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Post by En1gma on Oct 6, 2014 20:31:13 GMT -5
Do it, fallen. Personally I can't really stand dogs... Owning them anyway- I like being able to give them back  We rescued two sisters from the local shelter and they're great! Awesome temperament, very friendly, and they keep each other busy... Cats are awesome and just the right fit for us.... My 15 m.o. is trying so hard to say 'kitty'.... It's adorable- it comes out 'itty' but he loves watching them playing and balancing on things... I'm rambling again, but there are so many needy cats that are just the sweetest things on the planet. Go adopt- and stay away from pet-mills. |
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2014 20:59:32 GMT -5
you neeeeeeeed cats. Not more than 2 - not less than 1 ... and you have to call one Slayer! Preferably the dopy one. You don't want to call the sensible one Slayer ... oh and preferably male cat  Cats are not needy - they will let you live in their house too. All they expect you to do is worship them, feed them, and give them your attention. That's the ideal type of pet (for clarity, YOU are THEIR pet). Dogs - dogs need regular walks, have smelly breath, and if you've ever smelt a dog fart, you'll want good ventilation. Dogs are needy. And really heavy on your legs if you let them sleep on your bed. |
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Post by fallen on Oct 6, 2014 21:01:57 GMT -5
Thanks to everyone for sharing their feelings on this unique aspect of 4X!
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Post by Officer Genious on Oct 6, 2014 21:05:10 GMT -5
Do it, fallen. Personally I can't really stand dogs... Owning them anyway- I like being able to give them back We rescued two sisters from the local shelter and they're great! Awesome temperament, very friendly, and they keep each other busy... Cats are awesome and just the right fit for us.... My 15 m.o. is trying so hard to say 'kitty'.... It's adorable- it comes out 'itty' but he loves watching them playing and balancing on things... I'm rambling again, but there are so many needy cats that are just the sweetest things on the planet. Go adopt- and stay away from pet-mills. , my dog-loving family shuns you!! SHUNUNUNUNUNUNNNNNN!!!I never cared for cats much. Only one I ever liked; and the irony is that her owner said she rarely hung around people and seemed to honestly enjoy being around me. Us grumps had to stick together! XD I wanted to say that there are a lot of animals that need adopting, and a number of animals with unnecessarily bad reps that could really use the love. I know a pitbull a family friend owns who's the sweetest thing on the planet-- first time I met her, I just remember her jumping all over me trying to lick my face.  Terrible guard dog, but a real sweetheart of a pitbull. She's lots of energy and needed a lot of training, but in the end, she's just another dog, not some kind of scary tiger-lion someone's pretending is a pet. Also... (in best imitation of "research in progress" voice... who did that, anyway? fallen?) DERAILING IN PROGRESS. |
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2014 21:28:27 GMT -5
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Post by Officer Genious on Oct 6, 2014 21:31:54 GMT -5
It only looks like a hug, its really trying to put me in a choke-hold to slip a knife in my ribs! I saw the Youtube clip kittens, YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!! |
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2014 21:35:01 GMT -5
Cat's just want to hold your hand ... no claws see honest  |
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Post by Officer Genious on Oct 6, 2014 21:38:05 GMT -5
Yay, the video finally worked! only took me about ten minutes to find that I can't copy/paste the url from the web address and must use the share link version! >.<
Or not. Drat.
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2014 21:39:52 GMT -5
Officer Genioususe the tags [video] url [/video]But only if you aren't going to disparage the cat ...
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Post by Officer Genious on Oct 6, 2014 21:41:51 GMT -5
I tried to edit it that way, and everytime I did Proboard reverted it to video src=""... >.>
And no worries, this clip is actually one of the cutest things I think I've seen involving animals and game parodies. No violence, just soldiers being chased by kittens. XD
Oddly enough, the video works on Proboards if you avoid clicking the play arrow and click to the lower-right of the arrow (but within the movie border). o.0 Boggles me mind, it does...
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2014 21:49:20 GMT -5
Niiiiiiiice kitty  |
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Post by Cory Trese on Oct 6, 2014 22:29:59 GMT -5
1. increased visibility on the relations, whether this with a love/hate bar or a place to hear rumors on the relations between two factions. Now I understand if you don’t want to show us "do this and increases chance of an agreement by x% chance", but at least something showing if we are on the right track or shouldn’t even bother spending money on summits. At times your impact currently feels limited, political events feel luck based or overruled by invisible factors, you can do 10+ trade summits with no agreements, but do something like rapidly colonize or keep moral high and everybody jumps into alliances. In other games I have had certain factions always in a war of some type and others always in an alliance or agreement. Again anything that makes this feels less random while adding character to the universe without upsetting game play is always nice.
It's semi-randomized, but fairly predictable. I need to do more to make the game's internal state machine visible to the character. I'm working with Andrew on some additional interface elements, and developing some equations to power them, that will help with this. I really want to reach a place where we can have increased visibility and continue to develop this part of the game. We're going to be adding some skin packs this weekend that will hopefully sell well enough that we can put some extra focus on the 4X roadmap! 2. Add special “election” events – Add random or annual event where the faction leaders vote. Could be based off of planet populations or each faction/planet gets 1 vote and you get a tie breaker vote. This is another area the above mentioned faction relations would come into play without needing a war or alliance, but still have the smaller factions working together to stop the growth of the third or possibly voting to try and improve relations. If this was implemented I am sure you could fill a thread of suggestions that add spice to the game but some quck examples: a. Penalize one faction or planet – limit number of colony ships, tax one turn of CP, lower pop migration b. Special events or impact on a planet – trade fair (extra tp or $), prison planet (low morale extra labor), build a statue (improve moral or relations?) c. Impacts all – limit total TP for a time period (some factions sick of having to do all of the fighting while others get rich), focus on research (or happiness/espionage/production/commerce) (% of CP or TP goes towards other resource ) This is also in the works, but not necessarily limited to a regular event. The system that is currently powering Explorer events will be expanded to allow for random events such as political or social changes, major Faction shake ups, the death of a Prince, etc. I like the suggestions you make as fodder for effects from the system. 3. Disconnect faction relations from other game successes. It feels like in early game or when I am in a desperate situation is when faction relations are at an all-time low and wars will happen arbitrarily, but is also when I need the money the most and have the least options to try and improve things. Whereas when your economy is already running a surplus and everything is awesome you don’t even need to run events and you still get trade alliances. I am kind of torn on even suggesting this, I like good faction relations as a reward for keeping a balanced universe. Ending the solar wars helped but you still can feel like you get in a death spiral where you need ships and improvements but can’t raise the money because moral is dropping and you still have spy wars and no trade agreements. Again this is not necessarily a bad thing and maybe shouldn't change, I think if you had more visibility as already discussed it would help show root causes and would mitigate the feeling the universe is against me. [/p][/quote] This one I cannot agree with. The game is continuing to develop reactive systems (for example, free diplomacy when you are poor, automatic reduction in hostility during xeno wars, etc) to offset and modulate conflict generation. Disconnecting the political engine from the game engine goes against what you said in #1, which I like enough to say that #3 isn't part of the plan. |
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Post by ntsheep on Oct 6, 2014 22:43:17 GMT -5
slayernz, I can agree that dog farts are a form of Bio-weapon, but I had a cat I named Gasbag. You shouldn't need to think much on why I chose that name
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Post by GANK-STER on Oct 6, 2014 23:14:25 GMT -5
@cory. I appreciate and applaud that you were trying to make a unique game, and in a way you did. Unfortunately there really just isnt TOO much "uniqueness" you can give to a 4X type game. They all have to center around building an empire in all its respects, and really the only differences there can be are the lore/story and game mechanics (colony/base building, upgrades/research, units and "rules"). IMO, having the player control multiple factions is cumbersome, and like I said earlier, inconsistent. I feel that there really is no point in having more than one faction. Having to keep track of three separate "empires" at once is somewhat tedious and redundant, especially since the only difference between them is VERY minor bonuses to one aspect (+CP, +RP, etc). Its like playing an RPG where you control three characters, except all three have to be fighters and have minor differences between them (one gets +1 attack, one gets +1 def and one gets +1 speed). Besides my argument that it does not make sense gameplay and lore wise, it just feels useless. The random (or semi-random) events like trade agreements and solar wars are a great idea (just like they were in the original Star Traders). But those same exact elements could have been applied exactly the same to a 4X game where the player controls one faction, and IMO it would have worked even better. If the player controlled one faction, these random events would feel like the rest of the galaxy was evolving around and along with him, instead of feeling like it was being forced on you simply to create a random environment or happening behind your back, which directly contradicts your feeling of control and shatters your suspension of disbelief. The latter being EXTREMELY damaging to gameplay. To use STRPG for an example: one of the BEST qualities of this game is how well it immerses you. The lore, setting, morale system, politics, "rumors" and everything else sucks you in and makes you BELIEVE that you are the captain of a space ship, scraping and clawing for your existence. While there are MANY random occurrences that happen well outside of your control (faction wars, colony events, etc), none of them supersede your control. They happen TO you, they dont happen in spite of you. Imagine if during that game, the computer randomly chose to dismiss one of your officers, or to retreat from an enemy? No longer would you believe you were the captain of a star ship, you would just be someone playing a game. The immersion would be gone because you could not maintain your suspension of disbelief. Along with being cumbersome, redundant and tedious, the lack of immersion due to these inconsistencies is another big reason I believe this game is inferior to STRPG.
I have read a couple of reviews that make the same points I do. And unfortunately I see no way to fix these issues other than changing to a single faction system. Controlling three separate factions will always be cumbersome and redundant, and there is no way to have random events happen between the factions without contradicting the players control, which destroys the suspension of disbelief. I have a feeling that a lot of non-STRPG veterans will be VERY put-off with this game because they, like myself, will see the three faction system as pointless. The first time I started this game my initial reaction was "why am I controlling three separate factions?" and I have a sinking suspicion that many new players will be thinking the exact same thing. Aside from the "Templar lore," there is really no gameplay reason for it. All the game mechanics could have been kept with a single faction system and the game as a whole, along with the initial learning curve would have been much simpler.
I really hope that you seriously consider a change. Forgetting many of the issues Ive brought up, I believe that there are FAR more options with a single faction system. Multiplayer (online, ad-hoc and single device) would be possible with potentially up to 6 players, which in and of itself would GREATLY increase your player base. Like I said before, there really arent any good 4X games for Android right now, and all of the multiplayer ones are silly pay-to-win games which no serious gamer will play.
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Post by fallen on Oct 6, 2014 23:30:27 GMT -5
@gank-ster - sorry that it seems we disagree strongly over this point. I think you're under-estimating the bonuses provided by the Factions, that is -- not really using them effectively.
Thanks for the feedback, we'll keep working on improving.
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We rescued two sisters from the local shelter and they're great! Awesome temperament, very friendly, and they keep each other busy... Cats are awesome and just the right fit for us.... My 15 m.o. is trying so hard to say 'kitty'.... It's adorable- it comes out 'itty' but he loves watching them playing and balancing on things... I'm rambling again, but there are so many needy cats that are just the sweetest things on the planet. Go adopt- and stay away from pet-mills.
Terrible guard dog, but a real sweetheart of a pitbull. She's lots of energy and needed a lot of training, but in the end, she's just another dog, not some kind of scary tiger-lion someone's pretending is a pet.
