Incorporating an in-game Ship design element into the real-time MMO, and abolishing a separate Creative mode

[Morrgard]

This is indeed very good discussion and it has made me realize that sandbox indeed includes a risk of players doing all meta development in sandboxes as that's infinitely faster to do there than in the game world. It's not completely bad, but inside the world it would have more meaning. In the other hand not having a sandbox at all might emphasize strong factions even more, as they would have the resources to be spent on research. But then again, smaller factions might just want to focus on espionage/stealing inventions.

I'm still not sure about splitting the player base, but maybe we should do some polls around that. What I mean is that my understanding is that some people simply don't want to play MMO, but just build things. Granted, those people could just stay inside hangars in the MMO and never see a soul, but I don't know do they feel it this way.

As we haven't put much work to sandbox yet it would be smart development-wise to postpone sandbox and see if people could live without it. But before I'm making any commitments to any direction we'll need to somehow get some polls up and running.

That's a good idea. I mean you can take the time of EA to decide whether or not it would be something players desperately wanted for their experience to improve. But like many people have stated it may take off the main instance experience if people are off doing their own thing in the sandbox.

But the main goal of the game is to be an MMO, and not everyone likes that. I can vouch for this as I have practically never played and MMO in my life but this game caught my eye just because of how it was built. So even people as stubborn like me with MMO titles can change their mind if the concept of the game is alluring

EDIT: It will most likely end up being one or another type of trade-off between having or not having a sandbox.

 

[Vexus]

Right but the private instances have no impact on the main server

It does in that it draws players out of the main game, if they're teleporting around, testing the scale, testing the edges of the game world and so on... they're not spending that time in the main universe. They're not impacting some other player. They're not thinking of "how do I get to the moon" as a problem that needs solving. They just teleport there. Each player is valuable, extremely valuable, in that their actions can echo across the game world. But if they're spending that time hammering out play-tests in their own private server, no one else benefits from that, no one else gets inspired by that strange fast ship that sped by and so on. Each player who escapes to their own private mode - and again, keep in mind, safe zones in Starbase will allow full building in pure safety when it's time - each player who escapes to their own private world is an incalculable amount of lost interaction in the scope of what Starbase seems to offer.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

This is indeed very good discussion and it has made me realize that sandbox indeed includes a risk of players doing all meta development in sandboxes as that's infinitely faster to do there than in the game world. It's not completely bad, but inside the world it would have more meaning. In the other hand it might emphasize strong factions even more.

I'm still not sure about splitting the player base, but maybe we should do some polls around that. What I mean is that my understanding is that some people simply don't want to play MMO, but just build things. Granted, those people could just stay inside hangars in the MMO and never see a soul, but I don't know do they feel it this way.

As we haven't put much work to sandbox yet it would be smart development-wise to postpone sandbox and see if people could live without it. But before I'm making any commitments to any direction we'll need to somehow get some polls up and running.

I would argue that having the sandbox does more good than harm, because in that second paragraph, that example works until safezones are taken into account. Someone who just wanted to build in peace and test out their fully accurate replica of X ship couldn't do stuff like test weapons systems or ramming capabilities in a safezone, but at the same time if they do all that outside a safe zone, Billy NoFun might run in and nuke the ship in order to loot them. In that instance, you either bore a player who just wants to play around in a sandbox (who might be enticed to join the multiplayer when they see how much fun the destruction is), or you frustrate a player who just wants to test out their cool designs and has to now deal with farming all the resources again.

I think a nice compromise would be solved by just a few things.
1. Make the sandbox a self-contained little world. Mini asteroid belt, actual boundaries to the world, no resemblance to the multiplayer experience.
2. Keep the sandbox a bit behind the multiplayer in terms of features. Like give a week or two grace period before adding the content to the singleplayer, so that the people who literally only want to do singleplayer still get the stuff, and potentially might get convinced to play online when they see people having fun with the new stuff.
3. Stuff like cosmetics, painting, any sort of fancy customization tools should really only be available online.

Basically, it revolves around making the multiplayer the objectively better experience, and encouraging people to do their testing online. No spoilers from offline, since offline folks can't get see the content, so people teleporting around don't just post guides or videos online about stuff onliners are working for.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

It does in that it draws players out of the main game, if they're teleporting around, testing the scale, testing the edges of the game world and so on... they're not spending that time in the main universe. They're not impacting some other player. They're not thinking of "how do I get to the moon" as a problem that needs solving. They just teleport there. Each player is valuable, extremely valuable, in that their actions can echo across the game world. But if they're spending that time hammering out play-tests in their own private server, no one else benefits from that, no one else gets inspired by that strange fast ship that sped by and so on. Each player who escapes to their own private mode - and again, keep in mind, safe zones in Starbase will allow full building in pure safety when it's time - each player who escapes to their own private world is an incalculable amount of lost interaction in the scope of what Starbase seems to offer.

Right but the issue with full safety is that it is full safety. As in, you can't even test your own combat capabilities, because you're in a safezone. I still argue that anyone who is going to be just tinkering with ship designs and stuff will mostly be doing it in the ship editor which features its own mini test world, because it's just so much more efficient than placing individual pieces by hand and praying they work.

As for your first point, you might like the compromise I posted above, which is to say: make the 'singleplayer' world perpetually like 2 weeks behind in terms of content (when the moon gets added, by the time singleplayer gets it everyone on multiplayer should have gotten a chance to see it with their own eyes), and not even be directly comparable to the server (asteroid ring is a completely different ring generated separately, so you can't use singleplayer to find the best ore deposits or something).

 

[Eranok]

I agree with most arguments, and being able to discuss about something so critical is amazing

Exclusion to MMO only has it's valid points, but there are also players who don't want to play the MMO side. Also blueprint trading/transfer will be at MMO side anyway, so the separate sandbox shouldn't remove anything from MMO, but instead can bring designs available from people who don't want to play the MMO side.

I believe any kind of single player mode has several impacts on the multiplayers

• As it has been said, its hours of play that will not be enhanced by players interactions, as stated previously
• Part of playerbase will commit to offline creations and will perceive the MMO as an option
• Last but not least, it will make the game identity more blurry. "Whats starbase ?" "It's a PvP space-MMO in a single huge massive universe where tens of thousands of players exist in the same game world and it's awesome.". That would have a much better market positioning than "Its an amazing sandbox spaceship game with a creative mode and an online mode that is designed as an MMO".

There is a cost in wishing to cater for many playstyles. If you cater for players who, just like in minecraft, build marvelous design and post it everywhere online, there will be players who would love and commit to a largescale open world MMO but will never learn that starbase has that gameplay. That said, its up to you, the devs, to forge the identity of the game. Its a business plan topic

 

[Vexus]

As in, you can't even test your own combat capabilities

Right, you're beholden to actually playing the game with everyone else. You can't set up test ships and fill them full of holes and experience the fun all alone on your private server. At some point, you have to take the risk to go out into the game world and risk having an interaction with other players. This is a good thing, not a bad thing, it's why we're here hyped for Starbase and not Space Engineers or some other server-based game. Because of the possibility of interacting with other players. Ship building is very detailed in SE for example, that niche is already a working decent game. Offline servers for Starbase would be "ok" but the game would suffer and become "ok" as well, not the best thing everyone is dying to play.

It's not about the singleplayer content, progression or any of that. It's that you lose out on captivating the most skeptical player to join and belong in the big universe before them.

One of my good friends I met in an online game over a decade ago, because he was sitting in a town and said, "Can anyone help me?" For whatever reason, I decided to help him, and we've known each other ever since. We've visited each other in person in real life and we'll continue to know each other forever, because some game allowed us to connect. It matters so much to me because I've seen the power the presence of these kinds of interactions; it has netted me many good real friends that will be with me for a long time. I want everyone else to share in that kind of experience, to meet someone who saved you when you were down and out in the game and needed help, and to create a life long friend from that encounter. It's so important that this is allowed to happen and builds so much depth and meaning into the game that cannot be quantified into a stat or a progression system. It's the people that make it so important and that is the reason I think it should be kept online, so people can interact with each other and have all that interaction really matter.

 

[Morrgard]

I would simply say to just have it as a bit in the menu.

- Play
-Blueprint Editor
-Settings
-Credits
-Exit

Something like this, so it's not a proper world where you run around mining and such, but just a testing platform for the moveable parts inside your creations, station or ship. A safe place to just design and prepare for your embarking into the multiplayer world.

You can use it as much as you like, building a blueprint library of ships. (again this could be done in multiplayer too in safe zones and whatnot) Just somewhere that you can unleash your creativity and test if your ship creation basically WORKS. Not how much damage it can take, or if it's safe to crash into an asteroid to 50% chance of being demolished. Just a place where you alone get to design.

All building and other testing than a moveable part and if it moves can be done in the multiplayer. Those who just want to design things are happy, and those who just want to be ready to bring in their design and prefer to build off their blueprint have the option to do so. Maybe you could even have a joint blueprint editor but no extra features other than you and a few friends building this larger ship together or something. Again without an explorable world and just a smaller zone that expands if your ship grows large enough to need more space to make it etc.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

I agree with most arguments, and being able to discuss about something so critical is amazing



I believe any kind of single player mode has several impacts on the multiplayers

• As it has been said, its hours of play that will not be enhanced by players interactions, as stated previously
• Part of playerbase will commit to offline creations and will perceive the MMO as an option
• Last but not least, it will make the game identity more blurry. "Whats starbase ?" "It's a PvP space-MMO in a single huge massive universe where tens of thousands of players exist in the same game world and it's awesome.". That would have a much better market positioning than "Its an amazing sandbox spaceship game with a creative mode and an online mode that is designed as an MMO".

There is a cost in wishing to cater for many playstyles. If you cater for players who, just like in minecraft, build marvelous design and post it everywhere online, there will be players who would love and commit to a largescale open world MMO but will never learn that starbase has that gameplay. That said, its up to you, the devs, to forge the identity of the game. Its a business plan topic

I have to protest against that last point you mention. Everybody already advertises starbase as a space MMO in a single massive universe. The MMO isn't seen as the bonus feature, the singleplayer is. It's why it's constantly asked in the FAQ, because people don't immediately think it has one, because of the game's identity.

I think in the end it all comes down to presentation. As long as singleplayer is presented as the 'lesser' mode, then there won't be a huge player siphon away from the online experience. Plus, it allows you to advertise the game to a singleplayer market as well as the multiplayer market. You draw in an audience that wasn't there before, and potentially you bring them into the online experience to the betterment of the whole community.

Right, you're beholden to actually playing the game with everyone else. You can't set up test ships and fill them full of holes and experience the fun all alone on your private server. At some point, you have to take the risk to go out into the game world and risk having an interaction with other players. This is a good thing, not a bad thing, it's why we're here hyped for Starbase and not Space Engineers or some other server-based game. Because of the possibility of interacting with other players. Ship building is very detailed in SE for example, that niche is already a working decent game. Offline servers for Starbase would be "ok" but the game would suffer and become "ok" as well, not the best thing everyone is dying to play.

It's not about the singleplayer content, progression or any of that. It's that you lose out on captivating the most skeptical player to join and belong in the big universe before them.

One of my good friends I met in an online game over a decade ago, because he was sitting in a town and said, "Can anyone help me?" For whatever reason, I decided to help him, and we've known each other ever since. We've visited each other in person in real life and we'll continue to know each other forever, because some game allowed us to connect. It matters so much to me because I've seen the power the presence of these kinds of interactions; it has netted me many good real friends that will be with me for a long time. I want everyone else to share in that kind of experience, to meet someone who saved you when you were down and out in the game and needed help, and to create a life long friend from that encounter. It's so important that this is allowed to happen and builds so much depth and meaning into the game that cannot be quantified into a stat or a progression system. It's the people that make it so important and that is the reason I think it should be kept online, so people can interact with each other and have all that interaction really matter.

Interestingly, I also met a good friend in an online game. That game was Ark. A game which also features a singleplayer gamemode that mostly exists for testing stuff out (as it has dev commands and stuff). We met each other because we were both solos in a server dominated by big groups that were pretty aggressive, so we kind of had to team up. We still play games to this day. That experience still happened in spite of singleplayer existing.

Also, I think maybe I should have worded that differently. By 'combat capabilities' I didn't mean how much damage you could take and how it would fare in a real fight, but more how would this ship do against a test opponent? Do the guns work well? Do they work at all? The bare minimum could not be accomplished in a safe zone, because of how it works. I just feel like it would be more likely to lead to already hesitant players leaving if they can't get the hang of things in a safer environment first, which seems detrimental to me compared to having real sweaty folks trying to fine tune their battleship in singleplayer.

 

[Jetthetank]

This is indeed very good discussion and it has made me realize that sandbox indeed includes a risk of players doing all meta development in sandboxes as that's infinitely faster to do there than in the game world. It's not completely bad, but inside the world it would have more meaning. In the other hand it might emphasize strong factions even more.

I'm still not sure about splitting the player base, but maybe we should do some polls around that. What I mean is that my understanding is that some people simply don't want to play MMO, but just build things. Granted, those people could just stay inside hangars in the MMO and never see a soul, but I don't know do they feel it this way.

As we haven't put much work to sandbox yet it would be smart development-wise to postpone sandbox and see if people could live without it. But before I'm making any commitments to any direction we'll need to somehow get some polls up and running.

I feel like That would be really neat in a sense if people were open to building, in say a station R&D chamber. and especially if it was intriguing enough for those people that are typically wary of MMO's.
If that could be implemented, in some way it would be amazing, because then those people would find value in the MMO, and then those people would become those people in the role as experienced Ship builders, without the desire of wantint to get out in those pvp interactions.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

I would simply say to just have it as a bit in the menu.

- Play
-Blueprint Editor
-Settings
-Credits
-Exit

Something like this, so it's not a proper world where you run around mining and such, but just a testing platform for the moveable parts inside your creations, station or ship. A safe place to just design and prepare for your embarking into the multiplayer world.

See, I agree with the point on the menu, which is to say make sure it's not listed first and foremost, and don't list it under a play option. Make sure it's seen as not even its own real gamemode.

However, I think it is important that they have at least some semblance of a world to test stuff in, however limited, because otherwise you literally can't know if your design functions properly until you bring it online and build it entirely, whereupon if it suddenly fails entirely again and again, wasting grinded materials each time, players might just quit because the game isn't letting them experiment in a reasonable way. I think the singleplayer test mode should have a few asteroids, maybe a mini moon after the server has it for a while, and a few firing range style things that are basically just walls of armor or whatever, so that you can at least see if your weapons/ramming or whatever works. You wouldn't be able to test with other ships except the one you are designing, so no finding weakpoints or abusing designs etc.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

I feel like That would be really neat in a sense if people were open to building, in say a station R&D chamber. and especially if it was intriguing enough for those people that are typically wary of MMO's.
If that could be implemented, in some way it would be amazing, because then those people would find value in the MMO, and then those people would become those people in the role as experienced Ship builders, without the desire of wantint to get out in those pvp interactions.

Now see that would be an interesting way of doing it. Have a hangar at the mega stations that is effectively some kind of holodeck so that you can test all your ship's capabilities in a limited sense even within a safezone. Have a single fake asteroid so you can check that your mining lasers or tractor beams work, and a target that can be damaged so you can see if your guns work. That way, the player still has to account and test in the real world for stuff like different armors or player tactics, but they can still ensure their ship works to the bare minimum degree.

Then all you need to do is make it so that if a player has no internet connection or can't connect to the server, they can still access this feature solo. If they do it on the server, however, they gain access to inviting friends to design with them, which maybe opens slightly more options in the hangar or something.

 

[Morrgard]

See, I agree with the point on the menu, which is to say make sure it's not listed first and foremost, and don't list it under a play option. Make sure it's seen as not even its own real gamemode.

However, I think it is important that they have at least some semblance of a world to test stuff in, however limited, because otherwise you literally can't know if your design functions properly until you bring it online and build it entirely, whereupon if it suddenly fails entirely again and again, wasting grinded materials each time, players might just quit because the game isn't letting them experiment in a reasonable way. I think the singleplayer test mode should have a few asteroids, maybe a mini moon after the server has it for a while, and a few firing range style things that are basically just walls of armor or whatever, so that you can at least see if your weapons/ramming or whatever works. You wouldn't be able to test with other ships except the one you are designing, so no finding weakpoints or abusing designs etc.

That does sound like a good expansion on what I had mentioned, I agree with that. As long as you've mentioned too, that it is only seen as a testing ground and nothing of it's own gamemmode

 

[Jetthetank]

I would simply say to just have it as a bit in the menu.

- Play
-Blueprint Editor
-Settings
-Credits
-Exit

Something like this, so it's not a proper world where you run around mining and such, but just a testing platform for the moveable parts inside your creations, station or ship. A safe place to just design and prepare for your embarking into the multiplayer world.

You can use it as much as you like, building a blueprint library of ships. (again this could be done in multiplayer too in safe zones and whatnot) Just somewhere that you can unleash your creativity and test if your ship creation basically WORKS. Not how much damage it can take, or if it's safe to crash into an asteroid to 50% chance of being demolished. Just a place where you alone get to design.

All building and other testing than a moveable part and if it moves can be done in the multiplayer. Those who just want to design things are happy, and those who just want to be ready to bring in their design and prefer to build off their blueprint have the option to do so. Maybe you could even have a joint blueprint editor but no extra features other than you and a few friends building this larger ship together or something. Again without an explorable world and just a smaller zone that expands if your ship grows large enough to need more space to make it etc.

My argument is: if you are going to go as far as having it right there in the menu, why not go a step further and integrate it directly into the immersion of the game.

 

[Vexus]

Interestingly, I also met a good friend in an online game.

I'd point out, you met that friend in the large player online environment where you were oppressed and had to find a solution to your problem. You had the opportunity to leave that server and go elsewhere. The server you left, lost you, a valuable player, along with your new friend. In addition, you lost the ability to make friends or help others who were being oppressed by this larger group. The presence of the individual servers didn't help you make a friend, it just let you escape to somewhere to not be bothered, because Ark is a small game world overall. In the expanse of the Starbase universe, you could just travel 10 hours around the belt and be reasonably sure you're left alone for the same amount of time, but all your impacts on that side of the planet/ring will echo through the entire game's timeline in Starbase. That's what is amazing. You always have the potential to run into someone else who is escaping the oppression of some big group, and form more friends, not just one and escape to a private server where truly no one else can interact with you.

Another slight point is the rapid progression the large groups get in Ark by doing lots of testing offline to find the best way. They can prototype your base in their private server and then learn how to best attack it before committing actual resources. It helps large groups a lot to have the offline world to fly around in and observe something from every possible angle; they make fewer mistakes and only come with the resources they need to complete the task. Just a side note overall though. And the whole while, those players are not in the 'real' server, so they 'real' server looks empty and so on...

 

[Morrgard]

I feel like That would be really neat in a sense if people were open to building, in say a station R&D chamber. and especially if it was intriguing enough for those people that are typically wary of MMO's.
If that could be implemented, in some way it would be amazing, because then those people would find value in the MMO, and then those people would become those people in the role as experienced Ship builders, without the desire of wantint to get out in those pvp interactions.

This gave me an idea of having a large structural bit for stations where you enter them, it's like a dome and it's like a mini world where you just edit the ships, people can come in and view what you are creating. Like a hologram blueprint where they see blocks being added on as you are in a blueprint editor type mode. Could be quite cool

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

This gave me an idea of having a large structural bit for stations where you enter them, it's like a dome and it's like a mini world where you just edit the ships, people can come in and view what you are creating. Like a hologram blueprint where they see blocks being added on as you are in a blueprint editor type mode. Could be quite cool

Yeah that's kind of how I envisioned it too, give it slightly tron-esque holographic stuff around the edges. Though I think you should be given the option to make it a 'private' design so that rivals can't scope out exactly where you're putting your generator.

 

[Jetthetank]

Ya, thats what I mean, but could also have some volumetric simulations to test power output, distribution, etc.

 

[Jetthetank]

Would be really cool.

 

[Morrgard]

My argument is: if you are going to go as far as having it right there in the menu, why not go a step further and integrate it directly into the immersion of the game.

In a way this is what I responded with just above, could be something like that if you had it integrated. But again I think it would be nice like the way me and Frey mentioned. Just a tiny world where you and a few friends can test things, a testing area rather than a singleplayer world

 

[Jetthetank]

And by implementing something like this, people wouldnt feel constricted by being disconnected by a seperate editor. but would be more fun and immersive.