Limited Sandbox Discussion

Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
11
#41
Again, I don't see how you can justify creating what is just hassle for the sake of giving everyone else a few extra ships to watch. There are going to be hundreds of ships floating around the different stations, probably more than people will want around considering how fast there are going to be derelicts from people who give up the game. Asteroid testing is something that has absolutely no effect on the rest of the community, besides seeing ships flying out and in 12 times as they work to adjust the mining system. People working to design a better carrier or automated factory are going to provide minimal "player interaction" as well. Most likely scenario they'll build a fighter ship themselves rather than have another player wait for them to keep rebuilding their carrier system. Automated factories are going to be built in secrecy and require a lot of testing that will basically just be hassle since you'll have to keep scrapping the poorly made products and going back to feed the factory raw resources over and over. None of these things benefit the community enough to warrant the design process being straight up annoying.
 
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
9
#42
That's just his greed showing. Vexus is known for trolling starter zones to boost his streaming, and he'd rather catch you unprepared than face someone familiar with their own ship.
 

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
276
#43
Again, I don't see how you can justify creating what is just hassle for the sake of giving everyone else a few extra ships to watch.
I've tried pointing it out many, many times. As an MMO, this kind of 'hassle' is part of the equation on how these games succeed. Look at the top 10 MMOs out there and find one that has an offline mode and report back. For many, it's a hassle to have to level up to the next max-level in the next WoW expansion, but it exists, and is part of the experience. Nothing more I can say to you about that.

Vexus is known for trolling starter zones to boost his streaming, and he'd rather catch you unprepared than face someone familiar with their own ship.
I don't know you, and I don't know where you got this misinformation, but it is wrong information. Starbase will also have massive starter safe zones - if you do the math regarding the size of the sphere/ellipse that will make up these safe zones in Starbase, there is no way anyone could camp the 'starter areas' in Starbase anyway. It's extremely impractical. I have praised the devs' decision to have these large safe zones, and have suggested they be so big that people can exist in them permanently if they so wish - much like EVE high-security zones where players who want to experience the game without any combat can do so. No MMO should force players to exist without a safe zone; even streamers need time to chill without watching their back all the time, and any MMO that doesn't have safe zones gets capitalized on by PvPers who go about explaining to the devs "this is what happens when you don't have safe zones" and... well... some devs listen, others don't.
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
11
#44
You're comparing apples and oranges with Starbase and WoW, I don't know of any MMO that has you building custom designs to the extent that Starbase does. A better comparison would be to look at the various building games out there. Out of the dozens (maybe 100s) of games out there with an emphasis on designing and assembling your own creations; the vast majority, if not all, have some sort of sandbox mode, even if the core gameplay loop involves you collecting resources and assembling those creations in the campaign/survival mode.
 

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
276
#45
look at the various building games out there
None of them have aspired to become an MMO serving tens of thousands of players in a single game universe. I understand your perspective. I hope you can see Starbase is trying to be different than those server-based games, and must adhere to certain fundamentals of game design when it comes to creating an MMO that ensures the success of the title for more than just a year or two, but instead ensures success for a decade or more.
 

Atreties

Veteran endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
110
#46
I find it extremely telling that the OP was unaware of the ship designer, and so was asking for a "limited sand box" with the functionality limited to what's already planned for the ship designer.

Then, when he learns about the designer, he then asks for all the functionality that would have existed in a full offline sandbox mode even tho he agrees in the OP that it's "problematic".

Reason? "Time and convenience benefit"... "I dont wanna waste my time playing the game".

Yeah, dude. That's the whole point. You hit the nail on the head. It would be a huge time and convenience benefit... for EVERYONE. That means everyone would want to use it heavily to give themselves huge advantage. And that advantage is gained by not playing the game. Remember how you stated yourself that there were "problematic" aspects to a full sandbox mode?

What you asked for in the OP is being made. Eventually, they are likely to add bells and whistles to it like asteroids, targets to shoot at, etc.

Your questions were answered at length, the thing you requested is happening. Why are we still here?
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
11
#47
We're still here because we don't actually know how powerful the ship tester built into the editor will be. I'm trying to make the case that it should be a little more useful than being able to check basic SI.
As for it giving an advantage, by definition if everyone has the same thing, it's not an advantage.
 
Joined
Nov 12, 2019
Messages
576
#48
I'd like to steer back to the topic of sandbox mode. The in-game ship designer already allows you to build ships and test their flight and structural integrity. It would be nice if they also included a clay pigeon of sorts to shoot at, or a dummy asteroid to test mining lasers on. I think most people would be satisfied with at least that.

Are people not able to build these things?

The overall point the people who want sandbox is that they want to know how everything works with no risk, and that's just plain unacceptable in a PvP game. You want to know how well your system will work? Build it. You want to test fire a new YOLOL program? Make it. It's an MMO, not SE. It has to work for thousands, not just you. And we shouldn't be a disadvantage because you spent hours in a single player sandbox learning how to cheese systems and completely missing the point of an MMO.

General you here. Not pointing fingers at a particular person.

My point? You want it, you build it, and test it in the game world. The spaceship creator allows you to know what you need to about a ships performance, and speeds building up to a ridiculous level from what is described. You gather the materials and then wait on a timer for a factory to spit it out. I know, so horrible! Waiting! In an MMO! Its not like there's a community or anything to interact with!
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
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#49
And we shouldn't be a disadvantage because you spent hours in a single player sandbox learning how to cheese systems and completely missing the point of an MMO.
AGAIN, by definition if everyone has something it's not an advantage. As for trying to remove risk, there is no risk to be had ship testing in a game where there are safe zones covering 100s of square kilometers.
When it comes to community interaction, presumably for most of ship testing, we wouldn't bother interacting with the community, as we would be occupied building and testing ships over and over. In fact, since the design/building process for most ships will generally be solo projects, speeding up ship design time could conceivably increase the total amount of community interaction that occurs.
 

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
276
#50
AGAIN, by definition if everyone has something it's not an advantage.
This is a very simplistic way to look at it. A large group which can have dozens of people offline testing has a time advantage due to internal information sharing that a small group cannot compete with. Solo and small group players take much longer to get the same information. This is the same in the live game world, of course, but while the solo and small group play the game, the large group can field people offline testing as well as playing the game, sharing that information. At the very least, if all those players are instead playing and testing in the live game environment, they are still subject to the same time constraints as everyone else, and are subject to the same economy. If the large group wants 100,000kv worth of material to test - because they have so many people testing - they don't get that for free. They have to go out and get it, or buy it from other players. They're part of the game as a whole. All their actions still impact all the other players.

since the design/building process for most ships will generally be solo projects
The scope of the game is much bigger than you are considering. Imagine entire sections of player stations for manufacturing all the parts and components for the ships. Imagine the assembly lines and robot arms putting these ships together. And the logistics and effort behind it all. The design will have to be agreed upon by everyone involved as to which one they want to mass produce. You're thinking in terms suited for a small, server-based game. Not an MMO with conquest being a main driver for large groups to proliferate.

I find it odd that so many people think ship building is going to be the selling point for the game. It will not be. If you want to build ships, you are an extreme minority of the gaming population. There's a larger, but still small, population of players who will even want to fly those ships. Where most players will just want to run around and FPS shoot at enemies. The easiest game mode will be the most popular (and is the most popular) - FPS combat. You can confirm this through the current gaming market. Find any other game which allows you to build a space ship, and see how popular it is. There are very few games which have succeeded in this regard.

I urge you to look at the bigger picture, where the time and effort you spend in game to make a good ship will be rewarded by the vast amount of other players who do not want to build ships who will then buy your ship, because it appeals to them. If they can all dip offline to design their own ship easily, then they have no need for your services in game, and you have no need to try out different materials and parts by purchasing those from the market - materials and parts other players want to sell. Try to consider the broader economy and reliance on other players that comes from keeping it all in the live game world.

speeding up ship design time could conceivably increase the total amount of community interaction that occurs.
If you can provide an example of this, please explain. I do not see a speedy ship design time increasing community interaction being the case in any situation.

For example, if you eliminate all the need for material testing, material loss through trial and error, fuel consumption and thus fuel purchasing from the market, a random passerby who sees your design, asteroid mining - and the lack of an asteroid being there the next time someone passes that area, so on and so forth, there are thousands of interlinked actions by players which come together to form an MMO experience. If instead, all that is gutted, because you've perfected the design offline, and only require the perfect materials for your ship, and never spend fuel from the live game to flight test and so on, there's no way this somehow increases interaction. Keep in mind, ship building is going to be one of the least exciting things for people to do in the game. You only hear a lot about ship building in these currently hollow forums because people who are excited about it have little other games to satisfy their urge, where all the FPS gamers who will enjoy Starbase have a dozen different games to satisfy their time right now and cannot be bothered to pay attention to another FPS shooter with 20 different weapons (Starbase) yet, until it becomes a reality. You don't hear from that crowd much, but they are a much bigger crowd.

The asteroid example came as a quick thought; I'd like to expand on it. The asteroid you mine out, that used to be there, in a weird way impacts every other player who passes through where that asteroid used to be. Because you mined it, it is no longer there, and as such, you've had a permanent impact on the game world and upon thousands of players' game experience. Just by that object not being there any more. And that doesn't take into account how those materials might hit the market, be purchased by someone or many someones; some using that material to make weapons, which make their way into a large faction war, others using that material to make a YOLOL chip to program on, and others using that material to put together an engine for their next ship design. In no way is being offline creating more interaction than that.

With that, I'll leave the thread. Good chat.
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
11
#51
This is a very simplistic way to look at it. A large group which can have dozens of people offline testing has a time advantage due to internal information sharing that a small group cannot compete with. Solo and small group players take much longer to get the same information. This is the same in the live game world, of course, but while the solo and small group play the game, the large group can field people offline testing as well as playing the game, sharing that information. At the very least, if all those players are instead playing and testing in the live game environment, they are still subject to the same time constraints as everyone else, and are subject to the same economy. If the large group wants 100,000kv worth of material to test - because they have so many people testing - they don't get that for free. They have to go out and get it, or buy it from other players. They're part of the game as a whole. All their actions still impact all the other players.
One of my starting points was that smaller groups would have a disadvantage without a sandbox mode due to large groups having the time and resources to develop ships. I don't think the advantages you have listed are nearly as significant as the disadvantage faced by the smaller groups in a sandbox-less world. And as far as I can tell, the advantages you say a large group would have with a sandbox mode are just as present really in a game without a sandbox mode.

I find it odd that so many people think ship building is going to be the selling point for the game. It will not be. If you want to build ships, you are an extreme minority of the gaming population......
.....I urge you to look at the bigger picture, where the time and effort you spend in game to make a good ship will be rewarded by the vast amount of other players who do not want to build ships who will then buy your ship, because it appeals to them. If they can all dip offline to design their own ship easily, then they have no need for your services in game, and you have no need to try out different materials and parts by purchasing those from the market - materials and parts other players want to sell. Try to consider the broader economy and reliance on other players that comes from keeping it all in the live game world.
The people who won't want to design a ship and just want to buy someone's else's are not going to massively bail on the services of ship designers because ship design is marginally cheaper and easier with the addition of sandbox mode. The vast majority of ship design will be regarded as tedious by those people, whether there's a sandbox mode or not. As for your assessment that the vast majority of Starbase players aren't going to be of an engineering mindset; I 100% disagree with that, the game is too heavily focused on ship engineering for that to be the case. Even the players who only plan on being part of the FPS combat are going to have to pick up some engineering know how so they can effectively board and disable enemy ships.





The asteroid example came as a quick thought; I'd like to expand on it. The asteroid you mine out, that used to be there, in a weird way impacts every other player who passes through where that asteroid used to be. Because you mined it, it is no longer there, and as such, you've had a permanent impact on the game world and upon thousands of players' game experience. Just by that object not being there any more. And that doesn't take into account how those materials might hit the market, be purchased by someone or many someones; some using that material to make weapons, which make their way into a large faction war, others using that material to make a YOLOL chip to program on, and others using that material to put together an engine for their next ship design. In no way is being offline creating more interaction than that.
There are 950 trillion asteroids in the game. You accidentally blocking a player trying to walk past you on a station has 100x more impact on the rest of the player base than the removal of an asteroid from the game.

As for sandbox increasing community interaction, I'll admit it's not really the case, my point was that the loss of community interaction from sandbox mode is going to be so small as to be irrelevant. And if it really does wind up being the case that most players won't be designing ships, the loss of interaction will be smaller yet.
 
Joined
Jan 27, 2020
Messages
38
#52
这个问题的根本矛盾在于,游戏的拟真度和娱乐性的问题。一些玩家追求专业,一些玩家追求娱乐。我认为可以采取科研耗费资源减半的模式来进行科学研究。
游戏需要兼顾专业与娱乐,站在我的立场我希望的是尽可能拟真,但是也需要考虑到其他玩家的感受。我不介意通过一些调整让游戏同时满足两种玩家的需求。

The fundamental contradiction of this problem lies in the fidelity and entertainment of the game. Some players pursue professionalism, and some players pursue entertainment. I think that scientific research can be carried out in a mode in which scientific research consumes resources in half.
The game needs to take into account both professionalism and entertainment. From my standpoint, I want to be as realistic as possible, but also need to consider the feelings of other players. I don't mind making some adjustments to make the game meet the needs of both players at the same time.
 

Meetbolio

Veteran endo
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
Messages
222
#53
A sandbox that would remove or reduce the costs of research and testing of prototypes of new ships and ideas would inherently remove any and all incentive to fly anything except a finished and polished version of a ship in the universe. There should not be a way to enter a universe and physically interact with objects in any way except through the main MMO universe. If there's a way to test a new idea for a ship without paying for it, is there a single reason you would do so in the universe? No. This would result in the MMO universe being simply refined and polished ship designs. I think that everyone wants to see people searching for materials in a half-assed ship because they underestimated the cost of a ship, or people thinking off-plan of what else they can put on their ship with the excess materials they have.
 

SubtleSloth

Well-known endo
Joined
Feb 5, 2020
Messages
54
#54
A sandbox that would remove or reduce the costs of research and testing of prototypes of new ships and ideas would inherently remove any and all incentive to fly anything except a finished and polished version of a ship in the universe. There should not be a way to enter a universe and physically interact with objects in any way except through the main MMO universe. If there's a way to test a new idea for a ship without paying for it, is there a single reason you would do so in the universe? No. This would result in the MMO universe being simply refined and polished ship designs. I think that everyone wants to see people searching for materials in a half-assed ship because they underestimated the cost of a ship, or people thinking off-plan of what else they can put on their ship with the excess materials they have.
I can’t agree more with this bud. The main reason I want to play this game so badly is because I find the whole starting from scratch and improvising in a pinch idea super fun. That said, the SSC will be implemented in game, but we don’t know all of the features it will give us, and honestly, even if the SSC allows us to shoot at things and mine and use all of the other space ship features, there is no practice like actually experiencing the feel of battle, or actually mining or whatever else the ship will be used for. There is a lot of unforeseen things that happen while actually performing the task for which you build your ship that you just won’t get out of the SSC, no matter how many rocks you mine, or clay pigeons you shoot at, you will never completely understand how your ship will perform in the heat of the moment (especially in a battle situation). While the SSC isn’t a full on sandbox version of the game, I think it’s a decent compromise between the two arguments in this thread.
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2020
Messages
11
#55
A sandbox that would remove or reduce the costs of research and testing of prototypes of new ships and ideas would inherently remove any and all incentive to fly anything except a finished and polished version of a ship in the universe. There should not be a way to enter a universe and physically interact with objects in any way except through the main MMO universe. If there's a way to test a new idea for a ship without paying for it, is there a single reason you would do so in the universe? No. This would result in the MMO universe being simply refined and polished ship designs. I think that everyone wants to see people searching for materials in a half-assed ship because they underestimated the cost of a ship, or people thinking off-plan of what else they can put on their ship with the excess materials they have.
There's already a ship editor in Starbase. Said ship editor also allows for (currently) extremely limited testing, so there wouldn't be any completely broken or limping ship designs in the main universe. No one would be underestimating the cost of their ships regardless since every part has a set cost.
As I said earlier in this thread, I don't see the reasoning behind making ship design (a very time intensive process sandbox or not) considerably more time consuming for the sake of increasing every one else's "immersion" by a small amount. While theoretically the MMO economy would suffer some loss due to testing being made cheaper, the actual cost would trend to zero as minimal testing will occur on a scale that would require wide scale rebuilding; most tests would involve parts being moved around the ship, not replaced or removed. Those parts that are replaced or removed would almost certainly be recycled.
The kind of testing a limited sandbox would remove from the game world would be the kind that would involve little interaction with the community at large. Combat testing for example would not be removed from the main universe.
 

Meetbolio

Veteran endo
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
Messages
222
#56
The ship editor in Starbase should allow you to edit your ship (It's called a ship editor for a reason), but not test it. When I say underestimation I mean that someone decides to build a ship but doesn't know what parts they're going to use, therefore when they're actually building the ship in the ship editor they realize they won't be able to fill in, for example, the whole plating of the ship or something like that. The MMO economy wouldn't suffer some loss, it would suffer a HUGE OOF. Why? Because people won't be building prototypes, which means they won't be requiring resources to test their new ideas, which creates MUCH less demand for minerals, which makes mining a MUCH less valuable job, as every person only needs so much material to build their "NoobDestroyerBoom v26".
When I say that testing would be remove from the universe, I mean that ALL testing will be gone, except maybe combat effectiveness, but that can be tested solo to some extent.
There's many tests to do when building a ship;
Try if the thrusters are pushing a ship straight and not in a loop,
Check structural integrity,
Check the wiring and if all systems are working,
Try the max speed of built ship,
And many others that my brain is too lazy to think up of.
Everyone wants to see people performing these tests in the universe.

As a bonus point, rapid research and development of effecient ships in the sandbox mode would make the MMO stale and boring quickly.
 

Otac

Well-known endo
Joined
Feb 25, 2020
Messages
60
#57
That's hardly a fair position to take. Being able to take input and constructive criticism and then apply it to your work is an indicator of an open mind, not a lack of vision.
i agree u
that is a good way to make this game be better.by this way we can get the game what we want.
 
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