[Live Streams] Youtuber questions, possibly modder questions, what about player questions?

Since SE has been in development for some time, many of us have played it for a little while. A little while being an understatement on the level of saying Antarctica is a bit chilly. Checking through my friends list, the hours played in SE are of a level you traditionally see in MMOs. 500 hours is not excessive in SE, it's almost the entry level

Needless to say, many of us are extremely well versed in the game, whether it be Creative, Survival, MP Survival or all varieties...

1000 hours in Survival MP, that's some Andy-Dufresne-crawling-through-shit-at-the-end-of-the-Shawshank-Redemption level dedication right there.

So, maybe Keen could organize a stream with questions asked by some of these veteran players? People with a significant contribution to either the workshop or the forum? I am pretty sure the community would thoroughly appreciate Keen taking the time to talk to some of people that play this game for the sheer joy of playing.

Anyone agree? And would anyone volunteer?

 

Who shall be our ambassadors?

 

I vote for Amidala.

 

Well, I'll do it if people think I'm up to the job, I've got a mic and 76mb internet connection. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I think I've got a pretty good understanding of SE. Assuming I was allowed only four questions, this is what I would ask, repeatedly, until I got a straight answer:

Are you planning to expand the basic block set available in vanilla?
More variation in block types, different sized containers, more ship weapons etc

Are you planning to expand the enemy/NPC types in vanilla?
Expansion of the Pirate and Sabiroid factions and the addition of neutral NPCs. More cyberpunk pirate stuff to fit in with the dog such as cyborg pirate or something, whatever. More Sabiroid variants: explosive spores, winged variants, Queen style bosses etc. Actual traders, bounty hunters, prospectors etc.

Is it possible for you to request some changes to the Steam workshop?
More tags, separation of mods and ships on the front page, automated addition of necessary mods, better integration in game

Do you plan any improvements to the GUI and customization?
BP/World menu tabs, World Templates, more checkbox options, block blacklist, maximum systems per grid etc

I bet some other players could think of a few questions too.

 

We've got an entire forum worth of questions; just open up a thread for new one, let it bake for a week and go down the list during a stream. We don't need to play Lord Of The Flies for that.

 

Are you sure? I thought maybe we could have an in game battle royale with the victor named the "Question Master"

Then I remembered the SE MP experience...

Yea, lets do the thread idea.

 

I actually prefer the Thunderdome approach...
2 Engineers enter...1 Question leaves

Each Engineer fights for their question to be asked

 

Have to admit, as someone who follows only the KSWH forums (no steam forums, no youtubers etc), it does feel a little isolated here. Had always fished there was more feedback available around these parts.

 

We should dogfight it out...with deathcubes.

*runs out of the thread*

On a serious note, I find the popularity of the SE Youtube famous people pretty damn lame. They are far from the ones producing the best creations (in fact most of their showcases are fairly derivative). And from what I've watched of their streams, they aren't that great players.

 

I mean, the state MP is, just build a piston and move the ship, the one who dies from the explosion loses. That's the closest we will get to "random luck".

 

Oh no I mean I want Engineers IRL to fight it out until the victor emerges.....

I wonder how many big talking kids on the forums would magically abstain from the dome

 

I would personally challenge some people here to a honor-bound duel, Klingon style.

 

Same here. I do watch some of the Youtube stuff and a little bit of streaming but ultimately i don't feel represented by people playing modded multiplayer Survival on the youtubes.

 

I would say this without trying to cause offence but how can you say "a lot of the bigger ones tend to just bore the hell out of me and that one with the whiny voice....instant switch off" without sounding a little hostile. Even if they do good work, you cant please everyone, you certainly can't represent them

 

The quote sounds familiar but i can't for the live of me remember if i said that. Certainly sounds like me. You got a link?

 

Erm I said it .....genuinely if thats a quote from something else you got me but I literally just wrote it as thats pretty much how I feel

 

Ah. Sorry, sounded like you were asking me we an old quote of mine in mind.

 

"What must Space Engineers have for you to consider it feature complete?"

Edit: also:
"Once Space Engineers is out of early access, will more mods be incorporated into the base game as was done with the fighter cockpit?"

 

A lot of the things that my poll showed the community wanted. Rails, expanded AI, ability to make our own AI controlled ships, more ai npc's, not all of them hostile (basically an ecosystem on the planets), expanded block selection including cosmetic blocks (as previously stated, a fucking table).

 

I know you want those, but do they?

 

Oh, this is a suggested question you would ask the developers? I think they pretty much stated in the last live-stream that they consider it feature complete as is.

I look at it and see something that has the potential to be a great game, but as is, right now, its completely half-assed.

 

"When will you just pay Digi and Darth Biomech to finish the games content?"

Only partially kidding. There's plenty of high quality mods that Keen could just buy into the game. Now vanilla is more complete, Keen didn't have to do it, and modders got paid.

 

Well... let's say 3/4 half assed. (Threequarter assed?) There's a broad groundwork going on, the problem is mostly with niche cases and details. Oh Molestia, we're lacking details.

The problem with that is that they'd still have to check, doublecheck and recheck the introduced blocks for bugs, they need to be optimized (which even the Keen-blocks need to be) and Keen's working on a complete revamp of how they do blocks right now which the old modded blocks simply wouldn't work with without presumably massive changes. That's the problem with github merges and implementing mods; it's almost as much work as simply doing it by themselfs. Depending on the mod it might even be more work.

 

Yeah that's another thing that troubled me. They are gonna build new models out of 50 base blocks? So ..... seriously? As if ships don't already have that lego look to them, even the individual blocks are gonna be kitbashes of 50 base models?

That's my point. We have the groundwork. And that's it. A foundation upon which NOTHING is built.

 

Not sure I agree with that. Marek mentioned something about ingame resources or some other kind of element that would encourage or require players to congregate (the "hubs" he spoke of). I just want them to say "this is our basic list of core features." For my part, I think SE already has everything that was on my wishlist (albeit unfinished), but Marek at least seems to have more things in mind that just polishing.

True, but: the impression I always got with mods was that Keen looked at them in two ways:

Type the First: Give the players a basic set of toys, and give them the tools they need to tailor those toys into a less generic form based on the desires of a particular player/group of players. "Let the modders finish it" has gotten a lot of hate, but let's compare your build style and mine as an example: we want almost completely different things from the game. You see creative as the main element and survival as a minigame, while I see multiplayer, survival-based faction PvP as the core ideal, with creative as a drafting table. A sandbox game like SE is going to attract players with vastly different playstyles, and beyond a certain point adding things to the game is going to drive players at either extreme away because it narrows the game down. They said a long time ago that the see SE as being inspired by Lego Technic, and I think that's still their idea: they make the basic block sets, then players can add more blocks to the bin.

Type the Second: As was done with Darth Biomech's cockpit, introduce outstandingly popular mods into the game. My expectation was that with a very small number of exceptions, this wouldn't happen until the game was out of Alpha (it's still not, according to the SE website), and out of Beta, and after release.
At that point, the team working on Space Engineers will have a lot more time because they won't be developing new content, and they won't be chasing bugs around with giant boots. Instead of weekly patches, they might spend two weeks on a single block mod (hinges, anyone?) and then introduce that. That's what I've been assuming was their intention anyway, and I hope I end up being right -- hence my question!

I actually thought that sounded brilliant. Right now, conveyors and reactors have completely different conveyor frames, which doesn't make sense, was more work than it needed to be, and is visually dissonant. Besides, the lego look is better than what a lot of modders have ended up doing, which is to make very intricate, skillfully made models ... that look horrible when you put them in a ship because they're all graceful curves, and this game uses blocks. A lot of Sektan's stuff is freakin' gorgeous, but it doesn't blend with the game at all. In the same way, Sage's Industrial Thrusters has to be one of my all-time favorite mods, not least because it looks great -- but it's the same story. It's not blocky enough, and you end up with unsightly gaps everywhere. I was kinda bummed that the atmospheric thrusters ended up being so rounded; again, gaps everywhere. That lego look is never going to go away as long as this game uses voxels. :/

 

I think if they just had two youtubers like @w4stedspace who actually log into the twitch chat and see what the masses are spewing, have them alternate one talking the other monitoring chat for questions then they switch one monitoring asks questions.

 

One other question I personally have is "will we get shader and particle effects?" Can we get heat distortion and clouds of smoke out of hydrogen thrusters on planets, and a sweet trail of embers in space. How about a warp effect that doesn't look like something out of the early 90s. A shader effect that "burned" the surface of blocks as they took damage would go a long way towards making wrecks and hulks look cooler, and combat a bit more viceral. Basically the sort of stuff other games have had since Homeworld came out for the first time.

My main fear with SE is that for all the technological prowess Keen has shown in building this worldspace, I'm not sure if they realize how many simple little details it's missing.

 

Marek actually mentioned decals for things like bullet holes and other damage, and he already got the window texture changed. Not sure how I feel about the new texture, but I think you don't need to worry about that.

 

Youtuber question are like, popular and casual stuff, like more cats and fuzzy dice ¬¬
Player question is just netcode and compound blocks ¬¬
Modders questions are going to be too technical, most people just wont understand a word of what are they talking about
Creative questions, moaaar blocks!!!

 

I just want proper ship letters is that so wrong ;_;