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.