Wardion2000

Not necessarily. An unintended combination might be considered innovative and even and left in. Take Starsiege Tribes for instance. Skating across the ground with your jetpack, building up speed and inertia was an unintended effect of the game engine physics. A "bug" so to speak. It was considered so fun in testing that they reworked the game layouts and left it in place. My point is we are going to see things that were never planned for and I wonder how NQ will handle it. Even they have a vision for their game and therefore have a direction on how it should develop.

This may come off as a strange idea but did anyone ever play Tabula Rasa? It had a crosshair mechanic in the respect that whatever was in your crosshairs was what was SELECTED as the target. A skill check is still being made every time you fire your guns checking if you hit or miss. It keeps an action element in the game which is would be lacking otherwise. This mechanic has been used in other games as well. Neverwinter comes to mind immediately. And if anyone is wondering whether or not you can have both. The Secret World MMO has this as an option as well as a tab targeting system. Ah, Tabula Rasa..... How I miss thee. (Just noticed Rippers other post on RITL)

If they do exceed $10 a month I think you should sic dingos on them. Either that or wallabies, I hear the wallabies are both vicious AND cute.

YEAH. This could be a real problem!

We're good.

Wanted to put this out there. How much of a stickler will NQ be about exploits and changes? For a sandbox voxel type building game, I can already foresee players building ships and other structures that will do things the devs never imagined for them to be able to do. It will be inevitable. Not only that it will be mostly unintentional. How will the devs handle this as it props up? Will it be a smack on the wrist with a stern "No, don't do that again or be banned?" Or will they let it go and simply rebalance or rework it? And I'm not referring to something like covering your ship in a particular element because they forgot to make it destructible. I mean like, I combined two different voxel types and for some reason, enemy ships can no longer target me and I DON"T KNOW WHY.

............. First, If you include an "Unless" how is that never? And second I'm not sure you're getting the "Devil's Advocate" term. Unless you were being facetious in both statements. Hard to tell, I don't really know you.

Correct me if I'm wrong but do you mean you'd like blocks so you could build things like in my Profile portrait? If you do then I agree. Yes, NQ please implement.

I think I recall someone named Juno. I also recall what you're talking about. To fix the major issues (like your blocks disappearing when you logged off ) would require a massive rewrite of the game code. So massive they might as well start making a new game. Which they did. (Ergh) I attribute Starforge as a huge learning experience for the developers. An experience that cost them the goodwill and loyalty of the initial player base. Lessons learned I guess for both the players and developers.

Ergh. Real science combined with technobabble combined with in-game voxel stars? My head is swimming already. Keep in mind a voxel shape and size could be a large as an in-game sun without it being more than 1 voxel space. How the Unity 2 engine handles the display of that is unknown to me. But even if it were just 1 voxel space it could allow for interaction with other voxel shapes or elements that simulate "mining" or harvesting the star in some way without taking away from it in any real sense. Just the way a planet made with voxels can have the property of gravity. A voxel star could have properties like energy and materials. You could then build a ship with a ram scoop element for instance and collect energy or other resources (Hydrogen, lots, and lots of hydrogen) once you came within a certain distance of the star. With this method, you can even give it other interesting effects like solar and magnetic winds. Forces that will only move a solar or mag sail element attached to a ship and has diminishing returns the further away you go (solar sails) or works at full efficiency but has an absolute limit before it ceases to work (mag sails). I have no opinion on how exotic particles we know about only in theory and conjecture should work.

Hmmm. It is ambitious goal indeed to pull enough people together for this project. Sadly I will be creating my own station in contention of yours by the sheer power of my Voxelmancy will. Seriously though put me on the list. It's an interesting idea and there is no harm in trying. Organization may be key just to make sure you cover all the in-game skills needed to build it. That in itself might drive some people away. The thought of filling a role you might not like has always been a point of dissatisfaction? Contention? (Can't seem to think of the right word.) for role playing gamers. So I suppose much of it will depend on how NQ implements the skill system.

I have never heard of DragonRealms though I shied away from MUDs that charged money when I did play them. Many years ago I used to run one for my friends and I. It was based on the old Temple of Apshai game I had for AppleII. Even back then I had more server space and bandwidth than I knew what to do with. Nowadays you could run a 1000+ players with virtually no overhead. So yeah, I could see how they make enough money to do that. Wish I had thought to pull that off. Hmmm. I'm going to pull that out of storage now. The algorithm I used procedurally created the rooms. Maybe I still CAN pull that off!

Can we merge this thread with the one started by TrihXeen here? Seems redundant to have two forum topics that are essentially the same. And I wouldn't want anyone to miss anything posted here and vice versa.

The cause of Starforge's failure was never "lack" of money. They abandoned it for another project (Reign of Kings) and they just didn't care about it. Bad programming decisions like voxel placement being entirely client side (Log off and all blocks you built would disappear. Comical for sure if building in Co-op but an EPIC fail in a construction game.) To game breaking bugs they never bothered fixing. Lack of customer support, lack of feedback from Devs. Starforge is a classic example of Abandonware and should be excommunicated from Steam and everyone's thoughts. Lack of money was never the cause of its problems.... It was the EFFECT.

CaptainTwerkmotor you seem to play the Devil's Advocate card in all your posts. A hard but necessary viewpoint in any big discussion. However, I sometimes wonder if you're trying to provoke thoughtful banter or just being a troll. Inquiring minds want to know.

I prefer an immersive idea like the cryo unit or bed...... I don't think that would WORK but I would prefer it. How about a mix? If you log off in a cryo unit or bed you continue learning whatever skill you have selected. If you log off onto a console whatever it controls still operates but under an in-game AI. That would certainly help out on ships that need larger crews. If you log off in the middle of nowhere.... Actually, how would they handle you logging off in the middle of nowhere? For instance, I log off on the surface of a planet. Another player comes by and builds a structure or digs a great big hole where I was previously standing. Where would I go? That might be a limiting factor on log off options itself.

Now I'm genuinely curious (No sarcasm here). I need to check out the game the started F2P and went P2P.

True and a valid point to note. I'm sure it was something NQ considered when looking at payment options.

Lineage 2 still has a large loyal following on the public realms and makes money. Aion is unpopular in Europe and America for its grind but liked and has a large player base in Asia for the exact same reason and makes money. Guild Wars 2 DOES require account purchase, but is buy once play forever and therefore fits OnePercent's criteria. It has a large player base and makes money. Tera has always been a joke in some way. It still has a large player base and makes money. Stating that people make Lineage 2 P2W on their own private server. How is that relevant? It's a PRIVATE server.

How is this? ↑ Relevant to my response to this? ↓ "Enlighten us" indeed. If what you really want is a debate or to state an opinion. Alright, I'll bite. If the debate is whether or not F2P can apply then yes, "Perhaps" such a niche would not benefit from said payment model. All that matters are the numbers, and the numbers are saying they need monthly payments or an equivalent system like PLEX. But because they are "Games that are all 2D maps about fantasy and RPG." isn't an actual reason why it wouldn't. No other MMO covers DU's scope so no fair comparisons can really be made in that respect.

Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Aion, Tera. Though the player base for Lineage 2 and Aion are almost entirely in Asia now. Forgot ESO.

Give me the names of these doubters. I will create voxel effigies of them and destroy them in a thousand and one myriad ways like electronic voodoo dolls.

Wow, I have been skimming this particular line of posts for a couple of days now and it's started to turn slightly "rough". Even with what the Devs have told us so far It leaves a lot of ways how they might actually work without adding to it. FTL travel. We know it's going to be in the game in the form of some kind of gate. We also know that the idea is some sort of probe that will take a period of time to reach the end location we want to travel to. For the people that are suggesting possible workarounds already keep in mind, we have no idea how long or how resource intensive building such a probe and gate will be. If I can make ten probes rather easily and send them on their way while I am currently exploring, gathering, or building, the time it takes for the probe to travel there may be a negligible inconvenience. Since I don't need a gate at the other side just the probe coordinates, this could give TWO options to jump in if I build another gate there (maybe? Devs chime in please?). These themselves could be desirable mechanics. Planning would need to take place for the expedition to make sure you bring everything you need resource wise (Perhaps not all planetary system have the resources you would need?) to build a gate at your final destination. This could make initial gate travel by smaller ships undesirable in the beginning and make larger ships the norm for interplanetary exploration. Remember as it stands right now gate travel would be one way in all initial forays into other systems. The initial coordinates you get from a probe might be nowhere near a planet, or perhaps are even inaccurate to a degree, depositing ships randomly throughout the system. This would allow PVP scenarios other than "have enough ships and build them tough/fast enough to get past the blockade." Nothing against that particular scenario I just don't think we should be limited to it. Probe coordinates could be limited to the person or persons that built the probe making them sellable and creating another type of market. This could also force PVP interaction in other ways. Finding out a group is buying up coordinates and attacking their gate to prevent them from expanding their territory. I think we are a far cry from needing or even DESIRING more FTL mechanics yet to fit the specific scenarios we have in mind.

I can't imagine why. And when I say that I mean I really can't. Please enlighten me.