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Author Topic: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"  (Read 29719 times)

hemmingjay

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #45 on: August 31, 2012, 06:42:33 am »

I bought it. I enjoy tinkering with what I consider to be an alpha build. I HAVE already given $1000 to DF members who are developing games and did so because they offered critiques AND solutions to problems.

I believe in this dev. Even if this project doesn't amount to much in the end, I know that this tech and experience will produce something great. Gamers need to regain their pioneering spirit.
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LoSboccacc

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #46 on: August 31, 2012, 08:06:05 am »

I bought it. I enjoy tinkering with what I consider to be an alpha build. I HAVE already given $1000 to DF members who are developing games and did so because they offered critiques AND solutions to problems.


there are members developing games? I'm interested in that! what have you sponsored, if I may ask?
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MasterTechnologies

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #47 on: August 31, 2012, 03:45:46 pm »

Downloaded the game. Posting my impressions as I play.

Cons:
The music is absolutely atrocious.
'Save and exit' for some reasons quits the game entirely.
My first quickstart dumped me somewhere underwater, with a bed standing nearby.
When switched to third-person mode, digging doesn't work. At all. A green line flashes and the grass tile I just dug respawns.
No matter how diverse a block I try to dig, it'll always give me only a single, pretty much random, type of resource.
The planet is a sphere (or maybe a circle), but I still managed to walk off it and fall into infinite void.
Jumping physics are horribly, HORRIBLY broken.
Putting down blocks is clunky and unwieldy. For some reason after LMB is pressed (and held) to put down a block, camera refuses to move until you release the button. Makes putting several blocks in a row a horrible chore.
In the tutorial mission, destroying the robot with a pickaxe crashed the game.
Building anything takes a HILARIOUS amount of resources. For example, you need to mine out SEVERAL mountains to build a single stone forge.

Pros:
The explosions are pretty satisfying.

Thank you for your list of bugs and general issues in the game. Some of your points are there by design, while most of them have been put on my todo list for future updates.

The music is absolutely atrocious.
The choice of music is a difficult question and is much a matter of personal preferences. The current music is there to reflect the lightheartedness of the game and serves as a reminder of not taking the game too seriously and just enjoy the experience. The music always gets me in a good mood and the response from many other players has been the same. If you have ever played Clonk, it may be obvious where the inspiration has come from ;).

'Save and exit' for some reasons quits the game entirely.
This is just due to laziness from my part. This will be fixed in a future version, but is not a priority.

My first quickstart dumped me somewhere underwater, with a bed standing nearby.
There is no system in place to check if a start position is suitable or not. This will be added soon.

When switched to third-person mode, digging doesn't work. At all. A green line flashes and the grass tile I just dug respawns.
You are not supposed to be able to dig in third-person mode. I have now disabled the digging (and the green line) completely.

No matter how diverse a block I try to dig, it'll always give me only a single, pretty much random, type of resource.
The resource you are given when removing several blocks at once, e.g. with the shovel or a bomb, is based on what materials are removed. However, in order to avoid a lot of different materials appearing as "resource balls", the resources you get are arranged into larger pieces, which may appear random. This works approximately the follwing way: If you dig away 9 dirt and 1 sand, it is a 9/10 chance you get 10 dirt and 1/10 chance you get 10 sand. I agree this system is a bit unintuitive, and needs to be reworked in the future.

The planet is a sphere (or maybe a circle), but I still managed to walk off it and fall into infinite void.
By standard, the planets are hemispheres, which means that it is possible to fall from them. This is something you should only do once before you learn that fact. I do not think I have ever fallen off a planet unintentionally, as it is really easy to avoid. A hint is that each planet is surrounded by a core of a black material. When you see this, you are at the edge and should be careful (in case you failed to notice that there is no more terrain and only the vast emptiness of space  ;D). As of version 1.5, you may enable spherical planets in the launcher. These should be completely impossible to fall off.

Jumping physics are horribly, HORRIBLY broken
The jumping physics is not properly implemented yet and is based on a constant fall speed. This will be resolved in a future update.

Putting down blocks is clunky and unwieldy. For some reason after LMB is pressed (and held) to put down a block, camera refuses to move until you release the button. Makes putting several blocks in a row a horrible chore.
This "feature" was put in intentionally, in order to avoid the placement cursor to move after the deposition process has begun. I have also found this slightly annoying at times. Your comment has convinced me to remove that camera lock. It will be gone in the next version.

In the tutorial mission, destroying the robot with a pickaxe crashed the game.
This crash has been tracked down and fixed. Please download the v1.5b hotfix from this thread to fix the crash: http://www.master-space.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=78

Building anything takes a HILARIOUS amount of resources. For example, you need to mine out SEVERAL mountains to build a single stone forge.
This is partly by design, as the game is supposed to be somewhat slow paced. That you need to mine several mountains to build a steel forge is not true. It is usually enough to use your five starting bombs in order to get the 400 stone for the steel forge. However, the balance of the game is in very early stages and is not high priority for now, as the tech tree and building order is likely to be changed considerably in the future. I might consider lowering the cost of some objects in the next version.

Pros:
The explosions are pretty satisfying.

Great! One positive point is much better than none at all.  :D

Conclusion:
Show me some idiot person who bought this 'game' so I can laugh in his face.

I think this comment is very unnecessary. There is no need to insult the people that are actually enjoying the game. Remember that Masterspace is an indie game developed by a single person and it is not really fair to compare the quality to a large commercial game. There is also one additional benefit of supporting the game in its early stages: you get to influence the direction of the development and what features are implemented. Finally, money generated from the sales are used to pay for 3d models, sounds and for the web site and thus serves to increase the overall quality of the game.
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hemmingjay

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #48 on: August 31, 2012, 03:53:04 pm »

I bought it. I enjoy tinkering with what I consider to be an alpha build. I HAVE already given $1000 to DF members who are developing games and did so because they offered critiques AND solutions to problems.


there are members developing games? I'm interested in that! what have you sponsored, if I may ask?

I am only free to talk about one, which is Cult: Awakening of the old ones by Lord Dullard. The other is more private at this point.

Back on topic, this game has a very good dev pace and I am happy to support it and recommend it. It is FAR from finished but it never claimed to be.
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MasterTechnologies

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Masterspace v1.6 Released
« Reply #49 on: October 09, 2012, 10:48:15 am »

Masterspace v1.6 has been released, introducing a new user interface. The production and object construction screens have been redesigned to include a lot more information and most object descriptions have been extended and updated. Additionally, the old inventory icons have been replaced with new icons with a consistent graphical style. Hopefully, this effort will make it easier for new players to become familiar with the game.


A bunch of new objects and materials have also been added. Plants are now growing on the planets and it is possible to fabricate new plants in the "botanic assembler". There are five different types of plants. Also, support for transparent materials have been added and it is now possible to fabricate glass from sand in the furnace.

The inventory system has been revised and is now limited to 8 slots, each capable of holding up to a maximum of 200 items. These limits may be customized for the scenario by scripting. This introduces the need for more storage containers, as well as introducing logistic problems. To solve storage problems early in the game, a new storage container, the urn, has been added. Urns are constructed from dirt and have 2 storage slots.


The scenario scripting has been greatly improved by the reimplementation of the planet generation functions in LUA script. This means that customized, random planets may be generated specifically for each scenario. A testing ground scenario has been added, demonstrating work-in-progress features, such as meteorites and rain. Also, multiplayer games have been simplified by automatic transfer of save games and scenarios.


Finally, the demo limitations have been changed and, as of this version, both saving and loading of save games and scenarios is enabled in the free version. Instead a demo reminder popup has been added, appearing every 5 minutes.

Download the free version here:

To upgrade to the full version (for paying customers), please download and run this unlocker (requires login). Please note that the unlocker is version specific and you need to run this after the v1.6 installation, regardless if you have installed another version of the unlocker previously.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SAVED GAMES:

This version partly breaks compatibility with save games from older versions. This will (hopefully) not cause any crashes, but constructed items may disappear. Primarily, steel forges and stone cutters will not appear, as they have been renamed to furnaces and multimachines, respectively.

This may be solved by editing the save game file and manually replacing the old names with the new ones. Also, problems may arise from the introduced limitations in the inventory system, and any number of items above 200 in a slot will be removed.


As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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MasterTechnologies

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #50 on: November 17, 2012, 01:16:16 am »

Masterspace v1.7 has been released, introducing a new building system. The placement of construction platforms is now seamless, which allows for simple construction without regard for the world geometry. This change particularly makes building on spherical planets much easier.

Additionally, the resolution of the world has been lowered, which increases the size of the planets. Instead, a high resolution is limited to buildings on construction platforms, as well as spaceships. It is also possible to set the surface extraction method individually for planets, buildings and spaceships, which allows for e.g. a smooth planet terrain with cubic buildings.


Four new mobs have been added. This includes friendly tortoises and two bird species, as well as one hostile alien species.


A lot of 3d models have been replaced with higher quality models. This includes new models for the bed, botanic assembler, furnace, workbench and the trading post.


The pumping system is now functional. Pumps may be used to transport water from one place to another using pipelines. Water is pumped from all open ends of the pipeline to the pump. Several pumps may be connected in parallel to increase the pumping capacity.

Finally, the spherical "resource balls" have been replaced with 3d models more closely resembling rocks.


Download the free version here:

To upgrade to the full version (for paying customers), please download and run this unlocker (requires login). Please note that the unlocker is version specific and you need to run this after the v1.7 installation, regardless if you have installed another version of the unlocker previously.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SAVED GAMES:

This version partly critically breaks compatibility with save games from older versions. This is due to changes to the world scale and resolution. Old save games will still be possible to load, but the world scale will be wrong and both texture tiling problems and crashes may occur. It is very highly recommended that you start a new game in Masterspace v1.7. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.


As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 01:31:04 am by MasterTechnologies »
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MasterTechnologies

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #51 on: November 17, 2012, 07:34:39 pm »

Unfortunately a lot of people are having problems downloading the game and get the following error message:

"The file you have selected (MasterspaceSetup1.7.exe) is not available via any mirrors. Please check back shortly as our servers update every 5 minutes."

This seems to be a problem with server capacity and we are working to provide more download mirrors. If you experience this error, please try to download again at a later time. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Hundsstern

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #52 on: November 18, 2012, 04:26:28 am »

Unfortunately a lot of people are having problems downloading the game and get the following error message:

"The file you have selected (MasterspaceSetup1.7.exe) is not available via any mirrors. Please check back shortly as our servers update every 5 minutes."

This seems to be a problem with server capacity and we are working to provide more download mirrors. If you experience this error, please try to download again at a later time. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

thx. It works now.
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Caz

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #53 on: November 18, 2012, 04:26:41 am »

This looks really promising.

Edit: So I tried it out, seems quite cool. The dimensions of the world seem 'off' though, is there any way yet to make 'bricks' from dirt/clay so we can get some nice smooth edges from which to build with? I hollowed out a mountain then built a cave. Couldn't figure out how to build though, every time I try building something the button just doesn't work. Maybe an ingame 'wiki' describing basic stuff would be useful. Hollowing out anything is also very slow going. I built a space elevator from dirt to see if I could escape the atmosphere but it just wouldn't let me build any higher. I jumped off to fall at a really slow speed and land without injury. The gravity mechanics in this game could be so cool what with satellite bases, jetpacks and spacesuits etc.

Make this into something great please. :)
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 08:46:30 am by Caz »
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dennislp3

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #54 on: November 18, 2012, 11:44:32 am »

PTW
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Ultimuh

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #55 on: November 20, 2012, 03:44:52 pm »

Can still not download from mirrors.
Nevermind, got it.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2012, 03:02:38 pm by Ultimuh »
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Akura

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #56 on: November 21, 2012, 01:15:03 pm »

It looks good, and I'm willing to try it out, but I don't know yet if I'm willing to buy yet.
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pazuzu

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #57 on: November 21, 2012, 02:11:58 pm »

Been playing this a bit, its good.

Looks and runs great on my aging Core2Quad 2.83 with 4gb ram and nvidia 9800GT, though generating planets in the beginning takes a good 5 minutes. More if i want spherical worlds (and i do).

Bought it and intended to buy a 2nd copy for a mate, (to do battle!) but it barely runs on his mac laptop thing (running XP).
Buying it gives access to multiplayer and Spaceships. There's no master server, and you cant join a game in progress (or even see it)  so you need to set up a game and tell your mates your IP address so they can join. You can play over LAN too.

Development speed seems fast and the dev seems very open to suggestions.

There isn't much in the way of help, and the wiki didn't much help either, but everything craftable shows its cost ingame in the construction menu.


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Mephansteras

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #58 on: November 21, 2012, 02:30:28 pm »

I'll have to download the demo and give this a shot. Looks interesting.
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Akura

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Re: Masterspace - Someone may have beat Notch to "IT"
« Reply #59 on: November 23, 2012, 12:19:16 pm »

Played the demo, and I'm obviously itching for spaceship stuff. I have a few issues with it:

  • First off, the obvious one: the music. It feels way out of place for something like this, gets really grating on the ears. I would certainly like a means to change the music, or least a means to turn it off in-game.
  • The game runs extremely slow with pretty much any of the graphics settings turned on. Dynamic lighting works, as does setting shadows to short(long shadows, regardless of shadow quality does not). Every other graphics setting cripples the game, which ordinarily shows an average of +300fps(the status counter doesn't show current fps, though, just best/worst/average). I find it odd that even the lowest of settings besides off for anything would do that.
  • I would like a way to destroy useless resources like low grass and that excess of stone I find when bombing the terrain, looking for uranium.
  • There seems to be a bug with shovels and upgraded picks where it won't give you the resource you dig into, but whatever one you're standing closest to. The basic pick doesn't seem to have this problem, except very rarely.
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