Lots of stuff the last few days, and I haven't updated. First, there are already some forum topics about some of these things, so please discuss those items in those other threads and not here:
No More Home Command Stations For Players:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,19106.0.htmlThe return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,19122.0.htmlNew after those, however, are the following two things:
2.i. Choice Of Player Race:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.pv7cns6kar09Section 14: Story:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.xegpbwl4uu2Cinth thought of the stuff with the player races and I refined it somewhat, and I'm super excited about it. Suddenly this is one of the new marquee features. Blue and I talked about it and it should be doable visually.
This also finally solidifies things enough that I am able to turn over a lot of lore stuff to Jack, and I've set up the baseline scenario thanks to that. I had said previously that depending on how player reactions were to a few general mechanics (solar systems were one of them), the story would be one of a few ways. This version of the story is the one I wanted most to do, so I'm pleased about that. Ultimately the background factions were the deciding factor in that instead of the solar systems, although solar systems help.
There were a few pie-in-the-sky things I had been considering with game mechanics based around the AI re-invading, but ultimately those would have dragged the game too far away from the original AI War, so I never even pitched those ideas in the end. I had to take a while to say goodbye to them, though.
Oh, there's also a bunch of new stuff in 8.a. Player-And-AI Ship Designs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.vqj9knbnknq7That section is WOEFULLY incomplete, and is one of the largest sections to be so. Past a certain point I'll probably start just summarizing things about certain ships and noting them as TBD during alpha or EA. Not every last freaking ship needs to be pre-designed right now, but I do need to have enough of an idea that I am not telling you "I don't know if X will be included" and enough of an idea that we can properly budget everything from code to art to testing time.
Anyway, we're getting there. I'm spinning lots of plates at once, so there's a lot of discussions that I'm either temporarily absent from right now, or have not even joined yet. I'm going to need to mostly put my head down and duck out for a 1-2 days in order to get some things figured out on the art front, though. Blue and I have been talking about a variety of things, and the bottom line is that I need to get some prototypes together for our various preferred approaches before we waste time on something that won't work well on the CPU/GPU for whatever reasons. The "Tech demo tool for graphics performance" will be the end result of that, or a middle-point, depending.
I have to get that stuff done sooner than later so that I'm not bottlenecking Blue from doing
her work, so that's just another example of me having to leap between activities to keep all the plates spinning. Once that preliminary work is done, I shouldn't be a blocker to her anymore. I'm not a blocker to Keith any time remotely soon (if ever on this project), so that part is easier at least. For the folks discussing things on the forums here, I don't think I'm a blocker to anything in terms of the discussions happening, but if there's something in particular that I need to look at sooner than later to keep the overall forum discussion progressing in productive fashions, feel free to PM me.
Short of PM'ing me, I make no guarantees of when I'll next read any given thread, though I know I won't be able to resist popping in and out of some of them. I intend to get to all of them before there's any point of finalizing the design document, but we're at MOST two weeks out from that, so I need to get a move on with these things. Some stuff will simply have to go into the "Section 10: To Investigate During Early Access" section of the document, and I'll allocate a certain amount of budget for myself and/or Keith to spend going through that stuff with you in a less time-pressured fashion.
Right now my goals are:
1. To make sure that there's a solid core design that people are excited about and that Arcen can commit to.
2. That I have an acceptable budget, plus buffer, to accomplish those things in, plus explore the things that people most want us to explore.
3. That we have in mind what we'll do for stretch goals if we reach that point, although we won't be announcing more than one stretch goal at the start of the project (best practices from other kickstarters have indicated that's the thing to do). That first one is a full soundtrack by Pablo, so I really hope we hit it.
4. To make sure that I know in general what the game will look like, and can commit to things looking that-good-or-better at v1.0, with a certain set of system requirements that we understand at the start of the kickstarter.
5. To actually get the kickstarter page and video put together so that those really get the job done and get the vision communicated and people excited about it (beyond this forum and all the people emailing daily for notices of the kickstarter going live).
Anyhow, some of the other discussions that may wind up as secondary things like improving scouting may wind up going in Section 10, or if a solution is found in the next two weeks, then we'll go ahead and make it part of the design document.
It's happening at Mach 50, but this is definitely happening and I'm super excited how it's coming along.
