Post by Lord Ba'al on Jun 7, 2015 22:08:48 GMT
SEPTEMBER UPDATE
Hello Everyone!
It has been a couple of weeks since the end of the campaign and things have been progressing quite nicely! We should be receiving the Kickstarter money from Amazon sometime soon and then we can begin rolling out the Backerkit surveys and forum badges. Pretty much everything is ready on that side, perhaps a few final tweaks are needed here and there before launch. We hope it will all go super smoothly, but we will post a way to contact us should something go wrong with your particular pledge. When the surveys are ready, we will post some extra info in an update here that should help get your order nailed down.
For example: if you paid extra for a certain add-on, you will notice that you have additional money when beginning the survey. This is for your add-ons. All add-ons can be selected and added to your order in a separate tab which is pretty convenient. It will then subtract the add-on prices from your total extra amount. If you paid for shipping, this amount will be subtracted at the very end so be sure to leave $10 in your backer wallet for this purpose. Backerkit allows you to purchase additional add-ons through them by using their special payment system, but we are not really supporting that as they take a large percentage of the amount. We will offer all add-ons again in our official store when it goes live later on this year (like T-Shirts, physical special editions, artbooks, etc).
Microsoft and ID@Xbox
Alex spoke with representatives from ID@Xbox last week (they are fantastic people!) and learned a lot about the kind of support they offer (such as devkits). They really want to see the game make its way onto Xbox. We were considering doing a port to consoles, but only after the PC versions were completed. That is still very much the case! The way the game works now will remain as is (in terms of PC-specific features) and we will not strip anything out or streamline gameplay. If we do receive enough support, i.e. well in excess of our goal, we might consider hiring an additional team to begin reworking the PC content for consoles before launch depending on your feedback. We would like to hear your thoughts on possible current-gen console ports in the comments below. Nothing is being designed with consoles in mind at the moment and we plan to stay that way, so fret not fellow PC gamers! There is only about a 25% chance (just to throw in a random value) of a console port right now, we are far too busy making the PC versions as awesome as possible.
How would the game work on console, though?
Due to the nature of the game focusing on dynamic gameplay and AI, direct contact with your people (as in clicking on them and sending them to do tasks) is not going to be supported (although, we aren’t ruling it out depending on what you think). This removes the need for micromanagement on ground-level and thus allows most features to be relatively easy to use on a controller. However, things like creator abilities (such as clicking on and moving a raincloud and other environmental interactions) can be a little trickier to do.
We have thought of a few ways to work around that, such as having a specific button for creator abilities followed by you selecting a nearby interactive object (through somewhat of an object highlighting system) and then moving it/controlling it as you wish. You would move around the planet using the analog sticks (left to rotate planet, right to zoom in and out for example), so that isn’t too much of a problem with an option to turn on and off a controllable ‘cursor’ for selecting particular objects/buildings that catch your attention in current view. All menus, such as research, colonization, and construction, can be reworked for the controller once they are finalized on PC. And so the list goes on. However, the definitive experience will always remain the PC in terms of usability, fidelity, and moddability.
That pretty much sums up the news on that side, so please share your thoughts. I hope this shows that everything is being developed on PC first, regardless of console plans. Don’t worry about that! Most of us are PC gamers, so we know how much it hurts to be screwed over on launch day due to multi-platform. Particularly in recent days (you know what I’m talking about).
We will do our best to keep you updated, but we have pretty awesome things happening all the time at the moment. We would actually end up spamming you to death if we kept putting it up here. It is also REALLY hard to keep track of feedback here, so be sure to visit our forums! We are pretty much always active over there and new things are pouring into the forums each day. Things like design decisions and feedback requests can be found regularly. You can participate in all of them. Come join us! We have a heated pool, a great community, beanbag chairs, and cupcakes! The best news of all is that at least one of those things are true! Our social networks like Twitter and Facebook are also great, just saying. If we don’t update for extended periods, rest assured that it is due to us being focused on development.
Thanks!
Hello Everyone!
It has been a couple of weeks since the end of the campaign and things have been progressing quite nicely! We should be receiving the Kickstarter money from Amazon sometime soon and then we can begin rolling out the Backerkit surveys and forum badges. Pretty much everything is ready on that side, perhaps a few final tweaks are needed here and there before launch. We hope it will all go super smoothly, but we will post a way to contact us should something go wrong with your particular pledge. When the surveys are ready, we will post some extra info in an update here that should help get your order nailed down.
For example: if you paid extra for a certain add-on, you will notice that you have additional money when beginning the survey. This is for your add-ons. All add-ons can be selected and added to your order in a separate tab which is pretty convenient. It will then subtract the add-on prices from your total extra amount. If you paid for shipping, this amount will be subtracted at the very end so be sure to leave $10 in your backer wallet for this purpose. Backerkit allows you to purchase additional add-ons through them by using their special payment system, but we are not really supporting that as they take a large percentage of the amount. We will offer all add-ons again in our official store when it goes live later on this year (like T-Shirts, physical special editions, artbooks, etc).
Microsoft and ID@Xbox
Alex spoke with representatives from ID@Xbox last week (they are fantastic people!) and learned a lot about the kind of support they offer (such as devkits). They really want to see the game make its way onto Xbox. We were considering doing a port to consoles, but only after the PC versions were completed. That is still very much the case! The way the game works now will remain as is (in terms of PC-specific features) and we will not strip anything out or streamline gameplay. If we do receive enough support, i.e. well in excess of our goal, we might consider hiring an additional team to begin reworking the PC content for consoles before launch depending on your feedback. We would like to hear your thoughts on possible current-gen console ports in the comments below. Nothing is being designed with consoles in mind at the moment and we plan to stay that way, so fret not fellow PC gamers! There is only about a 25% chance (just to throw in a random value) of a console port right now, we are far too busy making the PC versions as awesome as possible.
How would the game work on console, though?
Due to the nature of the game focusing on dynamic gameplay and AI, direct contact with your people (as in clicking on them and sending them to do tasks) is not going to be supported (although, we aren’t ruling it out depending on what you think). This removes the need for micromanagement on ground-level and thus allows most features to be relatively easy to use on a controller. However, things like creator abilities (such as clicking on and moving a raincloud and other environmental interactions) can be a little trickier to do.
We have thought of a few ways to work around that, such as having a specific button for creator abilities followed by you selecting a nearby interactive object (through somewhat of an object highlighting system) and then moving it/controlling it as you wish. You would move around the planet using the analog sticks (left to rotate planet, right to zoom in and out for example), so that isn’t too much of a problem with an option to turn on and off a controllable ‘cursor’ for selecting particular objects/buildings that catch your attention in current view. All menus, such as research, colonization, and construction, can be reworked for the controller once they are finalized on PC. And so the list goes on. However, the definitive experience will always remain the PC in terms of usability, fidelity, and moddability.
That pretty much sums up the news on that side, so please share your thoughts. I hope this shows that everything is being developed on PC first, regardless of console plans. Don’t worry about that! Most of us are PC gamers, so we know how much it hurts to be screwed over on launch day due to multi-platform. Particularly in recent days (you know what I’m talking about).
We will do our best to keep you updated, but we have pretty awesome things happening all the time at the moment. We would actually end up spamming you to death if we kept putting it up here. It is also REALLY hard to keep track of feedback here, so be sure to visit our forums! We are pretty much always active over there and new things are pouring into the forums each day. Things like design decisions and feedback requests can be found regularly. You can participate in all of them. Come join us! We have a heated pool, a great community, beanbag chairs, and cupcakes! The best news of all is that at least one of those things are true! Our social networks like Twitter and Facebook are also great, just saying. If we don’t update for extended periods, rest assured that it is due to us being focused on development.
Thanks!
