What's up this week? 12/18/12

It'll be awesome to see all of these once they are ready for prime time. Seeing the core of the planet generator was an awesome update and I look forward to seeing any concept art and tech demonstrations in future.

I'm particularly excited to see what the UI is going to look like.

Considering that we can see some of these things so early in their design, I think a little time lapse photography would be appropriate. Seeing a planet evolve from a colored sphere into a fully textured battlefield would be really cool. Many other aspects likely go through an iterative process, so it'd be great to see at a glance how they changed over time.

Can't wait for more, I do hope we see screenshots too, even if it's alpha stuff or early I don't care it will be neat to see how things evolve.

I have a huge aversion to showing art that isn't "done".

Some people can handle it but most people, and especially the press, cannot handle it.

This is a lesson that has been hammered into my brain over and over again during the last 20 years.

Imagine if the kickstarter video was just some really rough looking concept stuff. Would we even be having this conversation right now? This is probably the best argument for setting up a private board where I can post some of this stuff. Going to push forward on that asap.

It is not that I do not want to see it, as I know what the concept of alpha is, as do most of the people on this forum probably. However just think of the mainstream gamer (not hardcore gamers) as generally being a bit thick XD...

most people will just loose interest thinking "meh this doesn't look good at all" and some will even go to the "omg this is ugly, how could this have come of the ground ?1one011!" (yes this is ridiculous, but some people are this way.)

now I do think that specialized gaming press (escapist, destructoid, rockpapershotgun, kotaku etc.) can talk about alpha stuff in context, but just putting alpha stuff online is not a good idea IMO.

I would really like to see these kinds of things on the beta/alpha backer forum though, and in the documentary

Really? If I had to choose, I'd take Supcom 2's "Robots On Ice" over Supcom 1's rush hour traffic jams.

I'd like to think I would still be part of this conversation, although I'll admit that seeing the video hooked me in to investegate further when I found out about it. However finding out who was working on it and it being a kind of spiritual successor to TA and SupComFA is what made me commit. I do recognise that this probably wouldnt be typical of a lot of gamers and certainly the press which can be very uncharitable towards unfinished work.

I look forward to the private board so I can see some of this stuff but I can understand not wanting to show things before they are ready for prime time. I know that I dislike people seeing any work I do before it is at least mostly done.

A backer forums would be nice I guess ( though I didn't pledge as I can't atm so :c )

I think I would have pledged even for "new TA/FA" that only has lousy 2D-Graphics on its Kickstarter-page.
...but yeah to appeal the masses who dont go crazy the moment somebody mentions making a spiritual successor to TA it would have failed.

A backers only forum with NDA would be cool to show off stuff, but I think I am actually totally fine with waiting for Alpha and just a few little updates until then. Techtalk about awesome algorithms for pathfinding/planetgeneration/whatever is something that you can show without fear I guess ^^

Frankly I never had major issues with pathing in FA, a lot of the actually annoying things are easily avoided/abated with good Move Orders.

Mike

True.. but we also hate ugly background pictures on our desktop :mrgreen:
Would be nice if some new planet backgrounds could be made to be used as background

private for backers? or who will get access?

Yes, for backers.

Question: Are you guys still sticking with the swirly coasts?

Interesting question. So far there hasn't been a huge emphasis on swirly stuff. I would say the look is migrating towards something slightly more serious than the video as we proceed.

For example the Metal Planet concept has a more hardcore look to it than the video don't you think?

Query: Will you ever consider allowing players to design their own army models/looks?

Aww, that's too bad. I really enjoyed the swirly coasts.

I assumed the metal planet concept took the more "hardcore" mood to separate it as inorganic. But whateva, the video was an early visualization and, obviously in game development, nothing's final.

Thanks for the answer, happy holidays, and keep up the good work.

Yes, this is called modding. This isn't something that would ever happen in the in-game interface though.

Yesssss victory is mine!

Mike

Hahaha all the more modding for you! : D