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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#16
Der_Foe wrote:
Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:45 pm
Have the universe simulating away, allowing to speed up or slow down the process, showing the most beautiful and/or busy parts of the given universe. On the side / a second screen is a list of different roles an ai agent can assume (or what the demo thinks what role ai agents play based on their equipment and activity). When a player selects one of the roles, he instantly takes control over an to that point ai controlled ship.
I quote this whole post because I think it's onto something, and in two connected parts:

1. Show off the continuous activity of the game universe.
2. Let the player jump into that activity.

Imagine: a demo cycle starts off tightly zoomed-in on one AI-controlled ship, maybe showing the use of scanners and drones to mine a single asteroid. In a window, statistics about that ship's status, its net worth, and its current projects are displayed.

The "camera" then pulls back to show several ships also mining. Then it pulls back more to show many ships mining, and coming and going, in a large asteroid field. (Note that this is all still hands-off for the player.) Each time the camera sees more activity, the status window is updated to show a count of that activity: total worth, number of projects, etc.

Then the view is expanded more, showing traffic swarming between asteroid fields and space stations and colonies on planets, now including fleets trading and maybe fighting, and the status window again is updated to describe the total activity level. The camera smoothly pulls back again, and now we're seeing a schematic view of all the activity in an entire star system. (And still the potential player can only watch.)

Then with an appropriate flourish, the "camera" shows multiple connected systems in a sector, with activity (non-combat and combat) visually represented on the sector map in an abstracted but understandable format, and the Total Activity window is updated again.

And then the camera pulls back one more time to show a rendering of the entire known universe, with attractively-rendered symbols and fields moving in real time as large-scale simulated NPC activity alters the social structure of the universe. And the status window now displays incredibly large numbers to drive home the staggering amount of acivity happening all the time across the entire game world.

...and then, in a rush, the camera zooms back in all the way past sectors and stars and planets until it's just looking again at the original mining ship, calmly puttering away. And then the controls are unlocked for the player.

Obviously the timing on something like this would need to be handled well. I think you'd want to show each scene only long enough to let the player see the kinds of gameplay possible at that scope, and glance at the status window, before the next scene change. The idea is to hint at the incredible amount of activity being simulated at multiple scales before returning to the starting point and letting the hands-on phase begin.

Basically, I'd like to see potential players so stunned at the scope of an LT game universe that they forget to play when they're given control over a ship. :D

Please note that I'm not suggesting this instead of an immediate combat demo. That certainly should be available for potential players if that seems like what they care most about.

What I'm asking here is, what's an effective way for Josh & Co. to show other potential players that -- as per the Kickstarter promises -- there's a lot of other activity going on in an LTverse, and players can be part of that fun, too.

I've been enjoying the suggestions so far. Any more thoughts?
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#17
^ I wonder if it would be possible for one player to be doing this...
While a second player is playing a fighter like in the latest demo
but he would have a separate window on a second monitor.
Oh and he would be in the same system as the other player.
(if the game engine could handle this)
"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#19
Baile nam Fonn wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:11 am
Flat, you've given me goosebumps.
Ow, the fierce old pang of craving LT strikes again!
This happens to me every time I launch X3:AP.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#20
Black--Snow wrote:
Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:48 pm
Baile nam Fonn wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:11 am
Flat, you've given me goosebumps.
Ow, the fierce old pang of craving LT strikes again!
This happens to me every time I launch X3:AP.
Man, I'd never heard of those games (X-series) until I saw something for X-Rebirth (pre-launch) and thought it looked pretty cool. So I pre-ordered. Oops. That game was the hottest of messes at launch. I put 100+ hours into it trying to play around the game breaking bugs, glitches, and whatnot (not to mention the dodgy character animation, texturing, station interiors, etc). Ultimately developed some sort of save glitch and l lost a bunch of progress. So I put it down before I could no longer resist the urge to frisbee my laptop into a busy intersection. Since then I read they patched the crap out of it and it's a much better game than previously but I fear that experience left a bitter enough taste in my mouth to sour me on the franchise as a whole.

S'okay though. I hunkered down for the long haul to LT a while ago. Not anxious, not craving, just patiently waiting for those good times to come. :D

And to the point of this thread, Flatfingers, spot on. That sounds waay cooler than anything I could think of. :clap:
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."
-Col. Lewis B. Puller, USMC
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#21
thesleeve wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 1:36 pm

Man, I'd never heard of those games (X-series) until I saw something for X-Rebirth (pre-launch) and thought it looked pretty cool. So I pre-ordered. Oops. That game was the hottest of messes at launch. I put 100+ hours into it trying to play around the game breaking bugs, glitches, and whatnot (not to mention the dodgy character animation, texturing, station interiors, etc). Ultimately developed some sort of save glitch and l lost a bunch of progress. So I put it down before I could no longer resist the urge to frisbee my laptop into a busy intersection. Since then I read they patched the crap out of it and it's a much better game than previously but I fear that experience left a bitter enough taste in my mouth to sour me on the franchise as a whole.

S'okay though. I hunkered down for the long haul to LT a while ago. Not anxious, not craving, just patiently waiting for those good times to come. :D

And to the point of this thread, Flatfingers, spot on. That sounds waay cooler than anything I could think of. :clap:
Calling X:Rebirth an X series game is like calling an Angry Birds themed Flappy Bird an Angry Birds game. It may share some similarities but it really doesn't share the essence of the game. :P

I totally recommend X3:AP over Rebirth. It's more solid and has a great modding community (Litcube's Universe and Mayhem specifically).
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#22
The interesting(ish) thing is I never backed LT for the combat side of things. It's probably the bit that interested me least if I'm honest. The procedural generation is what sucked me in followed by the way the galaxy would live and breath. But maybe that's just me, maybe a lot of people are here for the pew pew. Ultimately LT is hopefully going top be a game that people can play for all sorts of reasons.
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#23
I'm here for LT's economy and dynamic universe. I can get combat from any number of thousands of games out there. I can't get an economy where I have the freedom to build a shell company which earns funds for my less than legal criminal organization. Will I blow stuff up? Maybe, but that's not my main goal with LT. Getting to a political position within the LT universe and being able to influence the outcome of wars by providing funds to smaller organizations would also be a great "end game" goal.

It's this kind of depth that I really hope LT will be able to deliver.
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#26
Maybe set up a dynamic system where there are a few factions (3 or 4 or something) all doing the various things there are to do with different ships, have the player always be part of the same faction (so that different sequential players are on the same side, so to speak), and add a way for the player to dynamically switch between which ship they're controlling within the faction? So they could (for example) start as a mining vessel and do that for a bit, then if they get attacked by pirates they could swap over to a nearby patrolling fighter to protect the mining vessels, and then when they're done with that they see that one of the other factions is attacking a starbase, so you swap to one of the capital ships in that fight.
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Re: How Should Non-Combat Features Be Promoted?

#27
Lavaflow wrote:
Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:53 pm
Maybe set up a dynamic system where there are a few factions (3 or 4 or something) all doing the various things there are to do with different ships, have the player always be part of the same faction (so that different sequential players are on the same side, so to speak), and add a way for the player to dynamically switch between which ship they're controlling within the faction? So they could (for example) start as a mining vessel and do that for a bit, then if they get attacked by pirates they could swap over to a nearby patrolling fighter to protect the mining vessels, and then when they're done with that they see that one of the other factions is attacking a starbase, so you swap to one of the capital ships in that fight.

This seems a bit fighty, versus non-combat. ;)

But it's a nice description of what an overall demonstration of Limit Theory might look like.

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