- Joined
- Apr 9, 2013
- Messages
- 22
- Reaction score
- 0
This game has a surprising amount of potential, already showing it has the ability to become the next Minecraft, the game that many will claim it takes inspiration from. Already it is bringing in numerous new users to our community, each very curious about the game and needing a patient hand to teach them. Much like the first big minecraft servers, we have a great opportunity to get massive player backing and grow some great communities around this game. Because I admin an online community, much of this editorial will be biased as such, and please remember that I understand this is an Alpha:
The Core
That lovely purple thing that is you. Such a delightful thing it is, so much that you just want to shoot them! Or not. But as it is, what is it that we will do with this core? Right now the game lacks that simple drive to do something other than build a ship, then another, then bigger. The world is dark but it is bright; it is large yet feels so small; it works till it doesn’t and I don’t mean the programing. In the core gameplay I guess I’m looking for something that hints at more than variable rats that you can already change to give a reason to build. There has always been something enjoyable about letting your newbie members sit in the dark scared of the things that go boom in the night. The core gameplay seems to need more of an outline at the moment, something I am sure will come out as the game grows, I’m just missing for now.
The World
I get the idea behind the sectors and the system size. I'm just not liking it. It’s no secret that the spinning sectors annoys the hell out of some. I’ve been caught by a spinning sector and yanked out of the one I was in when I wasn’t moving. Fun stuff, harsh mechanic. Getting back to some set sectors would be nice, extending sector lines as they work now to be systems would be a lot better. Basic fact of us gamers is that we are going to continue to build bigger to one up each other and it doesn't start small either. First station structure on our server spanned three sectors, simply because we didn't know better. As we continue to grow and test the game this is only going to become more apparent. Changing sectors to being chunk loads by view distance and the boundary be the system line would certainly make a bit more sense. Hell, combine it with planets orbiting without being bound to sectors and you might have a real system.
Factions
I love em! Factions are a great mechanic for the game and the new changes have only made them better. As communities go, a little competition is a great thing and honestly, people are going to group together even inside communities. My hope is that the entry to making one is higher later on and that the home base becomes vulnerable. Simply more risk for the reward.
Stations
Here’s to hoping that the basic game generated stations can be redesigned because I would love to have a community event to design a new one. The current one is a good source of food and a little example of building. But, for our own stations, they are an interesting thing to make. A far cry from a dark, yet somehow reassuring, hole in the ground; stations are currently too hard to mix docking, a home space, art, and factory. Just talking about trying to dock as it is currently and with out any of the bugs or glitches, you simply can't dock and walk into your station in a fluid action. Its this disconnect and the inability to line up ships to mate with a docking port that turn me off of stations as anything other than a floating art piece and possible factory. Even then I see users basing factories on planets more. And stations could learn a thing or two from planets, like better gravity; ease of use sometimes outweighs good game mechanics.
Planets
Cool concept, great generation, pretty damn nice to be honest. They make great player homes, awesome salvager food, and they pretty much work. Bigger planets would definitely be the way to go, possibly even cubier, and hopefully less all over the place and more simply circling the star on a near-to-flat plain. These are great things overall.
Rats (You call them mobs)
The ageless NPC, a must have in any game world if only to provide story and atmosphere. Still, NPC’s are usually at their best when they are dying and StarMade’s are no exception to this rule. For those who don’t know how to make a great ship, its a harrowing and enlightening experience, one which will make or break their reception to the game. With the loot tables geared for fast development, beating your first may be all you ever need to do to get started. But then what? Any newbie can be shown how to make an ok fighting ship, so the challenge stops being the NPC’s. Yes, faction warfare (PvP) is supposed to be the main fighting and jackassery in the game; its rubbish. And not because I’m a carebear but, because I’m not a carebear. I don't want to just run over rats, and I don't want to just give them our own best pvp ships. We need some roles, some basic behaviors instilled into our rats early on. Like from the time they are tiny tots till they are juvenile rockets. Your basic player needs something to remind them of the base level of danger, something to bring their designs up a level. Let it be just pvp and you get giant server crashing battles, again, we know from experience because we had to satisfy our need to pit big ship vs really big ship. Only our very big ship is over a million block and the big ship is a min/maxed war machine. Instead of growing to such big battles, we need active NPC’s of different types with specific roles. These new NPC’s have to be capable of roaming and firing on player built ships in any stage of production, thus forcing the players to create a safe haven for ship building and to make smaller ships capable of defending their homes effectively. A smart mob creates a much smarter player.
Admins
The admin controls feel pretty clunky, not to smooth. I get that, its in Alpha; I also get that if I had better tools I could give better feedback, possibly keeping the server up more and providing more bug reports. Give us what we need to make calls to the server from a basic web interface and make it smoother to run commands in game and away we will go. I know some of this will really come as the code starts to get released for modding so I won't dally on it much. Just to say that the websites public chat need moderation, it needs some admins.
The Bottom Line
StarMade is a great game and even in Alpha its fairly stable and is allowing us to really push the boundaries of the core system. There is now end of great ideas on the suggestions forum and a lot of them deserve much consideration as they would add some very valuable things to the server. But, before any of those considerations, it would be nice to start cleaning up what affects the community first and keeps those things going.
To the community as a whole, this project has a ton of support so, keep it coming. Don’t get stuck on the first server you try either, much like those first days in Minecraft, few constantly on servers right now will be the giants in the community. Come together around them, carve out a home, and make a name. Most importantly, don’t let these server communities die. They need you and StarMade needs them to grow.
-Jieirn
NSE Starmade Server
The Core
That lovely purple thing that is you. Such a delightful thing it is, so much that you just want to shoot them! Or not. But as it is, what is it that we will do with this core? Right now the game lacks that simple drive to do something other than build a ship, then another, then bigger. The world is dark but it is bright; it is large yet feels so small; it works till it doesn’t and I don’t mean the programing. In the core gameplay I guess I’m looking for something that hints at more than variable rats that you can already change to give a reason to build. There has always been something enjoyable about letting your newbie members sit in the dark scared of the things that go boom in the night. The core gameplay seems to need more of an outline at the moment, something I am sure will come out as the game grows, I’m just missing for now.
The World
I get the idea behind the sectors and the system size. I'm just not liking it. It’s no secret that the spinning sectors annoys the hell out of some. I’ve been caught by a spinning sector and yanked out of the one I was in when I wasn’t moving. Fun stuff, harsh mechanic. Getting back to some set sectors would be nice, extending sector lines as they work now to be systems would be a lot better. Basic fact of us gamers is that we are going to continue to build bigger to one up each other and it doesn't start small either. First station structure on our server spanned three sectors, simply because we didn't know better. As we continue to grow and test the game this is only going to become more apparent. Changing sectors to being chunk loads by view distance and the boundary be the system line would certainly make a bit more sense. Hell, combine it with planets orbiting without being bound to sectors and you might have a real system.
Factions
I love em! Factions are a great mechanic for the game and the new changes have only made them better. As communities go, a little competition is a great thing and honestly, people are going to group together even inside communities. My hope is that the entry to making one is higher later on and that the home base becomes vulnerable. Simply more risk for the reward.
Stations
Here’s to hoping that the basic game generated stations can be redesigned because I would love to have a community event to design a new one. The current one is a good source of food and a little example of building. But, for our own stations, they are an interesting thing to make. A far cry from a dark, yet somehow reassuring, hole in the ground; stations are currently too hard to mix docking, a home space, art, and factory. Just talking about trying to dock as it is currently and with out any of the bugs or glitches, you simply can't dock and walk into your station in a fluid action. Its this disconnect and the inability to line up ships to mate with a docking port that turn me off of stations as anything other than a floating art piece and possible factory. Even then I see users basing factories on planets more. And stations could learn a thing or two from planets, like better gravity; ease of use sometimes outweighs good game mechanics.
Planets
Cool concept, great generation, pretty damn nice to be honest. They make great player homes, awesome salvager food, and they pretty much work. Bigger planets would definitely be the way to go, possibly even cubier, and hopefully less all over the place and more simply circling the star on a near-to-flat plain. These are great things overall.
Rats (You call them mobs)
The ageless NPC, a must have in any game world if only to provide story and atmosphere. Still, NPC’s are usually at their best when they are dying and StarMade’s are no exception to this rule. For those who don’t know how to make a great ship, its a harrowing and enlightening experience, one which will make or break their reception to the game. With the loot tables geared for fast development, beating your first may be all you ever need to do to get started. But then what? Any newbie can be shown how to make an ok fighting ship, so the challenge stops being the NPC’s. Yes, faction warfare (PvP) is supposed to be the main fighting and jackassery in the game; its rubbish. And not because I’m a carebear but, because I’m not a carebear. I don't want to just run over rats, and I don't want to just give them our own best pvp ships. We need some roles, some basic behaviors instilled into our rats early on. Like from the time they are tiny tots till they are juvenile rockets. Your basic player needs something to remind them of the base level of danger, something to bring their designs up a level. Let it be just pvp and you get giant server crashing battles, again, we know from experience because we had to satisfy our need to pit big ship vs really big ship. Only our very big ship is over a million block and the big ship is a min/maxed war machine. Instead of growing to such big battles, we need active NPC’s of different types with specific roles. These new NPC’s have to be capable of roaming and firing on player built ships in any stage of production, thus forcing the players to create a safe haven for ship building and to make smaller ships capable of defending their homes effectively. A smart mob creates a much smarter player.
Admins
The admin controls feel pretty clunky, not to smooth. I get that, its in Alpha; I also get that if I had better tools I could give better feedback, possibly keeping the server up more and providing more bug reports. Give us what we need to make calls to the server from a basic web interface and make it smoother to run commands in game and away we will go. I know some of this will really come as the code starts to get released for modding so I won't dally on it much. Just to say that the websites public chat need moderation, it needs some admins.
The Bottom Line
StarMade is a great game and even in Alpha its fairly stable and is allowing us to really push the boundaries of the core system. There is now end of great ideas on the suggestions forum and a lot of them deserve much consideration as they would add some very valuable things to the server. But, before any of those considerations, it would be nice to start cleaning up what affects the community first and keeps those things going.
To the community as a whole, this project has a ton of support so, keep it coming. Don’t get stuck on the first server you try either, much like those first days in Minecraft, few constantly on servers right now will be the giants in the community. Come together around them, carve out a home, and make a name. Most importantly, don’t let these server communities die. They need you and StarMade needs them to grow.
-Jieirn
NSE Starmade Server
