"'] and where they are with that... after 6yrs. There's nothing close to CCP's EVE apart from DU (currently that I'm aware of). And again DU is not even close - currently - for obvious reasons.

No Worries y'all, Lethys has to cover a lot of ground bear in mind, the output is keeping the "Sine Wave of community communication" roughly in tandem (or "in phase" and shape) with some sort of orthodox NQ stance ("Sine Wave") so I can understand WHY what is said even if I don't feel it describes anything useful to ME sometimes. And often enough to satisfy it does describe reasonably enough well even if the wobbly lines make me think "hmmm.... Whisky Tango Foxtrot..." Just remember, talking often involves this sort of different packages going on their own mission and resulting in people thinking: Am I actually being heard right here?! Well yes and no after transcription! Plus Ca Change...

A couple of sci-fi games not like DU but still very cool sci-fi:- * FTL: https://subsetgames.com/ftl.html * Cogmind: http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/ The first is a roguelike-like and the second is a roguelike. Both brilliant little games

Most of all the SCALE is so exciting. Every time I watch that "god-mode" video I'm left incredulous, I'd begun to think mmos were trapped in a "sink-like world design" forever, until seeing that in DU.

Yeah, "DROID KART" via remotely controlled droid constructs if they can be made and controlled by players and I guess raced as they don't have any "tricks (weapons)" up their sleeve (eg equivalent to banana skin! Oil slick). So either time trial mode or vs mode (think Snowboard Cross but with droids!)

It's not a LUA scripting game then? I'm pretty sure someone is going to make "wipe-out" like tracks for hover vehiciles: Plane Wipe Out which would be a lot bigger than the above. May remote controlled "robot wars" though again devs said no weapons on droids... maybe then not mario kart but DROID KART around a course?

I've got to go with a conservative anticipation of what NQ can achieve. The density problem is the big one. I'm going to guess however that having crew inside ships might end up boosting overall participant numbers however (in theory this makes sense as it cuts down the N^2 interactions: those in the ship can be contained within their own actor cell things not interacting with the outside) ie NQ have said a ship won't fragment, once it reaches "destruction damage amount" the whole thing blows up taking all those on board with it! So all the pew-pew from say 20-50 ppl inside one ship is just one big object with the same position but variable firing. However overall ship numbers, it will be interesting to see how much it can handle. I guess making smaller ships more "like flying paper origami in space" (LOL!) in large fleet battles thus eliminating them before the major density issue rears it's ugly head (both longer range and more power and unequal shielding forces) is a game design decision based itself off easing the networking load ?! Now lots of small aircraft buzzing around, let's say, you're back to 1 player per 1 ship, AND importantly less weapons firing ie a couple per ship ONLY, will then help even if more positions to calculate. So again there's some upside to again help the network. And remember mixing ships, again going on assumption upon assumptions, those "flying paper origamis" quickly knocked out of the equation... And all that said above, still expect conservative numbers for all the invisible reasons before game itself. Still like you say even 25v25 is going to feel visceral, epic and I hope sheer wonder of space opera realized. Also as you say graphically/visually the 3D Objectness of the experience (along with: "I built her myself all the way from when she was just a single atom (voxel) in my eye!") Yeah CCP are stuck with tech from early noughties. THAT was one of the things JC et Amis all mentioned about the current time and tech for DU. That said CCP should hold steady with EVE, will continue to be a great game with or without different games being made, advice is easy to give, but CCP have not been able to make a subsequent new stellar (pun) mmo: Because it's one of the hardest genres/industries. Fleet battles are going to be... a "flag-ship" (pun) for DU: It's one of a few areas that will be UNIQUE (USP) to MMOs and a strong pull for customers to jump through the many hoops that MMOs are saddled with compared to other genres. It's also showcasing tech implementation that again: "Only Here" (for now). Again a big pull if successful. Agree, all that works of the basis the bread & butter (or DU equivalent) of performance being invisible non-problem for regular gameplay enjoyment and experience and enjoying the virtual tourism effect that a Single Shard World has to offer (!!). Not to mention the latent creativity of building... I think taking a small ship and flying around a huge spacestation or "star-destroyer" or fleet "at anchor" will be a sight to behold even without any "action". And all player built too... crazy to even expect it feels like. When did I just wake from cryosleep?

Constant pressuring is itself going to take a toll. Agree.

JC already pointed out: Cloud systems in worlds would not just be graphics but 3d entities that simulate rain and take up volume and move according to all the dynamics of planetary climate systems (eg Coriolis Effect?): So quite a big process to add apart from visuals. Clouds look fine for what they are for the present pre-alpha, I do agree a "Cloud Spotter Enthusiast" I look forward to superior clouds at some stage and precipitation -> vegetation etc.

The mind does begin to boggle. Will systems be in all directions from the Alioth Star System's star plane of reference? That said a few fleas on the dog is to be expected. It's bigger operations that I think can be contained by a large org: Supply chains and transport to markets. Of course as soon as a few solar systems are in play then again it really is too big to capture by any one org. One thing we do know: Star Gates whenever they are "in" will take inordinate amounts of resources and time to construct: Probably mahusive structures in space (away from gravity wells no doubt). They'll be glorious to behold most likely... Next up: Dyson Spheres.

Fortunately for the early DU players there's going to be a ton of space (pun!) and I mean the virtual world even of Alioth is already inordinately larger than almost all other mmos? I can't remember the sizes I think WWII or some game had one of the largest game maps before... Then add all the space between planets and small space bodies floating about too and then outside the solar system... First thing I'd do is get a lot of collaborations going with other groups. Best way to scale up.

Ah forgot about that: Dang those are impressive planets: Seems a bit of variety: Symeon has a trace atmosphere and some variation in the others. Presumably because planets are not to scale atmosphere will be more frequent than otherwise suggested?