PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Gentar on November 20, 2005, 06:44:14 am
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I got to thinking as I was reading threads about steel blue. Why does there even have to be a steel blue? The jump form molecular to crystal was a complete revamp, but isnt crystal blue at a level where things can just keep beeing added piece by piece until it is done?
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Isn\'t that what steel blue is?
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updates to crystal blue come progressively (random but still progressive) building up ontop of what it first was at release.
from what I understand, Steel blue will be the next big overhaul, wipe, big fixes etcetera etcetera, but hey, this isn\'t my are of expertise! ... wait... i don\'t have one...
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Don\'t get too excited. Steel Blue is the red herring of the release lineup; unlike previous versions, there will not be a sudden release of an all-new client with tonnes of never-seen-before features and completely new looks and all that. Steel Blue is going to be, and already is, a progression of steady Big Updates leading to the next release\'s final goals list.
SB is not something that will one day be \'released\' like CB was. You are already playing CB with SB enhancements.
Moogie posted that on another thread, I believe it means that steel blue will be crystal blue when the devs are satisfied with it, or something along those lines :\\
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There most likely won\'t be any serious changes when SB comes, that\'s true.
But:
ver 0.1 = Atomic Blue
ver 0.2 = Molecular Blue
ver 0.3 = Crystal Blue
ver 0.4 = Steel Blue
And so on.
Makes sense, I think.
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It is more a landmark then a release to build up to. So we have a list of features that need to be in before we can call it SB, and a list of features that will not be worked on untill after SB is out. That is all.
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hmmm. Any chance of letting us know what features are getting priority atm then? :)
Always fun to look what to expect next ofcourse ;)
Hope crafting will be working soon and a cardgame mentioned before would be fun to have while talking or for when a bug makes the rest impossible ;)
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i personally cant wait till all the races are avaliable..maby that will be one of the updates of sb
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Well all races are available with stats and all... It\'s just models that are missing :P
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hmm indeed having all the models would give atleast that part of the game more the feeling of completeness. Rather surprised the models are taking so long.
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Let\'s put it this way: for what is planned for Steel Blue, it will feel like a real game instead of a tech demo. ;)
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Originally posted by Pestilence
hmm indeed having all the models would give atleast that part of the game more the feeling of completeness. Rather surprised the models are taking so long.
And it would make roleplaying that much easier.
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Considering just how many artists are on the dev team and how much time they have and what their priorities are and just how much work it is to make models functional and effective and proper-looking, I\'m not surprised at all at the time it\'s taking.
But after a while, the time-issue stops being a surprise anyway ;)
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LOL.
Well lets rephrase that then ;)
I am not surprised it\'s taking so much time in general I was however surprised to notice the devs put their efforts to other areas first ;)
Being surprised isn\'t always a bad thing mind you ;)
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They\'d have more people on the team if they checked their e-mail....
:|
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Originally posted by Pestilence
I am not surprised it\'s taking so much time in general I was however surprised to notice the devs put their efforts to other areas first ;)
Personally I consider working code more important than aesthetics in a pre-alpha ;)
And Aendar: Indeed... :\\
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I agree karyuu, however I think its a bit odd that work on pets is being done, when 90 percent of the skills and world isnt finished. Its seems that pets should be about the last thig to worry about next to houses. I mean hell, there is so much stuff on what we have now that doesnt work, why create more issues on unimportant things like pets?
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I agree as well, Gentar - sometimes (alright, often) things from the outside don\'t make a lot of sense. I suppose there has to be some sort of balance between \"hidden\" changes to code and obvious additions to game content, and pets are an obvious addition that will have more usability in the future than simply having a different model/skin for your character.
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There\'s also allot of things that work, but aren\'t fully utilized on Laanx. Like: magic, lockpicking, weapons (other than swords, daggers, and axes), crafting, quests, etc, etc, etc. Some things are just infrastructures for future features, others simply lack DB entries to use them (aka, they work, but aren\'t used), and others work perfectly well but aren\'t quite ready yet.
Simply put, the code will be officially called Steel Blue when it reaches a fixed set of goals. At that point, when it\'s capable of handling everything that\'s planned... . When this is going to happen, though, I have no clue, but it\'s a ways off.
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Originally posted by Gentar
I agree karyuu, however I think its a bit odd that work on pets is being done, when 90 percent of the skills and world isnt finished. Its seems that pets should be about the last thig to worry about next to houses. I mean hell, there is so much stuff on what we have now that doesnt work, why create more issues on unimportant things like pets?
It is odd, yes. But that the proiorties are something like this:
Stop the server from having issues (http://qdb.ps-mc.com/?267) .
Add new features people have been beating on our door for.
Fix the features previously added.
Fix the bugs added with the fixes.
Repeat the last step atleast 10 times.
No one wants to spend the extra time fixing a feature that already \"works\", even if it cannot be used currently by players. Well, maybe me >.>
Pets were one of the goals for SB, and now that that is \"done\" it is time to get back to the important things... like adding more features.
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Originally posted by Karyuu
Originally posted by Pestilence
I am not surprised it\'s taking so much time in general I was however surprised to notice the devs put their efforts to other areas first ;)
Personally I consider working code more important than aesthetics in a pre-alpha ;)
And Aendar: Indeed... :\\
Don\'t overlook aesthetics. I tried to get a friend of mine to play the game, and she turned up her nose because there were too few female models and it wasn\'t possible to customize them. She called the game \"ugly\".
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There\'s no way, being me, that I can overlook aesthetics ;) I watch CG movies with ridiculously crappy storylines just for the CG. I refuse to play games that don\'t look good - to me. Rubies of Eventide turned me off for this very reason. But something still needs to have a foundation, a base, for the aesthetics. A working base. This is what PlaneShift is right now, as I see it.
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Originally posted by Karyuu
There\'s no way, being me, that I can overlook aesthetics ;) I watch CG movies with ridiculously crappy storylines just for the CG. I refuse to play games that don\'t look good - to me. Rubies of Eventide turned me off for this very reason. But something still needs to have a foundation, a base, for the aesthetics. A working base. This is what PlaneShift is right now, as I see it.
I thought you liked that came Castle of the Winds? Or was that only sentimentality?
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Nostalgia\'s sake :)
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Originally posted by Draklar
There most likely won\'t be any serious changes when SB comes, that\'s true.
But:
ver 0.1 = Atomic Blue
ver 0.2 = Molecular Blue
ver 0.3 = Crystal Blue
ver 0.4 = Steel Blue
And so on.
Makes sense, I think.
It\'s all lies. I\'ve found the real scheme behind the naming. It\'s all about the abbreviations, which is why the \"meaning\" of \"SB\" was able to change that easily from Sapphire Blue to Steel Blue: it doesn\'t matter. That\'s also why there is this breach in the progressively more complex structure depicted by the names from CB to SB.
The real scheme is this:
AB=Absolutely Blue
MB=Mostly Blue
CB=Comparatively Blue
SB=Slightly Blue
This makes it easy to derive the upcoming abbreviations:
HB=Hardly Blue
NB=Not Blue
It even has reasoning: \"blue\" is, when not used to refer to an actual colour, a notion of \"sad\"/\"melancholic\" in one way or another. \"Blues\", or \"feeling blue\" are examples. Now, when it started out, there was a concept but little else, making one feel Absolutely Blue about the differences. Then MB came about, and the differences and shortcomings weren\'t as big anymore, but still huge. Hence one would feel Mostly Blue. CB is a big improvement, but compared to other, finished MMORPGs, it\'s still lacking, thus one still feels Comparatively Blue. SB will be, as has been stated, mostly like a game, albeit alpha version, which means one will feel only Slightly Blue anymore. In version 0.5, HB, it\'ll be more or less pre-beta, with a substantioal set of actually working features and content, hence one will feel Hardly Blue about it. The Beta, which is much like the finished version save for some more or less severe bugs and balancing issues, is really close to the intended concept, hence one will feel Not Blue anymore.
:D
It is therefore also obvious that \"blue\" will at some point be dropped, probably when ont runs out of increasing negations (like Totally not Blue, etc. :) ), and replaced by another colour that then stands for satisfaction / happiness and qualifiers of increasing emphasis on that. ;)
Due to the continous updating of CB towards SB, the transition will be mostly unnoticable, but one major milestone remains: a new splashscreen. :)) That, and likely a wipe, aye.
Originally posted by Karyuu
There\'s no way, being me, that I can overlook aesthetics ;)
(...) I refuse to play games that don\'t look good - to me.
(...)But something still needs to have a foundation, a base, for the aesthetics. A working base. This is what PlaneShift is right now, as I see it.
Aye, especially since \"aesthetics\" doesn\'t eqate to high-res gfx (though I\'ve been spoilt by it to quite some degree. :) )
What happens once you have played a game for a bit, gfx quality vanishes from perception and only the real / intended look stays. On that, PS has, AFAICS, a comparatively unique take as things look more realistic than in other games, especially in the colouring. Whether that will remain or not is to be seen when more outfits, etc. are available.
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Originally posted by DaveG
Let\'s put it this way: for what is planned for Steel Blue, it will feel like a real game instead of a tech demo. ;)
DaveG if this statment is true then you have made my day. :D
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Originally posted by Seytra
The real scheme is this:
AB=Absolutely Blue
MB=Mostly Blue
CB=Comparatively Blue
SB=Slightly Blue
This makes it easy to derive the upcoming abbreviations:
HB=Hardly Blue
NB=Not Blue
(On a side note of the thread, great work there Seytra)
I must correct a little that roadmap.
AB didn\'t mean Absolutely Blue, but \"Almost Blue\", everybody knows that \"Blue\" (yeah, without prefixes) was the initial utopic idea one guy had one unlucky day.