A16 Hype

[Alenerel]

Multiplayer doesnt make any sense in game where you take more than 2 hours to achieve decent combat.

[jmababa]

Multiplayer doesnt make any sense in game where you take more than 2 hours to achieve decent combat.

It does it takes you 3 levels to achieve decent combat in last stand dead zone you are locked being raided and also you can't raid for 1st 3 levels

[Vincent]

Nobody said it would have to be player vs player...

[grinch]

Nobody said it would have to be player vs player...

True, could be PvE but with players bases. well id like multi but i think its not priority. balance, more content, better UI should be

[mumblemumble]

its not because I would fear raids, its allocation of time....tynan spends several months per update. Each week is x amount of work.

if y amount of time is spent on multiplayer (something I WILL NOT care about... tbh) this is y time spent LESS on other stuff, like optimization, features, ui, QOL improvements...ect.

I wouldnt mind this in say...a year or 2, but the game is just barely getting some meat on its bones now. Not to say I don't enjoy it, but content is still lacking, and it needs to be a bit more rounded out.

[carbon]

...
Let's not over-hype this, guys.
Tynan hasn't revealed any real information regarding Alpha 16's new world systems, and we can't just go around assuming all these great things.
People are starting to bring up No Man's Sky, jokingly, but every joke has some truth behind it.
...

To be fair, I've been consistently trying to deflate the overhype bubble throughout this thread to keep expectations realistic.
My NMRim joke was simply one more facetious attempt to do just that.

---------------------------------

I want to step back and take a second to highlight what, historically, a new alpha entailed:

A1 - Game is released
A2 - Modding and cooking
A3 - AI factions and improved moddability
A4 - Wood and centipede mechs
A5 - Sieges, spaceship (endgame) and scythers
A6 - World generation (biomes), detailed health and traits
A7 - Material-based properties, melee weapons and prosthetics 
A8 - Temperatures, sculptures and long-term crafting
A9 - Beer, procedural art and aging
A10 - Joy, timetables and outfits
A11 - Traps, long-term events and sappers
A12 - Animal taming, room stats and ancient artifacts
A13 - Relationships, components and infestations
A14 - Scenario editing and lots of polish stuff
A15 - Drugs, deep drilling and a tutorial

Now those were just the major flagship changes with other minor additions and adjustments rolled in, but what should be apparent is that a typical alpha brings with it roughly 2 or 3 modest feature expansions to the game. Indeed, some of the alphas look almost trivial from this far along in development (yes, "wood and centipedes" was the bulk of an alpha).
So when Tynan says something like:

A16 will probably be the biggest update ever in terms of the amount of work we've done adding and refining things . . .

that doesn't necessarily mean the next alpha will completely revolutionize the entire game (multiplayer / z-levels).
It is just slightly bigger / more complex than any other -singular- update.

----------------------

So with that said, I think my best guess for A16 would be:

A16 -
Fancier world map (globe, abstract settlements, world travel)
Fancier faction relations (counter raids, caravans)
Fancier economy (supply and demand, location-dependent resource availability)

which is still a pretty cool bit of stuff, even if it isn't earth shattering or exactly what anyone wanted.
Of course, I could be completely wrong on all of it.

[Andy_Dandy]

Multiplayer doesnt make any sense in game where you take more than 2 hours to achieve decent combat.

For you perhaps, but for me it would be the most ultimate gaming experience I've ever had. Of course then a kind of multiplayer where all the players play all the time. So a load and save game with trusted players over a long period of time.

Multiplayer that isn't the same as the singleplayer experience but with human opponents added in on other starting locations on the globe, is of no interest.

[Jimyoda]

I agree with Carbon's assessment/prediction of what the next release will bring - travel on the world map, but still as a single player. Breaking out of the confines of that boxy map has been a long-time dream.

In Tynan's quote below I'll stress his point the IF multiplayer was ever done, it would NOT be PvP.

If I did multiplayer I think it would be in a co-op context.

Making the game into a competitive RTS would really break a lot of the core concepts driving the design. Namely: it's not about winning, it's about the story.

A competitive context would break because the game isn't close to being balanced (what with all the random events and degenerate strategies). In this context competition becomes meaningless.

If we had several players working together, however (say, on the same colony, or in allied colonies close together), they could experience the AI Storyteller's stories together, maybe help each other in times of need, stuff like that. And we wouldn't have to balance the game for PvP.

[Vincent]

A16 -
Fancier world map (globe, abstract settlements, world travel)
Fancier faction relations (counter raids, caravans)
Fancier economy (supply and demand, location-dependent resource availability)

which is still a pretty cool bit of stuff, even if it isn't earth shattering or exactly what anyone wanted.
Of course, I could be completely wrong on all of it.

To you A16 is just a bunch of IU revamp and economy balance ?

[Grishnerf]

we will be able to visit other colonies,tribes, pirate hideouts, and dangers (skull symbols!)
with playable trade-Caravans/raids.

you Need to equip them with Food, medicine,weapons, maybe extra clothes for different weather.
after you played the Caravan/raid you Switch back to the time they left your colony, Play normal again, and at some Point later the surviving members of the Caravans/raids would rejoin your colony.
(depends on travel distance on the globemap and if they had enough Food supllied)


cant wait to Play this
it could be like adventure mode in dwarf fortress.
very very roguelike and unforgiving to explore some ancient dangers.

and the map creation of those explorable tiles has no Limits.
the whole map could be a maze with traps.
or a jungle Utopia with cannibals etc
endless possibilities!

[mumblemumble]

To be honest, this update will overthrow a6 as my favorite update, if it does what people are speculating....and thats a doozy, because im a sucker for detailed health.

[carbon]

To you A16 is just a bunch of IU revamp and economy balance ?

Sure. The UI part has already been teased, but it really needs something to make it seem interactive. Adding a more lively and complex economy seems to be a great way to do that. It is a natural outcome of villages with diverse environments and technological levels, it would improve upon the existing static trading system which has been sorely lacking for several alphas and it stays well within the 'survivors just trying to get by' theme of the game. Not to mention it would be relatively straightforward to implement in a timely and mod-friendly way.

Once the world map is in a stable and modestly enjoyable state, Tynan & Ison can always add more viscerally exciting stuff in future alphas.

[Stealthkibbler]

Maybe its just me but the fact that theres like somewhat 20-40 sites on the world map, compared to the default 4-5 we normally get. That's a big stepup and it'll be interesting to see what different sites there are, hopefully mechanoids play a role somewhere in there.

At first I was under the impression that the sites on map only act sort of as 'raid' dungeons, but given the tribal, skull and outlander icons they do infact seem to be more factions.

It's also a big deal imho because currently in A15 and previous versions if you edit in more than 10 factions the game can hang for a considerable amount of time when it spins the wheel to determine which faction attacks and how. So it'll be pretty damn cool for mods that add a lot of factions like medieval times if Tynan has made a more optimized way for raids to generate without hanging while still allowing a bigger and more filled world compared to the empty and desolate world we have now.

[jmababa]

Maybe its just me but the fact that theres like somewhat 20-40 sites on the world map, compared to the default 4-5 we normally get. That's a big stepup and it'll be interesting to see what different sites there are, hopefully mechanoids play a role somewhere in there.

At first I was under the impression that the sites on map only act sort of as 'raid' dungeons, but given the tribal, skull and outlander icons they do infact seem to be more factions.

It's also a big deal imho because currently in A15 and previous versions if you edit in more than 10 factions the game can hang for a considerable amount of time when it spins the wheel to determine which faction attacks and how. So it'll be pretty damn cool for mods that add a lot of factions like medieval times if Tynan has made a more optimized way for raids to generate without hanging while still allowing a bigger and more filled world compared to the empty and desolate world we have now.

I have more than 10 factions here and it dosen't hang windows 7 I play. Are you using windows 10, if so you will hang even with more than 7

[Stealthkibbler]

Maybe its just me but the fact that theres like somewhat 20-40 sites on the world map, compared to the default 4-5 we normally get. That's a big stepup and it'll be interesting to see what different sites there are, hopefully mechanoids play a role somewhere in there.

At first I was under the impression that the sites on map only act sort of as 'raid' dungeons, but given the tribal, skull and outlander icons they do infact seem to be more factions.

It's also a big deal imho because currently in A15 and previous versions if you edit in more than 10 factions the game can hang for a considerable amount of time when it spins the wheel to determine which faction attacks and how. So it'll be pretty damn cool for mods that add a lot of factions like medieval times if Tynan has made a more optimized way for raids to generate without hanging while still allowing a bigger and more filled world compared to the empty and desolate world we have now.

I have more than 10 factions here and it dosen't hang windows 7 I play. Are you using windows 10, if so you will hang even with more than 7

I guess its a problem with the memory limitations in windows 10 then, still the big amount of factions on the map looks pretty cool nonetheless.