Fitorion
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Posts posted by Fitorion
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5 minutes ago, NanoDot said:
And fortunately, it's also quantifiable.
Except that nobody seems to want to put numbers to their definition of "hard"...
To me, waiting a week for a skill timer to tick down to zero is not hard. But waiting for a month for that training to finish will be hard.
Mining for an hour is not hard, but mining for 6 hours is...
Things like skill training, R&D and designing are one-off time costs. Those can be used to initially gate access to space. But keep in mind that a co-ordinated effort by an org will reduce that time cost to a fraction of what it would be for a single player, unless the activities cannot be divided amongst multiple players.
So, if you want to prevent spaceships from hitting the market in the first month after launch, there will have to be some component that takes 1 player a whole month to do. Like training 3 levels of a specific skill. because if it's 4 skills at 1 week each, an org will have those covered in a week.
I haven't played Eve So I have no basis for understanding skill training of its style. I also haven't seen much in the way of details about such a system in the game in any interviews or articles...
So I have no way of conceptualizing how such a system could or should function. All my thoughts about the game are as if such a system doesn't exist and it's purely learned player skill not some leveling mechanic that artificially changes how fast or well some action can be done.
I don't mean that such a system won't be in game. I'm aware that there is some info that such a system will be there. It's just there isn't enough info about it for me to really understand it.
I'd like mining to be 1 in depth system that it takes time to learn the tricks of the trade. And a lot of ores could be very low in richness but quite common so it takes a lot of material mined to refine building materials out of it.
I'd like refining to be another in depth system... perhaps as complex as ship building itself with many components of different sizes and efficiencies fitting together and needing maintenance...
I am hesitant to put hard numbers down as I am not sure what the correct numbers will be for something to be sufficiently annoying to do alone so most people use the market to fill their need and yet not too tedious so that people can still have fun doing it and get paid for their time by everyone else who just uses the market. And of course the odd solo player who wants to isolate themselves from all the MM parts of an MMO... can still do it.
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17 hours ago, NanoDot said:
What is the definition of "hard" ?
When people say it should take "a few weeks" to get to space, what does mean in game play terms ?
Does it mean that it should require 2 or 3 weeks of realtime skill training to have the required build skills to build space-capable craft ?
Training time would be the only hard limit I can think of. And that would imply that a large org cannot get the training done quicker by splitting-up the specialisation between different org members.
Scanning and mining will not be a significant factor in delaying access to space. I can scan and mine 14 hours a day every day. I cannot imagine that a basic ship will require 14 hours of resource collection. If it does, that would mean that anyone who plays 2 hours a day would need a week of play to gather the resources for building a basic spaceship. And every time they lose that ship, they have to mine for a week to replace it...
Time is a resource. The time it takes to gather and refine and then assemble things in real life gives them their value... usefulness also is a factor...
But in real life there's other ways of obtaining valuable objects... You don't mine the iron... aluminum... or drill for and refine the oil that make and fuel your car. You pay others to do that for you.
My entire point in this thread has been that 1 person should not easily or quickly be able to do all the things to make a space capable ship. Each step of the process should be a deep, involved, and time consuming process so that people specialize.
The above should not be misconstrued to say there shouldn't be a way to get a space capable ship fairly quickly. There certainly should be. But Just like in real life where you rely on the other people in your civilization whom you don't know and probably aren't even members of the same country level organization... to preform their tasks and deliver to your local shop a product that you can buy so too should it be in the game. What you do to gain the funds necessary are up to you.
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3 hours ago, Hades said:
Thinking that the only thing required is more space ?
You have to sustain those players as well. Once again, arguing speculatives is pointless. Not sure why this discussion is ongoing.
edit:
I should note, I'm all for the mechanic you describe as is outlined in the post on food mechanics. However, it is clear there is going to be survival mechanics in game as well. To what extent, is just speculation. As such, I believe it will be just as difficult to sustain an organization as a small group/solo player.
Rightly so, an organization should have power over the small groups by being able to form civilizations and by being able to drive out smaller groups by force. This is enough of an advantage.
"We get one ship in space, we get the whole org in space" is naive imho.
I don't think speculation is the right term to describe what's going on here.
Part of this forum is about suggesting the mechanics and balance levels of activities we want in the game or know will be in the game.
So we have people advocating for different... or actually the same level of balance(misunderstandings not withstanding) to features that are known to be coming to the game. Examples which are speculation may be used to illustrate how things could be balanced to one level or another.
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2 hours ago, NanoDot said:
There's the binary state again: "If you don't want to be within constant eyesight of all other players, then you obviously want to be self-sufficient, anti-social and avoid all contact with other players". Nothing else makes sense, eh ?
What if I want to build a cabin in the woods, and go to market three times a week to buy and sell stuff ? What if I agree to go mining with 10 other players every Saturday ? And hunting with another group of 5 every Wednesday ? I don't mind the extra travel times, it gives me an opportunity to see what others have been up to across the landscape...
A civilisation is not defined by the proximity or size of its population, nor by its market activity. It's defined by shared goals, culture, laws, norms, etc.. People have to actively co-operate and agree to bring all those things into being. It doesn't spontaneously happen because a group of disparate individuals are concentrated in a certain area. You have to BUILD a civilisation, it doesn't build itself.
It is my contention that you cannot build a civilisation without being part of a formal group (org or alliance). That's because a civilisation is an organised entity which has clearly defined attributes that all members are required to adhere to. Each formal group is a community, and has the potential to evolve into a civilisation. The population of the safe zone is not a "civilisation" by default, it's simply a temporary concentration of players.
If people don't WANT to build a civilisation or abide by its conventions, they will leave that area and/or group at the first opportunity. No amount of roadblocks will change someone's preferred play style, but those roadblocks will have a direct impact on their decision to continue playing...
Making it "hard" to get to space is just a roadblock.
stuff in Red
I did not say that. You are now Inventing a position I don't hold and haven't advocated for and then arguing against it.
You went to the market... you are together. Oh look that person walked past. You are together. While out in your cabin... see that building on the ridge? or the orbital station over head? You are together. Mining together and hunting? Just what is your point of disagreement?
People only have shared goals due to shared hardships. Remove the hardships and you remove any reason for people to have any goal to share.
If access to markets were restricted based on org then I'd say your were right... But I don't think they will be. But then again by definition of being in the game you are part of and subject to the rules as set by the game itself... so in a formal structure just by default. If people don't want to play the game they are free to leave. If people don't want to join an org they are free to not join. If people find another org over there is more to their liking then they can go join that group. But there would be no reason to join if there weren't shared hardships that different people and organizations can choose different methods of solving.
Difficult space travel is just a hardship... a hardship shared by all which can be solved different ways and at different speeds.
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1 hour ago, NanoDot said:
I think we have different interpretations of "solo" play.
To me, solo play is simply what happens when I'm not playing as part of an organised group (usually referred to as a guild in older MMO's). That means I'm not subject to the rules, duties, activity schedules, rank privileges, drama, politics, etc. that exist in a formally organised group. My time is my own and I can do what I please whenever I please.
A demand for self-sufficiency is not part of my solo play needs in an MMO, in fact, it would detract from my enjoyment of the game. The presence of other players around me makes the game world feel alive and dynamic. I still compete with other players, but the level of that competition is determined by my agenda, not the agenda of some formal group that I belong to.
I spent half my time in EVE (3 years) as a "solo" player. During that time, I "interacted" with the markets constantly, but spent comparatively little time interacting directly with other players. I have no idea who supplied the things I bought every day on the market, or how they were made. I had no idea who bought the things I produced. I simply looked at supply and demand, and at the bigger picture of what was happening in the game at any given time (by reading the forums). Sometimes I temporarily co-operated with random other "solo" players for a while to get certain things done.
Game play in MMO's is not a binary activity: you don't either play as member of a formally organised group (org) or else try to avoid all contact with other players. There are many shades of grey between those two extremes. Trying to force everyone into formally organised groups is just an attempt to impose a preferred play style on the game.
I think you've fundamentally misunderstood my posts. None of them were about forcing everyone into formally organized groups.
I think we have the same definition of solo play... but maybe a different definition of interact. Also maybe a different definition of "together." Anything within eye sight fits my definition of together... it does not refer to groups. And you disagreeing with my assumption that solo play is desired to be close enough to other players to be able to use market terminals... and seeing them walking or flying about... lead me to think your definition was absolutist solo as nothing else could make sense.
If your position is as above then you should have agreed with:
On 10/8/2017 at 11:23 PM, Fitorion said:Part of the design of this game is that it's about civilization building. In order for a civilization to be built there has to be some level of difficulty to travel and resource gathering and services people can perform that have some value to other people.
Why? Because if you can go anywhere and do everything without having to expend any effort or time or resources to do it then you will and not stick around other people... not rely on those other people... not interact... and no civilization occurs.
The amount of resources and the time it takes to gather them and possibly process them into building materials could be balanced for quick movement or slow movement.
I for one think it should be on the slow side.
Because disagreeing is advocating for no restriction on movement and easy self sufficiency so you don't have to buy from any markets or compete with anyone else.
Edit it add some color highlight to the key part of my post that should have indicated I was talking about the basic fundamental structure of the game and not about organizations...
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1 hour ago, 0something0 said:
Well, when I think of solo play, I think of living/working but still using goods/services made by othets if necessary.
Of course, if going into space using low level tech is as hard as modern day, the whole problem may be sidestepped by having the arkship drop a space elevator from orbit instead of landing on it. Then, people will go down to Alioth for resources extraction and parts manufacturing, then brought up to the arkship via space elevator for assembly and launch.
I generally think that way too... but then I post something about structuring the game so that people have need of utilizing those goods and services... and suddenly I get responses say that you can't force people together and doing so is anti solo play...
So I'm left to wonder what solo play they want if they're against all the things that would have people interact on any level... And the only thing I can think of is full self sufficiency / creative god mode. or... a single player non-MMO so there's not even a chance of bumping into someone else ever.
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Interacting with a market terminal is interacting with other people. Other people made or mined the stuff and put it up on that terminal. But without a need for any of it then the market will not be active. How do you make a market be active? By having an activity that people want to do... such as space flight... take lots of time or resources to do solo... so people will "be forced" to interact with others by buying what they need from the market if they don't want to spend the time to do it themselves. Then Businesses can exist to service the desire people have for doing that activity.
Civilization exists to facilitate commerce. To provide a safe structure for such activities to occur. And it is only necessary due to the hazards, limited resources, and needs people have... that can only be met by other people.
You are correct that civilization would cease to exist if it is not convenient or necessary. That's my whole point. Unless the game systems are set up in such a way as to make civilization convenient and necessary then civilization will not exist.
IRL people only group up for protection and to have their other needs met. Remove those needs and everyone becomes solo. No one is an enthusiastic group player. Everyone would do what ever it is they want to do with out help from others if they could.
Over catering to "solo play" is the cancer of MMOs. But no where have I said that it should be impossible... just very difficult/time consuming.
For the easy path "solo play" it should be possible to go to a player run mission/quest board... take quests and turn them in... and earn enough to buy your ship and take on bounties or go asteroid mining or what ever other non-group activity you want... and since you are interacting with others by utilizing player made markets and mission boards you're contributing to the growing civilization.
For the hard path... you can walk out to the middle of no where... after many hours of walking past the city... past the refineries... past the mining operations... you finally find a spot where no one is. Start mining... get enough to put down a territory claim so you can mine while keeping the friendlier players at bay for a few weeks... maybe get attacked while you're offline or online... and either have some of your resources stolen or fend them off... Maybe you should hire some security... but wait... you're a solo player... so you'll have to do it yourself... (never mind that fighting off your attackers is another interaction with other players) Set up a really slow and inefficient refiner to process your resources into the building materials you'll need to make a ship... All the while having to guard against attack... and you finally do it. How long did it take? a Month? Two? I don't know exactly how long it should take but it should be long enough to make this option unattractive to most people. But now what? all those other players have already reached the other planets in the system with their group efforts and the group research project hasn't invented the warp gate to get to another star yet... Maybe you just want to build on your claim and not go flying? That's fine. How long can building alone hold your attention?
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1 hour ago, NanoDot said:
You cannot "force" people to interact if they don't want to.
Those that are interested in the "civilization-building" aspects will engage in it voluntarily, those that are not interested will engage reluctantly (and minimally) until they can get away from it. If it takes too long to "get away from it", they will just quit the game.
I'd rather have a game with 1000 players, of which 500 are enthusiastically building civilizations, than a game with only 500 players.
More players means more diversity and more market activity. It makes politics and business more varied and complex. The more diverse the population, the greater the chance for interesting "emergent gameplay".
If they don't like the game they can leave. The Devs Can make the game favor the play style they want. That's what Game Devs do... they make the game they want with the mechanics that support it.
I said
"if you can go anywhere and do everything without having to expend any effort or time or resources to do it then you will and not stick around other people... not rely on those other people... not interact... and no civilization occurs."
You said
"More players means more diversity and more market activity. It makes politics and business more varied and complex. The more diverse the population, the greater the chance for interesting "emergent gameplay"."
If all those players have no need to buy anything from anyone else just what market activity do you think there will be? With everyone having no need to engage in any politics or business and can go anywhere and do anything without needing to rely on anyone else for anything... how much "emergent gameplay" do you think will occur?
The answer is None. The result of a game without the structures to "force" people together... is a boring... and then a failed game.
So you can make a game with the necessary restrictions to movement speed and set the cost to engaging in certain activities to such a level as to encourage a market to occur... to give reasons for businesses to exist... and the conflicts of interest over say... limited resources that cause politics to emerge... or you can make a boring building game where none of that exists.
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Part of the design of this game is that it's about civilization building. In order for a civilization to be built there has to be some level of difficulty to travel and resource gathering and services people can perform that have some value to other people.
Why? Because if you can go anywhere and do everything without having to expend any effort or time or resources to do it then you will and not stick around other people... not rely on those other people... not interact... and no civilization occurs.
The amount of resources and the time it takes to gather them and possibly process them into building materials could be balanced for quick movement or slow movement.
I for one think it should be on the slow side.
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MMO's always take a hit to graphics as compared to single player games. That said they're definitely going to do the best they can.
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There will be "docking" elements. Using them you could build a ship and dock other ships to it... like say... small shuttles or fighter craft.
So you'd build all the ships separately. The carrier ship and the small craft you wish to dock to it.
In the version of the game I played at PAX last week... docking elements weren't in the game yet. Hopefully they will be in soon.
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8 hours ago, Elildar said:
No there is not !
The actual system consist in combine or refine ores to make refined materials. To do that you have :
- The Mechanical Press for ore refining
- The Foundry for alloy making
And you can do it in your inventory for small amounts. This system is almost as simple as Minecraft.
The system I talked about from Gregtech include :
It is only an example and I don't want NQ to copy this. But, this is a complex system that would allow people to specialize and create a special building like a refinery.
And I think Fitorion was talking about something like that.
Indeed. Complexity breeds specialization. Specialization is vital for an economy to develop.
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3 hours ago, AUTO6PL said:
One more question - during ship construction were You able tu use mirror building mehanics (symmetry) or You had to take care for both sides of Your ship to be the same?
I didn't see the tool... but That could have just been me not understanding things and not using the tools properly...
I just copied and pasted the voxels from one side to the other. Had to rotate them to get them correct. I used an element as a reference point to position them. Copy and pasting only copied voxels.
I found that you could "clip" voxels into placed elements... but if you then picked up that element... you couldn't put it back down in the same spot as it wouldn't let you "clip" an element through voxels.
This might change by the time we get to pre-alpha and I hope it does.
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Many of the pre made ships had mini/micro voxels in them. The railing of the carrier ship's ramps up to the cockpit were made of them... and a bunch of ships had pointy bits.
So they were in the build at PAX. I asked JC about them and told him how they were a little bit of a problem in Landmark... where if there were too many of them in a claim it could lag the game. He seemed to think that wouldn't be a problem.
Not sure about anti voxels... or some of the really twisted stuff you could do in Landmark. Not sure if they have the "borrow an extra vertex from a neighboring voxel" tech that Landmark had.
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4 hours ago, yamamushi said:
I encountered that ship bug as well, but I'm content with bugs that are easily remedied with a client restart at this point.
I'm assuming that since it was encountered by numerous people, that it probably is getting prioritized as something to fix.
The version demoing at PAX was not the same build as the version from Gamescom, as they had fixed issues reported there in the version we got to play. So it's probably safe to assume that the pre-alpha that releases to backers will be even more stable.
Yes. Bugs are to be expected it this point in the game. JC said that some of the bugs in that build were already fixed in their internal builds...
So expect all new all different bugs when we get into pre-alpha. I'm already getting my bug finding mind working on ideas to break the game. That's what Alpha is for.
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While I was playing at PAX I encountered a bug for a while where I'd get into a ship and immediately get back out. Needed a game restart.
Also they were experiencing a problem where inventory's would fill up and prevent you from deleting erroneously placed elements while building a ship...
Those bugs conspired to prevent me from seeing if the ship I built would work... but... as an experienced Kerbal Space Program player. I did not find the principals behind building a ship hard at all. Everything seemed logical and straight forward. I'm fairly confident my ship would have flown... as I looked at other functional pre-built ships and everything looked correct.
The one thing that people were having an issue with I saw is confusing which "core" to use. Static ... unmoving... buildings use a regular core. Ships use a Dynamic core.
The Core is the first thing you place to begin building anything. So everything you add after the core is "connected" in game terms to that core. You can't say... attach a core to a planet or asteroid. If you mine out the ground under a static core building... the building will just float there unmoved. And same for a ship actually... physics doesn't get applied to a ship until you get in it... Physics remains applied if you get out of it... so it'll fall or continue on it's orbital trajectory if you get out of it. Physics ceases being applied if you start flying another ship or log out of the game.
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so... you agree with me?
That it's bad for a single player to be able to mine, process, and build all by themselves on their own claim out in the wilderness without ever fighting or talking or buying anything or selling anything. Because that's all I'm saying.
I in no way am saying that joining an org is the only way to play. If you got that idea... then I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. I do think running a refinery should be an org level endeavor.
Perhaps the miscommunication is in our different definitions of solo play. I say that if you are buying and selling... fighting... talking with or commissioning another player to make you something... then you're not a solo player. But the Game needs to have reasons for you to do those things. If it does not... then people will be solo players... building... mining... flying around alone... and get board and leave.
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I vehemently disagree when it comes to solo play.
I won't quite go to the point of saying it shouldn't be possible... but it should be difficult... inefficient... expensive... and generally much harder to play solo than with the help of others in 1 or more organizations.
MMOs are not single player games. And this MMO is a civilization building simulation. If people can scatter and be self sufficient they will. There must be reasons ... compelling game play reasons for players to need to interact with each other or the game will fail.
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What I was trying to say is that a refinery "construct" may not need nearly as many elements to make it work as a ship would, but there's nothing stopping you from making the refinery look like a large complex building.
There's plenty stopping me. Resources aren't infinite. Why waste valuable resources building useless empty superstructure? On ships... there's some protective armor value to voxels... also as surfaces to attach elements to. People will do what is most efficient.
It could be made quite small... and my point is that if you can be make it small... people will make it small... and then everyone will have their own...
And I think that's bad.
I want there to be a need and value in a large construct that may take several people's resources ... IE an org to construct. So that people will specialize. Miners will mine and sell to an org with a refinery... and the refinery processes it for sale on the markets.
If 1 person can... go mine up some ore... process it in their desktop refinery... and then go build something isolated on a claim or fly off all alone... That's bad. There were no social interactions with other players during any of it. MMOs are social games. The instant they become too accommodating of solo play... is the instant they die. People need to ... need other players.
So I'm trying to think of ways of making the act of refining something difficult for 1 player to do alone. Simply making the refining device expensive is one way. Making it also complex is another. If some sort of skill based mini game could be incorporated... perhaps even a few different ones so you might need several "workers" to crew your refinery like the large ships will need a crew... that could be even better.
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8 minutes ago, NanoDot said:
Alternatively, you could build a large and complex structure using voxels, and then just plug a refinery element into it, along with a storage element, etc. and the whole structure becomes the "refinery".
Ships are just a few elements wrapped in a large custom voxel structure that you shape any way you like.
I... don't think that's actually any different from what I said... so... yes I agree.
I built a ship in DU at PAX 2 days ago.
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I kinda want a refinery to be something you build... along the lines of a space ship.
So what I'm saying is that there shouldn't be a single element that is a refinery... there should be many elements with their own functions that when assembled together function as a refinery.
Much like you assemble engines... and fuel tanks... and thrusters... and a cockpit to make a space ship. The machines used for industry should also be assembled that way.
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So we know that we'll mine resources of various kinds... and build things... and some of those things will be ships which need fuel.
Will the materials be ores that need to be refined at some sort of refinery to be made into the finished fine materials used for building... or into the fuel or fuels used by various ships engines?
I think it'd add another layer to the economy if miners sold to refineries ... and refineries had to be large constructs... with storage for their product which could then be sold to builders and explorers and shippers.
Also has any thought been given to power generation to power lights... or the hypothetical refinery?
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I'm just back from PAX where I got to meet JC and play a bit of a... I guess pre pre alpha... build of the game.
Disclaimer: this is all subject to change as what I played is not the finished product.
During ship construction you need to add an element called a gyro to your ship which tells the game which way is up for your construct. I suspect this would also serve to indicate which direction any artificial gravity if any exists... (I didn't think to ask and didn't build a big enough ship to get out inside) should be oriented.
Planets are planned to rotate... but not revolve around the sun. So we will get day night... but planets will always be in the same position relative to each other in a star system. I think for the build I played... the sun was orbiting the planets rather than the planets rotating. Again they do plan for the planets to rotate.
Flying in air is much like flying in space... only with a little drag to slow you down. I mean the ships behave like they have reaction controls and will fly sideways through the air the same as they do forwards... The current air physics does not bear much resemblance to real aerodynamics.
If you leave a ship in space... well... mine fell straight back down to the ground. There was a way to freeze it in place up there... so it would be in "orbit" and by that I mean... not orbit as it isn't moving but remaining in space anyway. The current way... I think... was to leave the game and come back... then your ship would be stationary. To have your ship really be in orbit you'd have to get it up to the proper speed in the proper direction and then stay in it... and leave the game running with you logged in. Because if you leave the game... your motion stops.
I'm not sure what would happen if you got the ship up to speed in the right direction and then got out of it... since mine fell back to the ground that means it was still effected by physics while apart from me... so... I guess maybe it would orbit... at least while you remained logged in.
Ships require "dynamic cores" to fly... this causes physics to be applied to them.
Buildings just use a "core" and you can delete everything under them... and they'll just float there. No collapsing buildings. A regular core is probably what you'd use for a stationary space station.
I landed a ship on top of a carrier like ship they had floating in the sky. I then went and tried to fly the carrier... and immediately dropped from the sky(it was out of fuel)... leaving the ship I had landed on it... floating stationary above me. JC said they'll be adding some sort of docking element so the ships can actually be carried by a carrier type craft.
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I like FFXI and FFXIV's systems for multi language communication. I just wish they'd be expanded on.
Their system is:
They have a list of game related words and phrases which they have translated into all the languages they officially support.
You access them simply by starting to type in the chat dialog and pressing tab. This brings up a list of possible words and phrases based off what you started typing. You select the phrase you want and hit enter.
The text then appears to anyone else viewing it in the language they've set as default in their game client.
If the list of words and phrases is updated periodically with the terms and phrases most used by people in game to organize parties and tell others where to go... what to do... and the predictive system works to pull up relevant options to what you've started typing...
Then such a system can be used to effectively organize a multilingual group.
Space is Hard?
in General Discussions
Posted
I lean toward the month+ side of things for someone not using the market or player made quests to...
Mine up enough materials to Build a small refinery or several for the possible different types of materials to be refined...
Then mine up enough materials to run through those to get the materials used for building a space ship...
And then the time it takes to actually refine them... Which should be several minigames I think so you're constantly having to change and manage things in a fun engaging way. Watching a progress bar is never fun.
Mining would be competitive with other players and groups of players. There may be strip mines owned by organizations or they might own a large area which they use for mining... so you may have to travel far to find an unclaimed area to mine in...
And the whole process could get delayed if you're attacked and things destroyed or stolen.
or you could (non-solo) get a temp job mining in a org mine. But you'd probably just get paid and then buy the refined materials from the market...
There should be a variety of ways to do any task. The easiest and most efficient methods should involve other people even if they are hidden from you so you never know them or talk to them... such as buying things from the market. But also actual close group play could be necessary for some aspects... Like the largest most efficient refinery could require a crew to run it... just like a large space craft. And the hardest most inefficient and time consuming method would be the single solo player route.
I can't be certain exactly how long things should take until all those systems are in the game and we try them out. There are so many places to tweak things... the abundance of ores... their richness... how quickly the nanoformer mines them... how much we can carry... then the refinery... its efficiency and the skill of those using it to navigate the management games that I think it should involve... and of course how much of each material each element of a ship would cost to create.