Blockade Runner Community Forums

General Info => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dr.Martex on June 27, 2016, 03:46:15 pm

Title: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Dr.Martex on June 27, 2016, 03:46:15 pm: Hello, Blockade Runner, I just remembered that you existed
What did I miss in the 5 or so years since I watched that Nerd cubed video? 8)
Title: Re: I have arrived!
Post by: qdlaty on June 27, 2016, 08:04:20 pm: I also just checked again today after 15 months (when I posted about not noticing real progress). :D

I bet guys at Bohemia Interactive cheers each other up saying "Don't worry, remember the Blockade Runner thing? We're at least gonna get DayZ to 1.0 before 2020".
I wonder why do ZanMgt even still work on this. I assume now it's probably only work in their free time few hours a week, since they can't be so sure of success after so many good sandbox sci-fi/space games released lately and in near future. Space Engineers, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky etc. *ekhm*Starmade*ekhm*...

Don't you feel like the window of opportunity has closed already? I know that supposedly Starmade was being developed parralell to Blockade Runner, but they're way ahead of ZanMgt. ZanMgt said on their Steam Forum that in the end it's not important who had the idea FIRST. But, I'd like to point out, that one important thing is which people think was first. Looking at their Steam forums and BR steam forum, I see no hope for BR.

ZanMgt, you learned your lessons about development. If ou know how to code and have heads full of ideas, wouldn't it be just better to invest your time in new project? One that won't bring so much hate on you (for supposedly cloning another game - it WILL come in huge amounts) and won't make ZanMgt associated with cloning for the rest of your career? F*** my 10$, it's not even about money I lost. I just worry you lost much more and will lose even more.
Title: Re: I have arrived!
Post by: Legbee4 on June 28, 2016, 01:49:28 am: Good to see some more activity on the forum. :P

Disclaimer- I don't formulate paragraphs much... so if my grammar, syntax, yadda yadda yadda is less than desirable.... I'm sorry XD
And if I'm wrong, please correct me, I'm speaking from distant memory. ;)

To "quickly" speak my two cents-
I think ZanMgt realizes they've turned many people off, off, and away by not doing as many developers do and push updates out weekly or even monthly. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to push things out quickly, many producers do it successfully without (a noticeable amount) of hitches. Many times though, they've stated that they want to create a quality game, even though it means doing things their way.... albeit their way meant creating their own engine from scratch and building from the ground up. HEY! They're comfortable with what they've made, and if it means in the (distant?) future we'll see some quality updates, then so be it.

Looking to the future, I do fear that many of the original consumers will look at a more "complete" version of BR on steam and say- "Hey, this game.... I thought it was dead, oh well, they'll probably just cheat more people for cash".
I will state they are NOT seeking to do this, when they realized they wouldn't get a decent product out in a reasonable amount of time, they shut down the store so they could continue without worrying about people being misled to buy an incomplete version and make a noise about it.

I personally am cheering them on to reach for their dream that they originally had (quite literally on pen and paper if I'm not mistaken).
While they may have missed their window, they're confidently pushing forward despite the lack of funding and support.
I appreciate that, they so far haven't left yet another dream-game tossed aside to be forgotten like many "potentials" in the past.
Nor have they built the game up to a point that it became a bug-nest; They have focused so much on compacting what they have, and tried their best to make it as stable as possible (things DO happen though...).

Anyway, I've lost my train of though... Here's a cat
Spoiler
(http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f36/Redpandead/Paintme_zpsccttfzae.jpg)
Title: Re: I have arrived!
Post by: Niwantaw on June 28, 2016, 08:38:48 am: Personally it's pretty academic, I got plenty of enjoyment out of the old versions so I'm not too worried whatever happens, although them finishing it would be good. I like the devs (except Aaron. He shot me in the back :l. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE) so I hope things work out as planned. So yeah, the devs are still about, they still are working on it, as long as it doesn't reach HL3 levels it'll be fine. ish.
Title: Re: I have arrived!
Post by: Aaron on June 29, 2016, 11:54:58 am: Edit: Dr.Martex, did you ever purchase the game?

Yeah, we made a lot of mistakes, and we're aware the branding of Blockade Runner (let alone 'ZanMgt') is probably forever tarnished. But meh, we have a pretty cool engine that does things we haven't seen before and actually does allow us to make "all new projects" while we're at it, and above all we enjoy what we do... so we'll deal with the marketing side of things when it comes back to that again.

We aren't blind though, and have been watching the evolution of Early Access and the rise and fall of numerous indie projects while trying to figure out where we can fit in with a return to the public eye. It's just that public attention beyond you guys (the original supporters) does not appeal much to us, atleast not until we have a proper shiney toy that's worth a look, you know?

One thing I think I've gathered after all this time, is that there's really two kinds of games. with two kinds of outcomes:

* Traditional games, with traditional mechanics (i.e. Stardew Valley, FTL, Papers Please) tend to be able to have a sane "develop > debug > release" structure. You know your limits while developing this type of game, and usually are just recreating something that's already been done with a new twist. With indies, these games can be innovative, but aren't crazy in what they're trying to accomplish and have a development scope that just needs to be filled in.

* Innovative games, attempt to use revolutionary mechanics to break new ground (i.e., voxels, procedural generation, mmo with a small team), but tend to never be 'finished', atleast not when you measure them to traditional games. Their development drags on for a long time, and rely on regular weekly/monthly updates or multiple iterations, as well as the promise that someday it can all be put together. The failure I think with these games is usually the assumption that there can be (or should be) a deadline and a "final" version, when the reality is without a gargantuan budget it'd be impossible. The "final version" really has to come from a sequel that refines the concept, and probably with big studio cash to back it up.

So, for a long time, we've hit ourselves hard with what the "finished" version of Blockade Runner would look like, and couldn't figure out why it always seemed out of reach. The issue really comes down to whether we want to make a game that pushes the envelope but is never finished, or make a "traditional" game, with a closed scope. After much mulling, I think (and hope), with our game engine we can try and get the best of both worlds. We can innovate by continuing to develop our steamlined engine that is built for multiplayer and allows some some crazy use of voxels, while making smaller games with limited scope (i.e. A Staryard editor, a Liquid Cubed style game, A capital ship combat game, etc) that come free with the purchase of Blockade Runner. It just means we have to abandon our more ambitious ideas for a bigger game.

Just want to say, thank you guys for even caring though, it means a lot!
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Legbee4 on June 29, 2016, 11:23:37 pm: I was going to blargh out (in a good way ;) ) a couple paragraphs... but I think Aaron summed up what many of us are feeling/experiencing.

Keep at it!!!!! you guys are great!
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Aaron on June 30, 2016, 05:34:12 pm: @Legbee4

Thanks! ;D

If I cared to blog, I'd blog about the developments... but meh... ;D
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Cy83r on July 03, 2016, 07:21:00 pm: Wait, is Star Citizen now more than just massively hyped hi-vis vapoerware? This is news to me.

Space Engineers: eh, I play it occasionally, but... I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Creative is too 'halfway' for me to enjoy as a toddler-level engineering mode, and there's still a lot of the elements in survival that frustrate me or make me rage- freaking cyberhounds, I swear.

I haven't touched No Man's Sky yet, so no basis to judge there; pricetag's a little too steep for me right now to make the jump on yet another ambitious space game.
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: MRC on July 04, 2016, 04:19:37 am: I'm not too concerned about BR's 'competition'. Seem like we're approaching the same concept in a different way. The few similar games i've seen (SE and Alpha Starmade, Dual Universe to name a few) seem to put all their resources on ship-building and completely botch world-building. So you've got great building tools and mechanics a whole catalogue of blocks and parts plenty of intricate systems and nothing to do with any of them.

With BR we've seen some focus on exploration and world-building already so it could turn out very different from any current competition.

Quote from: Aaron on June 29, 2016, 11:54:58 am
After much mulling, I think (and hope), with our game engine we can try and get the best of both worlds. We can innovate by continuing to develop our steamlined engine that is built for multiplayer and allows some some crazy use of voxels, while making smaller games with limited scope (i.e. A Staryard editor, a Liquid Cubed style game, A capital ship combat game, etc) that come free with the purchase of Blockade Runner. It just means we have to abandon our more ambitious ideas for a bigger game.

Might want to elaborate further on that, sound like a big development shift.
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Erebus on August 19, 2016, 10:36:43 am: Quote from: MRC on July 04, 2016, 04:19:37 am

Might want to elaborate further on that, sound like a big development shift.

Dont worry. Just another five years of development. Lol I remember buying it in ~ 2011, thinking it might be the next cool indie-spacegame -_-
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Cy83r on August 19, 2016, 05:23:42 pm: Just give me a decent editor and flybox that won't crash my rig and I'll be happy for a couple years.
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: TeliUmbrarum on August 21, 2016, 01:41:36 am: I don't chime in much on forums, but I felt like I'd throw in my two cents:

Most other indie space games get hyped, slashed to shit to push them out, then never recover. For example... all of them. Except maybe Starmade? Haven't checked Starmade in a while.

The Blockade Runner team is being impressively, to me, open with their development process (I've not personally seen a game dev team document their engine build before) blah blah blah more sucking up.

TLDR: Other space games are a disappointment when they get released, Blockade Runner hasn't been released, Q.E.D. I'm not disappointed with Blockade Runner.
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: Cy83r on September 03, 2016, 08:44:48 pm: Starmade is weird, I think Space engineers actually making you focus on layout and logistics of the the ship's internals has spoiled me, Starmade has all the gribbly bits inherent in systems design, but it hasn't got that nice touch of internal logistics that SE works with. Starmade runs great and has loads of neat block-tools, but it feels like I'm just pilling on blocks on top of blocks- that's the same complaint I have with From the Depths and Interstellar Rift, they're just block-like features in the shape of a ship. SE has multi-level functionality with a massive graphical demand that drags things down, every hit compromises something and the pipeline/armor layout seriously makes or breaks combat-roles.

Literally, my hope for Blockade Runner is that: "it's like Space Engineers, in that it has logistic complexity to starship/starbase designs, but isn't as graphically intense."
Title: Re: [Answered] I have arrived!
Post by: MRC on September 04, 2016, 01:28:47 am: The feeling is similar for me but while I like the building logistics of SE the rest of the mechanics just don't support them in it's survival setting. Small ships can just barely mine and fight and large ships are near unsustainable at any scale.

Really SE turned away from survival a long time away going toward an editor/sandbox/flybox model that still pretends to be survival-oriented and so refuses to give us good toys to play with in the interest of balance. Just embrace your sandbox nature already and make it a good sandbox or something.

I feel likes the current space building/survival market repeatedly falls into a sort of player demand trap. They come out with only a ship editor but a vision of survival and exploration and look for player feedback for development. But since there's only a ship editor player interested in exploration quickly move away leaving only the avid builders which then make up 99% of the feedback, demanding more decor, more ship mechanics, more vanity gadgets ...etc. Turning the focus away from survival/exploration.

Watch out for that trap BR!