I saw Rimworld for the first time via the yogscast Sips' lets play videos. I liked how it looked and did a lot of reading. Ive watched some more lets plays and started trawling the forums.
Im going to say this is a copy of dwarf fortress.
Ill try to head off the negativity by saying firstly I dont think theres anything wrong with copying something.
Secondly the tactical aspects of the game really look like they add something significant. If I say the combat feels like real time xcom, im saying that from the point of view of someone who is watching someone else play. Ive played xcom and df loads and love them both.
Thirdly the UI looks amazing. As someone who has played, loved, lamented the UI for and braced myself for the complete lack of an imminent UI upgrade for, dwarf fortress, looking at the UI for rimworld makes me want to play it
Fourthly I think Rimworld "adventure mode"/roguelike RPG/procedural fallout type RPG a la Dwarf fortress would be amazing (and I have some idea that this might as well be a second gamein terms of work)
So if this is a copy of dwarf fortress, I say hurrah, because I love the sci-fi/western, firefly type setting, and playing dwarf fortress on that UI would be fun.
Ive just donated to DF, the first time I have ever donated money to a game. Id quite like to get rimworld at some point but some things may strongly influence when that purchase happens. Amongst the readings about rimworld I cant see much in the way of medium to long term policy/development goals for rimworld.
Im curious about the following, so if anyone has any links to discussion related to this please link, otherwise I suppose im asking the game developers/Tynan.
What level of emulation of df does rimworld seek to replicate ?
Ive read z levels, may be added not soon and that balance for available resources is tied to z levels which makes sense. Id like to see z levels.
Colonist procreation, ive read could be done in future not soon, and the idea "stories star with characters as children and end with characters as children.I tend to play DF in slow burn mode, turtling, and often enjoy breeding dwarf clans, which akes me feel more attached to them and their story. I totally understand the "theyll never have time to grow up" comment but I want it anyway.
More flavour. Ive read Tynan asking, would you rather see 10 variations of an existing item or 5 totally new items. Tynan's seemed to imply his view that 5 totally new is always better. Given rimworlds current state id probably agree. However a mixture of those as the game ages would be nice to see. Flavour crops, stone, metal and animals would definitely be something id hope to see given enough time.
So with those specific questions/issues in mind im also curious about realistic estimates of project longevity/sustainability/longterm vision/ultimate direction.
What id like to be the case is that this is a breakout success, that development is still continuing in 10 years and i see all my own personal desires met and exceeded. Dwarf fortress needs competition in awesomeness and ive not seen anything that comes as close as this. Also Df is fantasy and this is scifi so I dont see why they couldnt coexist. Also if this goes well it could finally shame df into doing something about its UI.
However, what I feel is more likely, looking at kickstarter numbers and thinking of the backgrounds of Tynan and DFs author is that this game will not still be in development in 10 years. (Toady I suspect is something of an anomolous person let alone game designer from whom I consider myself lucky to be able to play dwarf fortress via)
So Ludeon Studios, do you have a guess/projection/hope for how long rimworld be in development for ?
Do you imagine the "adventure mode"/RPG thing has an above 0 chance of ever happening ?
Do you have a certain (rough) feature set that you envisage as "complete" with regard to a finished game that could be sold commercially and might represent a logical cessation of development based on sales performance?
Is there any chance of "true" expansions/second games/DLC(shorthand term)/properly continued development to continue for rimworld if only moderate sales success is acheived
If Rimworld is only moderately successful are the founders and employees of Ludeon going to disperse to the winds ?
I realise that a lot of the depth of df in terms of both flavour (various rocks and ores, massive bestiary, crop types (with brand new version)) and systems/mechanics ( z levels, thirst/drinking, ADVENTURE MODE, animal husbandry ) has come from a very long and protracted development period/process and that rimworld cannot mimic/improve upon that level of content in a small fraction of the time (caveats apply).
I also feel that df adventure mode (rimworld style) or possible a civilisation/sims style planet/multi settlement game mode or even a planetary/interstellar game mode comprise as much work as the entirety of rimworld currently though I am not a coder nor designer. And im trying to be realistic (but am quite excited).
Id like to say Rimworld looks like an amzing game and I think with a bunch of flavour could be sold as a commercial product in short time.
And finally id like to say great "work guys" to Ludeon and apologies for the massive wall of text.
Just to answer your direct questions.
0. DF is the biggest inspiration, no messing around. Certainly I reference that game lots. I really think, though, that DF essentially represents a nameless genre all on its own. Along with a few others like Towns, RimWorld is just one of the very few games in this unnamed genre. It really is very distinct from DF by the standards of any other genre - completely different setting, gun tactics, different events, storytellers, etc etc. It only seems similar because there are few games that seriously attempt to enter the DF-like genre. Consider genre-sharing pairs like UT vs Q3, C&C vs StarCraft, etc - these games are often more similar than DF and RW, but nobody really minds. It's normal.
1. As a general rule I don't make promises that I'm not quite sure I can keep. That includes pretty much any promise about future developments for a game that extend beyond a few weeks. Game development is just like that. You can't really predict it. So if I said something about the long-term future of RimWorld, it would just be a guess, and there's no value in me giving out my guesses and pretending they're anything else. So I'm sorry I can't give long-term projections. There are just too many variables.
Maybe you think it's annoying, sorry about that. I, however, wish to be able to say, in a few years, that I've never broken a promise.
2. Adventure mode is possible but unlikely. Based on its performance in the DF world I don't think it's a big winner. I have other directions I'd like to go with in RW first, and other games I'd like to make.
3. There's no specific list of features planned for the game to be 'complete'. I'm a big fan of giving up concepts that don't make sense in a new domain - even if they're concepts that are comforting or commonly accepted. Schedules (as I explained in point 1) are one of those concepts that I just abandoned in my dev methodology because I've seen them cause more problems than they solve. I've also abandoned the concept of a 'complete' game - at least for something like RimWorld. I could wrap it up, fix the bugs and big balance issues, and release a final version at the end of August. Or I could work on it for decades. Or even work, stop, work again. So I can't answer your question because it depends on a concept which doesn't apply.
4. There's a reasonable chance that I'll wrap up RimWorld at some point, maybe make another game, and maybe follow up on RimWorld with a pseudo-sequel some day. There are some steps up in functionality which are too big to really be done within the same game. So it might happen.
5. As the only founder and employee of Ludeon, I certainly hope that I don't 'disperse to the winds'. That sounds really painful!
But seriously. I'd like to build something longer-term with Ludeon but I don't really have a need to grow the headcount just to do it. I own the company so I don't have investors demanding that I grow the company or pump up the valuation. I'm in this for my own lifestyle, lifelihood, and creative satisfaction.
I don't really want to mange a bunch of lackeys. It's not what I've spent all these years training to do, which is to make design decisions. I don't want to become a manager.
Which really means I only want to either work with partners or train apprentices into partners. But finding people to fill either of these roles has proven difficult, especially with the logistical issues surrounding everyone being spread all over the planet.
I've been waiting for a long time for a game like RimWorld, and I couldn't be happier with my purchase. I've already put in a few dozen hours and I can't imagine slowing down anytime soon.
In my opinion, the only expectation I have for a software developer is to deliver a working product based on the expectations set for me based on the marketing material....I'm still waiting for my Dance Studio, Blizzard.
I find it interesting that the post-Minecraft mindset seems to be that Indie developers must continue to iterate over the same project and continue to release new features. This of course happens in the same world where AAA titles sell you DLC before you even have a chance to play the real game.
Personally, I wish Indie Devs would take a page out of Paradox's book and start figuring out a way to continue to be compensated for our continued joy of the services you all provide. I know I'm not alone if I figured out the cost per hour of entertaining me in games like Minecraft, Prison Architect, and now RimWorld I'd be looking at a few tenths of a cent per hour!
Finally, I'd like to point out that this game is already massively moddable in it's current state and you can expect the community to continue to add to the game as time goes on. When this thing hits Steam it's going to EXPLODE.
tldr; Buy the game.
Tynan, as always a really great response! I for one have been extremely satisfied by the game and enjoyed every chance I've gotten to live the development process.
Tynan is the most transparent developer I know of and you can follow his work by checking out the change log in this thread
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=3420.0
I suggest joining the rest of us on this journey! This is definitely not a Star Command situation...
Tynan
Thanks for the rapid and lengthy reply. I have read many of your responses and one of the things i didnt say because my post was getting a bit long is that you seem very professional and that the quality of your community interaction is second to none. So thanks for all of that.
I thought you employed an audio guy and an art guy, my bad, so maybe they work freelance. I just wanted to be inclusive! Agreed scattering yourself to the winds does sound painful!
I value higher, the man who says i will reach level 5 and does it than the man who says ill reach level 10 and who dies on level 7 with his stuff scattered everywhere. I just wanted to get an idea about the future and you have certainly given me that. So thanks again.
Ive played a lot of minecrft and used a lot of mods (ive checked out the available rimworld mods and for such an early game there is a lot and it looks good). I dont expect rimworld to still be developed in 5 years because minecraft did. Minecraft I think, like DF is anomolous. Its a breakout success and ive read notch say words to the effect of "ive got the money for 10 years for mojang to survive with no other breakout success. That is that in 10 years if weve made no money then well wrap up the company and be grateful we had 10 fun years".
And it does seem sometimes like mojang is more of a social club. Id actually like to see mojang wrap up development of minecraft because some great mods have already fallen by the wayside not to be replaced with MC version changes.
So I dont expect that a game should be in development forever. At the end of the day the game/company has to make a profit or its not viable. Man gotta eat right ?
Its just since ive seen nothing like it in terms of how close it comes to df whilst adding something df doesnt have I was curious whether rimworld worlds will "come to life" the way DF worlds, with the latest version are starting to do. (ie adventure mode and "stuff" taking place in the world regardless of what the player does).
I played DF for a long time before I realised that for all its world gen and flavour, the game totally revolves around the players "embark/site" and that history and world gen are turned off and that largely the players game/site is totally independant of the ridiculously well crafted "world". My desire to pump hours into DF was largely forstalled upon really grasping the state of its world and by this time the world being "turned on" was the next big thing in development (and its now landed after 2 years). I feel that this really makes playing the hell out of the game makes it more worthwhile.
It took DF a long time to get to the point that the world mattered and I was curious whether that is the vision for rimworld and whether its got a half decent chance of getting there.
"TLDR buy the game" Love the sentiments, everything ive seen and read makes me agree.
Reason I havent already is I dont like kickstarters and I dont like the way people are chucking money around just for the promise of someone they know nothing about. Ill probably buy rimworld at some point but I know that if rimworld finishes "fort mode" and never looks back ill probably be playnig df and not rimworld (despite the UI).
Anyways thanks to all and im glad my post was taken in the light it was intended
EDIT just seen mention of "world view modes" on the upcoming features in the wiki. Sounds like the sort of thing id like to see.
Quote from: psilous on July 11, 2014, 11:49:50 PM
Tynan, as always a really great response! I for one have been extremely satisfied by the game and enjoyed every chance I've gotten to live the development process.
Tynan is the most transparent developer I know of and you can follow his work by checking out the change log in this thread
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=3420.0
I suggest joining the rest of us on this journey! This is definitely not a Star Command situation...
So much +1!
I don't get as much play time as I'd like, but that's life and it makes it even sweeter when I do get to play.
"Maybe you think it's annoying, sorry about that. I, however, wish to be able to say, in a few years, that I've never broken a promise."
I'm not sure you can really use this as bragging rights if you've never made promises either :)
That's kind of like me, with zero doctoring experience offering to do heart surgery on you and saying "Don't worry Tynan, I've not lost a patient yet!"
Quote from: sirdave79 on July 12, 2014, 05:42:37 AM
"TLDR buy the game" Love the sentiments, everything ive seen and read makes me agree.
Reason I havent already is I dont like kickstarters and I dont like the way people are chucking money around just for the promise of someone they know nothing about. Ill probably buy rimworld at some point but I know that if rimworld finishes "fort mode" and never looks back ill probably be playnig df and not rimworld (despite the UI).
As someone who has bought into a lot of "Early Access" games on Steam and been really disappointed that such unfinished games that were 'copies' of other games and never even polished / completed after being green-lit and on Steam for a really long time, I can honestly say RimWorld does NOT fit into that category and as a standalone game, no mods, it has many many hours of solid playability even at this early stage of development.
While it's fine to compare a new game to DF or Minecraft, just keep in the back of your mind that those games went through long years of development and it was the community enthusiasm that made them solid classics. That's what I see happening with RimWorld and that's why I jumped in early, before it's even another number on the Steam queue where the gamer mentality is much lower and often insanely critical and petulant. I actually kind of wish Tynan wouldn't put this game on Steam to be honest. Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft are both examples of games that did fine as indies and no Steam backing. Sometimes putting games on Steam can ruin them in my opinion and I'm a big Steam fan so that's not the point. It's the player mentality that causes a whole attitude that can muck up the works.
I've taken the risk and shelled out money for Alpha games I wish I hadn't. This isn't one of them.
Since you've posted enough times here and been following it for some time, I encourage you to just take the leap and buy it and be a constructive part of the feedback community after you've had some time to play it hands on. Lets Plays on Youtube really only give you a spectator perspective. I loved the game far more than the videos I watched of it being played and those were even by the big names (Cohh Carnage) which convinced me to buy it. Playing it myself was way better. Love this game.
Quote from: Tynan on July 11, 2014, 10:29:14 PM
I own the company so I don't have investors demanding that I grow the company or pump up the valuation. I'm in this for my own lifestyle, lifelihood, and creative satisfaction .
Erm.. I think you do have investors. Investors who expect a product sooner rather than later.
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 04:38:42 PM
Erm.. I think you do have investors. Investors who expect a product sooner rather than later.
Nope, I have backers and customers, and they've all already gotten everything they were promised, barring a few final fixups.
EDIT: Of course we're still adding new goodies for everyone, but the game is there and I'm pretty happy with the state of it.
This has been a really unattractive dialog.
Why does one need to grasp / know the "long-term" future of Rimworld to shell out the $30 it costs? In addition to what everyone has stated that people tend to shy away / been burned from alphas / kickstarters, I tend to think that TOO many people are looking for that next Minecraft where you spend $20-$30 bucks and end up playing it for YEARS. This is unreasonable. Do you ask the same of any AAA title? I would much rather spend the $30 for the game I have already played in RimWorld, than dish out $60 for a game I finish in 8 hours. It's not like Ludeon is asking for a subscription here... what you buy is what you get... anything else is just gravy in my opinion.
Games like this are refreshing to say the least, others can spend $60 a year subscription for games like Call of Duty and Madden, etc ... i'll stick to buying games where I know I will get a return on my investment, have my fun and move along when it is no longer supported.
(just to note, I'm not saying anyone in this thread is comparing this game to the likes of CoD / Madden, I am just conveying how I look at justifying buying games like RimWorld in my opinion)
$30 is a lot. Especially for an alpha/early-access game.
However, I did get to play the game a bit before buying and I must say spending the $30 was a no-brainer and worth every penny.
Honestly, if the game were free, I would have thrown $30 at Tynan and yelled "TAKE MY MONEY!"
These are the type of games you need to buy and support developers. I, myself, envision being a game/app developer some day and would want people to buy my product and enjoy it. Win-win.
You don't see that many indie games these days that are this good of quality. Especially from a single developer.
As far as being a "copy of DF", you could say exactly the same thing about Minecraft. Tynan and Notch have openly said DF was a huge influence on their repective games. I've watched videos of people playing DF, I have tried to play DF myself, and I like all the stuff about DF, but I don't want to play DF. When I seen a comment about how RimWorld was basically DF with a better UI/controls/graphics, I knew I was not looking for DF but instead looking for RimWorld.
It's NOT DF, but the spirit of DF is still there. If DF was updated to better graphics/etc, I would probably play DF AND RimWorld.
BTW, Notch sold Minecraft to Microsoft for 2.5 BILLION dollars *puts pinky to mouth*
Sad about that, somewhat (considering he didn't want anyone meddling in his plans, like steam controling in-game purchases, etc), but I stopped playing Minecraft long before it was "finished" (is it finished?).
All the modmakers should go on strike and break their mods for a round. See how many people are playing vanilla Rimworld after a few months.
:l Minecraft probably won't ever be finished, they will probably keep trying to add more to it, but eventaully, it probably will become a server/modded only thing...
A little bit grim future, but ehy, am not known for being social.
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 07:14:18 PM
All the modmakers should go on strike and break their mods for a round. See how many people are playing vanilla Rimworld after a few months.
A little harsh, but I get what you are saying ... personally I get more enjoyment out of playing vanilla but that is just me. Mods get old/boring too, that's why I always end up going back and playing vanilla (same with Minecraft). I see far too many posts about why is this mod not in vanilla in games like this and Minecraft ... well, tbh they would be bloated as hell for one. I like the idea of a game that sticks to their "vision" instead of incorporating things from the community just to do it. That is the whole point of the modding community is to make mods in "their" own vision and share it.
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 07:14:18 PM
All the modmakers should go on strike and break their mods for a round. See how many people are playing vanilla Rimworld after a few months.
I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. You're not even making an argument, just trying to persuade people to sabotage the game's development. Why? I thought you wanted the game to get better.
Honestly I like vanilla Rimworld just fine. Modding's awesome and it's cool to see what people come up with, but oftentimes it's almost an antithesis to Tynan's design strategy of avoiding certain types of complexity.
QuoteIt seems like maybe we killed the Simulation Dream. You can't just simulate a super-complex world because players won't understand it. And even if you did, it would be boring, because even Middle Earth isn't very story rich.
But the Simulation Dream lives on. We just know we have to approach it very carefully. We can't blindly simulate everything, because most things are boring and people can't understand over-complex systems anyway. We have to carefully craft a condensed system of simple, understandable hints that cue players' apophenia to do the heavy lifting of ascribing emotion and meaning.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TynanSylvester/20130602/193462/The_Simulation_Dream.php
For all the features that RimWorld could have and all the five-year plans and design document it'd be cool to have, it's important to keep in mind the really awesome stuff is what we least expect.
The problem is, Mutiplayer games have people prone to cheating whether for some kind of hack or just abusing game mechanics, So a muliplayer game with such a major sim thing like that fails quickly, Now single player games like that are either to hard to grasp, To annoying to get though, or just boring, mutiplayer can fix that, but it also has trouble of being slow or hard to grasp to the other players.
Actually, I think that modding helps to push forward development. It's a way of finding limitations that are not immediately obvious.
For example, you can make new stuffs from existing stuffs, but the properties of the new stuffs have to be defined rather than being inherited. Not a big deal right now, but in the future, who knows?
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 04:38:42 PM
Quote from: Tynan on July 11, 2014, 10:29:14 PM
I own the company so I don't have investors demanding that I grow the company or pump up the valuation. I'm in this for my own lifestyle, lifelihood, and creative satisfaction .
Erm.. I think you do have investors. Investors who expect a product sooner rather than later.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the differences in contractual obligations to early access backers and financial investors. There is zero chance that those who purchased the game count as investors.
I also think complaints about the $30 price are whiny and without basis. My rule of thumb is that a game is good value for money if I average roughly $1 per hour or better over a year or so after purchase. Thus, I always wait for AAA titles to go on discount, usually within a few months (!). Sandbox games I'm more willing to take a risk on, because the chances are so much higher than I can tinker with it for many hours before getting bored.
By this metric, RimWorld as it stands today (A9) is good value for money, even assuming no other development adds to it. Tynan could wrap up development, stomp remaining bugs, and consider it a success. It might not be a 10-year play like DF, SimCity 4, etc - but it doesn't have to be. We as the community can't force Tynan to develop something he feels is already complete. [Note that this is my thinking aloud - not trying to represent Tynan's views at all]
There are a few big features I would like to see added, the top being good fog of war mechanics and some mechanic to move around the world with a given set of colonists (see signature links). Tynan is not obligated to do these things. I do think if he added the core mechanics of these points the modding community could help propel this game into the multi-year lifespan.
That said, I do recognize there are limits to development of this title. Maybe there are real challenges with new features in the existing engine. Maybe Tynan is ready to move onto something else for awhile - long projects in any industry can feel like a slog by the end, even the most interesting ones. So many possibilities, and most of them reasonable. I do hope we see more functionality added to enable bigger and better story telling, but accept it may come in a mod, paid expansion, or sequel in addition to the current development cycle. Personally, that is all fine - I've more than gotten fair value out of my transaction already.
A big part of that feeling is
realistic expectations, which I think many complaining in this board lack.
You make a good point. A very open community and developer can be a bad thing, to an extend. It kind of portrays "the community will decide how the game will be developed", but this is and isn't the case. In the end, Tynan will make the game the way he wants, but he will also get ideas from the community.
In reality, you can voice your opinion, but it doesn't mean it will be enacted.
Blessing and a curse. I know I have gotten frustrated, and probably will here and there in the future, when I want to see this and that and it doesn't get put in, but I just own the game and part of a community, I'm not the developer. I'm am glad Tynan listens tho and I'm sure it's just as frustrating to him as well.
I probably look at modding at some point. At least then I can contribute and get things in that I want to see myself, even if it's just for me or a few people. Glad this is a moddable game.
I would be considered an old guy by most of you here. I have been gaming since you put a cassette in the computer and played mouse in a maze...black screen with green lines showing walls. Me and my buds gathered around the HS Library computer and played that game until we were kicked off.
I have played a LOT of different games and have seen so many changes over the years. And one thing I have learned like so many of you have is...I LOVE finding a game I lose hours of time playing...the type I find myself looking at the clock and realizing "Holy Smokes it is 3am...again".
Rimworld does that for me and I have been playing it since A4 or so. I use mods...I like having them to play the awesome game the way I want to play it (think tower defense :D ). This game will NOT be deleted from my hard drive this year and likely not next year either. I really enjoy playing this game in between games of CS:GO, 7 Days to Die and whatever else is top of mind at the time. I always come back to play Rimworld. This is a brilliant game and getting better every time there is a new iteration.
The modding community is amazing here, too. So many unbelievably intelligent and creative people pouring hours of time into enhancing my free time. I try to thank someone whenever I come to the forums for putting in such effort for people they don't know. Long story short, the community is one of the reasons I keep coming back to Rimworld and cheers to you all for that :)
So...call me a fanboi if you want...I have been called worse in 35 years of gaming...this game rocks.
Quote from: tommytom on February 28, 2015, 01:30:55 AM
I probably look at modding at some point. At least then I can contribute and get things in that I want to see myself, even if it's just for me or a few people. Glad this is a moddable game.
Likewise.
The mods so far are amazing additions to the game. That said, I do think the best mods for this game are yet to come - and probably won't even start development until the game is "final" and the core code more stable. For big mods (e.g.
massive new features or total conversions) the development cycle can take longer than a current beta phase of a few months. This is one reason that we might want to "support" Tynan finalizing the core features of the game and ending the alpha phase of development sooner rather than later, just to reduce the amount of mods lost with each update. That doesn't mean he can't keep developing a expansion or sequel (or separate title), just that the modding community will have a solid base to build on, and with expansion to Steam etc will know all basic players are using the same core.
This game is also the first one that's gotten me thinking about what I'd like to see in the game and feeling that it might be possible to do myself, if I'm willing to invest my time in educating myself how to do it. That accessibility is a good thing!
Quote from: Tynan on February 27, 2015, 04:54:10 PM
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 04:38:42 PM
Erm.. I think you do have investors. Investors who expect a product sooner rather than later.
Nope, I have backers and customers, and they've all already gotten everything they were promised, barring a few final fixups.
EDIT: Of course we're still adding new goodies for everyone, but the game is there and I'm pretty happy with the state of it.
I am going to just say, if Development stopped and all we had for Future content was what the modding community provided us, I would feel like I got my moneys worth and be very pleased.
personally i feel rimworld in its current state is an alpha type thing.
it is teh fundation for something great. but nothing more, it is diffinately not a fully done game in my oppinion.
hell yer it is worlds better then most of the trash you see sold as full games from small devs, but in my eyes they are not even done alpha games.
this game have tons of potential, but at this point i feel like it is a fundation which is lacking the actual house that needs to be build on top of it.
i feel like the dev is taking his sweet time adding stuff or changing stuff.
not sure how many hours a day he works on it but it doesnt feel like the 8h i would expect from the changes in each update and the time between each update :)
then again its ONE person and coding can take a long time, so might just be that.
Quotenot sure how many hours a day he works on it but it doesnt feel like the 8h i would expect from the changes in each update and the time between each update :)
then again its ONE person and coding can take a long time, so might just be that.
IF you think it is both
lucrative and
easy, then start some competition - can only be good for the market. I welcome your addition to the genre!
There is a reason this genre is ignored by most developers - it is a very niche and hard to satisfy client base. I'm not sure we do ourselves any favors by being overly venomous of the best attempts in years to provide good entertainment for money.
Quotei feel like the dev is taking his sweet time adding stuff or changing stuff.
Take a look at the changelog, Tynan's pretty active. Go back three months and RimWorld didn't have key features like temperature, art, herbal medicine... If you'd played RimWorld for more than a few versions, you'd know the game's gone through a lot of change in a relatively short period of time.
Quote from: erebus2075 on February 28, 2015, 10:07:58 AM
i feel like the dev is taking his sweet time adding stuff or changing stuff.
not sure how many hours a day he works on it but it doesnt feel like the 8h i would expect from the changes in each update and the time between each update :)
then again its ONE person and coding can take a long time, so might just be that.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_rCdGYp3nbSUXFG4Ky96RZW1cJGt9g_6ANZZPOHyNsg/pub
He updates the game almost daily. He responds to posts here about suggestions or bug reports. If anything, he is doing more than most/usual/whatever.
Granted, he is only one person.
As far as how many hours, well that's hard to gauge as someone like myself might make a "simple" program that's about 5-10 lines of code and does "one thing", but it may take me 6 hours to research, fix bugs, optimize, etc.
Other times, I can make a complicated program in 30m or less. Just depends on how specific the code needs to be and if you already know what you need to code beforehand.
Quote from: erebus2075 on February 28, 2015, 10:07:58 AM
i feel like the dev is taking his sweet time adding stuff or changing stuff.
not sure how many hours a day he works on it but it doesnt feel like the 8h i would expect from the changes in each update and the time between each update :)
then again its ONE person and coding can take a long time, so might just be that.
And I'm sure that's your
totally informed opinion as a professional game designer and programmer with years of experience, and not just baseless ranting from a clueless idiot who has no idea how time-consuming game development actually is. ::)
Tyran is doing fine for one guy but the game needs a catch up "surge" to..catch up with all the work the community has done. That attitude that everything is fine and done and everyone is satisfied is a little scary.
Quote from: evrett33 on February 28, 2015, 04:53:47 PM
Tyran is doing fine for one guy but the game needs a catch up "surge" to..catch up with all the work the community has done. That attitude that everything is fine and done and everyone is satisfied is a little scary.
Unfortunately it's not that easy. You can't hire people off a shelf like buying something at a store. In fact I've been trying to bring on help for a long time but it's bloody difficult to do. Maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just too busy making the actual game to put the needed time into hiring. Hard to know.
The community will always be ahead of us, in some sense. Because modders outnumber us hundreds to one. There's no way we can ever "catch up" to all of that anyway. PLus modders generally work in a way that's not really sustainable for a long-term project. They can implement fast but if we worked like that we'd be stuck in a quagmire of hacks and bugs and spaghetti code within six months.
Our role as devs isn't to compete with modders or to "stay ahead" of them. It's to maintain and gently, carefully grow a stable, balanced, dependable core game. We form a foundation for modders and they do crazy stuff and some of that feeds back into the game. We each have our role; it's wrong to compare us.
Quote from: Tynan on February 28, 2015, 05:12:05 PM
Quote from: evrett33 on February 28, 2015, 04:53:47 PM
Tyran is doing fine for one guy but the game needs a catch up "surge" to..catch up with all the work the community has done. That attitude that everything is fine and done and everyone is satisfied is a little scary.
Unfortunately it's not that easy. You can't hire people off a shelf like buying something at a store. In fact I've been trying to bring on help for a long time but it's bloody difficult to do. Maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just too busy making the actual game to put the needed time into hiring. Hard to know.
Are you offering to pay them in looneys? I know the NHL players are reluctant to accept contracts in such funny. money.
I, for one, would be interested in helping develop the game.
Someone like myself that is self-taught and hasn't went to school for programming could be a huge asset or just a small helping hand.
I have made tons of small to mid-sized programs in various languages (Batch, Javascript, Java, AutoIt, C, C++, VB, C#, VBS, Bash, Python, PHP).
If you know anything about Notch, he taught himself programming and you see how huge his game(s) got. Sold Minecraft for $2.5bil.
I'm not saying hand the reigns to (somewhat) anonymous forum users, but you could somehow get people in to start fixing small bugs so you can focus on the big stuff. If anything, post a sticky saying to send your resume or something to an email with a specific subject.
tommytom - actually there is an open call for applications, just check out the Careers link on ludeon.com.
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 07:14:18 PM
All the modmakers should go on strike and break their mods for a round. See how many people are playing vanilla Rimworld after a few months.
I play RimWorld entirely vanilla, despite making mods myself sometimes. I usually don't play many games with mods at all actually, Dwarf Fortress included.
Quote from: ZestyLemons on February 28, 2015, 05:59:23 PM
Quote from: evrett33 on February 27, 2015, 07:14:18 PM
All the modmakers should go on strike and break their mods for a round. See how many people are playing vanilla Rimworld after a few months.
I play RimWorld entirely vanilla, despite making mods myself sometimes. I usually don't play many games with mods at all actually, Dwarf Fortress included.
There are better way to self flagellate. I've heard of people getting piercings on their nether regions.
User was warned for this post combined with others before it: Rule 2
User was banned for personal attacks vs mod via PM. Rule 1
Quote from: evrett33 on February 28, 2015, 04:53:47 PM
Tyran is doing fine for one guy but the game needs a catch up "surge" to..catch up with all the work the community has done. That attitude that everything is fine and done and everyone is satisfied is a little scary.
Rimworld has provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment in it's current state, and I don't use mods. It's more than I can say about most games I played the last couple of years. I would say that's pretty good for a game still in development.
The community has been able to create so many mods because of how easy modding can be in this game. It's designed that way, I've never seen anything like it, and I believe it wasn't without costs for the developer. If you remove all the mods that don't require coding you'll end up with a very standard number of mods for a game in this stage. My point is that creating content is very easy compared to creating the structure of a game, and the fact that the structure keeps growing is a very good sign both for vanilla and modded game.
Quote from: Justin C on February 28, 2015, 03:51:29 PM
Quote from: erebus2075 on February 28, 2015, 10:07:58 AM
i feel like the dev is taking his sweet time adding stuff or changing stuff.
not sure how many hours a day he works on it but it doesnt feel like the 8h i would expect from the changes in each update and the time between each update :)
then again its ONE person and coding can take a long time, so might just be that.
And I'm sure that's your totally informed opinion as a professional game designer and programmer with years of experience, and not just baseless ranting from a clueless idiot who has no idea how time-consuming game development actually is. ::)
I would say this thread was for the most part constructive until this ... whether good or bad someone's opinion should not be attacked by calling them names, etc. Please keep things civil.
With that being said, I have worked on a software / web application project for the government and if people think things are moving slow with RimWorld or any other indie dev studio, they have no idea. Just have a read up on what CMMI is.
Eight hours a day sounds like a lot but when it comes to complex code, it really isn't.
I once worked on something called the 'Job System' for a Neverwinter Nights server. There were a lot of nested includes so, to actually figure out what a piece of code did I would have to track it back to some very genericised and uncommented code.
If for whatever reason I didn't understand the code fully, I would then spend the next few hours trying to figure out why my simple fix didn't take.
TL;DR One guy, thousands of lines of code is not a cakewalk.
Quote from: Tynan on February 28, 2015, 05:49:15 PM
tommytom - actually there is an open call for applications, just check out the Careers link on ludeon.com.
Hmmm, I see that now. Yes, you do have pretty high standards. For an indie game anyways, or at least for me. The biggest project I handled was a Maplestory emu server (an MMORPG) many years back. We had 300+ people playing at once and I would apply small fixes, run the website/forum/database/game/events.
As far as actual programming, I haven't done anything major. Just some small projects that I wanted to do. I made a pretty good screenshot program that is good with dropbox, but it doesn't compare to apps with hosting bundled with it (like puush or gyazo), but I have some features that those do not.
Quote from: Tynan on July 11, 2014, 10:29:14 PM
1. As a general rule I don't make promises that I'm not quite sure I can keep. That includes pretty much any promise about future developments for a game that extend beyond a few weeks. Game development is just like that. You can't really predict it. So if I said something about the long-term future of RimWorld, it would just be a guess, and there's no value in me giving out my guesses and pretending they're anything else. So I'm sorry I can't give long-term projections. There are just too many variables.
Maybe you think it's annoying, sorry about that. I, however, wish to be able to say, in a few years, that I've never broken a promise.
I do find it annoying. I understand that you don't want to make promises that you will not be able to keep, especially after disasters like DF-9. On that topic, to be fair, even though they did not make hard promises on their 'future development plans' page, they should have added a big blinking warning that these plans were subject to change AND cancellation depending on the project success.
The issue I see with this is that I have no idea whether a weak part of the game is here because it is a placeholder or work in progress or whether you consider it finished. I have no problems with weak or broken game mechanics in an alpha, that's the principle after all. However, not knowing whether you consider these satisfying/final makes these weak point frustrating.
I think it is possible to find a balance between 'no promise of any kind so I can't be held accountable for anything' or promise that you will add twice the depth of Dwarf Fortress in the next update. Simply giving stating what will be the focus of the next releases at this point while explaining that it can change at any moment would be great.
Next release is focus on AI revamp. Dont know if that's the main focus. Lots and lots of stuff Tynan has taken notes and will be going into A10, I'm sure. Some he explicitly said he would.
Getting involved in early-access games is risk. Whether the developer makes promises or says nothing of future development, it doesn't really matter - There's no guarantee either way that the game will live up to your expectations once the developer is satisfied and moves on to another project.
Tynan has said on numerous occasions that he'd love to have people as customers now or in the future. The only way to know for sure would be to buy the game once it's "done," where "done" is defined by the developer. Mods play a bit of a role here, but in the end, it's all about what the developer leaves in vanilla game play and what's exposed for mod possibilities.
If you do your research (YouTube "let's play", forums etc.) and you'd be unsatisfied if development stopped tomorrow, then perhaps it's best to hold off and not feel "cheated." If you like the game as-is and are willing to put a little faith forward and have the possibility to even steer the game's development a bit, then buy-in now. (Perhaps it may take a few more alpha releases until you're comfortable.) There are even some that are willing to assume more risk just to support indie development and study the success cases. I was personally a cross between the latter two in the context of the Alpha 4 time frame. As an anecdote, I'll say that this video regarding the region system (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMBQn_sg7DA) was what ultimately pulled me in. It told me this developer was serious, worth following, and that I could learn a few aspects of indie development here.
If development stopped tomorrow, I'd be disappointed yes. Would I hold it against Ludeon and be unsatisfied, no I would not. For my original buy-in price, I'd had many hours of enjoyment, learned quite a bit, and feel in some small ways that I've contributed with useful feedback. I've achieved my goals and Ludeon has held up their end considering I understand what buying into an early access game is.
Quote from: _alphaBeta_ on March 01, 2015, 11:23:47 AMThere are even some that are willing to assume more risk just to support indie development and study the success cases. I was personally a cross between the latter two in the context of the Alpha 4 time frame. As an anecdote, I'll say that this video regarding the region system (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMBQn_sg7DA) was what ultimately pulled me in. It told me this developer was serious, worth following, and that I could learn a few aspects of indie development here.
If development stopped tomorrow, I'd be disappointed yes. Would I hold it against Ludeon and be unsatisfied, no I would not. For my original buy-in price, I'd had many hours of enjoyment, learned quite a bit, and feel in some small ways that I've contributed with useful feedback. I've achieved my goals and Ludeon has held up their end considering I understand what buying into an early access game is.
Exactly. I believe in this game and this developer. I felt it was worth supporting and have told others to as well. Indie developers and developers trying something "unique" (albeit, it is fairly Dwarf Fortess-esque). If I was making something awesome, making a living of it, passionate about it, and doing a good job of it, I certainly would want people to buy my game. So, I bought the game. Playing the game is just a bonus, really.
To be honest, I only recently discovered Rimworld thanks to the Rock,Paper,Shotgun article. But after looking it over I thought it was worth buying even at the current state. Mostly because I got a feel for what Rimworld might become.
I have 2 big thoughts regarding the future of Rimworld.
1. I want to bring up the "dwarf fortress clone" issue mentioned before. I love old school games and I'm a fan of world/community building and survival games like this. From time to time I'll play some X-Com Terror from the Deep or some Darklands. But I cannot stand the GUI for Dwarf Fortress. I've tried the graphics packs but I just cannot get beyond to interface. I love the idea of similar genre games that embrace even basic graphics and what Rimworld's presents is fantastic. I love the art style. I bring this up because other games have done a somewhat similar take on the genre. Gnomoria is a good example. I bought into Gnomoria early on and like it but (and this is my point) I lost interest after a short while because little content was being added at the time. The strength of these games comes from the complexity. From the level of detail and the sheer number of options available. I would much rather see more item/weapon/monster types be added to Rimworld than just variants of existing ones as I think that'd give the game a longer life. How about environment specific monsters like sandworms in the desert. Or more from the megascarabs? Part of the attraction that Rimworld presents is the sci-fi setting so I'd love to see more of that.
2. Mods. Ok, I don't know what the policy is in terms of mod content, but I'd like to see some of the more popular mods become a part of the vanilla game. I know that happened with Minecraft but I've got no idea what the legal issues would be. I kinda hope there's someway to merge both the development of the official game and incorporating concepts from mods to enhance the entire game experience. I do appreciate that Rimworld appears to have mods in mind as a core aspect of the game's design. That's always refreshing.
You can't play a game forever. It's inevitable that you will get bored.
I played Minecraft for a couple years from it's very primitive state to near completion (1.5 or so?).
Honestly, even if they added some new stuff, I wouldn't play it anymore. There are tons of mods and people still end up playing the game because of the mods (although, it's basically a new game at that point if you want to think of them as entities). Even with mods, I'm bored with Minecraft or the hassle of installing/learning/etc mods.
I THINK it was Minecraft (could be wrong) that said they own the rights of any mod and can use them without paying rights to it. It sounds like a dirty tactic, but it also keeps modders from making ridiculous money off your game and also extorting you because you want it in your vanilla game. Granted, the developer(s) SHOULD buy the mod, but it should be so level ground or something for it.
Quote from: tommytom on March 01, 2015, 08:12:25 PM
I THINK it was Minecraft (could be wrong) that said they own the rights of any mod and can use them without paying rights to it. It sounds like a dirty tactic, but it also keeps modders from making ridiculous money off your game and also extorting you because you want it in your vanilla game. Granted, the developer(s) SHOULD buy the mod, but it should be so level ground or something for it.
I don't want to go too off topic, but I've often wondered about the legality of swiping a mod and adding it to a base game. While my last sentence implies a sneaky developer, I suppose the same question would come up if the developer nicely asked the mod author's permission and was refused. Then again, a few small changes and is it the same mod anymore from a "legal" perspective?
Still taking notes and trying to learn.
Quote from: _alphaBeta_ on March 01, 2015, 11:40:29 PMI don't want to go too off topic, but I've often wondered about the legality of swiping a mod and adding it to a base game. While my last sentence implies a sneaky developer, I suppose the same question would come up if the developer nicely asked the mod author's permission and was refused. Then again, a few small changes and is it the same mod anymore from a "legal" perspective? Still taking notes and trying to learn.
That's a controversial subject. Without going into much detail, you can't copyright generic ideas or concepts, but you can copyright the way you implemented that idea. You can work around copyrighted material if you can implement that idea in a slightly different way. How slightly depends on the risk you want to take. Copyright infringement is a very subjective topic in this instances, and it's different in every country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinventing_the_wheel#In_software_development
I've seen at least one other indie project incorporate mods. Project Zomboid has added in several mods and brought the makers into the dev team even. Of course, they weren't a perpetually solo team though.
On the main subject, I too hope to see some more depth in the base game, but I'm very content with the current pace of development, especially given the team size. Actually, extremely impressed.
Tynan doesn't have to ask if he wants to add one of my mods. May not ever come up, but basically I hate the idea of someone having to reinvent the wheel just because I got there first.
I've been modding since Master of Orion 3 and the Horrible UI Sounds of Doom. Of course I'm going to get in there early with some annoyance-fixing mods to a game which is readily moddable. Doesn't mean I've planted a flag for Mars or whatever. ;)
Generally speaking, in all that legal stuff that is the EULA/TOS/TOU/whatever they call it, there's a very wide-ranging clause in there that says that, basically, any ideas, code, etc, generated by a mod are the property of the developer. Why? Because it makes sure that if the developers want to integrate ideas from a mod into the game (whether because it was part of the original roadmap and yet to be realized, or because a mod was just actually that popular), they can add it in their own way to current or future games.
It's not, generally, a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to 'stealing' mod content for integration, but simply a way to ensure that the game developers can create the content that they wish without worrying about a modder 'beating' them to a concept or mechanic, and thus suing them for some sort of infringement. It does, however, ensure that unless there is, essentially, a line-for-line copying of a mod code, that the modder can't suddenly jump in and claim that they have some right to claim compensation for the mod.
At least as I understand it, from my own past modding experience in other games.
I'm genuinely surprised at some of the criticisms I've read in this thread towards Tynan and the game's development speed. I've not played an early dev game with this many constant tweaks and updates even from big name studios in a very long time. Maybe some of y'alls expectations are a tad too high because this game is so solid and plays so well with mods it's easy to forget where it's at in development.
I said this before, but it's generally the spirit of the game's community that makes or breaks the game's longevity. The "classics" like Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, even Skyrim and Fallout series have hugely passionate modding communities which I do believe has a huge factor in how successful the game is with it's fans. But a game has to be solid in it's vanilla state - a good foundation from which to build all those imaginative additions onto and Tynan's bulit a very solid one IMO. Straight out of the box, no mods, this game has many hours of enjoyment even with a few annoyances that are much less so than many finished/boxed/released games I've played over the years and my first real internet gaming started back in UO days.
Tynan's on the right path with this game. It's getting a lot of media attention from gaming fansites and it's well on it's way to being a successfully launched title. I said this before and I'll say it again, I honestly don't think Tynan even needs Steam backing for this game at this point. It's as solid and ready as Minecraft was early on and Mojang never needed Steam or other production backing and is a definite success story with the massive figures it just sold to Microsoft with. I think some folks commenting in this thread are maybe having the proverbial forest for the trees problem.
QuoteI've not played an early dev game with this many constant tweaks and updates even from big name studios in a very long time.
Vexare's spot on about forest-for-the-trees, or in this case maybe it's a high-expectations debuff due to all the progress made so far. RimWorld's development pace has hands-down been the best of any alpha I've played. The pre-retail periods for similar games like
Towns and
Banished seem slow and opaque in comparison.
Yeah. I have to agree, this is a rather good alpha. I jumped on Godus and Spacebase DF-9 and both were from people with huge reputations and both disappointed me utterly. DF-9 was by a professional studio and what they produced and abandoned was nowhere near as playable or enjoyable as Rimworld is now. And as Minecraft has been brought up, that one was a slooooooow process as well, but the core game was worth playing and worth waiting for.
The reason why I bought a copy of Rimworld in its current state is because it looked like a game that might actually make it to the goal proposed. The current game is good, the work is good and the future looks good. The point of my earlier comments was that yes the code needs debugging and it could be cleaned up, but what it could really use is more growth. I like what I see now and I'm happy with my purchase, but I'd also like to see it grow. I'd like to see more complex systems be expanded upon, tech tree's develop and new systems become implemented and fail or succeed.
I'm actually expecting Tynan to catch up to and surpass DF's content in about 6 months at his current pace :o
Makes you wonder what all the other devs have been doing with their time. And he's on the forums like 2 hours a day to boot. Whatever workflow/approach he's using, it's working preeeety well.