I'm fine with suspension of disbelief. It's why I can sit back and enjoy Star Trek without questioning why the aliens look 100% human with a minor defect or birthmark. It's why I don't question how it's possible for Spock to be half human when this should be impossible (logically, a half human, half chicken is more realistic). I don't question why the lifeforms on these shows look comparable to our own and why plant life exists on alien worlds when that's Earth based life.
I also don't question why humans are yellow on The Simpsons and never change their clothes.
I'm fine with suspension of disbelief. It's why I can sit back and enjoy Star Trek without questioning why the aliens look 100% human with a minor defect or birthmark. It's why I don't question how it's possible for Spock to be half human when this should be impossible (logically, a half human, half chicken is more realistic). I don't question why the lifeforms on these shows look comparable to our own and why plant life exists on alien worlds when that's Earth based life.
I also don't question why humans are yellow on The Simpsons and never change their clothes.
Actually, they DID explain in one of the TNG movies why everyone looks like humans. Somehting about an extinct humanoid race fiddling with evolution everywere in a the galaxy.
Actually, they DID explain in one of the TNG movies why everyone looks like humans. Somehting about an extinct humanoid race fiddling with evolution everywere in a the galaxy.
They were called the "Progenators" and they were tossed in a cop-out answer to that question. In doing so they basically threw all the science of Evolution out the window in favor of Space Magic. Fans were... not amused.
At this point you are just trolling man. If you don't like the game don't play it. Simple.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
At this point you are just trolling man. If you don't like the game don't play it. Simple.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
Rather shameful to be honest.
I think your comment is rather shameful, to be honest.
You had some very good notes about raging, but to just get on a high horse like that.
Believe it or not, games are built on the playerbase, aswell. Topics that have suggestions that have thought processes explained and give good discussions (like this one did, till the bandwagon "stop complaining" crew hopped on) are actually very valuable for devs and for the health of a game.
Ofcourse - bug reports and testing is one of the reasons to release EA, but these can all be directly reported in game.
Then why would they even build forums? Right, because they want discussions, ideas and thoughts.
It allows them to know what different types of players they have and what those different types might want.
it does not mean they will implement everything or what the majority wants, but it does affect their thought processes (like good devs should)
Back to this thread:
I believe the OP made very reasonable arguments and thought processes about the game, you can be childish about it and be mad about the way he paraphrased some of his sentences and how he came over, or you can choose to ignore those and have a meaningful discussion.
If your choice is the first one, I think it'd be better not to post at all, either some other people might find the thread valuable instead, or it buries the thread quicker.. so it's better for either party.
At this point you are just trolling man. If you don't like the game don't play it. Simple.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
Rather shameful to be honest.
I think your comment is rather shameful, to be honest.
You had some very good notes about raging, but to just get on a high horse like that.
Believe it or not, games are built on the playerbase, aswell. Topics that have suggestions that have thought processes explained and give good discussions (like this one did, till the bandwagon "stop complaining" crew hopped on) are actually very valuable for devs and for the health of a game.
Ofcourse - bug reports and testing is one of the reasons to release EA, but these can all be directly reported in game.
Then why would they even build forums? Right, because they want discussions, ideas and thoughts.
It allows them to know what different types of players they have and what those different types might want.
it does not mean they will implement everything or what the majority wants, but it does affect their thought processes (like good devs should)
Back to this thread:
I believe the OP made very reasonable arguments and thought processes about the game, you can be childish about it and be mad about the way he paraphrased some of his sentences and how he came over, or you can choose to ignore those and have a meaningful discussion.
If your choice is the first one, I think it'd be better not to post at all, either some other people might find the thread valuable instead, or it buries the thread quicker.. so it's better for either party.
I have problems with the OP nor with Sidchickens post. My post was in agreement with him about the state of game forums. The state of them is indeed a constant gripe fest. Not to mention a flame fest. This forum not withstanding. Although I as well as everyone here have seen far far worse.
Indeed this is the only game forum I play that I frequent. It is the most community friendly I have seen in years.
This is exactly what I keep trying to draw attention to in my sometimes angry posting - these forums need much more active moderating. We need people that are actually around for most of the day and night to cover various time zones, to read all that's posted, to actually watch what is going on, to clean up offensive, off topic posts, and stop derogatory comments before they flood and kill an otherwise interesting discussion. We've seen it happen more than a couple of times already. If the mods keep being just some mythical entities taking action only once in a blue moon... these forums and community will go to self-inflicted hell even before game launches.
I'm actually surprised this topic hasn't been locked. I'm actually sad with what happened. This moved from an interesting discussion to childish name calling.
At this point you are just trolling man. If you don't like the game don't play it. Simple.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
Rather shameful to be honest.
I think your comment is rather shameful, to be honest.
You had some very good notes about raging, but to just get on a high horse like that.
Believe it or not, games are built on the playerbase, aswell. Topics that have suggestions that have thought processes explained and give good discussions (like this one did, till the bandwagon "stop complaining" crew hopped on) are actually very valuable for devs and for the health of a game.
Ofcourse - bug reports and testing is one of the reasons to release EA, but these can all be directly reported in game.
Then why would they even build forums? Right, because they want discussions, ideas and thoughts.
It allows them to know what different types of players they have and what those different types might want.
it does not mean they will implement everything or what the majority wants, but it does affect their thought processes (like good devs should)
Back to this thread:
I believe the OP made very reasonable arguments and thought processes about the game, you can be childish about it and be mad about the way he paraphrased some of his sentences and how he came over, or you can choose to ignore those and have a meaningful discussion.
If your choice is the first one, I think it'd be better not to post at all, either some other people might find the thread valuable instead, or it buries the thread quicker.. so it's better for either party.
I have problems with the OP nor with Sidchickens post. My post was in agreement with him about the state of game forums. The state of them is indeed a constant gripe fest. Not to mention a flame fest. This forum not withstanding. Although I as well as everyone here have seen far far worse.
Indeed this is the only game forum I play that I frequent. It is the most community friendly I have seen in years.
So, if my post rubbed you wrongly my apologies.
My apologies to you aswell then. I did misunderstand you. You seem like a reasonable lad. It was mostly because the most inner post called the OP a troll and the post you quoted agreed with that. It was indeed not something you did say directly.
At this point you are just trolling man. If you don't like the game don't play it. Simple.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
Rather shameful to be honest.
I think your comment is rather shameful, to be honest.
You had some very good notes about raging, but to just get on a high horse like that.
Believe it or not, games are built on the playerbase, aswell. Topics that have suggestions that have thought processes explained and give good discussions (like this one did, till the bandwagon "stop complaining" crew hopped on) are actually very valuable for devs and for the health of a game.
Ofcourse - bug reports and testing is one of the reasons to release EA, but these can all be directly reported in game.
Then why would they even build forums? Right, because they want discussions, ideas and thoughts.
It allows them to know what different types of players they have and what those different types might want.
it does not mean they will implement everything or what the majority wants, but it does affect their thought processes (like good devs should)
Back to this thread:
I believe the OP made very reasonable arguments and thought processes about the game, you can be childish about it and be mad about the way he paraphrased some of his sentences and how he came over, or you can choose to ignore those and have a meaningful discussion.
If your choice is the first one, I think it'd be better not to post at all, either some other people might find the thread valuable instead, or it buries the thread quicker.. so it's better for either party.
I have problems with the OP nor with Sidchickens post. My post was in agreement with him about the state of game forums. The state of them is indeed a constant gripe fest. Not to mention a flame fest. This forum not withstanding. Although I as well as everyone here have seen far far worse.
Indeed this is the only game forum I play that I frequent. It is the most community friendly I have seen in years.
So, if my post rubbed you wrongly my apologies.
My apologies to you aswell then. I did misunderstand you. You seem like a reasonable lad. It was mostly because the most inner post called the OP a troll and the post you quoted agreed with that. It was indeed not something you did say directly.
Allow me to extrapolate on what I meant by adding modding: I am not talking about attaching Blender to the game and expecting people invent new everything for the developers. That's the kind of lazy crap Bethesda and XCOM2 tried to do and it's annoying. What I'm talking about is much, much simpler. Essentially what I am talking about is basic stats modding, preferably in XML format so that even novices can understand it. This is the kind of thing most commonly seen in Crusader Kings 2. Glorified scripting at it's hardest, simply value tweaks at it's easiest.
Some examples: Let's say I wanted to make a mod for my own personal tastes. What would I want to change?
1) Currently a day lasts 15 minutes. This can be changed in the console, but making this value moddable wouldn't hurt, either. So I'd make my days much longer, say at least four hours. This could be a simple XML tweak.
2) Nitrogen narcosis ("the bends") is currently optional and activated through the console as well. For my mod, I might want that to be enabled by default. Again a basic XML tweak.
3) Then I look at the O2 usage rates and decide that realism must trump gameplay when it comes to oxygen tanks and turn them from rubber party balloons into proper O2 tanks; thus I convert seconds into minutes, giving 30 minutes as the base value for a tank. Yet another simple XML tweak.
4) Next I look at O2 usage over depth and decide that while it's good, there's room for improvement. I then rewrite the script from a linear absolute value per 100m meters solid to a math formula that calculates the increase per meter so as to give a more exact experience. This would be a script change, which would be a little more complex, but still doable even by an amateur.
5) I decide that Reapers should truly be apex predators, and expand their prey target list to include all other predators. From a safe distance I can now watch them devour sand sharks that stray too far above the surface, and gives new justice to their habit of staying buried until they strike. Again this would simply be finding a list in an XML file and adding some more names to it.
6) Y'know, it would be cool if my Repulsor Cannon had more power. Ah, there's the value - let's change that "5" into a "50" and knock monsters clear out of the water. Very satisfying.
7) While I'm at it, why does my Habitat Builder get as much life out a single battery as my Flashlight? Let's tweak those numbers around so that the builder burns through batteries fast but flashlights last for hours. Another simple XML tweak.
8) Why do I have so much copper and gold when I'm out of silver all the time? Hmm, what if I changed the drop percentages for rocks to something more to my liking, thus making gold more rare and silver more common? Tweak to the rescue!
9) But now that a day is four hours long and I don't feel like waiting for hours for the sun to come back up. Let's add a script to the bed so that using it automatically fast-forwards to the next morning. Or better yet, lets get fancy and add an alarm clock function to it and wake up whenever we want. This would be a moderately difficult script, but nothing that couldn't be figured out.
10) Uh oh, those longer nights are really messing with my base's power supply at night. I could look for other sources, or I could just tweak the static energy use of lights and whatnot to be lower. Or I could raise those values and make the game harder, whichever I prefer. For extra difficulty I could make the ambient lighting of a seabase cause a certain amount of power drain per module just in itself. More XML tweaks.
11) Speaking of energy sources, maybe I could change the Nuclear Reactor to get more mileage out of Uranium, so it isn't a constant struggle to feed. And make Bioreactors accept fish as fuel. Or turn the Thermal Plant into new type of machine that runs on salt, for whatever reason. Or extend the range of Power Relays to 500m each. All just XML again.
12) Increase, decrease, add or remove the building materials required for, well, anything, really. Doing so can affect difficulty and/or realism in any direction a player wants. XML or LUA, take your pick.
And so on and so forth. Now I'm not saying this is what I would actually change or that this how I would change it. These are just examples of values in the game that are no doubt already recorded someplace as simple numeric values and could be easily changed if only they were referenced in places & manners that players could get to easier (read: XML files).
Again, I suggest looking at Crusader Kings 2 for a perfect example of just how much can be done with modding without needing complex toolkits (Bethesda's biggest sin) so long as the game engine itself is keyed to pull it's data from more accessible sources. Anyone with more than three functioning brain cells can go into a CK2 file and tweak things more to their own liking, because that's how they've set it up. All those values and scripts are laid bare so players can see them and alter them at will, and the system for packaging those changes into mods is likewise incredibly easy.
It doesn't take a toolkit, it doesn't take modeling programs, and it doesn't take a degree in programming to make a game moddable. It only takes a desire to do so and a small amount of work from a developer team to move internal references that no one can access into external ones that players can see and change to their liking, and new bit of coding to tell the game itself where to look for these modded files.
Nice long post there.
I'm a certified programmer (job), one of the main rule of programming is NEVER hard code values, however I have a feeling that the things you just named, like recipes, power costs, are all hard coded.
I would really love if this game could just export a huge XML where it read everything from ( or atleast start with recipes and power gen/cost, maybe add something like hull and air later). This alone, would solve so many complains about the game and would solve so many issues people have.
But doing this, will have to at the very least (if stuff is hardcoded, let's assume the worst) take hours and hours of work to atleast convert all the static stuff into an XML, then they'd have to create something that reads that XML and can put it in the game without bugs. I'd say this would take a loooot of work. not /small/ at all. All code needs to be refactored and reorganized.
I'm not sure how many complaints there are about base balance, but I have a feeling complaints will be even worse if they slow down on development right now( and honestly, I think they just want to push 1.0 release)
But at the end - I think the hours put into something small like this, can pay off in huge multiples. It's something like multiplayer - should've been accounted for since the start, but now it's a huge job because they didn't. That stuff happens. I really hope they take the time to do it sooner than later, though
I agree, as the game may indeed suffer from an excess of hard coding - but I pin the blame on that on the Xbox. When designing for consoles, of course you're going to hard code everything because modding never even enters the fringes of imagination.
I guess my PCGMR thinking didn't really consider that sadly all-too-likely deliberate hamstringing until now.
Comments
I also don't question why humans are yellow on The Simpsons and never change their clothes.
Actually, they DID explain in one of the TNG movies why everyone looks like humans. Somehting about an extinct humanoid race fiddling with evolution everywere in a the galaxy.
They were called the "Progenators" and they were tossed in a cop-out answer to that question. In doing so they basically threw all the science of Evolution out the window in favor of Space Magic. Fans were... not amused.
The constant "talking" about what the devs are doing/not doing/ruining the game are folks that are playing an unfinished product. Instead of testing/bug reporting. Folks that have ideas post ideas then rage because those ideas are not implemented.
Folks that "play" for hours on end and have nothing left to do in "game".
Rather shameful to be honest.
I think your comment is rather shameful, to be honest.
You had some very good notes about raging, but to just get on a high horse like that.
Believe it or not, games are built on the playerbase, aswell. Topics that have suggestions that have thought processes explained and give good discussions (like this one did, till the bandwagon "stop complaining" crew hopped on) are actually very valuable for devs and for the health of a game.
Ofcourse - bug reports and testing is one of the reasons to release EA, but these can all be directly reported in game.
Then why would they even build forums? Right, because they want discussions, ideas and thoughts.
It allows them to know what different types of players they have and what those different types might want.
it does not mean they will implement everything or what the majority wants, but it does affect their thought processes (like good devs should)
Back to this thread:
I believe the OP made very reasonable arguments and thought processes about the game, you can be childish about it and be mad about the way he paraphrased some of his sentences and how he came over, or you can choose to ignore those and have a meaningful discussion.
If your choice is the first one, I think it'd be better not to post at all, either some other people might find the thread valuable instead, or it buries the thread quicker.. so it's better for either party.
I have problems with the OP nor with Sidchickens post. My post was in agreement with him about the state of game forums. The state of them is indeed a constant gripe fest. Not to mention a flame fest. This forum not withstanding. Although I as well as everyone here have seen far far worse.
Indeed this is the only game forum I play that I frequent. It is the most community friendly I have seen in years.
So, if my post rubbed you wrongly my apologies.
My apologies to you aswell then. I did misunderstand you. You seem like a reasonable lad. It was mostly because the most inner post called the OP a troll and the post you quoted agreed with that. It was indeed not something you did say directly.
I just want fun and discussions
We need more of THIS.
It was a rare pleasure to read through your exchange, thank you for that.
Some examples: Let's say I wanted to make a mod for my own personal tastes. What would I want to change?
1) Currently a day lasts 15 minutes. This can be changed in the console, but making this value moddable wouldn't hurt, either. So I'd make my days much longer, say at least four hours. This could be a simple XML tweak.
2) Nitrogen narcosis ("the bends") is currently optional and activated through the console as well. For my mod, I might want that to be enabled by default. Again a basic XML tweak.
3) Then I look at the O2 usage rates and decide that realism must trump gameplay when it comes to oxygen tanks and turn them from rubber party balloons into proper O2 tanks; thus I convert seconds into minutes, giving 30 minutes as the base value for a tank. Yet another simple XML tweak.
4) Next I look at O2 usage over depth and decide that while it's good, there's room for improvement. I then rewrite the script from a linear absolute value per 100m meters solid to a math formula that calculates the increase per meter so as to give a more exact experience. This would be a script change, which would be a little more complex, but still doable even by an amateur.
5) I decide that Reapers should truly be apex predators, and expand their prey target list to include all other predators. From a safe distance I can now watch them devour sand sharks that stray too far above the surface, and gives new justice to their habit of staying buried until they strike. Again this would simply be finding a list in an XML file and adding some more names to it.
6) Y'know, it would be cool if my Repulsor Cannon had more power. Ah, there's the value - let's change that "5" into a "50" and knock monsters clear out of the water. Very satisfying.
7) While I'm at it, why does my Habitat Builder get as much life out a single battery as my Flashlight? Let's tweak those numbers around so that the builder burns through batteries fast but flashlights last for hours. Another simple XML tweak.
8) Why do I have so much copper and gold when I'm out of silver all the time? Hmm, what if I changed the drop percentages for rocks to something more to my liking, thus making gold more rare and silver more common? Tweak to the rescue!
9) But now that a day is four hours long and I don't feel like waiting for hours for the sun to come back up. Let's add a script to the bed so that using it automatically fast-forwards to the next morning. Or better yet, lets get fancy and add an alarm clock function to it and wake up whenever we want. This would be a moderately difficult script, but nothing that couldn't be figured out.
10) Uh oh, those longer nights are really messing with my base's power supply at night. I could look for other sources, or I could just tweak the static energy use of lights and whatnot to be lower. Or I could raise those values and make the game harder, whichever I prefer. For extra difficulty I could make the ambient lighting of a seabase cause a certain amount of power drain per module just in itself. More XML tweaks.
11) Speaking of energy sources, maybe I could change the Nuclear Reactor to get more mileage out of Uranium, so it isn't a constant struggle to feed. And make Bioreactors accept fish as fuel. Or turn the Thermal Plant into new type of machine that runs on salt, for whatever reason. Or extend the range of Power Relays to 500m each. All just XML again.
12) Increase, decrease, add or remove the building materials required for, well, anything, really. Doing so can affect difficulty and/or realism in any direction a player wants. XML or LUA, take your pick.
And so on and so forth. Now I'm not saying this is what I would actually change or that this how I would change it. These are just examples of values in the game that are no doubt already recorded someplace as simple numeric values and could be easily changed if only they were referenced in places & manners that players could get to easier (read: XML files).
Again, I suggest looking at Crusader Kings 2 for a perfect example of just how much can be done with modding without needing complex toolkits (Bethesda's biggest sin) so long as the game engine itself is keyed to pull it's data from more accessible sources. Anyone with more than three functioning brain cells can go into a CK2 file and tweak things more to their own liking, because that's how they've set it up. All those values and scripts are laid bare so players can see them and alter them at will, and the system for packaging those changes into mods is likewise incredibly easy.
It doesn't take a toolkit, it doesn't take modeling programs, and it doesn't take a degree in programming to make a game moddable. It only takes a desire to do so and a small amount of work from a developer team to move internal references that no one can access into external ones that players can see and change to their liking, and new bit of coding to tell the game itself where to look for these modded files.
Nice long post there.
I'm a certified programmer (job), one of the main rule of programming is NEVER hard code values, however I have a feeling that the things you just named, like recipes, power costs, are all hard coded.
I would really love if this game could just export a huge XML where it read everything from ( or atleast start with recipes and power gen/cost, maybe add something like hull and air later). This alone, would solve so many complains about the game and would solve so many issues people have.
But doing this, will have to at the very least (if stuff is hardcoded, let's assume the worst) take hours and hours of work to atleast convert all the static stuff into an XML, then they'd have to create something that reads that XML and can put it in the game without bugs. I'd say this would take a loooot of work. not /small/ at all. All code needs to be refactored and reorganized.
I'm not sure how many complaints there are about base balance, but I have a feeling complaints will be even worse if they slow down on development right now( and honestly, I think they just want to push 1.0 release)
But at the end - I think the hours put into something small like this, can pay off in huge multiples. It's something like multiplayer - should've been accounted for since the start, but now it's a huge job because they didn't. That stuff happens. I really hope they take the time to do it sooner than later, though
I guess my PCGMR thinking didn't really consider that sadly all-too-likely deliberate hamstringing until now.