The place of matter in space

[Embuscade]

I will try to be even more synthetic and concrete than the latter, reddit link
Two weeks ago I had already written this suggestion on about the same topic that I will discuss here.

The subject is the place of space in the space we travel through, it can be confusing, so I mean space in terms of distance between objects or people, not in astronomical terms, although there is an obvious connection.
by then I would have liked to play a little question and answer game that consists in asking you what you see in this gifs, if you could clearly define to me everything you see during these few seconds, it will be the start of the subject.
https://gyazo.com/1471acceaf7cdc5051748ae3e1be0743
(The symbol of my mouse not included in it.)

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

 

[Atreties]

Traslation software works best when sentences are simple. Complex sentences translate badly.

Your message is not clear. What question are you asking? Make your question very short.

Are you asking about the structure in the video?

 

[Verbatos]

I think he might be asking about how we might be able to see the distance between us and other objects

 

[Vexus]

I think the scales of distance and size in Starbase will confuse a lot of people when they see it the first time. It's uncommon in games. I'm not sure what OP is getting at "describe what you see".

A station. The gas giant planet in the background. Debris of dead ships. An asteroid belt in the far distance - so far you probably couldn't fly there without a lot of extra fuel and even then, would take you ~5hrs. A star-studded skybox. Another station in the far distance. The front end of a Spatha Empire ship.

Someone's up is another's down. One person's "skyscraper" is another's "long ship dock". Perspective is going to be amazing. If you watch the 15 minute combat video, after respawning, the player approaches one such skyscraper that turns into a long ship dock because he shifts his perspective. It's going to spin peoples' heads when they wrap their head around it.

 

[Embuscade]

Well I try to keep it short, but what can I say every time I start writing, I start with a simple plan, and I come up with a multitude of other suggestions that complement each other, and it gets pretty strong, end too many lines/stories in what I write, I'll delay the answer until the end of the week, or even find out a little more about the specificity of the game.

And so yes, @Vexus understood what I was proposing to you, besides I should have done that on a still image, rather than a gif, I wanted to test and see how it works, in short by the end of this weekend or next weekend, I will post the main subject.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

 

[Embuscade]

To start watching the screenshots, and the second image, I don't know if I'm quoting the reason why it's there, so it's only for the idea of representing what the center of an anthill map could be.

When I saw the first videos of pvp and the surroundings, I felt the same effect as the discovery of the Riftborn of Endless Space 2, not disorienting, but lacking another universe that for them from where it migrates, and me that I had imagined fanstamer,
I felt that being far from everything though, the visual cues are precise, there is no sky, but nothing obstructs our vision, it's clear and sharp in all directions, the loss of cassie view non-existent like the zoom of the sniper of the game "Halo".

To be overcome by this beautiful and colourful nothingness, this "Astronaut Space", moreover, as if I were a stranger there, not because of the lack of landmarks, but because of the banality of the choice of fictional places, and nothing more makes me want to travel distances in the void to break the face of others whether for fun or loot or estimate a pleasure of exploration on to, see this hide through the asteroids to mine, your project has simply become bitter to me because of its lack of matter and its extreme visibility.

So I came to the following conclusion: "as long as there is matter, there is entertainment, so there is an interest in being present and interacting", I mean on planets there are different climates between very hot and very cold, humidity, dry weather in the universe of apensator that you will create there will only be one climate: sterile and non-existent, because it is space, therefore emptiness, I insist on the point of "The abstract" to imagine, creates a universe that governs by other physical laws that you could invent.

From a weightlessness surface with atmosphere: here we see earth surface, but forget gravity, we stay in the idea of weightlessness (same climate if not worse than the tambolor prison of the film rogue one, where the father is trapped.) If there must be a sky, it must be a storm, hail and ash surfaces. The idea that there is danger in the contact with the storm/mist that eats the metal shell of robots quickly, I like very much, a little like the gas of Metro 2033 and the idea that the, but the basic atmosphere, it is this gift I speak in the previous topic see (Ctrl + F) thread reddit "Matrix 1/10 or Animatrix".))

When dangerous elite players, whether it's the few rare players who have made crossings from one end of the galaxy to the other or to break records like "Operation Beyond The Dark Edge" , it's no longer a notion of travel or wandering to meet chance at last a little, but it's especially a routine, the reported stimuli are no longer in this journey are no longer diegetic ( a pars if you can be satisfied with short daily news in SMS formats available in game.) This means that in the game you cannot be satisfied with the dopamine offered only by the game, and that you need it more by other means, so outside the game via discord, forums, reduced news, etc., a community, see even more videos, animals anything else that does not result that the game is extra-degetic, and that is the problem, we do not have time to spend in the void to do anything else that there is in the game, it is not a waste of time, but a void of interest in the present moment that the game offers.

Long distance trips in the "VACUUM" are monotonous, damaging the gaming experience why? Signalling points:
- It is not a loading time necessary for the proper functioning of the game, from one map to another, not a constraining obligation, a time constraint that we put in an ideal of realism or it is to add "a notion of additional game life to the games so that players do not exhaust the content too quickly" ideology based on concepts of attention economy, such fornite assassin's creed, it is adding content without interest.

- We can say that, "during this time we do other things and we can take advantage of it to take a break?", I would say yes, but we are no longer in the present moment, if there is no more interest during long game phases and it is part of the game, it is boring and it is not the purpose of the game to create instances or do nothing

- For the pvp it is only useful to add extra time between zones, but again there is no loss of views, so it is a predictable and alienating PADA (Perceive to Analyze Decide to Act) for the playerkiller, if not a loading time necessary for the proper functioning of the game, from one map to another OK, there is a way to add instances/bulles around either invisibilities, a time to allow the player's machine or connection to become aware of what it surrounds and act beforehand, such as the invisibility in Eve Online after each jump, or Albion Online, and the bubble of invincibilities and the travel speed bonus, or see the Atlas system between each map by boats.)

Imagine that you fill a 1km2 jar with earth, and that 2 opposite corners you place 20 ants queens, 10 blacks and 10 reds, now see your players as ants, we will dig galleries, shelters and before posts hide inside cubes of immense matter, and resource, and we will build while we dig, some of us will make outposts, and there will surely be a big platform city that will be created, that will make it a neutral city officer, and borders like indestructible stones, or at least too resistant for us to destroy it, but not for us to drill a tunnel!

I see it like this, as the example I had done for the dimensions with the "Batavia Salad". The distance between the players and the objectives in the void does not bring anything, on the other hand as long as there is material (even if it is levitated) it will bring stimuli, and therefore very good entertainment.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/13L-7v_Npg_q5qbQ1QINp1qrYX_ui661MrEtFab5hBMs/edit?usp=sharing < The text of the website translated.

Details I forgot to add, this game

"Marble Walk" there is a way to get great shots, unfortunately I can't take screenshots because the game pauses as soon as I try and it doesn't question what I want, I asked on their discord that they modify it if possible, hoping to get an answer and action behind.

 

[Embuscade]

I am disappointed, I had taken a long time to write my suggestion, and finally it was totally abandoned.
I mean, no answer to debate.

 

[AuraFB]

I am disappointed, I had taken a long time to write my suggestion, and finally it was totally abandoned.
I mean, no answer to debate.

I'm so sorry that you feel neglected. Your suggestion was linked to the development team and we did read it, but unfortunately we cannot promise all community suggestions will be considered or implemented in the game. Answering suggestions also takes time (especially in the case of longer suggestions) and the people who are most qualified to answer yours cannot use their working time to write lengthy answers or debate theories. We're really thankful that you took the time to write it and it hasn't been ignored, we just don't have an answer to every suggestion we receive.

 

[Vexus]

@Embuscade your sentences are not concise enough to get through to people; most won't bother trying to understand. Keep it simple - very simple.

It is good to see someone else proclaiming that there needs to be meaning behind gameplay. Pointing out Elite: Dangerous's poor gameplay design where there's hours upon hours of nothingness and empty void, where people then venture out of the game to form communities exterior to the game, weakening the game itself as a whole, is a concept not a lot of people will see without prompting. So good for you on seeing these kind of game design decisions and their effect on the game.

Where there is matter, there is interaction and fun. This is true. An endless void is bad. An asteroid-riddled asteroid belt is good. No Man's Sky has an infinite universe, but with infinitely-pointless and infinitely-useless matter everywhere. This form of infinite is bad. Not only are you insignificant, but everything you do does not matter to anyone else, because everyone is in their own infinite game-save.

Starbase seems to be making everything matter. The decision to make all players start in this one gas giant and this one asteroid belt - even though Starbase has an infinite universe in game-size - is critical. This is the 'critical mass' required to start a game. You need people in one location, and only grow the game size (see: dilute your playerbase) when such dilution is countered by the influx of new players. Like any game, as you expand, you spread people out, and thus need to make sure there's enough population to fill the new expansion, or else it fizzles out.

One thing hinted at in the Starbase progress reports and videos is the presence of 'atmospheric' events. Space-fog and so on, nebulas and gas-eruptions might exist, to give some variance to the empty void of space and give some randomness to encounters in space. I hope they can pull something like this off, because if it is 4-hours of flight time to your next stop, it does not engage people. Atlas fixes this by having random AI ships spawn in between point A and point B, disrupting your travels and making you pay attention, but it's a poor solution. I think the best solution for Starbase is to drive player interaction, where such 4-hour flights are only undertaken if you really want to, and not part of any actual realistic gameplay, because you're surrounded with content at your fingertips to enjoy, from dogfighting enemy faction ships to building new ship designs to harvesting asteroids and so on. If the gameplay is good enough, players remain in game, connected to the events in game at all times, having fun and making memories with friends; no external functions required.

 

[PopeUrban]

This exact problem is why I'm still very much a fan of aggressive NPCs that confer NO reward to the player.

Because if you need to fly five hours to get somewhere, that's really boring. In any PVP mmo the likelihood of interacting with others outside of clear high value interaction hostpots (e.g. valuable resource locations, trade hubs, military outposts, etc.) simply can't ever be high enough to rely on players and players alone to provide enough content for one another.

Its in our nature to avoid risk, and avoiding risk in a PvP game means avoiding other people. Without any advanced radar, simply encountering others in open space is going to be a real needle in a haystack situation. Its possible, but not frequent enough to have a satisfying gameplay loop.
Many space games gets around this problem by compressing "actionable space" in to access points like gates and wormholes. This means that there are regular and frequent action player interaction hotspots anywhere you go, even if the trip is still really long, and even if the space you're flying trough has nothing of value. If I want to jump you in EVE I don't have to spread a picket across half a galactic cluster. I simply need to keep an eye on these chokepoints that I know are in your path, and ensure I have whatever amount of equipment and pilots are required to defeat your defensive measures, be they speed, cloaking, a tanky hull, etc. You generally have several routes and tools to choose from to outsmart me.

In a fully open environment with a lack of chokepoints, the best I can do to track someone down is camp what I think their destination is. Easy enough if they have one. Borderline impossible if even they don't know where they're going as they attempt to explore the galaxy.

Might two explorers bump in to each other? Sure. Is that going to happen enough to make sitting down to play a video game for 3-5 hours several times in a week exciting? No.

There is an option here though, and that option is something we could have in limitless supply. NPCs, treasure, and hazards. Any combination of environmental hazards and NPCs can DIRECTLY engage players no matter where they are in the void because they can be creates specifically in response to the presence of players. Assuming you have enough toys in the toybox to throw at players in random combinations you can make that travel exciting and dangerous by simply checking "has it been too long since something HAPPENNED near this player"

Some people feel that combat npcs that directly seek out the player doesn't pass some pvp ideological purity test, but I'd rather have a fun game that's always fun to play than a game that is only fun the 10% of the time I can find a player to interact with, while still making interacting with players the most profitable and most economically necessary element.

These kinds of npcs, hazards, etc. should largely exist not to reward the player, but to challenge their forward momentum. Combine this with some kind of scanner (perhaps a station service as a time sink that also creates the desintation, like SWG mission terminals did) to find desintations worth braving these obstacles and you've got a game loop with risk and reward that also creates interesting scenarios and reward potential for pvp interaction as well.

The role of NPCs in a pvp game is usually just "resources that put up token resistance" when they really should be fulfilling the job other players do by supplementing risk when other players aren't avaliable to do so. You shouldn't be farming NPCs. They should be trying to farm you because you know where all the good shit to mine is and who pays the best for your cargo.

 

[roix]

From what I know;
There is no png, if you want png, you will have to do it.

I don't know how the game will be, and I don't want to waste 5 hours trying to find a potential target.

I don't need a wallpaper actually, so I hope this game will offer enough element.

What I understood to summarize, the playing space will have to be sufficiently limited for the players to meet.
Sufficient density to have interactions.

I hope to be able to show my creations, whether military or civil

I did not understand everything, but I hope I have understood the essentials

Have a nice day

 

[Azelous]

I would argue the difference in incentives of travel between, say, Elite Dangerous and Starbase are quite stark. Elite Dangerous, you’re visiting some new generated solar system, going a long distance, or grinding. Starbase, you’re not requiring interest from generated content and unless you’re exploring (which I’m not sure has even been confirmed yet) you’re likely traveling to a different station to see people you can actually interact with and have an impact on.

Long travel times may not be fun, but they can also be necessary. Putting distance between an enemy disincentivizes their aggression. It adds value to trading, value to exploring (if added), value to resource gathering. Travel times are an aspect that ultimately players will be able to influence by where they place stations, and effectively balance through opportunity cost.

 

[PopeUrban]

I would argue the difference in incentives of travel between, say, Elite Dangerous and Starbase are quite stark. Elite Dangerous, you’re visiting some new generated solar system, going a long distance, or grinding. Starbase, you’re not requiring interest from generated content and unless you’re exploring (which I’m not sure has even been confirmed yet) you’re likely traveling to a different station to see people you can actually interact with and have an impact on.

Long travel times may not be fun, but they can also be necessary. Putting distance between an enemy disincentivizes their aggression. It adds value to trading, value to exploring (if added), value to resource gathering. Travel times are an aspect that ultimately players will be able to influence by where they place stations, and effectively balance through opportunity cost.

Call me a radical but deliberately designing a game to be less fun in order to disincentivize player conflict doesn't sound like a great approach.

You're correct that distance and value are the two metrics that define the terrain of any sandbox pvp game. You're incorrect that it is inherently necessary that travelling long distances to acquire goods or impose threats be boring, or that tolerance for tedium should be the root of the value of an economy.

The true value of an MMO economy is based on two factors, time and risk. Roughly speaking, items tend to have greater value the more time intensive or risky they are to acquire. While relying on boring your players to tears would certainly work to fulfill the time vector it ignores the risk vector. Risk can take multiple forms. A popular one in the genre is the existential risk of simply putting a high value thing in the world. The idea that other players want it, and that there is a limited supply enough to make it worth their time to kill you for it.

The problem with this approach is that it only works when other players are trying to kill you for it, and it only works in a holistic sense when the players involved have access to roughly equivalent tools or allies for combat. In reality this approach tends to suffer an entropy of utility the longer your game runs. As players form power blocs they tend to carve your world in to slices to mitigate risk, as is human nature. This upends the entire risk paradigm AND the time paradigm as those power blocs establish force and industry that makes acquiring the resource trivial while simultaneously making it unobtainable for those who aren't part of such an organization.

This necessitates a pressure valve of some sort to prevent the human tendancy toward stagnation and stability from resulting in bored new players with nothing to do because they're instantly murdered when they try to get ahead, or bored old players who have nothing to do because nobody dares challenge their authority. Games have tackled this problem in various ways. Maps that reset everyone to zero, value spots that move around and are used up in such a way that it prevents large empires from functioning if they are too static, or systems that allow the players to expand the playfield by exploring new terrain outside the reach of the established overlords.

A sandbox MMO without these kinds of pressure valves inevitable succumbs to an uninteresting end state: A handful of player factions, who own everything, and are so wealthy and populous that any warfare between them is an exercise in futility. Then these players get bored and quit.

The idea that "players are the content and that's all we need" is a quaint but outmoded design methodology because it has shown itself to be flawed. It is flawed because players are both temporary participants in the world, and uninterested in making the game interesting for other players. They're there to make the game rewarding for themselves, and they're there a few hours a day, and they have a tendancy toward abandoning the world altogether when they can't make the game rewarding for themselves.

Players are GREAT content, but the quality of your "players as content" model rests squarely on having players in the first place. In order to have players in the first place you need a game that encourages players at all levels of experience, investment, and risk preference to stick around when there is literally nobody interacting with them.

If you've made an MMO that is not fun to play in the absence of other players, you've made a bad MMO, because you can not ensure other players will always be present to create interest ofr one another. "Its better with other people" is not a game design. It's just a basic fact true of virtually any multiplayer game.

If you're just trying to build a sandbox toy like space engineers that's fine. SE doesn't really exist, at a basic level of design, to pit you against other players. Its purpose for being is right there in the name. Its an engineering toy more than it is a game. Network play and risk/reward loops are not its focus.

Starbase has made much of its desire to be an MMO with building elements, not a building game with MMO elements. In order to do so successfully you can not simply give a bunch of people sand and shovels and expect it to function at scale and for an extended period of time. Human nature is to create stability through risk mitigation, not create fun by creating rewarding situations for their opponents. Pure sandboxes inevitably tend toward stagnation for this reason, and that stagnation eventually kills the player base, and thus the sandbox.

Players are only good content in a game that can function as a game when they are not around. Currently this seems only to be true if the player is in a station (where certain in station tasks are avaliable to them) or very near one (provided there are asteroids nearby)

As realistic and immersive as crossing those long fields of nothing sounds, it is a miserable gameplay experience. Boredom is not a feature. It is simply shortsighted game design.