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Poll Result |
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Beyond Starscape, what would you like to see? |
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A new build of the same game with more items, enemies, zones, etc. |
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27% |
[ 3 ] |
A sequel with all of the items listed above, "and" added graphics and sound support. |
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27% |
[ 3 ] |
A new build or sequel with MMORPG support for groups of players to manage their own Aegis-like ship in a huge, online community. |
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36% |
[ 4 ] |
Free T-Shirts from MoonPod to promote Starscape (I know I'd wear mine in Tucson, AZ). :-) |
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9% |
[ 1 ] |
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Total Votes : 11 |
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Rogue4

Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Posts: 6 Location: Tucson, AZ, USA

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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 4:05 am Post subject: Beyond Starscape - Freebie? |
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If another, larger build of Starscape is introduced, will its loyal fans be given the update for free? I'd love to see either a new build or a new patch introduced so that new weapons, enemies, zones, etc. can be added to increase the replayability of the game. What about creating an MMORPG aspect for the game? I think it would be awesome to create small clans of three or four people that can launch from one mothership, mine, buy special items, update their ships, etc. How cool would that be?!?!?  |
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jollyreaper
Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 181

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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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If you're lookin to expand Starscape, what you'd really need is a lot more plot. Have more story events, miniquests, character interaction. Throw that in with a few of the other tweaks that were mentioned and you'll really have yourself something.
Oh, another idea, something that'd be easier to program -- enhance the instant action section. Allow the user to specify number of enemies, respawn rate, skill level, etc. You can make this sort of thing very challenging by having the enemy drop powerups -- more health, weapons, and so forth. Easy to program, but should add a lot more longevity to the game.
The only other thing I could think of would be to play around with the AI a bit, make the enemy ships more interesting. What I always loved in games like this is when you can strafe and dodge like mad, trying to evade their fire while closing in for the kill. The engine can handle large enemies quite well, why not throw in a few more boss-sized ships but remove the gimmicks, simply make them big with guns but killable? The large explosions are always fun. |
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jollyreaper
Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 181

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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 2:12 am Post subject: |
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Unless they kept it simple, like a Tradwars sort of deal, MMORPG would be the kiss of death in terms of accessability and simplicity. It'd be a nightmare to code.
Now if they did something like tradewars, that'd be cool. You know, the old BBS door games. That's the sort of thing that was designed for you to play maybe 20 minutes a day and be done so the other players on the BBS could get a crack at it. If it was made MMORPG lite, that might be cool. Make it Everquest in space and only college students would have enough time to play it.  |
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Poo Bear Pod Team


Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 4121 Location: Sheffield, UK

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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 7:04 am Post subject: |
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I know what you mean, I played UO for nearly two years way back when it first started. Great game, but you suddenly realise your life is ebbing away. I think they have a moral responsibility NOT to design games that encourage such excessive play.
If you try and be sensible and keep it down to ~2 hours a day or something then you don't get anywhere in the game. It is still great to be able to develop lasting online friendships, but it would also have been nice to actually get somewhere in the game too. Then there are all the people cheating, you slog away for months and then someone who has only started last week uses various exploits to zoom right past you.
Damn, talking about it is making me want to re-activate my account, UO have just released an expansion too. No, must resist..... |
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jollyreaper
Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 181

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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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Poo Bear wrote: | I know what you mean, I played UO for nearly two years way back when it first started. Great game, but you suddenly realise your life is ebbing away. I think they have a moral responsibility NOT to design games that encourage such excessive play.
If you try and be sensible and keep it down to ~2 hours a day or something then you don't get anywhere in the game. It is still great to be able to develop lasting online friendships, but it would also have been nice to actually get somewhere in the game too. Then there are all the people cheating, you slog away for months and then someone who has only started last week uses various exploits to zoom right past you.
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Right. Very aggrivating. When I was but a lad I discovered the Pit, a BBS door game. Got really into it, actually beat the damn game. (For those of you who don't know, it was an ascii-style fighting game, D&D inspired. It was tournament fighting where you worked your way up from the bottom to the top, gathering special items, weapons, fighting the monsters of the pit as well as other players. If you became a top champion you got to fight the gods and if you did really good, you became a god or something. I forget the specifics but you end up restarting the game back where you were, zero stats and a loin cloth, but you had the crown of champions. When you beat the game you couldn't try again until the next day. So I logged on early the next morning wondering what advantage this crown of champions would give me. Too late, some [rude word] defeated my character and stole it. Never played the game again I was so angry.
But actually, as far as the MMORPG idea goes, if you really wanted to make it friend-accessible you could produce a server code so that a group of friends could host their own game. Potentially, you could have hundreds of servers out there, the same way there are hundreds and thousands of servers for the more popular first person shooters like Quake and Half-Life. It'd be a non-massive multiplayer RPG. From what I've heard about Everquest and the like, you simply cannot compete with someone who can put eight hours a day into the game. If the friends you invite have jobs and lives, everyone would be on a more even level. Plus there wouldn't be the annoying factor of having tens of thousands of other players to go up against and there also wouldn't be that annoying subscription fee.
And as far as the non-massive multiplayer idea goes, you could use it for whatever subsequent game you designed. Don't know how well it'd work for your RTS idea but heck, for inspiration you could just start looking up the archive sites for all the old door games. Think "Hmm, now how would this idea look with a nice graphics engine?"
The more I think about this idea, the more sense it makes. You guys have proven you can make a spiffy graphics engine with just three guys. The older door games were all designed and programmed by just one or two guys. Those games were also proven to be extremely popular and addictive. Make a modern incarnation of them that doesn't have all the time-sucking and baggage of the MMORPG's, something that people with lives can play in bite-sized chunks, and you've got yourselves a winner.  |
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hair65
Joined: 13 Jul 2018 Posts: 886

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