CitizenCon 2016

[Raven]

This would make it so easy for them to add stuff to a planet after release. Like, showing a planet's progress over time. Like, a colonization effort.

[Raven]

Crabs! We got crabs, people!

[Raven]

whoa!

[Legend]

nice planet yo

[Raven]

lol

[Raven]

nice tease

[Raven]

lol he knows

[Legend]

Great singing...

[Legend]

So no dates for 3.0 or Squadron 42. Maybe some day.

[Raven]

The fact that they didn't even have a demo mission ready yet tells me it's definitely not coming this year. Less than 3 months to go and you don't have a demo mission ready?

[Legend]

[Raven]

Mom?

[the-pi-guy]

I didn't watch, good things?  

[Raven]

I didn't watch, good things?  

Quite. It wasn't a showcase for the single player game, bigger space battles, or the fleshing out of earlier systems like we hoped, but what was shown went a long way. Some concerns about planetary exploration were mostly laid to rest. One very big one that a lot of people, myself included, had was that the worlds would be barren and lifeless. Simply because that's easy to do. Not the case. Plenty of flora was on display and some fauna as well. Mostly that gigantic sandworm Legend posted. They also showed some crabs in another demonstration shortly after. So there will most definitely be planets that feature more than just a bunch of rocks or snow. There will be ecosystems on display in the game and some of it will be dangerous to you. It also helped that a sandstorm was shown off and confirmed that different planets, depending on their composition, would have dynamic weather events. Not having some planets that feel alive when you explore them would have been a big deal breaker to a lot of people.

Another question put to bed was whether or not any trickery was being used when exploring a planet. Like skyboxes being used instead of rendering celestial bodies in real time or clever hiding of loading screens. They shot that down when they made a ship fire up its quantum drive in the atmosphere of the planet it was on while targeting another off in the distance and raced straight towards it. Not stopping until it was in the atmosphere of the next planet. Even better? They showed us a more exotic looking world which was loaded with sulfur pools. The planet had this sickly, greenish color scheme to it. Just to show off that some worlds will be rather unusual and we shouldn't expect them all to be what we normally think of planets to be.

The sheer scale of it all was so impressive. The distance covered on the ground was significant but when pulling out to show the area they played in... dude. It was tiny compared to the entire world. A definite plus. Another thing that was really cool was that they showed off some of the tools they use to create these worlds. What they have at their disposal would make it so easy to alter the terrain over time and add new settlements or "terraforming" or even reflect a cataclysmic event that occurred on the planet and it really wouldn't take them much time or effort. It also helped that the gunplay looked solid enough and we even got to see a stealth takedown. Of course, there is also the fact that despite still being in the earlier stages of development, the environments look really good. Not award winning. At least not yet. But definitely already solid for the kind of game they're trying to build. Even Chris Roberts, the guy in charge, made the comment that the planets will keep looking better over time just like everything else in the game compared to when they first started working on it.

[the-pi-guy]

Quite. It wasn't a showcase for the single player game, bigger space battles, or the fleshing out of earlier systems like we hoped, but what was shown went a long way. Some concerns about planetary exploration were mostly laid to rest. One very big one that a lot of people, myself included, had was that the worlds would be barren and lifeless. Simply because that's easy to do. Not the case. Plenty of flora was on display and some fauna as well. Mostly that gigantic sandworm Legend posted. They also showed some crabs in another demonstration shortly after. So there will most definitely be planets that feature more than just a bunch of rocks or snow. There will be ecosystems on display in the game and some of it will be dangerous to you. It also helped that a sandstorm was shown off and confirmed that different planets, depending on their composition, would have dynamic weather events. Not having some planets that feel alive when you explore them would have been a big deal breaker to a lot of people.

Another question put to bed was whether or not any trickery was being used when exploring a planet. Like skyboxes being used instead of rendering celestial bodies in real time or clever hiding of loading screens. They shot that down when they made a ship fire up its quantum drive in the atmosphere of the planet it was on while targeting another off in the distance and raced straight towards it. Not stopping until it was in the atmosphere of the next planet. Even better? They showed us a more exotic looking world which was loaded with sulfur pools. The planet had this sickly, greenish color scheme to it. Just to show off that some worlds will be rather unusual and we shouldn't expect them all to be what we normally think of planets to be.

The sheer scale of it all was so impressive. The distance covered on the ground was significant but when pulling out to show the area they played in... dude. It was tiny compared to the entire world. A definite plus. Another thing that was really cool was that they showed off some of the tools they use to create these worlds. What they have at their disposal would make it so easy to alter the terrain over time and add new settlements or "terraforming" or even reflect a cataclysmic event that occurred on the planet and it really wouldn't take them much time or effort. It also helped that the gunplay looked solid enough and we even got to see a stealth takedown. Of course, there is also the fact that despite still being in the earlier stages of development, the environments look really good. Not award winning. At least not yet. But definitely already solid for the kind of game they're trying to build. Even Chris Roberts, the guy in charge, made the comment that the planets will keep looking better over time just like everything else in the game compared to when they first started working on it.

Woah.  
Thanks for writing this up.