Messages

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.

[something]

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.