[Phantom Hoover]

Except it doesn't really, because the link between the world rendered on your screen and the underlying structure which you manipulate by mining and constructing now has a heap of eye-candy obscuring the latter.

[The E]

The thing for me is, Minecraft only gives you the most basic of tools to do stuff with. If you want a cannon, you have to do some pretty fancy planning and testing in order to get it, it's not a basic item you can just craft. In that regard, Minecraft is the better sandbox game for me, as it requires you to be very creative in there.

This game, on the other hand, seems to be putting a greater emphasis on the "lone survivor" aspect that Minecraft only gained later in development. There are superficial similarities here, of course, and I suspect that once the devs get around to polishing up the rough edges, it'll be an interesting take on the survival sandbox genre, but I cannot quite see it inspiring the same amount of insane creativity and experimentation that Minecraft got famous for. Remember that when MC debuted, there were no hints of the mechanisms and "story" introduced later. It was all about improvisation and creativity and playing in a sandbox; this game on the other hand debuted with both of its main modes already roughed out.

[ShivanSpS]

Ive edited the title so there is no more fighting over the title.

Im think we have not yet see the creativity in its full potential here, cannons in PE are worthless if you dont do some carefully placing of the defenses, even laser and missile turrets are useless if you dont do it right, and animals are not the only enemy in PE either.

The creativity here i think it will be more around building the weapons, armor, vehicles, boats and hovercrafts, it will be possible to do a flying Fenris that you could actually fly and fight with it...

And base building too, you can make building out of blocks, yeah, but there is also another type of buildings, but im not 100% sure how they work.

[BloodEagle]

Not to threadjack, but is anyone else exceedingly tired of this 'open beta, no wait it's open alpha so it's okay if things look bad, no wait it's a foundation release' bull****?

I feel like this era of games is at risk of being known as The Scam Age.

[Phantom Hoover]

Calling it a scam is too conspiratorial, but I do agree that selling your unfinished game to the mass market on the cheap is probably not a great industry standard. I like what Introversion are doing with Prison Architect: making the cost for alpha access significantly higher than the planned release price, so the alpha community is composed of people who are at least somewhat committed to assisting in the development process in exchange for early access.

[Mongoose]

I think it all depends on how exactly you're selling it.  If you're clear up-front that you're selling an in-progress alpha version of the game, and make the statement, "Okay, what you see is what you get, and there are still a lot of features to be added and bugs to be ironed out, so things may break sometimes," then I don't think you can say that the customer is uninformed about what they're buying.  On the other hand, you have nonsense like The War Z, which was quite literally a scam.

[Polpolion]

I like what Introversion are doing with Prison Architect: making the cost for alpha access significantly higher than the planned release price, so the alpha community is composed of people who are at least somewhat committed to assisting in the development process in exchange for early access.

What? How is that working out? I can't see anyone being willing to pay extra for an unfinished game, but if people actually are I guess good for them. Personally I don't usually mind buying games in an open beta because they're usually cheaper and it's nice to see the game evolve from its uncompleted state. Hell, I'd say it's less of a risky practice than pre-ordering games. I got Meinkraft and KSP cheap, both of which were excellent purchases. I also got Arma 3 cheap, though it's still too early on to tell if it's going to be a good purchase or not. Dwarf Fortress is another excellent game (albeit free, so maybe it doesn't count) that's gone public in Alpha.

[Phantom Hoover]

It helps that Introversion are a beloved indie developer with an established history of making solid, innovative games.

[The E]

I can't see anyone being willing to pay extra for an unfinished game

Have you been to Kickstarter recently?

[Polpolion]

I can't see anyone being willing to pay extra for an unfinished game

Have you been to Kickstarter recently?

Derp. Very true. I don't kickstart things myself but overall I still think it's a stretch to say that allowing early access is necessarily bad for games. Obviously there are kinds of games where this just wouldn't work but I think I benefit too much from this to feel bad.

[BloodEagle]

I think it all depends on how exactly you're selling it.  If you're clear up-front that you're selling an in-progress alpha version of the game, and make the statement, "Okay, what you see is what you get, and there are still a lot of features to be added and bugs to be ironed out, so things may break sometimes," then I don't think you can say that the customer is uninformed about what they're buying.  On the other hand, you have nonsense like The War Z, which was quite literally a scam.

Don't forget Towns.

[ShivanSpS]

To me there are 2, Minecraft and Terraria, and Planet Explores could the the 3rd one as it brings something new to the table and a new perpective.

[FlamingCobra]

Alright so I made it to the big tree and got killed by a dinosaur once. I need guns.

[ShivanSpS]

Yeah, 90% of the iron and copper i mined in the game goes all to make bullets, mele combat is bad at this moment.

[FlamingCobra]

Is the crater the best place to mine?

EDIT: On a side note, I'd like to see some Zelda-like melee combat. I don't really like the way the sword just swings, and the shield doesn't seem to do anything.

[ShivanSpS]

Yes, as far i know its the only copper source and the mayor iron source, there are other places with iron, like in the big alien head statue, and there are no other known sources. There is no much we can do until the mineral scanner gets implemented in 0.6.

http://board.pathea.net/index.php?topic=1158.0

As for mele goes, the shield just add armor, it does not block(ive read they are going to add a block system by 0.6), but its because the mele system is not done yet, and also the NPC does way too much damage, most of them 1 shoot you, still im not sure how they gona make mele to work, some of the creatures are HUGE, and the Aliens ive fighted with all of them have Rifles, im really hoping they to make bows and arrows to work a bit better too.

[FlamingCobra]

version 0.55a came out. It is multiplayer only, but the servers seem to be down at the moment.

[TrashMan]

The thing for me is, Minecraft only gives you the most basic of tools to do stuff with. If you want a cannon, you have to do some pretty fancy planning and testing in order to get it, it's not a basic item you can just craft. In that regard, Minecraft is the better sandbox game for me, as it requires you to be very creative in there.

This game, on the other hand, seems to be putting a greater emphasis on the "lone survivor" aspect that Minecraft only gained later in development. There are superficial similarities here, of course, and I suspect that once the devs get around to polishing up the rough edges, it'll be an interesting take on the survival sandbox genre, but I cannot quite see it inspiring the same amount of insane creativity and experimentation that Minecraft got famous for. Remember that when MC debuted, there were no hints of the mechanisms and "story" introduced later. It was all about improvisation and creativity and playing in a sandbox; this game on the other hand debuted with both of its main modes already roughed out.

True, but a cannon in MC is pretty useless. Also an eyesore.

[ShivanSpS]

My first attempt to make a working Fenris...



im really not good at this im trying to see how i could extend the central structure whiout making it look like crap

And this is my first attempt at the Hercules (V2)

[ShivanSpS]

http://board.pathea.net/index.php?topic=2193.msg13624#msg13624