Hello pilots!
I begin a new kind of articles today, called "Developer Insider".
In it I would like to detail some of the ongoing process, ideas and content related to development. It is just a "little window" shared into development.
It is a way to contribute and share more news while something is 'cooking'!
It will certainly lack pictures, tone, rhythm, so you should just take it as a freebie.
More complete blog articles will come out once our screens are ready to be published!
THE INITIAL CONCEPT
While working on Evacuation Missions three elements were first set: the initial concept, the ideas behind the game loop and a "sample database" of ships and content.
Regarding the game concept you know some about it: we are using "the initial situation in EXODE" (the evacuation), because it's immersive and immensely defining for EXODE, and expanding it with a new collection gameplay.
We are making it strategic too so it's more about having a fun game than having "a collection mining mechanic". This is because having a collection mining/staking mechanic while initially attractive, actually destroy a market and lure players into it. We believe focusing on gameplay is always the first and only good thing. It's longer but it gives lasting value.
We do connect "EXODE collections" into it, giving utility to many assets in a recurring game loop, but the game will have an identity on its own.
There will be rewards, progress, player satisfaction. We want to make of this gameplay - which has a shorter gameloop than an entire colonization - some kind of 'first taste' of 2325 for our next players.
Later we will also give the same "love" to the Evacuation scene itself.
By combining the two - an accessible Evacuation Mission strategic concept and then the attractive idea of "trying an evacuation with your own ship" - we believe we will convert many players to our world and reach adoption in a way we can achieve in a short time.
Luckily immersive by design
Something strong and lucky for EXODE is that the evacuation concept is extremely immersive "by design".
There is no way to be anything else than "committed" to the scenario of mankind being attacked in the future.
A better flow for new players
In current EXODE the original Evacuation Scene is part of several scenes (with scanning and landing) to determine a very dynamic "initial game" setup for an EXODE player.
This is a good take at it but also defines a "game tunnel" where we deploy scene after scene, sometimes with a too long delay. Every later scene is also deployed for players who may have not their colony and citizens still active at this step (because they died from beast, hunger or something).
Game tunnels are time and resource consuming. It would be bad to handle two game tunnels at the same time in development.
That's why Evacuation Missions are really thought as a very short, more immediate game loops.
This will go as follows:
- Whenever you feel ready, you can "claim" a new mission and begin planning and giving orders.
- An Evacuation has a timer (once that time has elapsed, the evacuation happens).
- Once happy with your orders, you can await the evacuation to be executed.
- Evacuation results will have many details, results and rewards.
- After upgrading your assets, you will be ready to claim a new Evacuation!
There is still a next version coming up where you can actually give a lot of orders "during an evacuation" but for now we will focus on the planning step.
Something to scale players more easily as an entry gameplay
EXODE has more and more variety in its situations the further we go (characters, ships, evacuation results, planets, planet resources, player-made designs, etc) and already begins with a collection of about 200 cards (double that with elites) most of which actually create "dynamic assets" themselves.
The number of unique situations is impressive.
The quality of each scene also depends in "how it fits". How it fits in giving any player in any situation they are (surviving characters, strategic options etc) a satisfying experience.
We don't undersestimate the task at hand for regular EXODE and that's why Evacuation Missions aim to be more "immediately scalable" and to avoid some of that.
You will be some kind of space admiral managing federation assets to try to get as many people and resources out. But we still want you to feel "involved" with every little asset (and we'll refine the recipe until we get it done) and have a lot of dynamic content - but they will behave in a way to stop aliens, delay them, get information on them, or evacuate people.
By avoiding the game tunnel of the other EXODE scenes we make sure we can create a reliable experience and scale players once the gameplay of it is ready.
Players scaled from Evacuation Missions receive the most of the experience and can then - and that's the nice twist of it - get into the deeper and more complete EXODE experience.
It is not important if only a fraction of players do that, because growth on Evacuation Missions is more easily handled.
But what is important is that players from Evacuation Missions should be compatible with Evacuation and the full EXODE experience, and the ones who take the step to get there will also already know where they are going ; and we hope they will be happy with all the depth they will discover.
Setting up Arts & FX
Okay that's enough about objectives.
So I started working on some initial sound fx but this part takes a very long time as we have thousands of assets to browse (actually tens of thousands). So it's just collecting, giving them a category, piling them up, installing software to review thousands of assets in a faster way, before I eventually select the final sounds or modify them with a software.
I will still need to get a number of things right for the correct game atmosphere, and it's just that FX are important for that; but it's more a background work right now..
Regarding looks, which is a more immediate need, I already made in December a wonderful base of a first screen. (okay, I am biased but I really like the first base)
It's clean, sleek, new, and has even a few new ideas in terms of UI.
I think, I got inspired by some latest games such as Slipways.
But as I got ill near end December I had to stop working on it.
It is impossible to work on a release while being on fever or while being so much down and the last one was nasty.
Every time in coding you get to the "superior level" and then you need to be in your best shape to get it one level deeper. Regarding UI and content it's different, you just need to be inspired, but this can still get disturbed.
This is now over: new creative content is coming up faster, and this time I am turning my attention toward deepening the actual game content ; and giving us an even better gameplay.
We are welcoming new team members and this always takes some focus and time, but I hope to maintain the same good creativity on our content.
Setting up Dynamic Content
Content is where things are going to be very interesting.
It will need about two full blog articles only to cover up some of what is going to be brought up.
It mostly revolves around procedural content - meaning programs able to generate new techs, ships, star systems and challenges - but also content you own.
One EXODE motto is to make your experience unique.
You know about it. And this will be no different here.
The latest decision taken a few days ago was to make the entire PVE content yours and personal.
Alien ships follow a few dozen different templates. Yes that's a lot for enemies which can blow you up from afar without even saying hello!
But these templates will also be varied and instantiated procedurally and saved on your account. They will be here, secretly hidden near your account, with all their individual techs and final profiles. An entire PVE content you own. And that you can explore. And document. And talk about.
There will always be immense gains to make your own google sheet and document the aliens you encountered and what they are equipped with - because they will be your personal challenge and will be persistent through your entire Evacuation Campaign.
With that we defeat the concept of having a single common PVE content and checking how "to cheese an AI" with a common internet advice. Only one person can find how to defeat the enemy admiral and his assets, and this is YOU.
There will be plenty decisions to share with your friends, exploring the secret profiles and strategy of aliens and reporting to them how this went.
You will be the one to customize your assets to better handle the threat.
You will be the one to commit your collection and check available techs and ships in the star region.
You will be the one to share tips with friends and study together how this goes.
No other MMO seems to do fully procedural PVE profiles ; not to create your own lasting challenge for entire weeks!
Here aliens will be customized for your account. It will take you some time to discover your enemy admiral behavior and the entire fleet at his disposal!
... and this is good for market too!
In addition to an innovative design and (we hope) a wonderful game experience this will also positively affect the market.
In a PVE game with many players, once the challenge is known, market is affected negatively with "one thing or strategy in high demand" and everything else left behind. And then the gameplay becomes bland and repeated; because players no longer have to think for themselves and to check their own needs.
A market with several players "selling" the same resource because no one wants it is bad, especially if something is not individualized (= it's the exact same thing as other things). Wie will always avoid one such phenomenon to the best of our ability.
Here we ensure that the strategy you need to fight "your aliens" may not be the exact same as another player will have. This will place different demand on different assets and make "everything its own niche".
Will you need veilspeed torpedoes?
Better omnishields?
New plasma weapons?
Some more tactical officer cards?
You will decide thanks to your reports and your first battles.
We know making every situation unique is really the big answer to having a lasting and interesting market.
What's more, once players combine their forces together in the grand evacuation mission of the entire Star Region (the final steps of an evacuation chapter) this will make sure every player will be equipped differently.
You will identify which enemy profile is more present on this cooperative mission, you will exchange together and you will decide to send your best equipped players/ships against it! giving all he got into it!
The amount of cooperation and "uniquely profiled player assets" is drastic. And it piles up of course on an existing collection which is different for every player (as some elite cards are not to be found in all hands). We will make sure every player can contribute!
That's all pilots!
Wow, that first insider got some length.
Sorry about that. You know that's how I am... ;)
We'll get first combat results to share this week!
Thank you for your patience and see you in next blog, this time with some screens!