New version:
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.820First off some thoughts about incidents1. This is already one of those "how did this game exist without this feature?" features for me, now.
2. I'd like to have the AIs talking to you and so forth when incidents happen and when you join sides, etc. But as that is simply flavor and not something that actually affects gameplay, I'm not going to worry about that until several weeks from now at the earliest. As much as I am tempted.
3. That said, perhaps that is a good thing anyway, because I am trying to make sure that the personalities of the races come out through the game
mechanics as much as possible. The types of incidents that various races get into are meant to reflect their character and help bring that out in a way where if you skip reading flavor dialogue text out of habit, you still get the personalities of the races.
4. As such, if you see anything out of character for a race, please do let me know! In the past we had Skylaxians shooting newcomers on sight, etc, and obviously that was not an in-character thing for them to do.
I've put in a massive number of rules and conditions and so forth that govern the incidents that are in place so that they will happen in cases where they contextually make sense, but the chance of me making errors there is certainly nontrivial to say the least!
5. The flying saucer graphics are all still temporary in their colors, and in two cases in their shape, by the way. Now you'll actually see them for the first time, and they're colored enough for you to probably tell one race from another, but not more than that. Internally we have three of the races almost done, but still another 12 to go.
6. There are definitely still more incidents on my personal list that I need to get in place. These boil down to making the AIs act certain ways, and it's a big part of why this is a "I can't believe the game ever existed without this" feature for me. The incidents are incredibly personality and goal and situation driven, and the world feels much more alive with those in there. THAT said, there are some things that are not fully fleshed out yet, like the Thoraxians not being aggressive enough yet. They're still very dangerous and will attack you at certain points, but they do not yet have their Thoraxian-specific set of behaviors that will truly define them as the arch-foes of... pretty much everyone.
7. The fact that you can still broker ceasefires between two races (as before), but you can't broker the end of international incidents, is not an accident and is not temporary. You can call for a temporary truce between two parties for a bit, but you can't just negotiate away WWII. That's going to play out how it plays out, and you have to deal with it either by getting involved or avoiding it.
8. Very few of the incidents are aimed straight at you right now, but that will change. Some will catch you in the crossfire in general, and you can always butt your head in uninvited to other incidents to try to accomplish something. But in general the AIs are not gunning for you yet... most of the time. Which is good, because I want a major AI-instigated incident that involves you to really be a Truly Bad Thing in a lot of ways.
About Other StuffWe've been spending a TON of time on the international incidents, and so of course that's held up bugfixing and whatnot on everything else for a bit (though a fair laundry list of little things made it into this release anyway, which is nice). Keith is now pretty well done with his portion of international incidents, so he's working on slaying the mantis lists that are being generated. I still have more incidents to add, and I still have resources and natural wonders to finish the actual data definitions for.
Then I'll be back to a place where I can do a lot more of my own direct testing, and generate design notes based on that. And I'll also be able to start focusing on GUI polish in areas that (in some cases badly) need it, and working on things like filling in the gaps in tooltips and documentation and so forth.
Once we get things stable with this new "incidents now exist" phase of the game, then it will be time to invite in the blueshirts. Maybe the middle of next week or so.
That's it for now!
