I do think I would like to add a cent or two to the discussion, mostly on me favoring not removing the admittedly slow-paced beginning. Gamewise, I think I see your point, Quitch. There is little meaning to have 2 minutes of time in which players follow the exact same procedure over and over again. I do not think I can contest that, and I concede the point. I do see one more point to the discussion that is quite relevant to me psychologically and, in fact, genetically. The slow start gives me, an introvert (and thus, somewhat slower than most people), time to readjust and focus my mind and brain to the task at hand. Which is the game. If I am to provide a (exaggerated) narrative: For me it is like the difference of starting a locomotive from scratch, building up steam as I go. Or being put in the saddle of a bike careening down the hills (Altho I guess strong extroverts would relish it). That said, I do find your option 2 interesting, as increasing the starting metal and energy storage would allow a little bit of flexibility. Not to mention that cutting the first 2 minutes in half, would probably not pose a concern.
I wonder how doing nothing (because you really do nothing else than watching your commander building stuffs) help you to focus on the game. It's a honest question, not a troll. They don't have a particularly good history regarding choosing the right implementation first so far. Also, a good implementation is in place and working for many years in PA-like games. No need to spend time and money reinventing the wheel for the sake of it.
It's a zombie! The Egg is probably going to be the best way to speed up early game. If the game starts and you already have 3 metal extractors, 2 energy plants, and a factory, then that'd be awesome. It'd be even better if you could choose what you start with. Say The Egg comes with X metal. You can then divvy that metal out into buildings and come up with your own starting build. Want to go for a bomber rush? Start with an air factory. Want to go with a standard build? Go with a bot factory. On a water planet? Go for a naval factory! I think it'll be awesome. Edit: Even though I hate saying 'wait for the egg' – it's probably the best thing. We don't want to mess too much with the early stuff as it'll greatly mess with the later game. I think the game is pretty well balanced and the best way to speed up the first boring five minutes of the game without messing up the rest of the game is to simply get some starting buildings.
Is the egg going to be on by default? On in ranked play? If the answer is no then I don't give a toss about the egg. The egg is so utterly undefined right now that raising in any discussion is a bit like invoking God.
I guess you can take a look at the different planets for example, or the metal spots around your starting spot etc. To assess the overall situation. Of course you should do this before choosing a spawn point, but nevertheless. I am also in favor of faster starts, games can last a long time as they are.
Good question. Going out on a limb, I think It had to do with the long-term memory, and the length of the neural pathways. The short term memory are flexible, fast and easily re-writable as you go. Perfect if you're jumping from on thing to another thing in rapid succession. Unfortunately, It doesn't provide much space for depth as it will simply flush itself after a time. Definitely good for fast-paced action. The Long term memory (out of which Introverts automatically will use much more) is slow, cumbersome and hard to activate as you require references of some sort to find your way. But it is very powerful and will retain a lot of knowledge. What can be considered to be doing nothing, is, ironically a whole lot as well. Afterall, the screen will soon fill with references that the brain (depending on how much and long it processes the things, which depends on person and temperament) is going to look for references, knowledge and then link from that knowledge to more references with more knowledge which links to - lots. The long-term memory simply, will transfer information as it finds it to the short-term memory. To much information, and it won't necessarily understand what to load first, and thus loads whatever random junk it finds first (people do like systems with clearly defined progression afterall). Once loaded, it will stay until it's no longer needed or it has to start loading up another chain of memories. Thus I find it easier with a slow start, that gives me a little time to 'boot up' properly. And now I should probably let you lads continue the discussion, lest I completely derail it. Which Is bad, M'kay?
