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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#31
BFett wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:50 am
I would like to know what progress we have made since 2012 in a bullet list format.
Sinus wave sort of progress...maybe going up now :D
BFett wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:50 am
I hope that sensor code is largely complete
The word complete made me smile...what if I told you there is nothing complete not even the underlying engine....
BFett wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:50 am
It'll be 2019 in just a few months
Imagine one more year, looking back at this posting and asking yourself what has been done since then... :P
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#32
Lemar wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:14 am
BFett wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:50 am
It'll be 2019 in just a few months
Imagine one more year, looking back at this posting and asking yourself what has been done since then... :P
If we're not playing the fully released game by this time next year, something has gone horribly wrong. :P
Spoiler:      SHOW
Josh better be kill or he'll have no excuse :ghost:
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Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#33
Hyperion wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:34 am
Lemar wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:14 am
BFett wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:50 am
It'll be 2019 in just a few months
Imagine one more year, looking back at this posting and asking yourself what has been done since then... :P
If we're not playing the fully released game by this time next year, something has gone horribly wrong. :P
Spoiler:      SHOW
Josh better be kill or he'll have no excuse :ghost:
Well that's why I'd really like a roadmap as to what still needs to be worked on before beta. We have to be getting close at this point.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#35
Bit demanding no? I think by this point there shouldn't be any expectations, and anyone who has been following the logs will realize Josh still has a long ways to go.

I think what is misunderstood is that once all the tools are built it will be relatively faster development, but that's like saying building a game with UE4 is fast. It's only as quick as the manpower needed to accomplish the task. Josh may be very nearly done working on the core tools and components of the engine, but almost all of the content still needs to be crafted. Lots of groundwork has been laid, like ship generating tools, market economy templates, procedural algorithms, but the main meat of the game is still not there. If josh were to complete everything he has a base for and release it as a beta I don't believe there would be much meaningful gameplay.

What I am getting at is the people hoping for a beta in 2018, or even early 2019, are going to be disappointed.

I realized a long time ago that I am here because I love reading about the process of this game being built. It doesn't matter to me how long it takes because I enjoy reading what Josh has to say.

Why are you here?
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#36
Dwamies wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:11 pm
I realized a long time ago that I am here because I love reading about the process of this game being built. It doesn't matter to me how long it takes because I enjoy reading what Josh has to say.

Why are you here?
This is a good question, and one that I've actually asked myself before this. Personally, I'm here for two reasons. First and foremost, the community. Second, to see this project through to completion. I am really, really looking forward to Josh eventually finishing it. I feel like that's one of the best things that could happen for the community, after all.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#37
Talvieno wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:20 pm
... I feel like that's one of the best things that could happen for the community, after all.
In theory would that not mean the death of this community and the birth of a new one? One with many many more bodies ideas and interests? Currently we focus on the process, and what could be. The new community would be more concerned with what is, and what can be done.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#38
It would simply attract more people. The theorycrafters would stay in their own section, I would imagine, and then you'd get more creative types going to the creative writing section. It's not really the death of the community. It's really just bringing in new blood. There will always be the people entirely focused on playing the game, but those tend to last shorter than people that are here because of what the game "means", or who intend to use it as a platform for creation. That's always been the case, really.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#39
Dwamies wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:11 pm
Bit demanding no? I think by this point there shouldn't be any expectations, and anyone who has been following the logs will realize Josh still has a long ways to go.

I think what is misunderstood is that once all the tools are built it will be relatively faster development, but that's like saying building a game with UE4 is fast. It's only as quick as the manpower needed to accomplish the task. Josh may be very nearly done working on the core tools and components of the engine, but almost all of the content still needs to be crafted. Lots of groundwork has been laid, like ship generating tools, market economy templates, procedural algorithms, but the main meat of the game is still not there. If josh were to complete everything he has a base for and release it as a beta I don't believe there would be much meaningful gameplay.

What I am getting at is the people hoping for a beta in 2018, or even early 2019, are going to be disappointed.

I realized a long time ago that I am here because I love reading about the process of this game being built. It doesn't matter to me how long it takes because I enjoy reading what Josh has to say.

Why are you here?
Well I'd have to disagree that almost all of the content still needs to be crafted, a LOT was developed before the Dark Days, and granted some of that has been discarded, but a lot of it is still good. If we look at the Pillars of LT's promised gameplay: Exploration, Mining/Manufacturing/Research, Markets/Trading, Tactical combat, Strategic Combat, and Factions/Guilds/Corporations... then a lot of that has already been either completed or at the very least had significant work put towards it. Of course plenty of work still remains, but it's not like we only have 20% of the gameplay designed and put in place. I'd fully expect that most areas, with perhaps the exception of UI's for various features and 1 or 2 major mechanics are between 80 and 100% done.

Do I expect Beta to come in 2018? I'd say that it's more likely than not, but definitely not a certainty. And part of why I say this is that the whole premise of all his work on tools is that changes and additions can be done quickly and easily. Beta does not need to be a fully fleshed out experience, nor do I really think it's wise for him to excessively flesh out all the little details of every aspect before Beta. I don't think the LT Beta will just be about bug hunting and balancing, but people exploring the game's features and identifying what is lacking, what isn't very intuitive, what is needlessly complicated, and what just isn't very fun. Beta can after all have multiple versions where identified issues are addressed, and where more aspects of the game can be fleshed out, such as adding functions to the scanner or analysis tools to the market or making a UI simple and accessible but with expandable depth for those that want it. Josh is limited to his own perspective, especially now that he's alone again. He has his own vision for the game and how it should look and feel, and that probably overlaps very highly with ours, but just because he makes something that makes perfect sense to him, doesn't mean it will be nearly as interesting or intuitive to a larger audience.

I cannot see it taking more than 6 more months of development to see Beta, and with just under 4 months left in 2018, I think it's entirely doable given Josh's historical coding pace.

If he can say to himself: Is combat fun? Yes. Is the market relatively stable over time but still interesting in short timescales? Yes. Are the AI being complete idiots? No. Can I go from raw materials to finished products for enough components to make a ship, a station, a warp rail, and a Jumpgate? Yes. Can I discover something interesting, beautiful, and/or valuable while exploring? Yes. Is there behavioral variety in the AI and does it pursue different goals and use different methods of achieving those goals? Yes. Does the AI respond dynamically to new discoveries and changes in relationships? Yes. Is the UI good enough for someone that's never played this before to have fun in different ways? Yes. Can I design a cool looking ship with a custom configuration? Yes. Then I'd say it's time to release the Beta, and the rest can be handled from there.

As to why I am here? Put simply, I have an internal and uncontrollable compulsion, and for some reason, the promise of this project has stuck with me like nothing else in my life. Of course the community is great too, and there are lots of interesting discussions on the forums and in IRC, and I have made multiple friends on here.
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Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#40
Hyperion wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:32 pm
Of course plenty of work still remains, but it's not like we only have 20% of the gameplay designed and put in place. I'd fully expect that most areas, with perhaps the exception of UI's for various features and 1 or 2 major mechanics are between 80 and 100% done.
I'd go with the 20% estimate, personally (as an average, at any rate).

If there is an area of gameplay which is 80% done, I'd expect that to be 80% out of the initial 90%, after which, as the rule says, you still have the other 90% to go...

But hey, I don't know, and I'll gladly be wrong. It's just that in all the years since the Kickstarter, I've never seen any piece of LT gameplay which looked remotely as close as you suggest to seeming like a part of a finished game. (Let alone some of the pie-in-the-sky A.I. and gameplay imaginings that I've seen thrown around from time to time.)

If LT were in anything like such an advanced state, I would expect to be seeing many more demonstrations of real gameplay showing how different systems are integrating together. We've seen a little bit of that (A.I. making market-driven decisions springs to mind), and the stuff we're seeing is nice, but it still seems largely piecemeal to me at present. To me that says there's a long way still to go.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#42
Hyperion wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:32 pm
If he can say to himself: Is combat fun? Yes. Is the market relatively stable over time but still interesting in short timescales? Yes. Are the AI being complete idiots? No. Can I go from raw materials to finished products for enough components to make a ship, a station, a warp rail, and a Jumpgate? Yes. Can I discover something interesting, beautiful, and/or valuable while exploring? Yes. Is there behavioral variety in the AI and does it pursue different goals and use different methods of achieving those goals? Yes. Does the AI respond dynamically to new discoveries and changes in relationships? Yes. Is the UI good enough for someone that's never played this before to have fun in different ways? Yes. Can I design a cool looking ship with a custom configuration? Yes. Then I'd say it's time to release the Beta, and the rest can be handled from there.

That there is a pretty darn good task list. Here, try it this way:

  • Is combat fun?
  • Is the market relatively stable over time but still interesting in short timescales?
  • Can I go from raw materials to finished products for enough components to make a ship, a station, a warp rail, and a Jumpgate?
  • Can I discover something interesting, beautiful, and/or valuable while exploring?
  • Are the AI [appearing to behave in useful and reasonably plausible ways]?
  • Is there behavioral variety in the AI and does it pursue different goals and use different methods of achieving those goals?
  • Does the AI respond dynamically to new discoveries and changes in relationships?
  • Is the UI good enough for someone that's never played this before to have fun in different ways?
  • Can I design a cool looking ship with a custom configuration?

I'd add a few more things: is there enough "stuff" in space to give it a kind of terrain to make tactical gameplay fun? Is the sensor feature (and stuff for it to work on) detailed enough and dynamically varied enough and implemented in a kinesthetically satisfying way to make solo exploration fun for long stretches of time? Is the mining feature designed to reward active thinking, rather than only passive action? Does the power progression sequence (getting bigger ships -> getting more ships -> managing multiple sectors) feel good for a range of player types? Is there a strategic game?

But these, I'd say, are the basic high-level gameplay tasks that I'd hope Josh is now able to attend to versus the purely architectural things that 1) needed to be done, and 2) were giant timesucks. While, as Hyperion rightly says, some of this stuff seemed to exist already in what might be considered a prototype form, there's obviously quite of bit of gameplay code needing to be written, tested, balanced, and polished for this game. That's why the question "how much architectural stuff remains to be implemented?" matters.

All that said, why I am (still) here? That's a fair question, Dwamies, and I think your skeptical position was fairly expressed.

I signed up because Josh's description of the game he wants to play is darned close to the game I'd code if I could. And I've stayed because, as Talvieno said, this is a great community, but also because I got to know Josh a little better, I think he's an extraordinary human being, and I want him to succeed for himself.

I don't mind passive participation here. But I do think "community" means contributing thoughts, on- or off-topic, even if sometimes those can be wrong or a little abrasive. If some of us are too optimistic, OK. If some others are too pessimistic, also OK. As long as we're civil to each other (bearing in mind that everybody can have a bad day sometimes), why shouldn't we participate in the conversation about what we'd personally like to see in this game, or when we guess the game might be done? Absolutely we regular forum members are speaking from a place of considerable ignorance about specific game feature statuses... so?

Those comments, that inspire other thoughts and support the developer (even if not always directly), are what create an online community.

I'm here because I like this game and I like Josh and I like this community and I want to contribute at least a little something to them.

If beta happens this December, fantastic. If it's next March, awesome. If it's September 2019 and still no sign of a beta... well, not quite as awesome, but that changes not a single term in my calculation of why I'm here.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#43
I'm here to engage in discussion as to what makes a good space game, to look forward to a dynamic sandbox game which reacts to my actions, and to hangout with this very civil community. I'd love to have the game soon, I've even made often laughed at estimates on here as part of my optimism that LT will release one day. In retrospect I've probably been naive about how much time it could take to get a game like LT coded by a single developer. I've enjoyed being part of this community while I've waited for the game to get finished. It's completely possible that LT could be in development for the next 6 years as well. We just don't know.

We have dev logs of all the work Josh has done and we have videos and screenshots. Hopefully beta will come soon, if not, then let's continue to discuss game ideas, play REKT, and enjoy the company of one another.
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Re: [Josh] Friday, August 17, 2018

#45
I was reading this earlier today and figured that Josh would probably sympathise with much of it.

With regard to the question of how much is left to do, my only real - criticism is a strong world - suggestion to Josh is that he doesn't need to release the entire game at once. We've seen an alternative model from plenty of smaller devs over the years: release game as a beta and incrementally improve.

Where I'm coming from here is that, based on what we've seen, I'm convinced that Josh has the capability to release a procedurally-generated Freelancer clone with better graphics. I'm talking fixed prices/no dynamic marketplaces. I'm talking finite universes. I'm talking no research. etc. etc. This could easily be LT v0.5. (I made the same point here 18 months ago.)

And of course, it should go without saying (but I know from experience that, sadly, it needs to be said): that's not me advocating that he doesn't eventually release v1.0 that meets his obligations to his Kickstarter backers. Just that endlessly squirreling away for "total perfection" when the tools are at hand to deliver "good start" would be a shame if it pushed LT's eventual delivery many more years.

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