Oolite Bulletins

Food for thought there, Clym, and too much for me to answer in a brief hiatus at work. I'll pose a wider question ...

Given Elite:Dangerous, whither Oolite?

Cheers,

Drew.

superbatprime wrote:

You guys are like kids at Christmas lol.

i actually caught myself daydreaming yesterday about what it's going to be like the first time you launch from a station in Elite:Dangerous and press the F2 key to see the station behind you in all it's next-gen graphic lovelyness, wooo *foams at the mouth*

drew wrote:

Given Elite:Dangerous, whither Oolite?

We'll take his better ideas and make OXPs out of them!

Oh it is a thing to be mulled over. A lot of work has been done, that sort of investment should never be taken lightly.
Especially when your in a high risk game and your 5 cards are not the ones you would like.

It is both a blessing and a curse, but then that is the nature of change. It was bound to happen question is, what do we do?

Ok shoving out heads out of the parapet aside and talking pure money here:
£300 per dude on the creative design forum. I can do £50 maybe £75 but I'd gladly give money to one or two trusted
people so that we can farm ideas up. If we can scrape together a hundred or so for Christmas prezzies for Ian I'm
sure we can get at least one person on at this donation level.

Griff and/or aegidian spring to mind as immediate candidates.

heavens no, don't put my name into the hat, i can barely type coherent sentences and have no idea at all about game development, other than that it should have massive laser cooling boosers, in fact you pilot a large laser cooling booster with a small spaceship attached.

It worries me a bit about Elite:Dangerous' possible 500 game shaping kickstarters - that's too many voices, he'll never please them all with new features, plus they'll probably all ask for newtonian physics

Griff wrote:

heavens no, don't put my name into the hat, i can barely type coherent sentences and have no idea at all about game development, other than that it should have massive laser cooling boosers, in fact you pilot a large laser cooling booster with a small spaceship attached.

It worries me a bit about Elite:Dangerous' possible 500 game shaping kickstarters - that's too many voices, he'll never please them all with new features, plus they'll probably all ask for newtonian physics

DB has already answered the Newtonian Physics question in the FAQ at the bottom of the Kickstarter page. I hope he gets it right.

As to get someone on the design forum, I would certainly support this even though I have already pledged a bit more than I probably should have. But as ClymAngus says, the question is who. I'm not going to nominate anyone, apart from saying that I think it should be someone from the "Elite Conservative" faction. That probably includes most of the people on this forum though.

What I worry about regarding Elite:Dangerous is: what platform does Braben intend to support? The announcement says "PC", does that mean "Windows" or would it also run on Mac and Linux? (Linux being the one I care about.)

Griff wrote:

plus they'll probably all ask for newtonian physics

Somewhat off-topic: Some games, such as Vendetta Online and Vegastrike manage to offer both Newtonian and fishtank* physics.

The explanation behind it is that the on-board computers translate the fishtank physics into Newtonian (I guess using a Handwavium circuit or something).

In Vendetta Online, knowing how to fly using the Newtonian physics give a tactical advantage (making moves which are impossible in the fishtank model, such as flying backwards or sideways and shooting with the front laser), but those who don't like them or get confused by them don't have to use them (of course: if they meet an opponent who does they are in troubles).

*Elite and Oolite use what I call "fishtank physics", not intended to be derogatory in any way.

Gimi wrote:

As to get someone on the design forum, I would certainly support this even though I have already pledged a bit more than I probably should have. But as ClymAngus says, the question is who. I'm not going to nominate anyone, apart from saying that I think it should be someone from the "Elite Conservative" faction. That probably includes most of the people on this forum though.

There can be only one truely fair way to decide who will represent us - bare chested Roman Grecko wrestling competition

drew wrote:

Given Elite:Dangerous, whither Oolite?

I think (hope) that is not an issue.

For many of you old dudes it's maybe the Elite clone aspect of the game that draws you, I never played Elite, it's the free and open source nature of infinite customization and flexibility in a space game framework that draws me, that's Oolite's strength.
That and the incredible amount of polish and professionalism that has gone into it, it's far far more polished than many other games that cost money.

Oolite is a damn fine endeavor guys and imo it's more than capable of standing apart from any concerns of that nature.

E:D will be E:D and Oolite will remain Oolite, two different games that come from the same legendary source.

There's room for both in this universe no?

Gimbal Locke wrote:

What I worry about regarding Elite:Dangerous is: what platform does Braben intend to support? The announcement says "PC", does that mean "Windows" or would it also run on Mac and Linux? (Linux being the one I care about.)

I suspect that Windows (DirectX 11?) will be first - then they'll look at porting to other platforms (see the FAQ).

superbatprime wrote:

drew wrote:

Given Elite:Dangerous, whither Oolite?

There's room for both in this universe no?

One would hope so, but this is why I try to discuss these sorts of things with interested parties first. Honestly I can't judge Mr D's reaction and he has a history of unscabbarding the CAD sword in the past.

That said I still feel that it would be a good idea to get one or two moles into that design forum.

El Viejo wrote:

I suspect that Windows (DirectX 11?) will be first - then they'll look at porting to other platforms (see the FAQ).

Thanks, EV! For some reason* the FAQ on Kickstarter does not work for me.

I would prefer if they had chosen OpenGL, DirectX does not make porting to other platforms easier.


*Adblock? Noscript (but I tried clicking on "temporarily allow all this page")? Better Privacy? No third party cookies allowed?

Gimbal Locke wrote:

For some reason* the FAQ on Kickstarter does not work for me.

You did click on one of the questions, yes?

ClymAngus wrote:

superbatprime wrote:

drew wrote:

I can't judge Mr D's reaction and he has a history of unscabbarding the CAD sword in the past.

Oh rats... you mean that sort of thing, lawyers and suits, ugh.
That would be uncool and I hope unnecessary.

What could they do though? Insist on changing any Elite related names?
I don't want to be flying a "cOobra mk III", and god only knows what we'll have to call the Asp. >.>

E:D's existence should have no effect on Oolite, as long as Oolite stays consistently in the non-profit area. As wisely pointed out, anything good in E:D can be OXPd!

I do think that since the Oolite players and contributors have years of experience in knowing what made Elite great and what kept Oolite so popular they should be able to provide lots of advice to Frontier Developments in what to keep in E:D to maximise its potential as a worthy successor to Elite.

I do wonder that DB has opened things up too widely, and he'll end up with a "never going to please everyone" scenario. Hopefully, though, years of game dev experience should give him the edge on filtering out the noise and focusing on the quality ideas and suggestions.

Including the ability to expand the game is key to making it a success these days. The graphics could still be white line shapes as long as the spirit of the game is there and the hinted-at depth is preserved.

ClymAngus wrote:

That said I still feel that it would be a good idea to get one or two moles into that design forum.

Gimi wrote:

I'm not going to nominate anyone, apart from saying that I think it should be someone from the "Elite Conservative" faction. That probably includes most of the people on this forum though.

Agree with the above. Thing is some of the names that have been put forward are already heavily involved in development in Oolite. If any of the Dev team or major OXP writers get involved in the E:D design team, Oolite can only suffer.

So, we need somebody firmly in the conservative keep-it-real camp from amongst the more mainstream crew. On which basis, I'd like to nominate El Viejo for a spot.

(sorry mate )