Concerns with Single Player
- Thread starter YakkoForever
- Start date
Gonna go and throw my hat in the ring with the folks that want it removed completely. Initially I was on board with the inclusion of a disconnected area for ship design and all that, but I hadn't considered the ramifications of removing that research & development aspect from the MMO world. Personally, having the 'offline' area available means I'm always going to feel obligated to take my ship, station, or other contraption there in order to run tests before bringing it to the online world, no matter how small the change is. Having players wink in and out of existence like that (as building things is very central to this game) I think could make it feel less like a living and breathing world, and more like a showcase world where there is no room for less-than-perfect designs - something the build servers from Garry's Mod suffered from greatly, in my opinion. Space Engineers in particular suffered from having both a prohibitively expensive survival design process coupled with an unlimited creative mode, to the point that it felt like a waste of time to design anything in survival without first 'trying it out' in creative.
Another important argument I feel is the economy of the thing. Offline editors do promote more advanced and technical builds, but completely eliminate the investment of ship building in two distinct ways: material cost, and 'jobs lost'. While ships designed in the offline editor will still need to be purchased and/or built in the online world, the economy loses the stimulus of research and development not only in the way of materials, but also in the need for teams of people contributing to the work, whether they be engineers or just endos with build tools. With the offline designer, no faction (and certainly no individual) will want to spend their credits on prototyping and design when they know they can hammer away at it in the offline editor. This means that not only are players not purchasing or mining for materials as often - and even in the end it would be lesser, as they'd have an exact materials list required - but also that there are ship builders whose hard work is less valued than it perhaps ought to be. I won't argue in favor of creating an 'elite caste' of ship builders, but it would seem to me that, as an individual player without a faction, I shouldn't be at all inclined to purchase a player-designed ship when I have the ability to infinitely prototype something to the point of having duplicated another design. Even if it means having to spend a little while with the build-tool filling it in, I save a fair chunk of change by bypassing the fee of assembly and design, and do so entirely by.. not (really) playing the game?
The 'immersion' is something I feel less comfortable arguing, as certainly there are many that don't particularly care for it. That being said, 'error' is a 50-50 partner in 'trial and error', and I think it brings value to the MMO world as a whole. Errors don't necessarily have to be punishing in Starbase, as safezones disable most damage; but the trial of building a thing in a public or semi-public space lends itself well to building an engaged and positive community, within and without factions. Clever builders can share tips in-person (in-endo?) to others, who then pass them on, and so on. New builders are introduced to all the aspects of ship building - weaponry, armor, thrusters, passive systems - but are also presented with the balance of each system, and learn to weigh the pros and cons of them against each other: eg rail cannons might be prohibitively expensive, and foregoing them can net you tougher armor, but heavy armor will weigh your ship down. This kind of feedback loop is readily apparent to experienced builders and players, but someone new to the genre may be completely unfamiliar - and with a fully free-form editor, the sorts of imperfections that come with the learning curve will hardly be tolerable.
Certainly, having an offline playground has its boons: players with spotty internet may still be able to play at least part of the game; some players may find the engineering aspect daunting without it; testing can be done ad nauseam; exciting and wild builds can be constructed; and so on and so forth.. but with the exception of the first, these are all things that can be done in the online world without being drastically detracted from, while also contributing to the overall experience of all players. Without a free-form editor, ship building becomes a more iterative experience where individual designs are encouraged and allowed to proliferate (in the form of the ship market); whereas with the offline option, I think we'll see much more of the 'min-max' type builds that, while providing instant feedback and experimentation, may stifle creativity in the end - even if both options end up having 'meta build' features.
But I do see value in having some form of a ship editor. I think, as long as ship-building is not prohibitively difficult or extraordinarily expensive, Starbase will benefit from a limited ship editor presented in much the same way as the station editor: a static blueprint inside the online world that players can configure to their liking, without actually allowing it to be interacted with or tested with before it's constructed. In this way, players can lay out and/or share their concepts, come to a consensus, and gain valuable feedback without losing the 'thrill of discovery' as it were.
anyways thanks for coming to my TED talk
Another important argument I feel is the economy of the thing. Offline editors do promote more advanced and technical builds, but completely eliminate the investment of ship building in two distinct ways: material cost, and 'jobs lost'. While ships designed in the offline editor will still need to be purchased and/or built in the online world, the economy loses the stimulus of research and development not only in the way of materials, but also in the need for teams of people contributing to the work, whether they be engineers or just endos with build tools. With the offline designer, no faction (and certainly no individual) will want to spend their credits on prototyping and design when they know they can hammer away at it in the offline editor. This means that not only are players not purchasing or mining for materials as often - and even in the end it would be lesser, as they'd have an exact materials list required - but also that there are ship builders whose hard work is less valued than it perhaps ought to be. I won't argue in favor of creating an 'elite caste' of ship builders, but it would seem to me that, as an individual player without a faction, I shouldn't be at all inclined to purchase a player-designed ship when I have the ability to infinitely prototype something to the point of having duplicated another design. Even if it means having to spend a little while with the build-tool filling it in, I save a fair chunk of change by bypassing the fee of assembly and design, and do so entirely by.. not (really) playing the game?
The 'immersion' is something I feel less comfortable arguing, as certainly there are many that don't particularly care for it. That being said, 'error' is a 50-50 partner in 'trial and error', and I think it brings value to the MMO world as a whole. Errors don't necessarily have to be punishing in Starbase, as safezones disable most damage; but the trial of building a thing in a public or semi-public space lends itself well to building an engaged and positive community, within and without factions. Clever builders can share tips in-person (in-endo?) to others, who then pass them on, and so on. New builders are introduced to all the aspects of ship building - weaponry, armor, thrusters, passive systems - but are also presented with the balance of each system, and learn to weigh the pros and cons of them against each other: eg rail cannons might be prohibitively expensive, and foregoing them can net you tougher armor, but heavy armor will weigh your ship down. This kind of feedback loop is readily apparent to experienced builders and players, but someone new to the genre may be completely unfamiliar - and with a fully free-form editor, the sorts of imperfections that come with the learning curve will hardly be tolerable.
Certainly, having an offline playground has its boons: players with spotty internet may still be able to play at least part of the game; some players may find the engineering aspect daunting without it; testing can be done ad nauseam; exciting and wild builds can be constructed; and so on and so forth.. but with the exception of the first, these are all things that can be done in the online world without being drastically detracted from, while also contributing to the overall experience of all players. Without a free-form editor, ship building becomes a more iterative experience where individual designs are encouraged and allowed to proliferate (in the form of the ship market); whereas with the offline option, I think we'll see much more of the 'min-max' type builds that, while providing instant feedback and experimentation, may stifle creativity in the end - even if both options end up having 'meta build' features.
But I do see value in having some form of a ship editor. I think, as long as ship-building is not prohibitively difficult or extraordinarily expensive, Starbase will benefit from a limited ship editor presented in much the same way as the station editor: a static blueprint inside the online world that players can configure to their liking, without actually allowing it to be interacted with or tested with before it's constructed. In this way, players can lay out and/or share their concepts, come to a consensus, and gain valuable feedback without losing the 'thrill of discovery' as it were.
anyways thanks for coming to my TED talk
well, we dont have singleplayer, and we have a update on the sandbox mode from LauriFB: I honestly didn't have thought of anything how sandbox and mmo would affect each other, so that was kind of overlook/mishap from me and now when we haven't actually done the sandbox it makes sense to re-think the priorities. the most logical thing is to delay sandbox and see how that goes. we can decide it's faith after we see what happens
Recent quotes from Discord, to cast some light on the topic:
VilleFB
"I think the ship editor allows some tests. But RnD by it nature is going to cost something right?"
ArtturiFBW
"There's currently no planned way to save a physical ship as a blueprint, in part because that would make it too trivial to reverse-engineer existing ships."
Which tells us:
They want players to mostly use ship designer for planning. Not physically. (IMO good)
Current idea is to allow testing in ship designer. (good)
From older quotes it seems that for now ship designer is accessed from in-game world (via station module). (good)
So IMO they're going the right direction, making designer more accessible and streamlined, rather than tedious and grindy.
We don't know how expensive or limited designer is. Do we have to own items before being able to use them in the designer?
VilleFB
"I think the ship editor allows some tests. But RnD by it nature is going to cost something right?"
ArtturiFBW
"There's currently no planned way to save a physical ship as a blueprint, in part because that would make it too trivial to reverse-engineer existing ships."
Which tells us:
They want players to mostly use ship designer for planning. Not physically. (IMO good)
Current idea is to allow testing in ship designer. (good)
From older quotes it seems that for now ship designer is accessed from in-game world (via station module). (good)
So IMO they're going the right direction, making designer more accessible and streamlined, rather than tedious and grindy.
We don't know how expensive or limited designer is. Do we have to own items before being able to use them in the designer?
I believe this week (or the last?) was described by Lauri as a push in regards to the potential of ship editor tools, but also clarified: '..current editor has test mode for dev purposes, but we haven't decided how testing works in the final,' and, '..I don't see this or anything else plain black and white, so there might be fair middle ground .. but we'll see. I'm going to tread carefully, so it's not full tools offline right away, as those can't be taken away once introduced.'
Otherwise, it does seem to be in-game tool, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
Otherwise, it does seem to be in-game tool, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
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After what happened with Worlds Adrift I'd much prefer a good singleplayer/hosted multiplayer option be available. I'd also much prefer to design my ships in a sandbox environment and transfer the blueprints to the MMO, as when I'm designing things I don't want to deal with the stress of other people. I don't mind though if the singleplayer world is a different world, as if exploration will be a major aspect of this game then I do agree that it's best experienced on the MMO world. But, I'd still like to be able to have a private exploration experience in singleplayer/hosted multiplayer. The main reason for that is because of Worlds Adrift shitting down; if I put money in this game I want to play it even if for some reason the studio behind it decides to pull the plug at some point in the future. I don't actually have much intention of playing the singleplayer (except for ship building/designing), though hosted multiplayer would be of interest (but me and my friends loved the anarchic PvP in Worlds Adrift, it added a lot, so it's highly probable we would only play the MMO world, as it's just more interesting).
Ultimately though, if it's done right I won't mind designing ships in the MMO world. Just, as long as resources aren't hard to come by or a pain to harvest. And, most importantly, a way to save my ship designs so when they get destroyed I can rebuild/tweak them easily. Worlds Adrift did a lot wrong with respect to this; when you got reset naturally you lost everything, so all those materials you harvested that would go to a new ship are gone. And, upon being reset, you'd also then be stranded on an island. If you were lucky it was a big island with a lot of resources and no other players. But even on that big island with no other players, it still took hours to build a small ship with decent parts. If building and losing ships are gonna be a big part of this game harvesting those resources is gonna have to go by fairly quickly for a solo player. I don't mean capital ship level of resources, but a good solo player ship's level of resources should be achievable in less than half an hour as far as I'm concerned (cuz it was an awful experience in Worlds Adrift when it took me 2 hours to gather resources and then another ship parks in my shipyard bubble to start blowing everything up). Of course, obviously, a capital ship would then still be doable solo if you're willing to put in the time (and that's just fine; the main thing is, it shouldn't take unreasonably long to get established unless we have a way of creating insurance for ourselves, on account of getting reset requires we then get established again (though I imagine bases will act like that to some level, but I also imagine base discovery will be very common and thus you'll likely lose that insurance while out and exploring, or while protecting it)).
EDIT:
After watching the video on stations, I don't really have an issue with having to build my ship in the MMO world. Since safe zones exist I think it'd be just fine. Though, I would still prefer a nice ship editor I could use to make it easier to put together a ship (those bolts look like they'll be a bit of a pain for complex builds, though perhaps I won't mind once I've tried it).
Still want a singleplayer option though with the ability to host my own server just in case the game ever disappears at some point in the future (Worlds Adrift left a bad taste in my mouth). But it's of lesser priority.
Ultimately though, if it's done right I won't mind designing ships in the MMO world. Just, as long as resources aren't hard to come by or a pain to harvest. And, most importantly, a way to save my ship designs so when they get destroyed I can rebuild/tweak them easily. Worlds Adrift did a lot wrong with respect to this; when you got reset naturally you lost everything, so all those materials you harvested that would go to a new ship are gone. And, upon being reset, you'd also then be stranded on an island. If you were lucky it was a big island with a lot of resources and no other players. But even on that big island with no other players, it still took hours to build a small ship with decent parts. If building and losing ships are gonna be a big part of this game harvesting those resources is gonna have to go by fairly quickly for a solo player. I don't mean capital ship level of resources, but a good solo player ship's level of resources should be achievable in less than half an hour as far as I'm concerned (cuz it was an awful experience in Worlds Adrift when it took me 2 hours to gather resources and then another ship parks in my shipyard bubble to start blowing everything up). Of course, obviously, a capital ship would then still be doable solo if you're willing to put in the time (and that's just fine; the main thing is, it shouldn't take unreasonably long to get established unless we have a way of creating insurance for ourselves, on account of getting reset requires we then get established again (though I imagine bases will act like that to some level, but I also imagine base discovery will be very common and thus you'll likely lose that insurance while out and exploring, or while protecting it)).
EDIT:
After watching the video on stations, I don't really have an issue with having to build my ship in the MMO world. Since safe zones exist I think it'd be just fine. Though, I would still prefer a nice ship editor I could use to make it easier to put together a ship (those bolts look like they'll be a bit of a pain for complex builds, though perhaps I won't mind once I've tried it).
Still want a singleplayer option though with the ability to host my own server just in case the game ever disappears at some point in the future (Worlds Adrift left a bad taste in my mouth). But it's of lesser priority.
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Worlds Adrift was a sad scenario of overrun costs, bureaucracy, and a low player count. Hopefully, since Starbase is entirely in-house, they'll be able to avoid those sorts of issues. That being said, I vaguely remember (so, don't quote me on it, and I could be entirely wrong) Lauri saying they'd be open to releasing a player-hosted solution if a day comes where they're no longer able to support the game.
As to the ship editor, it seems there's an in-world blueprint editor that should suit your needs. Not sure if there's any design testing aspects of it, but who knows.
As to the ship editor, it seems there's an in-world blueprint editor that should suit your needs. Not sure if there's any design testing aspects of it, but who knows.
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- Oct 14, 2019
- Messages
- 7
The addition of a separate single player game mode is nice for members of the community that have been traumatized by past experiences involving toxic player-bases. but I have concerns about its effect on the primary online game.
Single player dilutes the player base which is a critical part of any MMO.
One element that I feel is critical to bring to this discussion is 'cheats' specifically in a single player environment. These cheats will allow people in single player to run way ahead of the multiplayer environment. for example when the moon is added the first people their will not be the multiplayer alliance that though great strife made it. No, instead the first people there will be single players who teleported there using hacks or built a super fast ship and just spawned in fuel. Or even without cheats the single player might get there first because there is no threat to them as they prepare for the journey. People will complain about this saying who gets there first does not matter because their game world is separate from mine but to that comment I say youtube. if the fastest way to experience the new content is single player there will be a detailed exploration of the moon posted to youtube before the Multiplayer people get there.
Further, with the physics and persistence of the game world, single player really hurts the history of the game. The first person on the moon should leave a wreck or at least the remains of their passage that players can follow.
On a different note, if in single player there is a way to cheat such as duping, spawning in ship, or spawning in resource it will be essentially the mandatory R&D zone. Every R&D group will be building ships there and test them there due to the infinite resources. Then once the ship will get ported to the main game. this kinda takes away the fun of having a R&D department hidden in a corner of space trying things. it also leave a history of testing and experiments gone wrong in the game world where anyone can stumble into it. Remember that gamers will optimize the fun out of a game, and yes this is a well studied fact that can be shown clearly even in single player games like subnautica.
hopefully by now you have a inkling of the problems with the separate single player world. I am not saying it should not exist just that there needs to measures taken to make sure it does not hurt the core MMO game. here I will provide a brief list of things that could be done to help this problem.
1) No matter what do not allow ship blueprints to to transfer from single player to multiplayer.
2) Keep single player hacks in check. people will do it but at least make it so people have to go to a third party to download or get them.
3) Make hacks even in singe players against the terms of service. yeah that mean no modding
4) Release content one week late for the single player game.
5) prioritize the multiplayer setting for updates and content.
I just hope the my R&D is best done on a multiplayer server
Single player dilutes the player base which is a critical part of any MMO.
One element that I feel is critical to bring to this discussion is 'cheats' specifically in a single player environment. These cheats will allow people in single player to run way ahead of the multiplayer environment. for example when the moon is added the first people their will not be the multiplayer alliance that though great strife made it. No, instead the first people there will be single players who teleported there using hacks or built a super fast ship and just spawned in fuel. Or even without cheats the single player might get there first because there is no threat to them as they prepare for the journey. People will complain about this saying who gets there first does not matter because their game world is separate from mine but to that comment I say youtube. if the fastest way to experience the new content is single player there will be a detailed exploration of the moon posted to youtube before the Multiplayer people get there.
Further, with the physics and persistence of the game world, single player really hurts the history of the game. The first person on the moon should leave a wreck or at least the remains of their passage that players can follow.
On a different note, if in single player there is a way to cheat such as duping, spawning in ship, or spawning in resource it will be essentially the mandatory R&D zone. Every R&D group will be building ships there and test them there due to the infinite resources. Then once the ship will get ported to the main game. this kinda takes away the fun of having a R&D department hidden in a corner of space trying things. it also leave a history of testing and experiments gone wrong in the game world where anyone can stumble into it. Remember that gamers will optimize the fun out of a game, and yes this is a well studied fact that can be shown clearly even in single player games like subnautica.
hopefully by now you have a inkling of the problems with the separate single player world. I am not saying it should not exist just that there needs to measures taken to make sure it does not hurt the core MMO game. here I will provide a brief list of things that could be done to help this problem.
1) No matter what do not allow ship blueprints to to transfer from single player to multiplayer.
2) Keep single player hacks in check. people will do it but at least make it so people have to go to a third party to download or get them.
3) Make hacks even in singe players against the terms of service. yeah that mean no modding
4) Release content one week late for the single player game.
5) prioritize the multiplayer setting for updates and content.
I just hope the my R&D is best done on a multiplayer server