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Re: Limit Theory: Command Line Mode

Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:28 pm
by MyrddinE
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
MyrddinE wrote: All this is dependent on a flexible AI, rich trading simulation, powerful project API, and deep hooks into all of this from the mod side... all things that Josh has discussed, but we can't know will exist. Version 1.0 may be missing some or all of these. None of these are easy. So don't get your hopes up.
except that the whole principle of LT builds on the AI and trading simulation....
Certainly true, but how interesting will trading be? How good of an AI? The game will have it, but it doesn't mean that, all alone, these parts will be fun enough to carry a game on their own. Josh is but one man, and he's a very good man, but he can't make a game that is everything to everyone. Some parts of LT will be awesome. They will exceed our expectations and we'll find them great fun. Other parts may be disappointing, and they won't be as great as we hope.

Until it's released it's all speculation and hope. I hope that the economic simulation will be interesting, approachable, and fun. But it might not be. The reason it could be sub-par might have nothing to do with the simulation... maybe the interface makes it tedious and annoying to find good deals. Maybe it is so random that it's hard to predict which trades will be profitable. Maybe the AI will be so efficient at trading it's hard for an inexperienced player to compete. Maybe there will be a strategy that is boring but nets massive profits eliminating the challenge of the subsystem.

So many things can go wrong. I'm not saying they will... I just don't think it's appropriate to count your eggs before they hatch.

My main hope for LT is not that 1.0 is an amazing perfect game. My hope is that LT is an amazingly moddable game with amazing tools to enable us to expand upon the initial release from Josh into the game we want it to be. I'm not going to expect LT 1.0 to be awesome because Josh hasn't proved he can make an awesome game. But I am going to expect LT to be an amazing collection of tools for us to polish into an awesome game, because I think that Josh has demonstrated genius when it comes to creating flexible systems. That's his forte, his milieu. He makes amazingly flexible, elegant systems and tools, and the way I look at it he's building the best single player space trading game toolset ever to grace the Internet.

I can't wait to play with these tools. But I'm not going to expect the first game made with these tools to be perfect.

Re: Limit Theory: Command Line Mode

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:54 am
by BFett
MyrddinE wrote: Certainly true, but how interesting will trading be? How good of an AI? The game will have it, but it doesn't mean that, all alone, these parts will be fun enough to carry a game on their own. Josh is but one man, and he's a very good man, but he can't make a game that is everything to everyone. Some parts of LT will be awesome. They will exceed our expectations and we'll find them great fun. Other parts may be disappointing, and they won't be as great as we hope.

Until it's released it's all speculation and hope. I hope that the economic simulation will be interesting, approachable, and fun. But it might not be. The reason it could be sub-par might have nothing to do with the simulation... maybe the interface makes it tedious and annoying to find good deals. Maybe it is so random that it's hard to predict which trades will be profitable. Maybe the AI will be so efficient at trading it's hard for an inexperienced player to compete. Maybe there will be a strategy that is boring but nets massive profits eliminating the challenge of the subsystem.

So many things can go wrong. I'm not saying they will... I just don't think it's appropriate to count your eggs before they hatch.

My main hope for LT is not that 1.0 is an amazing perfect game. My hope is that LT is an amazingly moddable game with amazing tools to enable us to expand upon the initial release from Josh into the game we want it to be. I'm not going to expect LT 1.0 to be awesome because Josh hasn't proved he can make an awesome game. But I am going to expect LT to be an amazing collection of tools for us to polish into an awesome game, because I think that Josh has demonstrated genius when it comes to creating flexible systems. That's his forte, his milieu. He makes amazingly flexible, elegant systems and tools, and the way I look at it he's building the best single player space trading game toolset ever to grace the Internet.

I can't wait to play with these tools. But I'm not going to expect the first game made with these tools to be perfect.
I couldn't have said it better myself. The ability to mod LT, along with dozens of examples (forming the base game) will really help give modders the tools they need to expand on the ideas of the base game. I also agree that LT will not appeal to everyone in every aspect of the game. But that's what makes the mod tools so much more valuable.

Re: Limit Theory: Command Line Mode

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2015 11:15 am
by Flatfingers
MyrddinE, I agree with about 99% of your conclusion. Designing LT for moddability is the source of much of its value.

But not all. :) Here's the part I'd like to comment on:
MyrddinE wrote:Some parts of LT will be awesome. They will exceed our expectations and we'll find them great fun. Other parts may be disappointing, and they won't be as great as we hope.
What you're describing here is supply and demand. We potential players of LT express a demand; Josh provides a supply. (It's not actually that direct since Josh has said he's making LT for himself. But there's still something like supply/demand at work here.)

The thing I'd like to point out is that when a demand isn't satisfied by a particular supply, it doesn't mean the supply must be defective (i.e., LT is broken in some way). Nor does it necessarily mean that the demand is unreasonable, although that could be true in some cases.

Mostly it just means there's a mismatch between expectations (demand) and reality (supply). If Bob really, really likes space dogfighting, he may find Limit Theory's dogfighting not entirely satisfying. That doesn't mean Josh's code is defective. And it doesn't mean that Bob is wrong about what he enjoys most. It just means there's a mismatch between what Bob personally likes and what Josh had the time and interest to implement in his game.

That said... moddability FTW.

Even if it's to add a limited command line interface for some of the less real-time bits. ;)