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[zoombapup]

Hey all.

Someone on reddit suggested I might ask here.

I'm making a physics based world building game, which is a cross between a base-building game, a sims game and an RPG.

Anyway, I'm trying to get feedback on the game and I'm trying to find a community of gamers who like these world building style games to work with me on refining the usability of some of the systems.

Which is why I ended up here. If this isn't the place for that kind of thing then feel free to remove.

I've got a greenlight "concept" page up for the game where you can see videos and such:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=119510024

Or get the vids direct on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72CFFC08B57A6CFB&feature=mh_lolz

And a subreddit for the game, where I'm putting a lot of the design thinking online: www.reddit.com/r/EverSky

Glad to hear any questions. I'm really looking for a dialogue on the building/social simulation aspects and long term feedback. I'm really just trying to find a small bunch of people who enjoy the type of game (open world, sandbox, social simulation, trade, craft) and who are mature enough to understand when things are work-in-progress but are still interested in seeing a game as it slowly improves and becomes a real game rather than the parts of a game.

If there's another community that would be more fitting please let me know.

[Gamerlord]

Nah man, Bay12 sounds like what you want. This looks interesting. What level of violence (as in, hunting, combat against sapients, etc) are you considering? Will butchering animals for skins be possible? What sort of tech level?

[Fikes]

It is generally "best practice" to establish yourself a bit before advertising. People frown on it in varying degrees, but no one is going to hate you forever before showing up.

That being said, I think it is going to be near impossible to Greenlight yourself without a proper page which, if you have, you didn't link to.

Also, even after watching the first minute of the HOPE video and reading the first paragraph, I still really have no idea what the game is about. Building a community? Role Playing?

All of that to say, please flesh out your post and tell us why we would like the game. Base-building + sims is a good genre, but it is all kinds of easy to make it lame.

[miauw62]

Also, it seems as if you're planning to make this an MMO: what is the planned bussiness model? Looks nice tough.

[ank]

Be aware that most of the feedback from this forum will be optimizing the game for drowning elves in magma.

[zoombapup]

Nah man, Bay12 sounds like what you want. This looks interesting. What level of violence (as in, hunting, combat against sapients, etc) are you considering? Will butchering animals for skins be possible? What sort of tech level?

Right now I'm trying to make it non-combat based. My reasoning is that once you give players (epecially first person players) a tool, they'll use it on everything. Which is fine for tools that construct, but starts to get a bit lame for weapons. Basically everything turns into combat and you lose the focus of "building a home".

That's not to say that I'm averse to combat per-se though. Obviously it makes sense in a macro-economic sense for there to be resources that people fight over. I just want to ease into it if that makes any sense?

[zoombapup]

It is generally "best practice" to establish yourself a bit before advertising. People frown on it in varying degrees, but no one is going to hate you forever before showing up.

That being said, I think it is going to be near impossible to Greenlight yourself without a proper page which, if you have, you didn't link to.

Also, even after watching the first minute of the HOPE video and reading the first paragraph, I still really have no idea what the game is about. Building a community? Role Playing?

All of that to say, please flesh out your post and tell us why we would like the game. Base-building + sims is a good genre, but it is all kinds of easy to make it lame.

The greenlight thing is a bit of a red herring really, in that its a "concept" rather than a greenlight where I'm asking for acceptance on steam. I started the greenlight concept because thats what valve put up specifically so people can form a community. To be honest it's been kind of hit-and-miss. Having people comment on things is useful to guage how well you have presented a concept, but I get the feeling that people who look at greenlight are only interested in "where can I buy?" kind of questions.

Regarding the game, the thing I'm going for is essentially an alternate world. I've always thought that games have this potential for making people feel like they are in another place, but seldom do because they tend to pander to the requirements of "making a game" rather than "making a world". So when I say I'm trying to build an RPG I mean "roleplaying game" in the sense of actually letting you experience another world and letting you roleplay within it.

I'm an AI guy as background, so I'm really trying to push the limits of AI "characters" in the game. I've kind of gone about it a bit strangely in that I've been focussing on the world-build aspects so far. But thats because I'm more comfortable with AI so its not a huge problem for development.

The thing I'm trying to make, is essentially a small virtual community that you can use these fantastic tools (like gravity guns etc) to develop. You'll live on the rig and help build it. You'll live on the rig and socialize with its inhabitants. You'll live on the rig and grow a trade network with other rigs to earn money and gather information.

My inspiration is more a feeling of what I want to create, rather than a specific set of mechanics. I want you to feel part of this small community. I want you to care about others in that community, to want to develop it for their sake. I am inspired by the likes of Jos Whedon's firefly in that I always get the sense that those characters really do care for each other and look out for each other. I want you as a player to experience that feeling in a game.

Thats my goal. But its a long term development thing.  Specific aspects of how the game plays might change. But that is my main goal.

[zoombapup]

Also, it seems as if you're planning to make this an MMO: what is the planned bussiness model? Looks nice tough.

Hmm, interesting. No I'm not planning an MMO, or even doing it as an online game for the first version. Funny you should think I'm trying to make an MMO though, can I ask why you thought that? I might need to correct something.

My initial plans did have a fair bit of asynchronous multiplayer play in, but I realized quite quickly that the infrastructure development for that wasn't worthwhile until I knew how the game would be recieved.

[alexpoysky]

Hey there. First off, best of luck to you on your endeavours. I'm going to speak from personal experience, and from all of the work I have done with devs in the past.

It is generally best to hold off on publicizing your game until you have at least an alpha to show for. The reason is PR strain. A dev will often start out with an awesome idea, and chat up a large forum, and find that a lot of people patronize the idea. Since there is no solid engine or anything to show for, the dev becomes discouraged and starts anew, rinse and repeat until two years have passed and fifteen iterations of a game have been made.

If you want my advice, DO NOT ask for advice until the game is in a presentable state, why? Because that way the criticism you will undoubtedly recieve on it will be based on the game you have provided, and not on a series of ephimeral ideas that are malleable.

I honestly don't mean to discourage you, believe me I am very VERY supportive of devs, but with 0 to go on it's rather easy to get into a kerfuffle on the forums and lose site of the project itself.

Having said that, best of luck!

EDIT- I don't mean for you not to do what you are doing here, mind you. I mean that you shouldn't make huge swooping forum posts on mutliple places asking ANYONE to comment on your work until you are ready (don't want my words misconstrued, what you are doing here is perfectly fine, you aren't asking people to give you ideas or rate your work, just chatting a bit.)

[Gamerlord]

Nah man, Bay12 sounds like what you want. This looks interesting. What level of violence (as in, hunting, combat against sapients, etc) are you considering? Will butchering animals for skins be possible? What sort of tech level?

Right now I'm trying to make it non-combat based. My reasoning is that once you give players (epecially first person players) a tool, they'll use it on everything. Which is fine for tools that construct, but starts to get a bit lame for weapons. Basically everything turns into combat and you lose the focus of "building a home".

That's not to say that I'm averse to combat per-se though. Obviously it makes sense in a macro-economic sense for there to be resources that people fight over. I just want to ease into it if that makes any sense?

Definitely. If there is going to be a NPC economy, will players be able to influence it? For instance, would a player stealing food cause prices to go up?

[miauw62]

Also, it seems as if you're planning to make this an MMO: what is the planned bussiness model? Looks nice tough.

Hmm, interesting. No I'm not planning an MMO, or even doing it as an online game for the first version. Funny you should think I'm trying to make an MMO though, can I ask why you thought that? I might need to correct something.

My initial plans did have a fair bit of asynchronous multiplayer play in, but I realized quite quickly that the infrastructure development for that wasn't worthwhile until I knew how the game would be recieved.

Well, you mentioned trading with other rigs ,building togheter and fighting over resources, so I assumed it was an MMO.

[zoombapup]

Hey there. First off, best of luck to you on your endeavours. I'm going to speak from personal experience, and from all of the work I have done with devs in the past.

It is generally best to hold off on publicizing your game until you have at least an alpha to show for. The reason is PR strain. A dev will often start out with an awesome idea, and chat up a large forum, and find that a lot of people patronize the idea. Since there is no solid engine or anything to show for, the dev becomes discouraged and starts anew, rinse and repeat until two years have passed and fifteen iterations of a game have been made.

If you want my advice, DO NOT ask for advice until the game is in a presentable state, why? Because that way the criticism you will undoubtedly recieve on it will be based on the game you have provided, and not on a series of ephimeral ideas that are malleable.

I honestly don't mean to discourage you, believe me I am very VERY supportive of devs, but with 0 to go on it's rather easy to get into a kerfuffle on the forums and lose site of the project itself.

Having said that, best of luck!

Thanks,

I completely agree with you here. I am really just trying to get a feel for a small community of players who I can turn to with pre-alpha tests for exactly that reason. Right now I've got a bunch of functionality and it feels kind of quirky and I'm aware that I'm becoming immune to how nuts it all is. So I'm really trying to find a small group of mature players who like "that sort of thing" so I can do exactly what you suggest, present an alpha version (or at least a playable of whatever it is I'm asking for opinion on). I'm not trying to promote the game in that sense, or get a following for it so much, but I'm at that point where I need outside feedback.

I'm a lecturer at a university (where I teach game development and design) so I've got access to a good group of local testers for some aspects of usability. But I'm aware that students are likely to try and tell me what they think I want to hear. So I'm trying to find a small group outside of my own network to test builds on.

Plus to be honest, getting people's reactions and seeing that they like the core concept is a little bit of a morale boost. You get sort of target fixation when developing and sometimes its nice to kick back and listen to other people, even if they aren't necessarily informed about what you're trying to achieve.

Thanks for the reply.

[zoombapup]

EDIT- I don't mean for you not to do what you are doing here, mind you. I mean that you shouldn't make huge swooping forum posts on mutliple places asking ANYONE to comment on your work until you are ready (don't want my words misconstrued, what you are doing here is perfectly fine, you aren't asking people to give you ideas or rate your work, just chatting a bit.)

Yeah, I guess I did do a swooping post thing. But only in an effort to find a comfortable place to discuss things. Some places are more or less forthcoming with more or less informed ideas and opinions. I'd found the greenlight concept thing to be lacking in that sense (by the nature of the community there, they are focussed on getting things to play). Reddit was a bit more likely, but when I posted in a few communities on there asking if they were open to the kind of open-discussion I'm after, someone suggested here. Strangely enough indiedb the place I would most expect to gather feedback from was perhaps the least useful

At the very least this place seems to be populated by vocal people and not just spam

[lordcooper]

The concept seems interesting enough, I'll try and watch your videos over the weekend and provide any constructive feedback I'm able to.

Are you in a position where you can give an ETA on an early alpha/prototype release?

[zoombapup]

Well, you mentioned trading with other rigs ,building togheter and fighting over resources, so I assumed it was an MMO.

Ah, gotcha. No, that's all AI based. Eventually I want to develop it out into multiplayer, but that is a really long term goal. You'll not actually see the other rigs in the first release, just be visited by traders from them. Eventually I'll extend things so you can go and visit other rigs yourself. But that will come post-release. Trying to keep the game small and do-able.