Happy birthday Eleon, and best of luck going forward. I'm no game developer, but I personally can't see the logic behind a public release. I understand you're still working on it, but new players buying the game will not understand that, and will expect a finished and polished product. With new features still on the way and plenty of bugs, Empyrion is still very much an early access game, and I fear that new players will start leaving bad reviews once they figure this out. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen, because I hate to think what impact that might have on game sales... Does anyone know of a reason this wouldn't happen, or of some logic behind going public which has escaped me?
This. The only real concern I have is that the devs may state HERE that the game is not finished however as a consumer I can tell you that I have no interest in examining the forums before purchasing each and every single game. I can guarantee that the average consumer will never see these pages. If I were not already invested in the alpha stage of this game I would have purchased this game and then left a negative review after playing a few hours and realizing that it is nowhere near complete as a game without the EA tag is advertising that it is. I buy EA titles with the understanding that the game is unfinished. There is a massive warning telling me exactly this when purchasing. Conversely, I buy ANY software with the expectation that it is complete as that is exactly what fully released software is advertising. How the devs define release is totally irrelevant, it is the consumers that define what a released product means to them as that is how the product will be received. Not by what the devs want. A few bugs is fine. Some rough edges are fine. This is not a case of needing polish, the game itself is not even close to complete and the devs have made a strong statement that it is complete no matter what is stated here on the forums. Removing the EA tag means removing the statement that comes with it - a game still in development that may change. You can already see the effect it is having on reviews and I cannot fault anyone leaving a negative review. I do not understand why anyone here thinks it is okay to REMOVE the warning telling consumers that the game remains unfinished when the devs are still telling us that it remains so. There are times I do not buy EA games because I do not want to deal with the problems that come with unfinished products and I only ever have 1 or 2 in my library I play. As I said, if I purchased this game today I would be supremely displeased with the purchase. Removing the EA tag is, IMHO, simply unacceptable and feels utterly dishonest.
(Fighting in water in a survival game considered to be an "update" but stupid shiny blocks are more preferred?) There are no issues. There are logical people and there are illogical people (many of you guys). Your paperweight creations won't sell the game. But a good gameplay experience will. Building is part of this experience but its not all. Again... This should be a survival game, survival is gameplay. The way i see it: building vs gameplay -> 10:5 Time will tell who was right, if eleon will go bankrupt in 2-4 yrs we will all know who to blame. So keep buying copies my fellow players!
I already bought the game...Dont really need to buy it again. And have grossly enjoyed it for the dollar investment. I still think you are missing the difference between core structure and "updates". All that you mentioned is still important and will still probably be addressed at some point. From what they have said, the core structure is the base that all of these things you mention needed before they could be built. They feel they have this frame work now set up. And the "shiny blocks preferred" were just one dude expressing something he wanted. We all have "stuff we want". If they go bankrupt in 2-4 years, then its really no concern of ours. We have the game, it isnt a monthly fee to play, so enjoy it, or not.
It seems like things like moving in the ship are just not going to be a feature. It is unfortunate but while bug fixes or quality of life improvements could be made iteratively, adding the ability to move in the ship sounds like a overhaul.
I think it has been discussed by the devs a few times and it has something technical with how ships are rendered due to being voxels and all sorts of techno-babble stuff thats out of my pay grade. So I think the issue many have is that something is brought up that someone wants changed, the devs explain why it either isnt possible, or is possible with a major overhaul, and then its lost in the volume of threads and so forth. Probably would be a cool idea for the devs to come out with a FAQ where they post the answers to some of these often mentioned "fixes" people want, have been discussed, and then passed over until its brought up again.
Oh, but you can already "move in a moving ship" but you'll get dizzy and ghost through walls (try "invading" a moving orbital patrol vessel by entering the hangar...). They can fine-tune collisions, and this would already be a thousand times better, apart from the player getting massive damage from collision with walls when the ship turns fast. But to "attach" the players on the floor of a moving ship will be another level of complexity to achieve.
Agreeable opinion, i respect that. I think you and many of others missing the difference between technology and structure. Physics is something which you use early or never again. If you miss it than there is high probability that you can't make it- or it would cost too much to make it work. I look at this game from the perspective of technology. If the technology (the logical sturcture is implemented in the code) which can handle the planned feature, than it may work. But it is still missing. There are tons of these features missing. I am not the developer of the game i can't see under the hood... I can't see gravity either but studying it, watching how things behave i can draw some conclusions. While playing the game in every 100-300mins there are at least 2-3 crashes with the gameplay lost or reverted back to prev. save. Actionbars were implemented years before and you can barely use them. Anywhere you look there is an unfinished something laying in the corner. In my work we cannot accept that the power plug may or may not electrocute you. Ever. If it works, it should work in a way it is planned... Are you telling me that the devs planned this game to be this flawed? (There are many of the gamebreaking issues that should have already be adressed) Please tell me something: If we implement the building system with voxels and moving parts ---> why do you need this many blocks to prove it working? (I'll tell you, they did this to please the building members of the community at the cost of shitty performance) This is why i disagree with anyone who mentions eyecandy at the expense of function. Making blocks are easy. I can make you anytype in Autocad in 2mins... Writing code is different, you need logic and planning.
Even on physics I think we can hope for better without requiring a total overhaul while the game is put on elevation blocks in the back room. I know some developers make their own "physics engine" for Unity to use, and here it could be done also, and they would only have to replace the functions but not the nomenclature, so all scripts could keep their references. That's just an hypothesis, but in the worst case even with the actual physics engine they can "simulate" adequatly. Only problem is the level of precision required, because some players want extreme and others are satisfied with "arcade" style. And throw in the PC specs in the equation...
I dont really disagree with anything you have written, other than the premise that the devs are implying that the game is "finished". They have repeated, numerous times that they intend to continue to update and correct issues. So while I do actually agree that the "naming" of going to v1 may have been a silly thing to do, its that people continue to imply that the devs are stating that its all over and done with and they are happy with the game exactly how it is. Perhaps its because I am not a tech person (technically I kinda am but in a different field than video game design) that I dont see the issue as blaringly horrid as some. In my perception, (and I know its my opinion only, thereby worth what is paid for it) the devs are merely saying "We have build the framework for the house we want, but we acknowledge that the plumbing and wiring still need work. We may add some additional rooms or a basement later."
In my opinion if the devs could manage an arcade style physics with smooth movement while fighting, most of the users would be happy, including me. Can u imagine boarding a flying ship than hijacking it and use it as your own? Me neither! (At least we can do this in SE)
Space -> Ship fight -> Space "foot fight" on board of the ship... (The ships(npc) stuttering like hell atm...)
I can see a problem because they are 2 different "player control" schemes. On foot: usually the scripts simply toggle application of a force in a direction (WASD) and this "accelerates" the object (player avatar) which plays the "walk" animation at the same time (and speed reached after the impulse does not match the animation so the player is "skating" on the ground). To fix this (if what I described is true here in Empyrion) they could use a "set speed" to the object instead of "pushing" it with a force, and tweak the "ease-in ease-out" curves for smotth motion transition from 0 to "set speed". Ships motion: I have no idea what they use, but logically there are morce force vectors than a simple point (avatar) and the ship thrusters have no real "progressive impulse" : they apply max force with the press of a direction key, and some averaging has to take place to decide motion/ turn/ pitch etc. The timelapse between rapid key presses on a single point (avatar) is much easier to translate than the same with multiple variables placed on many axis.
"Thus we feel since thats done that we can call this 1.0": This sentence means to me with the phrase "thats done" is implemented and working. This is what i am challenging! In my opinion it is not done and it is not working. (Or are you telling me when half of my ammo dissipated in the void because of stuttering which doesn't even reach the target or fly thru is done? ) When i can dive into the hard surface of the enemy with my ship look for the core and blow it up thru the walls? "The core tech wont get hugh changes anymore.": The message of this may project the negative outcome... Will we ever be able to fight the enemy patrols? or it won't be updated? So basicly a space game will be about to survive on foot on celestial bodies right? Because thats working? You may fly big ships but unfortunately half of the weapons planetary restricted or do not work in space properly. I may overkill it a bit with analythics. I agree with you. For the money this game costs... it makes it up. I didn't regret buying it. What i regret is hope that it will work some day and i may find everything i missed in SE. (I think this is why some of us takes it personal) Well anyways. Thanks for the chat.
Very often, when looking at bug reports or other player-submitted issues, the developers can't reproduce it. This points towards hardware : the developers obviously have top-notch PCs and these have no problems running the "beast" game without hiccups. But on the player side things may be different, for as many reasons as there are hardware configurations. I'm not saying the game runs flawlessly on the developer's side, but that the "main features" do what they are expected to do, albeit not to an optimal and "fluid" way, and that's where "optimisation" and "bug fixes" will alleviate things. Having a feature seem "buggy" on a user machine but running A1 on many of the developers monsters can be sufficient to show that the problem is not the feature, but how the program can lose time on some details and end up with discrepancies on weaker computers or network environments.
We will never know. The way i see it: it is somekinda key framing like in digital movie making with the fact that there is no transition effect. This is why ships may look like hopping point A-B-C-D from point A then B without transition. This can be because high refresh rates or broken engine. I bet there are tons of technological issues involved in this. Maybe the game should convert the ship to one object and project a grid on the surface of the ship and only recalculate the surface matrix point (where you damage) when it is damaged. It is really hard if every voxel has its own damage table.
Here, look at this ( specifically post #145 from Rexxus) : https://empyriononline.com/threads/...-for-ships-but-not-like-you-think.9938/page-8 .
