Messages

 I was finally able to get past the learning curve the other day, and now that I understand how the system works, I'm in love. Latta, you've done a wonderful job with this mod and I hope to see it further expanded on in the future. I borrowed one of your textures and edited it to show an idea, I hope you don't mind.



I was thinking that with something like this, we could build fans in the duct system to push air further while still keeping a nice, clean look. I haven't worked with textures in years, and it was thrown together quickly, but I hope you get the idea that I had.

 Storytelling is the primary focus in this game, and I feel that a closer connection to my colonists would help those stories mean far more. I'm not going to shed a tear over Miner1 who died while digging a new tunnel, but I'm going to care about Johnny, the plucky and likable space miner from (Insert planet here). The problem is, if my colony is, say, deep in the arctic where everyone is wearing the same cold weather clothing, it gets difficult after a while to tell who is who. So many people mention names, but how do we recognize our friends on the street? Their face, their body, the clothes they wear, and their personality. If I'm in a room filled with people, and they're all white, have the same body style, are all wearing the same clothes, and have no features setting them apart, how am I realistically going to know who is who? "Bob, is that you?", I would ask, walking up to the first male I see. "Nope, it's Roger" he would say, annoyed because this is the fifth time today I've done this.

These colonists would actually mean something to me if I had a way to establish a connection with them, even if it was just a small visual element. That way, when I enlisted my entire town as an army and stood them in formation prior to the battle, I could notice blue hair poking out from under a helmet and know that it's Suzy, the cranky but hardworking chef, not Cook1.

Personally I'd like to see the ability to select the map (or at least preview it) before we handle our colonists. I play on maps that I get a good feeling off of (Hard to explain, or maybe not), and I don't like going through the colonist selection, then map selection, only to find a map that doesn't strike me right.

I definitely like the idea of relationships. As story driven as this game is, I think it fits in perfectly. It would be cool to see two men fighting harder together because they're friends, or a couple working more efficiently because they're in love (And getting a pep in their step from the usage of that Royal bed the night before, eh?) Friendships, rivalries, intimate relationships, and bitter hatred towards one another would definitely help to make the colony seem more interesting.

That said, I'm not certain I would want to see children in the game. Yeah, in harsh environments, people still have children, but I would be concerned with overpopulation. Unless the other mechanics in the game were adjusted, I feel that gaining population from random people joining and from converting prisoners, then adding children growing into adults would ultimately lead to far too many people too quickly.

 I really find myself liking the idea of a bar. Giving colonists the ability to recharge their batteries while developing with each other socially would be wonderful, and justifiable. To be honest, I really wouldn't mind seeing that extend further where, using the musically gifted colonists we'll have, we could have a stage and get a kinda Star Wars style cantina rolling. That would definitely make a stranger feel at home, unless you choose to go with the whole "We don't serve your kind here".

 The important thing to remember here is that Rimworld is still in Alpha, the development cycle. Things can change radically during this phase, and it can typically be more worthwhile to focus on adding new content and features rather than having to stop development each major update to make sure that everything plays nicely together. Yes, Tynan is working on some optimization and bug fixes while still developing the game, but in a lot of cases, it isn't until Beta phase where the developer will spend a massive amount of time working on bugs, optimization, and generally making the game play nicely with itself.

Look at a game like Starbound, for example. When the game went Beta, it was pointed out that during this phase, saves would likely become corrupted throughout, as things were being worked on. That still didn't stop people from complaining about it constantly, despite having been informed about it from the very beginning. While I feel I can safely say that Tynan appreciates us very much for supporting him, the simple fact is that Alpha phase games are going to be buggy and problems are going to persist, and even in Beta phase that still continues. I assure you that I mean nothing rude by saying this, but simply put, if you want a reliable, relatively bug-free game that doesn't have any issues, that won't happen until the game goes Final. 

 In the announcement video, colonists can be seen hunting muffalo, and I think I remember reading in a previous changelog that it was taken out for a while. Either way, I very much look forward to building a large kitchen and preparing all sorts of fine cuisine, like mashed potatoes, potato soup, baked potatoes, roasted potatoes, and the occasional potato casserole with boomrat spices.

Granted, I'm making a joke about the fact that we only have potatoes in the game at the moment, but that gives me an idea... Tynan, you should definitely let me hit you with some ideas for cooking in the game. Now my brain is moving at a thousand miles per hour.

At the very least I'd like to see a 2x1 door, because I get real OCD with games like this and I hate building single-wide or triple-wide tunnels just to keep things balanced.

testing the new version
biggest problem so far is to get some decent colonists, that will do work without exception.
can we PLEASE have the possibility to choose backgrounds, traits, gender, look.

It would definitely be interesting to see those features incorporated into the game, but any day of the week, I would much rather see those features have their development prolonged and extended to make sure we get the best versus rushing it out just to appease the masses. Too many gaming companies make this mistake and their products tend to suffer from it.

 Tynan has posted in the Rimworld day to day changelog that he found a way to increase the performance in the game. I'm sure that we'll have a test build coming soon that will hopefully be suitable for release in the near future.

 Age: 29

Experience: I'm new to tracking bugs, but I do have some experience testing alpha and beta games and would like to expand on that experience by helping here.

OS: I use Windows 7 64-bit

Time: Time is what I definitely have to offer here. I am between jobs at the moment, and attending online classes, so I have access to ample amounts of time to help here.

Invited

 I could see that coming in as a random event. Same could be said with a heatwave that temporarily dries up a water source or kills the plant life.

 (Tried checking to see if this had been suggested, found nothing, I apologize if I missed it and I'm repeating)

So in one of Tynan's last updates, he mentioned apparel and the possibility of multiple layers. I'm new to the game and the community, so I apologize if I may have missed this, but I think a layer system for clothing would be a perfect chance to try out temperatures. Colder environments would require more layers, warmer would require fewer. I would like to see this work out where a player has to choose to send his colonists outside at night because the day is just too hot, and likewise, send his people out by day because everything freezes at night.

Additionally, on the topic of temperatures, I would like to see this work into colony construction as well. Using Theme Hospital as a reference, I would love to have the option to place radiators throughout my colony to create warm zones to keep everyone comfortable, and likewise, I would like to install fan systems to keep everyone cool. Perhaps radiators and fans could be an early tier research item, and further on down the road, central heating and air systems could be researched to allow the running of ventilation systems throughout the colony to keep everyone a nice, pleasant temperature.

 I definitely agree that I'd like to see far more random events put into the storytellers. Never knowing what could happen next is my single most favorite aspect of this game. In keeping with your rare events, I would love to see this game pay homage to some science fictions movies (Hoping to not cross any copyright issues, naturally) where there could be much longer eclipses (Pitch Black), or finding some type of ruins where at random intervals aliens land to hunt something local (Aliens Versus Predator). I don't know how a company like Riot with League of Legends is able to make characters and skins that are clearly paying homage to a character from a movie/comic/game/etc without appearing to get in trouble, but if this is possible, I would LOVE to see references to other sci-fi!

 Wonderful idea, Windruf. Reminds me of Evil Genius where you could use green, yellow, and red alerts to tell everyone to relax, grab a weapon and go back to work, or grab a weapon and fight for your life. Would love to see this implemented.