Mom's Spaghetti

[Gedan]

Honestly, I'm not sure it ever should exist as an actual game system in so far as it would be a rigidly defined set of mechanics anyway. There have been prior discussions as to how such a feature might work (which I assume is what Savin has kept in mind when it comes to the stuff he's already written/alluded to) and it really wouldn't work as a generic system anyway as the specifics of the content that would use it would require immense flexibility. At this point calling it cut, imo, is somewhat of an overreaction.

 

[argenten]

Honestly, I'm not sure it ever should exist as an actual game system in so far as it would be a rigidly defined set of mechanics anyway. There have been prior discussions as to how such a feature might work (which I assume is what Savin has kept in mind when it comes to the stuff he's already written/alluded to) and it really wouldn't work as a generic system anyway as the specifics of the content that would use it would require immense flexibility. At this point calling it cut, imo, is somewhat of an overreaction.

Fair enough, you are one of the coders and definitely know more about what would and would not work. As for my reaction, I'll admit a part of it is due to my concerns about how...dissolute the planning and organization seems to be and that if the mechanics really couldn't work like you suggest could have been caught and removed as a potential game addition at the beginning when a lot of what I've previously mentioned should have been gone over. It shouldn't have had a year or more to simmer as a possibility with that kind of "yeah not doable" from a coder hanging over it.

 

[EmperorG]

No factions? Aw, well while sad that we might lose a mechanic, I always did lean more in favor of being able to work with as many and as little people as possible at once. Which is why I liked New Vegas faction system since raising it with one group didn't necessarily upset another one, and you could in theory (until the last few missions) keep all in-game factions you can join/work with happy.


But still, it's disappointing since Savin seemed to be planning some good stuff for the factions, even if I would have preferred to have my cake and eat it too when it came to the Shade or Kara choice system.


Though if it was going to be cut, as other people already asked, why put it on the poll?

 

[Nik_van_Rijn]

Except Amara and the Black Void. If Faction System's gone, fuck it, now I don't have to worry about making a "friendly pirate" group. 

Sorry to hear that. Even without knowing any significant amount of details, the concept of working for Red Puppy Senior and her friendly neighborhood pirates was high up on the list of my most anticipated content. But that's surely peanuts compared to what a bummer it must be for someone who has put actual work into it.


To be honest, I can't think of any reasons why none of the Amara content will be able to work without the rep grind system and based on normal quest mechanics, but again, no knowledge of details. Even if you just decided 'screw that' in the heat of a moment, it's entirely understandable. 


One thing I will ask you to do regarding this, if you haven't done so already, will be sharing the doc with work done so for through the usual means of non-pleb distribution.

 

[Fenoxo]

Please, before reading this consider that I was out drinking heavily at a club on the one night I figured I could step away from CoC/TiTS stuff completely. Then I started seeing messages about shit hitting the fan and left early. So if I come off as overly passionate or irritated (or words are missing) - you know why.

because a lot of Offbeatr goals were written with "this game will be bigger and better than CoC" in mind and not much more than that.  The declaration that you can't spread SSTDs to further partners is a matter of basic sanity: there's no way NPCs could react to it outside specially written cases, so best to just say outright that Steele doesn't spread them further. - Couch

Originally I was planning to have shorter, more variable scenes that would allow for these sort of things. My desire for super long, ultra-detailed scenes wound up winning out in most cases for now. I'd appreciate it Couch would stop firing off half-baked impressions of things are when he has absolutely no involvement in the actual development.

"Then again Fen's just randomly decided to axe the faction system out of the blue so whatever, maybe we can kill SSTDs too. :v" - Savin

I'd hope my employees would weigh what they're going to say and consider how it reflects on the rest of the company, particularly when they're speaking without actually verifying their statements. A faction system was never part of the Offbeatr plans, and while it may have existed on an "ideas" document (and been near and dear to Savin's heart), I don't feel it was a good for TiTS for a number of reasons. I'll explain more on that further down.


Generalized faction systems work great for games with lots of low-impact quests - things like MMOs or Bethesda games. Our games have fewer but more significant quests. If we add a new Xenogen base in a future planet, I'd rather have it check if you helped out Dr. Haswell (because the local leader is his friend), or the Myrellion Doctor than check against some arbitrary Xenogen "score" that exists only to incentivize grinding.


Let's keep TiTS quest significant and meaningful, rather than abstracting them behind numeric systems for the sake of numeric systems.

"Yeah, it's not like I designed, wrote, and had implemented several large projects designed to feed into that system. Like all of Kara's stuff." - Savin

Just because we don't have some convoluted system doesn't mean we can't hook into the events in your quests in a meaningful way. Relax, Savbro.

"Except Amara and the Black Void. If Faction System's gone, fuck it, now I don't have to worry about making a "friendly pirate" group." - Savin

Uh, why not? If that's something you want to do, fucking do it.

"20% of the vote Factions and Reputation system? Ffs, just farm it out to someone else if you don't give a shit about it. Some of us actually DO." - Nonesuch

I do give a shit about it - in the sense that I feel it would actually make the game worse. I do not want to see the equivalent of WoW daily quests make an appearance in TiTS.

"Savin and Gedan should really work full time. Also hire Jacques." - noobsaleh

Savin IS a full time employee. Geddy is a contract worker who I love to have working full time hours, but she also tends to have a pretty broad reach in what she works on in any given time. I respect that. It likely keeps her from burning out from overindulging in one thing.


Also, Savin has some pretty gnarly healthy issues. Give the 'mander commander a break.

"Jacques... isn't a staff member?


wat" - Mysterious Person

Yeah, I'd totally hire Jacques00 if I could. I'm just happy to have his attention most of the time.

"-Wall of inflammatory stuff-" - argenten

The poll was thrown up by someone pulling ideas off the Trello list of potential new features. There is a very long, very involved list of topics for improvement in the game. I'm loathe to just kill them off on the chance that we might find a use for them down the road. For instance, if two years from now we find ourselves in a situation where a reputation system makes sense, it could happen. Right now, I don't think it does.


As for the whole "main dev not communicating or caring about long term effects" - fuck off. Long term effects are exactly the reason I'm against it. If I didn't care, I'd just sign off on it blindly. You have no idea how frustrating sifting through all this is.

"No set plan, no reasonable set of priorities, and quite frankly less and less security in the investment/project itself." - argenten

This is garbage. Absolute garbage, and I have no problem saying so. Do we have a very flexible plan? Yes. There is no complete list of planets that will exist in this game. The plan has always been that each planet would have its own set of subplots and adventures contributing to the whole. The plan has always been that the game will be supported by monthly contributions, allowing us to constantly add more content so long as we work on it, even after the game has a definite end - alternate planets are a definite thing.


I LIKE exploring things that interest me. In a game like this, the quality of the content produced is directly related to the interest of the person working on it. If Savin or I have an idea that greatly interests us, it's better to pursue it than try to check off some boxes that might not be all that great. For an example - look at Yammi's sex scenes. I love Yammi to death, but they're some of Savin's worst works. Flexibility has massive advantages.

"I like TiTS, and feel it has a lot of great potential...but honestly feel that a lot of the same mistakes that were being made with CoC are starting to be made again...with potentially the same result." - Argenten

I literally cannot understand this. CoC got utterly mired in waifu-hunting to the point where the game saw zero progress towards the main plot. We've been pretty constantly filling out planets toward a plot rather than whoring ourselves out for commissions, ala CoC. I have gone to massive lengths to dodge what I perceive as CoC's main failings. Now if you see a different set of failings... that's just going to have to be something we disagree on. Games are a very subjective medium.

"but there's a difference between these and decisions like making the entirety of the Nursery content a single stat page or blowing off the key mechanic of the factions portion of the game that would actually give it any impact and give the players agency in the system." - argenten

Please, please stop trying to fan a fire that doesn't need to exist. First off, Savin is doing up a whole NPC to go with the nursery. Second off, just because the current pregnancy content doesnt include a bunch of new special stuff for the nursery doesnt mean that someone won't write stuff for it down the road. Getting the nursery into the game is the first step toward having a central location for authors to cue in pregger content.


Hell, plenty of CoC pregnancies came with special stuff for offspring. I wrote the Minotaur sons and Goblin horde encounter myself. I also contributed in a big way to the harpy offspring as well. Please stop acting as if you know how development is going to go based off a very limited snapshot of what's going on + a frustrated dev's off-the-cuff post.


Also, if you consider a numeric faction system a core, necessary part of game development, you have a really, really skewed idea of both games and RPGs.

"Savin, you said this Monday you were going to sit down with Fen and figure out how many planets you wanted to have in the main story.  Did that happen?  Was a number even spitballed?  If not, if meetings are being skipped or if Fen can't even get enough of a plan together to say "about ten", that's a big problem.  FenCo is an actual company now, but there's a lot of ways in which it's not acting like one, and sooner or later that's going to have to be addressed." -Couch

We wound up focusing on other topics at that meeting. Just because we are developing in a more flexible way than many traditional companies does not mean we are incompetent. It is still something we intend to do, though I would not be surprised if planets get cut and replaced as development progresses (and new ideas percolate up).

"I also know there's a lot of stuff going on in everyone's lives, what with Savin being sick, Gedan having a whole host of projects to work on, and Fen... doing Fen stuff (that's not me being snarky, I just genuinely don't know what his schedule is)" - Mysterious Person

I literally just dumped in like 12,000 words of content to clear a custom Offbeatr reward scene. I update the blog with what I'm doing more than anyone else.

"It's one thing to not have a set plan for updates to the minute and so on, that's reasonable with a flexible text game like TiTS...what isn't reasonable is there being, from what I can tell, no basic outline at the very least for the main game, let alone side content and expansions. This is not ok. This to me, suggests the mistakes that were being made with CoC are being repeated with potentially the same result." -Argenten

I do have a plan. Sure, it is not a perfect checklist of every major event between now and collecting the final probe, but the game's structure allows us to be very agile and reactive. If aspects of a planet or adventure go badly, we can try adjust the tone and content of the next very easily. A totally fixed path does not allow us to properly react or adjust as needed.

"Too much is being assumed," -argenten

This perfectly describes the posts I've seen from you in this thread.

"It shouldn't have had a year or more to simmer as a possibility with that kind of "yeah not doable" from a coder hanging over it." - argenten

That's not what Gedan is saying at all, really. It's totally doable. The more appropriate question is, should we do it? And the answer is no, not right now. Was an option thrown on a poll without a sit-down by all members of the dev team? Yes. Are there set plans for TiTS? Yes. Is TiTS largely a project of passions that can ebb and swirl in unforeseen directions? Yes, and it's better for it. If you disagree with the content we've been adding to the game, I'll happily refund the last month or two of pledges.

 

[Noob Salad]

Fen, I have a huge amount of respect for you. You went from writing smut for fun to doing it as a full time job. I'd love to be able to do that for any one of my favorite hobbies. With that said, and with all due respect, ~10,000 words a week is a lot, but hardly far from normal for a full time smut writer. I know you have to handle a lot more than just the writing, and I know that Fengames are huge in terms of content especially when compared to other smut games, but there are fanfiction writers that jam out more than that weekly for free. I don't know, maybe I'm just a bit biased having just got off 4chan. Anyway, I sincerely hope you don't take this as an insult and have a good morning once you wake up.


With that said, what I'm taking away from Fen's post is that he's not getting rid of factions at all, just not coding in faction systems like, say, Oblivion or Skyrim had.

 

[Couch]

I'm not going to attempt to engage with all of this, as it's fairly lengthy and I think you largely make fair points.


The one place I chiefly disagree with you is that I think you emphasize flexibility to excess.  I don't want you to say "we're gonna go to Planet X and then Planet Y and then Planet Z".  That's excessive planning for what is, as you've said, a game that relies on the authors feeling passionate about what they're writing.  If it turned out that five years from now you had no interest in writing New Canada or whatever, it would be stupid to hold you or anyone else to that.


But is saying you want the content to top out at level 20 with ten required planets really so much to ask?  It's not like you can't add more alternate planets, or decide you want to offer a shortcut route or a longer route later on, or even decide later "fuck what I said back in 2016, I want to go to level 30".  But your reluctance to give us a number like that is in a very real way hurting our ability to plan against the likelihood that most of us won't be here at the end.  Most of us weren't here at the start.  I certainly don't have any plans to leave anytime soon, I don't think Nonesuch or MP or Wsan or anyone else does either, but the reality is life happens and people go away.  One of the big problems CoC had was that nobody was prepared for what would happen if they went away.  They acted like obviously they would be here forever, so it didn't matter if they just wrote in a bunch of xpack hooks they could follow up on later, or if the character was just flat-out incomplete when first pushed.


If life happens and I go away, I still want my creations to be able to stay with Captain Steele until the end.  In some cases it's hard to do that with so little knowledge of how long the journey might be.  I understand the desire to be flexible, I just think you take it a little too far.


As for whoever told you shit was hitting the fan: that was stupid of them.  This is just a discussion, it could have waited.  There is literally no argument we could have on the forum, now or ever, that would require your immediate attention.  It's just not that important.


I'm sorry for my part in disturbing your night, and I hope you sleep well.

words

I highly recommend you delete that.  I wouldn't take it well and neither will Fen.

 

[PyrateHyena]

Well fock. That became quite intense. Luckily The Ink Spots - Bless You is playing right now and I gotta say it would be fitting to dedicate this song to Fen. I guess ALL of us hold great respect for your work and a decent amount of love too, so I have to back Couch here: do not take this too seriously. I appreciate that you responded, but this abomination here is what Couch said it is, a forum discussion that just went its way (I won't say a good or a bad way, cause that would only drive this the wong way... again).

 

[Nik_van_Rijn]

If spending so much neurons and energy on immediate responses to discussions like this is the price of managing a relatively large financially successful passion project, I'd rather stay a wage slave, twm. Hopefully, the aftertaste of this discussions won't sour the mood our shit on the week-end of anyone here.


And speaking of potentially hiring Jaques full-time, has anyone ever asked him about it, or even spirballed how much more should the game start making a mounth to make it possible?

 

[Fenoxo]

Fen, I have a huge amount of respect for you. You went from writing smut for fun to doing it as a full time job. I'd love to be able to do that for any one of my favorite hobbies. With that said, and with all due respect, ~10,000 words a week is a lot, but hardly far from normal for a full time smut writer. I know you have to handle a lot more than just the writing, and I know that Fengames are huge in terms of content especially when compared to other smut games, but there are fanfiction writers that jam out more than that weekly for free. I don't know, maybe I'm just a bit biased having just got off 4chan. Anyway, I sincerely hope you don't take this as an insult and have a good morning once you wake up.


With that said, what I'm taking away from Fen's post is that he's not getting rid of factions at all, just not coding in faction systems like, say, Oblivion or Skyrim had.

Troubling logic here. Quantity does not equal quality, and I have always been slower when it comes to writing than some other authors. Thankfully I'm not George RR Martin slow, but still pretty slow.

I'm not going to attempt to engage with all of this, as it's fairly lengthy and I think you largely make fair points.


The one place I chiefly disagree with you is that I think you emphasize flexibility to excess.  I don't want you to say "we're gonna go to Planet X and then Planet Y and then Planet Z".  That's excessive planning for what is, as you've said, a game that relies on the authors feeling passionate about what they're writing.  If it turned out that five years from now you had no interest in writing New Canada or whatever, it would be stupid to hold you or anyone else to that.


But is saying you want the content to top out at level 20 with ten required planets really so much to ask?  It's not like you can't add more alternate planets, or decide you want to offer a shortcut route or a longer route later on, or even decide later "fuck what I said back in 2016, I want to go to level 30".  But your reluctance to give us a number like that is in a very real way hurting our ability to plan against the likelihood that most of us won't be here at the end.  Most of us weren't here at the start.  I certainly don't have any plans to leave anytime soon, I don't think Nonesuch or MP or Wsan or anyone else does either, but the reality is life happens and people go away.  One of the big problems CoC had was that nobody was prepared for what would happen if they went away.  They acted like obviously they would be here forever, so it didn't matter if they just wrote in a bunch of xpack hooks they could follow up on later, or if the character was just flat-out incomplete when first pushed.


If life happens and I go away, I still want my creations to be able to stay with Captain Steele until the end.  In some cases it's hard to do that with so little knowledge of how long the journey might be.  I understand the desire to be flexible, I just think you take it a little too far.


As for whoever told you shit was hitting the fan: that was stupid of them.  This is just a discussion, it could have waited.  There is literally no argument we could have on the forum, now or ever, that would require your immediate attention.  It's just not that important.


I'm sorry for my part in disturbing your night, and I hope you sleep well.


I highly recommend you delete that.  I wouldn't take it well and neither will Fen.

It kind of is. Myrellion wound up being larger/longer than originally intended. Who's to say that planet eight won't wind up dragging on for ages?


That said, I'm sure we'll have a list of planet styles we want to do, though perhaps not in a specific order. I'm not really sure how having a planet list would really let you future-proof creations that well. You'd need some super specific information about those planets to really glean much useful information.


In regards to shit hitting the fan, nobody summoned me, per se. I just happened to take a gander a the discord discussion, then popped over to the forums and decided to cut my night short.


I'll have more to say on this later, but I need to get up and get some stuff done.

 

[Nonesuch]

It kind of is. Myrellion wound up being larger/longer than originally intended. Who's to say that planet eight won't wind up dragging on for ages?


That said, I'm sure we'll have a list of planet styles we want to do, though perhaps not in a specific order. I'm not really sure how having a planet list would really let you future-proof creations that well. You'd need some super specific information about those planets to really glean much useful information.


In regards to shit hitting the fan, nobody summoned me, per se. I just happened to take a gander a the discord discussion, then popped over to the forums and decided to cut my night short.


I'll have more to say on this later, but I need to get up and get some stuff done.

It's not so much a list of specific planets we're after - which I agree, wouldn't be all that helpful. It's a timetable. So much of the what and when and where with TiTS is locked behind your brow, and the only indication we have something is going to land this month or in three years' time is when you mention it in passing on the blog. This leads to frustration and a lot of fumbling around in the dark (kek). For example: I wrote a character that relied upon ship and space travel mechanics because I thought that would be neat, with the understanding this was a fairly important part of the game and would be being implemented sooner rather than later. I wrote that character more than two years ago, Fen. Knowing when you intend to sit down with Gedan/whoever and sketch major stuff like this out would be incredibly useful to us. So would telling us about features you've ultimately decided aren't worth it, so another dev doesn't feel the need to vent about the fact he built a thing around said feature and then finds out it's not going to happen. There's a difference between being flexible and "I've got a plan but I'm not showing it to the rest of you".


I hope this does not come across as too negative. We all ultimately want to help make TiTS good. But these negativity spirals are invariably the result of poor communication and not knowing in which direction things are being pulled.

 

[Lashcharge]

It's not so much a list of specific planets we're after - which I agree, wouldn't be all that helpful. It's a timetable. So much of the what and when and where with TiTS is locked behind your brow, and the only indication we have something is going to land this month or in three years' time is when you mention it in passing on the blog. This leads to frustration and a lot of fumbling around in the dark (kek). For example: I wrote a character that relied upon ship and space travel mechanics because I thought that would be neat, with the understanding this was a fairly important part of the game and would be being implemented sooner rather than later. I wrote that character more than two years ago, Fen. Knowing when you intend to sit down with Gedan/whoever and sketch major stuff like this out would be incredibly useful to us. So would telling us about features you've ultimately decided aren't worth it, so another dev doesn't feel the need to vent about the fact he built a thing around said feature and then finds out it's not going to happen. There's a difference between being flexible and "I've got a plan but I'm not showing it to the rest of you".


I hope this does not come across as too negative. We all ultimately want to help make TiTS good. But these negativity spirals are invariably the result of poor communication and not knowing in which direction things are being pulled.

Well a list of generic traits of the planet and general technology level would also be nice. It would help people think and create some races and encounters ahead of time, even if they had to change part of it later, most of the content would be done.


I would also like to know how space combat works.

 

[Couch]

It kind of is. Myrellion wound up being larger/longer than originally intended. Who's to say that planet eight won't wind up dragging on for ages?


That said, I'm sure we'll have a list of planet styles we want to do, though perhaps not in a specific order. I'm not really sure how having a planet list would really let you future-proof creations that well. You'd need some super specific information about those planets to really glean much useful information.

Okay, so to give a very specific instance:


One of my projects is an equipment vendor that updates its wares with each planet so that if you want you can use the same type of weapon for the whole game, instead of using a knife then a spear then a sword then an axe then a spear so on and so forth.  I want to be able to future-proof this project by providing a full set of intended updates, so that if I leave it doesn't just stop.  To do that, I need to have some idea of how long the game is going to be.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out there's only a need for eight, then no problem, just cut the last two.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out you'd need twelve, well, okay, it stops a little earlier than expected but that's still not so bad.


If I have no earthly idea if there'd need to be ten upgrades or five or twenty because you don't even have a general range of what you'd like to do, that's much harder to deal with.  It's flexible, yes, but at that point you're being so flexible that it's gone into being outright nebulous.


He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine Savin would like to have a good idea of how long he needs to draw out the whole Kara/Shade clusterfuck if he wants it to be a game-spanning plot thread whose narrative arc times its beats to the progression of the story.  I especially imagine this is true since one of the very first things Savin did for CoC2 was lay out the critical path.  You don't need to be shackled to that path, but there's a difference between being flexible and keeping everything in your head where the rest of us, even Savin and Gedan, can't see it.

 

[argenten]

I'm not going to attempt to engage with all of this, as it's fairly lengthy and I think you largely make fair points.


The one place I chiefly disagree with you is that I think you emphasize flexibility to excess.  I don't want you to say "we're gonna go to Planet X and then Planet Y and then Planet Z".  That's excessive planning for what is, as you've said, a game that relies on the authors feeling passionate about what they're writing.  If it turned out that five years from now you had no interest in writing New Canada or whatever, it would be stupid to hold you or anyone else to that.


But is saying you want the content to top out at level 20 with ten required planets really so much to ask?  It's not like you can't add more alternate planets, or decide you want to offer a shortcut route or a longer route later on, or even decide later "fuck what I said back in 2016, I want to go to level 30".  But your reluctance to give us a number like that is in a very real way hurting our ability to plan against the likelihood that most of us won't be here at the end.  Most of us weren't here at the start.  I certainly don't have any plans to leave anytime soon, I don't think Nonesuch or MP or Wsan or anyone else does either, but the reality is life happens and people go away.  One of the big problems CoC had was that nobody was prepared for what would happen if they went away.  They acted like obviously they would be here forever, so it didn't matter if they just wrote in a bunch of xpack hooks they could follow up on later, or if the character was just flat-out incomplete when first pushed.


If life happens and I go away, I still want my creations to be able to stay with Captain Steele until the end.  In some cases it's hard to do that with so little knowledge of how long the journey might be.  I understand the desire to be flexible, I just think you take it a little too far.


As for whoever told you shit was hitting the fan: that was stupid of them.  This is just a discussion, it could have waited.  There is literally no argument we could have on the forum, now or ever, that would require your immediate attention.  It's just not that important.


I'm sorry for my part in disturbing your night, and I hope you sleep well.


I highly recommend you delete that.  I wouldn't take it well and neither will Fen.

It's not so much a list of specific planets we're after - which I agree, wouldn't be all that helpful. It's a timetable. So much of the what and when and where with TiTS is locked behind your brow, and the only indication we have something is going to land this month or in three years' time is when you mention it in passing on the blog. This leads to frustration and a lot of fumbling around in the dark (kek). For example: I wrote a character that relied upon ship and space travel mechanics because I thought that would be neat, with the understanding this was a fairly important part of the game and would be being implemented sooner rather than later. I wrote that character more than two years ago, Fen. Knowing when you intend to sit down with Gedan/whoever and sketch major stuff like this out would be incredibly useful to us. So would telling us about features you've ultimately decided aren't worth it, so another dev doesn't feel the need to vent about the fact he built a thing around said feature and then finds out it's not going to happen. There's a difference between being flexible and "I've got a plan but I'm not showing it to the rest of you".


I hope this does not come across as too negative. We all ultimately want to help make TiTS good. But these negativity spirals are invariably the result of poor communication and not knowing in which direction things are being pulled.

Okay, so to give a very specific instance:


One of my projects is an equipment vendor that updates its wares with each planet so that if you want you can use the same type of weapon for the whole game, instead of using a knife then a spear then a sword then an axe then a spear so on and so forth.  I want to be able to future-proof this project by providing a full set of intended updates, so that if I leave it doesn't just stop.  To do that, I need to have some idea of how long the game is going to be.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out there's only a need for eight, then no problem, just cut the last two.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out you'd need twelve, well, okay, it stops a little earlier than expected but that's still not so bad.


If I have no earthly idea if there'd need to be ten upgrades or five or twenty because you don't even have a general range of what you'd like to do, that's much harder to deal with.  It's flexible, yes, but at that point you're being so flexible that it's gone into being outright nebulous.


He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine Savin would like to have a good idea of how long he needs to draw out the whole Kara/Shade clusterfuck if he wants it to be a game-spanning plot thread whose narrative arc times its beats to the progression of the story.  I especially imagine this is true since one of the very first things Savin did for CoC2 was lay out the critical path.  You don't need to be shackled to that path, but there's a difference between being flexible and keeping everything in your head where the rest of us, even Savin and Gedan, can't see it.

These pretty much sum up what I was going for and what still remains as concerns, so I'll just leave it to them since arguably they've put it better and know the nitty-gritty of the issues.

 

[Fenoxo]

It's not so much a list of specific planets we're after - which I agree, wouldn't be all that helpful. It's a timetable. So much of the what and when and where with TiTS is locked behind your brow, and the only indication we have something is going to land this month or in three years' time is when you mention it in passing on the blog. This leads to frustration and a lot of fumbling around in the dark (kek). For example: I wrote a character that relied upon ship and space travel mechanics because I thought that would be neat, with the understanding this was a fairly important part of the game and would be being implemented sooner rather than later. I wrote that character more than two years ago, Fen. Knowing when you intend to sit down with Gedan/whoever and sketch major stuff like this out would be incredibly useful to us. So would telling us about features you've ultimately decided aren't worth it, so another dev doesn't feel the need to vent about the fact he built a thing around said feature and then finds out it's not going to happen. There's a difference between being flexible and "I've got a plan but I'm not showing it to the rest of you".


I hope this does not come across as too negative. We all ultimately want to help make TiTS good. But these negativity spirals are invariably the result of poor communication and not knowing in which direction things are being pulled.

Timetables are hard to nail down for a number of reasons, but ship content is coming. I might actually get to work on it some during my flights home, depending on if my body realizes how little sleep it got. There's a rough outline of what I want to do already, but I want to fill it in with some numbers and a few dozen fitting choices, then simulate a fight or two with pen and paper to see how it goes.


That or I may just chuck out the items and a barebones enemy or two to fight for test purposes, then let Gedan murder it into the backer branch.


I'd also love to have a GUI for the ship fitting system. This means I need to MSpaint some stuff up for Geddy and feed it to Adjatha for arting. (And oh man, I wish Savin/Gedan could've come to Gencon. It would be divine to do some rulecrafting around a table instead of over the interwebs for a change.)


And yes, I acknowledge that two years is a longass time to wait. It's coming sooner rather than later, though.

These pretty much sum up what I was going for and what still remains as concerns, so I'll just leave it to them since arguably they've put it better and know the nitty-gritty of the issues.

Could you not just make a post that adds nothing to the discussion and forces me to scroll through all the things I just scrolled through a second time? Kthnx.

Okay, so to give a very specific instance:


One of my projects is an equipment vendor that updates its wares with each planet so that if you want you can use the same type of weapon for the whole game, instead of using a knife then a spear then a sword then an axe then a spear so on and so forth.  I want to be able to future-proof this project by providing a full set of intended updates, so that if I leave it doesn't just stop.  To do that, I need to have some idea of how long the game is going to be.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out there's only a need for eight, then no problem, just cut the last two.


If I write ten upgrades and it turns out you'd need twelve, well, okay, it stops a little earlier than expected but that's still not so bad.


If I have no earthly idea if there'd need to be ten upgrades or five or twenty because you don't even have a general range of what you'd like to do, that's much harder to deal with.  It's flexible, yes, but at that point you're being so flexible that it's gone into being outright nebulous.


He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine Savin would like to have a good idea of how long he needs to draw out the whole Kara/Shade clusterfuck if he wants it to be a game-spanning plot thread whose narrative arc times its beats to the progression of the story.  I especially imagine this is true since one of the very first things Savin did for CoC2 was lay out the critical path.  You don't need to be shackled to that path, but there's a difference between being flexible and keeping everything in your head where the rest of us, even Savin and Gedan, can't see it.

I don't like your example here, mainly because it cuts out a significant part of the core gameplay loop - notably discovering new loot. If all you need to do every time you unlock a new planet is run over to Steve and pick up sword 3 or 4 or etc, why would you need to bother hunting other items on the planet? Why would you do the optional quest to help the Korgonne chieftan smelt his starhammer?


A better mechanic would be to have an NPC that allows you to transfer the stats of one item onto one of his somehow. I'm not sure how to fluff it in a scifi setting, but this would encourage the player to actually go locate new weapons on the new planet, then return to customize his her appearance on a whole 'nother level. Instead of cutting out mainline RPG mechanics, it would add onto them.


For actual planet count, I'd extrapolate off what we have now. Nine to ten mainline planets is a pretty solid estimate. I do know I'd like to do one that's just a lifeless ball of rock with a pirate base on it - essentially a "short" planet that's entirely dungeon.


I can't speak for Savin, but the man is a helluva writer. If he wants to have a Kara/Shade thing for every future planet, he'll find a way to do it. Or if he wants to keep it more modest, it could be wrapped  up well before the endgame (or spread out so that it only progresses every other planet or so).


Savin's CoC2 plans are far more linear. To make an analogy, it sounds to me like Savin is making the videogame equivalent of the Lord of the Rings films while TiTS is more Star Trek: TNG.

 

[argenten]

Could you not just make a post that adds nothing to the discussion and forces me to scroll through all the things I just scrolled through a second time? Kthnx.

I can show my support for what they are saying and agree with the point they are trying to make kthnx

 

[Krynh]

Mom's spaghetti? idgi

 

[Fenoxo]

I can show my support for what they are saying and agree with the point they are trying to make kthnx

Then I would think, "I agree with X, Y, and Z. They've made fabulous points." would be sufficient. Also: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

 

[argenten]

Then I would think, "I agree with X, Y, and Z. They've made fabulous points." would be sufficient. Also: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Will keep the former in mind, as for the latter, see your drunken diatribe. But feel free to keep attempting to condescend, it's doing such a great  job of proving your points...oh wait.

 

[Nonesuch]

@argenten c'mon man, step off. Try and remember whose site you're on. I'd like it if your encouraging posts remained a fixture of my thread.

 

[argenten]

@argenten c'mon man, step off. Try and remember whose site you're on. I'd like it if your encouraging posts remained a fixture of my thread.

Fair enough, I see your point. 

 

[Savin]

Savin's CoC2 plans are far more linear. To make an analogy, it sounds to me like Savin is making the videogame equivalent of the Lord of the Rings films while TiTS is more Star Trek: TNG.

Maybe more like Tennent/Smith Doctor Who? Like there's a major plot thread woven through everything that you follow along, but there's loads and loads of optional side paths and stories and adventures along the way.


Kinda like CoC1 towards the end, I guess? Once we started having sidestories like Sand Witches and UrtaQuest.

 

[Couch]

Will keep the former in mind, as for the latter, see your drunken diatribe. But feel free to keep attempting to condescend, it's doing such a great  job of proving your points...oh wait.

Get out.  Now.  Go cool your jets somewhere else.

I don't like your example here, mainly because it cuts out a significant part of the core gameplay loop - notably discovering new loot. If all you need to do every time you unlock a new planet is run over to Steve and pick up sword 3 or 4 or etc, why would you need to bother hunting other items on the planet? Why would you do the optional quest to help the Korgonne chieftan smelt his starhammer?

For the sake of collecting loot, of course.  Plenty of people pick up the ZK Rifle and the Tanis Greatbow even though you only actually need one, the SecureMP even if they're not going to use it, the Myr's Leg Rifle that's basically useless, the etc.  There are people who cheat in multiple Emmy rewards because they can't bear the thought of having to pick between the Lava Saber and Vamp Blade.  No GM has ever had to worry about how to get his players to hunt loot.


Not to mention I'm not saying the store-bought gear has to be better than what's available through questing.

A better mechanic would be to have an NPC that allows you to transfer the stats of one item onto one of his somehow. I'm not sure how to fluff it in a scifi setting, but this would encourage the player to actually go locate new weapons on the new planet, then return to customize his her appearance on a whole 'nother level. Instead of cutting out mainline RPG mechanics, it would add onto them.

I can see how I would do this, to some extent, if I knew I was always going to be here.  However, in order to future-proof it I'd need to carefully skirt around ever referencing the item being "absorbed".  I'll explore this method, but I think what I have now is easier to work with.

 

[Krynh]

For the sake of collecting loot, of course.  Plenty of people pick up the ZK Rifle and the Tanis Greatbow even though you only actually need one, the SecureMP even if they're not going to use it, the Myr's Leg Rifle that's basically useless, the etc.  

Yes, in any RPG I play my inventory is always full of weapons as I say to myself "maybe I'll use this one next time" or "that could be handy sometime"

 

[argenten]

This is a good point, and a strong argument against "filling bars to make people like you," which can have a sincerely negative impact on the game as a whole. However, when I would think of the implications of a "faction" system in TiTS, I wouldn't think of something like WoW's horribly degenerate time-sink that literally ruins the game. I thought it would be more like a single-digit kind of "alignment" counter that changed the way certain events played out.


But what if you helped both, and align yourself with Xenogen's interests quite heavily? That's more what I feel a faction/rep system would allow for in terms of flexibility and depth of content. If you help one, it's checked, and some amount of points are deposited into you "Xenogen Rep." Help the other, and the same thing happens. If helping Dr. Haswell is more meaningful from Xenogen's PoV, you could demonstrate that mechanically by having Haswell give you more Xenogen rep. But neither are "required" to access Xenogen's content if, say, a third Xenogen-affiliate that Steele can help pops up at some point.


Because the one fallback I see with having all of TiTS' quests be very significant is that all of them wind up needing to be done in any given playthrough. I never do Haswell's quest, because I don't want to kidnap zil in what is obviously a callous decision, to the point where it scoots the player towards Hard. If there's content later in the game that's going to check for Haswell's quest specifically and not just a general "You've aided Xenogen," I find that a less desirable option in comparison to a "rep score."


I absolutely see your concerns with a rep system, but I do feel there's a way it could be done that's not degenerate, and simply makes content more widely accessible by being able to unlock it in varied ways. The major drawback of being sort of "vague" and non-specific with a rep score as opposed to specific NPC/Quest checks is that writers won't be able to know what a given player has or has not done outside of niche situations, so that would necessitate many different dialogue/event chain forks, or they'd need to structure faction/rep content in such a way as to not directly reference the player's decisions leading up to being granted access to said content.

I agree that the WoW time-sink is to be avoided, even Rifts still has elements of having to slog for rep even though their's is arguably one of the better examples of a MMO rep system. My particular take on what it could add is based on my experiences with Starpoint Gemini 2. A single player where you can literally skip the main quest for as long as you want with no punishment, and where you arguably don't deal with the major factions that you accrue rep with directly...but it does show in little if impacting ways. Different ships are available as well as missions, areas can be safe where others are not, so on and so forth. While I'm not advocating this level of detail by any means, my brain whimpers at the amount of effort it'd take to translate the same level to a text based game, I am trying to use it as an example of how a general rep system can affect the ambiance and gameplay of the game without directly affecting the main story or NPCs.

Because MP does bring up a good point with all the quests having direct impact down the line and those choosing not to do them for w/e reasons they see fit will be locked out if they do not take advantage of it. On the one hand, it's fair to go "you don't do the quest, no reward for you." because well, no work no pay. But at the same time MP also points out that a rep system would allow for some flexibility in handling future content and how much will be open to players who don't do some of the earlier quests or not. 

The Rep system does have serious degeneration/misuse issues however, so it does make sense to have it be something that needs careful handling one way or another.

For the sake of collecting loot, of course.  Plenty of people pick up the ZK Rifle and the Tanis Greatbow even though you only actually need one, the SecureMP even if they're not going to use it, the Myr's Leg Rifle that's basically useless, the etc.  There are people who cheat in multiple Emmy rewards because they can't bear the thought of having to pick between the Lava Saber and Vamp Blade.  No GM has ever had to worry about how to get his players to hunt loot.

*raises hand* guilty of loot collecting, even if it's not to the extreme of cheating emmy rewards. On the other hand, one of the advantages to the many, many weapons found in game is that some are better for different situations. Like the Biowhip is very useful if you're going for lust wins but the Vamp blade will keep you alive in shield-eating battles. I think as long as the shop weapons have different bonuses that do not invalidate the loot found in game, it shouldn't cause too much friction.

 

[Chesheire]

Just to pop in...


I'm really, REALLY glad that we have devs who are so passionate that they actively involve some of the community into the development process.


It says more about the people running the show than any doctered "interview" ala UBISOFT could EVER say. However, it also introduces an interesting aspect in which people such as argenten and I are able to point out specific things that they may seem as wasteful or perhaps not up to their standard of quality. And yet even then, Fenco, Savin, Couch, everyone here, is more than willing to talk to these dissenters. Instead of mishandling the issue, the devs instead make the most of their presentation format and reinforce the community positively. They are happy to discuss future plans on the forums, they are happy to reinforce their position, and they are happy to show off even more of their development process than is already up to see. And I am so glad that they choose to do so.


And while this is probably completely off topic and subtractive from the whole of the discussion, I had to say it. These discussion threads in which the devs respond and smooth out issues have brought me more hope and generated more respect than anything else I have seen to date. 


It also might have helped to have my chill hip hop playlist in the background lol

 

[Fenoxo]

I wrote a giant wall of text, but then airport wifi ate it. RIP.


Basically - if you want all the rewards, yes all the quests are mandatory. The same would be true with a reputation system.


That's probably it for me in this. I'm not sure I can keep up on these threads once I get home. I don't know how people have time to post so much here

 

[EmperorG]

That's probably it for me in this. I'm not sure I can keep up on these threads once I get home. I don't know how people have time to post so much here

Being a university student with a lot of time on hand and no job helps, but even I get boggled at how some of the powerposters here write so many posts.

For the sake of collecting loot, of course.  Plenty of people pick up the ZK Rifle and the Tanis Greatbow even though you only actually need one, the SecureMP even if they're not going to use it, the Myr's Leg Rifle that's basically useless, the etc.  There are people who cheat in multiple Emmy rewards because they can't bear the thought of having to pick between the Lava Saber and Vamp Blade.  No GM has ever had to worry about how to get his players to hunt loot.


Not to mention I'm not saying the store-bought gear has to be better than what's available through questing.


I can see how I would do this, to some extent, if I knew I was always going to be here.  However, in order to future-proof it I'd need to carefully skirt around ever referencing the item being "absorbed".  I'll explore this method, but I think what I have now is easier to work with.

Personally I would much prefer the Foundry keeps the "upgrade your weapon for every new planet" idea, really  loved how detailed the weapons were and how each upgrade made them sound even better. It made it feel like I was really getting stronger as time went on, instead of the ol "Dinky lil'town at the end of the adventure just naturally has better equipment then that massive capital city you went to at the beginning of the game!" cliche.

 

[Kesil]

  Hell, plenty of CoC pregnancies came with special stuff for offspring. I wrote the Minotaur sons and Goblin horde encounter myself.

I have never been too much for incest myself, so I wonder... were the Minotaur Sons able to impregnate the Champion? If so, was it included in Blackheart/Onikumomaru's original commission?

 

[RedOokami]

Yah know, I don't post too often in the forums. Mainly due to the whole "university student/full time night worker/husband" thing but I was rather surprised by the passion found in both the nursery thread that lead me to this one and this thread, I had no idea these forums were so....heated, at times. Though it seems things were more or less settled in the end, I just thought I'd post my two cents, even though my paltry contribution each month amounts to very little in the grand scheme of things. I for one was extatic when the poll went up for the nursery and other things, and honestly I was happy to cast my vote. Even though the "loss" of factions is a sad one I'd have to agree that quality is better than quantity. As just a random backer I'd love some sort of skeletal plan of what's going to happen in the future, but either way it was interesting and in a way enjoyable to read everyone's opinions and feelings in the threads. May have to drop by more often. Have a good one everybody.