Long Term future of Rimworld

[thenightgaunt]

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.

[tommytom]

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.

[_alphaBeta_]

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.

[Gaesatae]

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.

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

[DNK]

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.

[RemingtonRyder]

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.

[geredis]

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.

[Vexare]

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.

[REMworlder]

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.

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.

[thenightgaunt]

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.

[DNK]

I'm actually expecting Tynan to catch up to and surpass DF's content in about 6 months at his current pace

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.