hi. I’m curious about your game for some time and, since i NEVER preorder a game, i was waiting for a “let’s play” vid to see if the game is interesting. youtube.com/watch?v=e1pneo-x … 3o8Bs8nHwg
Since i watched the ten parts, i think i’m interested ^^. I’ll wait a steam release to buy it.
I just have few questions, relative to this let’s play vids.
(And since i was looking the forums, i I agree completely with this feedback: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=8391 )
In the vids, all characters are low ranks (beside really few exceptions) and have few friends (two or three most of the time) no matter their rank’s job; which, in my opinion, spoils the fun. In the vids, after 15 days of play, the player just have to send an invit to be friends and everybody accept it. I find this weird and it make hard to imagine that 499 other characters are present in the game since each of them know only one or two other people.
Is that will remain in the final game ?
I was wondering about the lack of away missions but I saw your comment on the 10th video: bug ^^. Ok bad things happen sometime.
Other point is bothering me is the fact that since the 6th or 7th vids, the player seem to always do the same things (same events again and again for example). I would like to know if, for example, being friends with some characters (like the ambassador) can induce special events ? Does npcs can invite our characters (ok it’s a sim, our character is the central piece but everything is evolving according to our character and, imo of course, it’s a little too much) ? And did random events can occur (beside away mission) ?
In fact, i just to know if some randomness will be include in the game (beside away missions wich, for now, only trigger a save loading^^).
Thanks for reading.
Edit: ok i just finished to watch the last vid and it seem that the player have less problems with “friends” just in posting comments on their wall rather than invinting them to events. I can resume what bother me in one word: immobility. Npcs react only when the player do something, they don’t seem to evolve, nor their relationship between them (in good or bad), all their carreer development seem to fail etc… I know the game is just in beta now, so i’ll wait and see the next updates ^^.
To answer your question – the game is in fact already largely random, which seems part of the problem The NPCs evaluate whether or not to invite you to events and such regularly, but in some playthroughs (including Grimith’s Let’s Play videos!) this seems either bugged, or, due to the nature of randomness, it’s possible for them to just keep deciding to not invite you anywhere. Working on fixing that now though, to make sure it definitely happens at least occasionally! So apologies about that!
Also, as you suspected, the final content isn’t all there yet – there’ll be a lot more variety of Spacebook events before final release, and more will indeed unlock as you progress throughout the game.
Thanks so much for the feedback though – I’m definitely working on improving the experience as much as possible (and, of course, fixing those bugs!) so stay tuned.
And, to answer your edit – this is something I’m working to make more clear. NPCs do often post status updates about the player (and each other!), but it’s quite easy to miss if you’re not reading the feed properly, so this will be more obvious in future and have more immediate obvious impact on the relationship.
In first, thanks for your answers, I don’t expected one so quickly.
In second, english isn’t my native language so I misspoke about the random side because at the very beginning of the let’s play, everyone can see that almost everything is “random” (a romantic involvement with a “blob” ? rly ? It was…unexpected at best^^). I wanted to speak about event like an optional (read “mandatory”) activity proposed by the captain of the station or your actual boss or something like that each month or each couple of weeks.
Anyway good luck and i’ll wait the next update ^^.
I finished today to watch the vids and, imo of course, there is a big problem with balance and interest during the last part of the game and i agree with a large part of the “final toughts” vid. I know the game is in beta it’s not a bash post, far from it, if i wasn’t interested, i wouldn’t be here ^^.
We can see in the last vids that the player don’t bother to keep friends, to make new friends or to participate in any events. In fact, a lot of times making events was way more penalizing than just liking posts… So he used his actions to like friends’s post, nothing else and it was sufficient to achieve his goal. I’ve a problem with that because it’s the main purpose of the game… and you can reach the end without using several features on which the game interest is based.
During he’s two last jobs, the happiness penalties were so high that only his equipment permit him to manage them (because making events were penalizing on happiness since people dind’t came for wathever reasons) . And this equipment was fixed because a bug allowed him to do it for free.
So, you don’t have to use the most interesting game features to achieve the goal of the game but a bug was almost mandatory .
It’s obvious that, in the fourth last vids, the player’s interest is decreasing, until the last one when he just let the days pass without doing anything and this didn’t prevent him in any way to achieve its goals.
All of this is my opnion of course ^^ but i think the game requires a balancing and something to keep the player invested in the main features of the game (not by making them mandatory, by pushing the player to want using them).
The game is a beta but i think a bit of replayability can’t hurt it. On this point i disagree with the vid, difficulty isn’t the only answer; i think variety can improve a lot of things, perhaps some other events that the “away missions”. Like ambassadors’s public ceremonies, weddings and funerals, in fact anything that can simulate life aboard a space ship… And more Ranked you are, more important this events are.
I’ll be honest, the impression of novelty fades quickly and, even if the game is mod friendly (wich i don’t know. It’s a good question ! Do you will support mods ?^^), even if humor is well done, replayability is mandatory for me and, i don’t feel that Redshirt have it today.
I’ll wait updates of course because i hope to buy a good and interesting game but for the same price i buyed Kerbal Space Program and Don’t starve (replayability, mod support, numerous updates) and today, Red Shirt can’t compare to them. I hope it will !
So you are here. And I thought since you didn’t answer my bug and my suggestion threads from a couple of days ago that you weren’t around, Mitu–you always seem to respond to threads very quickly, a real strength in a developer (in my opinion). Was there a problem with the content of those threads? If so, please let me know. I aim to please.
I have a lot of time, just now: a successful surgery, good drugs for a week or more, and too much pain to do anything else other than sleep, read, or play. You get the play. For what that’s worth; not sure I’m such a fantastic player, though I am enjoying the game a great deal.
The NPCs evaluate whether or not to invite you to events and such regularly, but in some playthroughs (including Grimith’s Let’s Play videos!) this seems either bugged, or, due to the nature of randomness, it’s possible for them to just keep deciding to not invite you anywhere. Working on fixing that now though, to make sure it definitely happens at least occasionally! So apologies about that! 