One of three things needs to happen,
A: the most favorable, but least likely a massive influx of new player or migration of veteran players,
B: most probable, everyone who is playing needs to step it up with their involvement in all the worlds, top down... this game needs a serious push and i don't know why most are dragging their feet with it and dropping off now that things are close. I guess people have other things going on and upping their commitment is a problem, i understand this as i work 12 hours 4 day or night stretches and there is a lot that i could do here in those 48 hours
C: the demands come down and more freedom and ability for the people who want to have the tu experience, this co-dependency sucks when it takes one person not pay attention to set everything back a day or to, or having to wait two days and hope that someone doesn't forget about us and keeps playing to save a planet.
i really do want to stick it out, i like this game it's in my top 3 of all time... i play and play and play the games i really like, and i really enjoy the unique experience of the universal, the game it self, the community (despite difference in basis for thoughts and actions) and time spent with the development team and their involvement with players.
How I see it.
Hi ultra,
Thanks for your support over the years and it is pleasing to know that our little project has managed to get into your top 3 - competing against many others that have had a lot more full-time development
Regarding increasing the playerbase : I don't think thats the least likely - indeed far from it. It's worth remembering that barely anyone knows that the game continues to be developed. The site gets very few hits, its not advertised anywhere and the number of people who are even aware that space has returned is tiny. There are many ways to change this (starting with an email or two to the players who've registered their addresses over the years) but I don't want to do this until I feel the overall game experience is good enough.
As well as fixing lots of bugs and finishing off various WIP features (like the ranking system), that latter point relies on a few things :
- Getting a core-set of good, stable worlds built
- Improving the 'new player experience' ; particularly the introduction to space
- Improving some of the graphics
- Ensuring that the game can cope with a larger number of players
Each of those has a few different elements : To improve the worlds we need to have better world editing so that player-created (and mit-created) worlds can be made more easily, be better balanced and make more use of the more advanced features available. We also need to link the best worlds into the ranking system so that theres a clear set of goals for a new player.
Improving the new player experience is always a difficult and time-consuming task (Particularly because first impressions matter and so needs a lot of time polishing the presentation & graphics). It also requires lots of subtle tweaks and adjustments based on user-testing, data-tracking and feedback. It might be interesting to note that 3 years ago less than 10% of new players who tried the game would play for more than 5 minutes - during our last burst of activity that figure was 78%.
Regarding graphics, a lot of time has been spent improving the core engine without actually changing much visible yet. As well as the ongoing job of trying to clean up and improve the UI, a few things are in the pipeline including some post-process effects (a quick and dirty method if you ask me :], but most games look pretty just because they do a bit of this) and what hopefully will be a really nice system for rendering grass. Another massive win would be a proper sea/water rendering system - that one might take a bit of time though..
Regarding scale..again a lot of work has been done on this with little visible result. New server architecture and methods to allow worlds to be dynamically created should allow the game to remain playable whether theres 1, 100 or 1000 people online, but this still requires further work, testing and setup.
[ As an aside, the last key element which I feel is still missing is the nature of the game once players have gathered up a load of gal credits, got a nice ship and etc.. thats where the conquest system comes in, with players & factions competing in a long-term game of strategic galactic conquest. Though important, thats something I feel can come later on once the other bits are done. ]
One final other point regarding the 'co-dependency' of worlds .. Personally I feel that making a game 'social' is a key element that stops it being just another game where you go about clicking things or pressing X in order to trigger another programmed event. (Yes, I have spent too long in game development :] ). Its much more difficult to balance and scale such things though, and I do recognise that often our game often suffers because of it. It is my intention to balance worlds like Aramathea and Zion with others like Xebec & Galleons that can be played in isolation. (I am currently working on a couple of essentially single-player worlds for release later in the year).
Hope that explains where we are and where things are heading, and many thanks to you and all the other veterans who stick around waiting for things to finally coalesce :].
mit
Thanks for your support over the years and it is pleasing to know that our little project has managed to get into your top 3 - competing against many others that have had a lot more full-time development
Regarding increasing the playerbase : I don't think thats the least likely - indeed far from it. It's worth remembering that barely anyone knows that the game continues to be developed. The site gets very few hits, its not advertised anywhere and the number of people who are even aware that space has returned is tiny. There are many ways to change this (starting with an email or two to the players who've registered their addresses over the years) but I don't want to do this until I feel the overall game experience is good enough.
As well as fixing lots of bugs and finishing off various WIP features (like the ranking system), that latter point relies on a few things :
- Getting a core-set of good, stable worlds built
- Improving the 'new player experience' ; particularly the introduction to space
- Improving some of the graphics
- Ensuring that the game can cope with a larger number of players
Each of those has a few different elements : To improve the worlds we need to have better world editing so that player-created (and mit-created) worlds can be made more easily, be better balanced and make more use of the more advanced features available. We also need to link the best worlds into the ranking system so that theres a clear set of goals for a new player.
Improving the new player experience is always a difficult and time-consuming task (Particularly because first impressions matter and so needs a lot of time polishing the presentation & graphics). It also requires lots of subtle tweaks and adjustments based on user-testing, data-tracking and feedback. It might be interesting to note that 3 years ago less than 10% of new players who tried the game would play for more than 5 minutes - during our last burst of activity that figure was 78%.
Regarding graphics, a lot of time has been spent improving the core engine without actually changing much visible yet. As well as the ongoing job of trying to clean up and improve the UI, a few things are in the pipeline including some post-process effects (a quick and dirty method if you ask me :], but most games look pretty just because they do a bit of this) and what hopefully will be a really nice system for rendering grass. Another massive win would be a proper sea/water rendering system - that one might take a bit of time though..
Regarding scale..again a lot of work has been done on this with little visible result. New server architecture and methods to allow worlds to be dynamically created should allow the game to remain playable whether theres 1, 100 or 1000 people online, but this still requires further work, testing and setup.
[ As an aside, the last key element which I feel is still missing is the nature of the game once players have gathered up a load of gal credits, got a nice ship and etc.. thats where the conquest system comes in, with players & factions competing in a long-term game of strategic galactic conquest. Though important, thats something I feel can come later on once the other bits are done. ]
One final other point regarding the 'co-dependency' of worlds .. Personally I feel that making a game 'social' is a key element that stops it being just another game where you go about clicking things or pressing X in order to trigger another programmed event. (Yes, I have spent too long in game development :] ). Its much more difficult to balance and scale such things though, and I do recognise that often our game often suffers because of it. It is my intention to balance worlds like Aramathea and Zion with others like Xebec & Galleons that can be played in isolation. (I am currently working on a couple of essentially single-player worlds for release later in the year).
Hope that explains where we are and where things are heading, and many thanks to you and all the other veterans who stick around waiting for things to finally coalesce :].
mit
Last edited by Mit on Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
morbydvisns
- Posts: 1889
- Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:51 am
-
ultramarine
- Posts: 84
- Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 5:56 pm
I know that over time it is not unlikely that many old player and new players will come to play the universal, my plight was more in reference to the next few day.. week of play, sorry that i made it seem like i thought no one is ever going to come here, i believe far from it. I will try to maintain my patience as thing break, set backs occur, building disappear and other unforeseeable tragedies occur. I respect what your trying to do and really would like to see the game working as plan, a lot of my frustration comes from me killing my alt off... i set the buildings for sale to help jump start someone who has been playing for a while and may not want to start over or one of the players on the other planets who haven't played xebec. no one took the building and now it's been a month that i've been playing xebec without access to industry. I'm not after a monopoly, i... just want to play.
more over i want to make another donation to the universal, last time i used a prepaid credit card, that i bought from the corner store now i have a prepaid with a static number. also i am not opposed to setting up a pay pal for this through my bank but i've never done this before so i don't know what to do or what information i need to make sure the payments get to you. that's a reason i didn't come back as ultramarine, i wanted an honest diamond and it never felt like the right time to broach the subject.
i totally appreciate what you are doing and your idea but not the time you've spent, i know that my time on xebec doesn't even amount to a drop, but that's still not saying much, so to said i appreciate the time you've spend would be an understatement, none the less i am happy that you are doing what you are doing.
p.s. the screen shot is very interesting,
and for the record
1 morrowind bethesda
2 vice city rock star
3 the universal
and pushed into the fourth spot pagan ultima 8 origin
'm excited to see where the universal really ranks on that list, in a world gone to shinola skyrim to morrowind for example. the universal is staying true to the roots the i know (wasn't around for atractor) so thanks for that as well and for graciously taking my criticisms.
more over i want to make another donation to the universal, last time i used a prepaid credit card, that i bought from the corner store now i have a prepaid with a static number. also i am not opposed to setting up a pay pal for this through my bank but i've never done this before so i don't know what to do or what information i need to make sure the payments get to you. that's a reason i didn't come back as ultramarine, i wanted an honest diamond and it never felt like the right time to broach the subject.
i totally appreciate what you are doing and your idea but not the time you've spent, i know that my time on xebec doesn't even amount to a drop, but that's still not saying much, so to said i appreciate the time you've spend would be an understatement, none the less i am happy that you are doing what you are doing.
p.s. the screen shot is very interesting,
and for the record
1 morrowind bethesda
2 vice city rock star
3 the universal
and pushed into the fourth spot pagan ultima 8 origin
'm excited to see where the universal really ranks on that list, in a world gone to shinola skyrim to morrowind for example. the universal is staying true to the roots the i know (wasn't around for atractor) so thanks for that as well and for graciously taking my criticisms.