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

[Kimsemus]

What grind mechanics? There's no leveling system, you can build anything anyone else can day 1. All you need is the resources or the credits to buy them. Yeah, you have go get those resources... I guess that's a grind? But that's the game. Join a group, help out, save up, and build along the way. You're able to buy a ship after a couple hours, then you can fly off to do whatever you want to do. The game seems to be focused around players having a social experience together. Being alone in a sandbox doesn't fit their goals.

I've heard the development time/effort argument used more than once, but there isn't even a release date yet, so they're not operating under some kind of constraint where a buildmode can't be done.

As for the most relevant part of your argument: A person having to gather credits and resources to build something, then waste them to rebuild the same thing, to rinse and repeat is not fun. Not by any stretch. Yes, that is a grind. Telling that person "well the solution is to just join a group" isn't really valid because no game works like that, games have to facilitate solo play to some degree or your alienate an entire playerbase, and you also alienate any new players coming in that don't know anyone yet.

People should decide whether they're even going to have fun in the game before being shoehorned into an org just to build a ship. A lot of these "no sandbox" posts come from the sole perspective of someone in an existing organization, and you need to think of the new player experience, gameplay cycle, and how decisions affect new and solo players. They are the lifeblood of games, not established orgs who have a much higher flexibility and tolerance for change.

 

[NoName]

I've heard the development time/effort argument used more than once, but there isn't even a release date yet, so they're not operating under some kind of constraint where a buildmode can't be done.

As for the most relevant part of your argument: A person having to gather credits and resources to build something, then waste them to rebuild the same thing, to rinse and repeat is not fun. Not by any stretch. Yes, that is a grind. Telling that person "well the solution is to just join a group" isn't really valid because no game works like that, games have to facilitate solo play to some degree or your alienate an entire playerbase, and you also alienate any new players coming in that don't know anyone yet.

People should decide whether they're even going to have fun in the game before being shoehorned into an org just to build a ship. A lot of these "no sandbox" posts come from the sole perspective of someone in an existing organization, and you need to think of the new player experience, gameplay cycle, and how decisions affect new and solo players. They are the lifeblood of games, not established orgs who have a much higher flexibility and tolerance for change.

This was literally said in the thread on page 4 if you have been reading replies that aren't your own or from Recatek you would probably know this.

 

[Kimsemus]

View attachment 185
This was literally said in the thread on page 4 if you have been reading replies that aren't your own or from Recatek you would probably know this.

damn yeah

if only i had quoted his reply and addressed it a page ago. Who's reading the thread again?

 

[Bigsby]

People should decide whether they're even going to have fun in the game before being shoehorned into an org just to build a ship.

This implies it will be impossible for a solo player to build a ship at all. That is unlikely. In any case, solo players should be building small / simple ships that don't require an organization in the beginning. If they're building massive cruisers, they're making a mistake they should be learning from, not blaming the developers for.

 

[NoName]

damn yeah

if only i had quoted his reply and addressed it a page ago. Who's reading the thread again?

except people retorted to your response and you gave very vague non answers that didn't really support your position and all boil down to essentially, "I want the sandbox mode so they should add a sandbox mode". Which is probably the reason you A. haven't quoted your own response yet and B. Aren't actually answering.

EDIT: and also boil down to, "nuh uh your wrong" without giving any supporting evidence.

 

[Brutus]

This implies it will be impossible for a solo player to build a ship at all. That is unlikely. In any case, solo players should be building small / simple ships that don't require an organization in the beginning. If they're building massive cruisers, they're making a mistake they should be learning from, not blaming the developers for.

Where is the "like" button?

 

[DrunkRussianBear]

Where is the "like" button?

Devs removed it for a bit, they are testing some stuff such as removing the like counter.

 

[kep]

If there is a sandbox in place I will 100% be perfecting and testing my designs in it and will only spawn them on the MMO side when they are perfect. This is exactly how I play Stormworks, and this would be the design meta for Starbase.

No shipbuilders will suffer through the trial and error of building in the MMO if there's a free sandbox. And no player would be able to build in the MMO if they want to design and iterate quickly and competitively. My 2 cents.

 

[Burnside]

The idea that by denying offline editor/sandbox testing tools, you enliven the game world by forcing people to do their testing smacks of the broken window fallacy. However, I can see the point and agree with it, testing functions should be limited, possibly even to the point that weapons fire in the editor's test flight mode(s) should go so far as to record 'hits' but not simulate weapons damage (i can see collisions staying in by necessity tho), though I believe both the online and offline editor should have the same functionality in the design aspect. That also begs the question of whether the offline editor should have a test flight option, and maybe that should be limited to the MP version where you are going to be inviting people into the editor to observe and interact with the design. I actually like the idea of stations having organic or owner-dedicated breaking yards and proving grounds, an engaged materials market is just icing on the cake in my perspective.

 

[jannick]

@Kimsemus Yeah - if people can just import ships, the game loses a lot of value as players shortcut what would otherwise be a lengthy building process (similar amount of time to an offline environment, just done online with a bit slower due to a potential need to acquire resources). If you don't want to build, buy a pre-made or player-made ship. If you want to build - your final creation will truly matter.

All MMOs do indeed marginalize solo and small group players. That's kind of the point; devs should not be trying to cater to everyone's wishes.

As for WoW, their needing to tone down the raid numbers was only well after the game was a mega-success, and after they made critical mistakes devaluing player gameplay. This is why WoW Classic is coming back in a couple weeks, because many people saw enough value in that difficult, hard to obtain gameplay, that they demanded it back. I paid $15 to Blizzard just to secure my name! They're geniuses! I might not even play it! This is a critical point because unlike games where everyone can have the same Name#1234, in WoW Classic your name mattered since no one else could have it! Scarcity creates value.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, the reason people couldn't fill 40 man raids in WoW was years after launch when they began devaluing gameplay. For many years, the game was extremely successful due to meaningful, online only gameplay that didn't cater to everyone. They are still successful due to being meaningful online only gameplay that does not cater to everyone. The introduction of LFR and dumbed down mechanics and so on was what drove people away, among other things. There was little value in being a tank when anyone could just enter queue and find a tank. It used to matter when you found a tank or a healer in WoW, and you friend-listed them and played with them for years afterwards. Now, that interaction was so convenient, it didn't matter, and the game lost meaning and value. WoW Classic is successful. Queue on one server was over 10,000, just to secure their name. People value that rare, difficult and online only gameplay. The argument from you it seems is WoW should just give players offline mode, not WoW Gold Classic; let people raid however they want, even if they do it solo. This is wrong.

I think he's saying it'll weaken the MMO aspect, not be a 1 shot 1 kill fail point.


It's not determination of it, it's just a waste of development time. Why not spend more time on the game than making a sandbox with no saving and no progression? It's like going to a Italian restaurant that serves egg rolls. Yeah, egg rolls are delicious and probably won't kill the restaurant, but that's not the kind of business they're saying they want to be.


I quit playing because guilds fell apart. Everyone split up and played in small groups after that. Our guilds died, there was just no point when LFG fills all the spots. We went from over 200 members, to 40, and then to 10. Then we just stopped doing guilds as it was like 4 of us with 3-4 old friends occasionally and the rest LFG. It was boring and the community was gone.


What grind mechanics? There's no leveling system, you can build anything anyone else can day 1. All you need is the resources or the credits to buy them. Yeah, you have go get those resources... I guess that's a grind? But that's the game. Join a group, help out, save up, and build along the way. You're able to buy a ship after a couple hours, then you can fly off to do whatever you want to do. The game seems to be focused around players having a social experience together. Being alone in a sandbox doesn't fit their goals.

But i think wow classic is still worth playing if you can really spent your time into it