The intro of the ship exiting Hyperdrive is...

wow... AMAZING!

LOVE IT!

But the real question is... Will it be skippable or able to be disabled?

After I am 20 hours into a game, I want to make it streamlined. Animations = time filler.

I updated my original post with September review and posted Melee feedback in Kavik's thread. 

ANIMATIONS

So in my opinion, most of the lander animations are gorgeous. I thought the wiggle before takeoff was a little silly, but other than that, very sweet.

Overall, the uh...guys, what's the name of the sinister looking man-spreader? Anyways, I love his posture, the way he steeples his fingers briefly. I noticed that the orbs floating around him were sprites. My only quip is that if that something is supposed to move IN FRONT of him, these objects need to be 3D as well. I don't have a problem with mixing sprites, 2-dimensional backgrounds, and 3-dimensional characters, but the second one of those sprites passes in front of the 3D character, that scene is forever ruined. Admittedly, if it was a parallax of some sort, I'm not sure if it would matter as much.

PLANET LANDING

I see a lot of potential here, and I like what I see so far, but I guess until we get a playable, I'm not sure how much more feedback I can give in this regard.

SHIPS

So was the 8th ship from the left cut or something? Because- oh, after recounting, I get that the 13th slot is 2 ships at the same time. Okay. anyways, these look great (or as great as they can at this resolution. I'm especially liking the push for asymmetrical ships, and lots of overall abstract designs. Also, I don't know about you, but something about the USS Dinnerware makes me want to top the leaderboards with you. "HA, YOU GOT YOUR ASS STOMPED BY TUPPERWARE AND GRANDMA'S FINE CHINA!"

CRITTERS

ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY BANANADON AND HIS BUDDY, THE SPACE WHALE! I'm also seeing Foldilocks the mammoth, a...giant virus? Is that a virus? ARE YOU GIVING US A VIRUS, GUYS? How thoughtful. And I can't tell, is that tree supposed to walk, or are we getting some sessile baddies again? Anyways, very well done, I can't wait to see the geometry. (P.S. I REALLY hope that as founders we get to see the high polies contrasted against the low polies :D)

UI

Oy, the UI. This is delicate, because I know firsthand that this is very difficult, especially when dealing with multiple resolutions. I like most of it, but I feel like the overall tone and aggressiveness of it needs to be cranked down a few notches.

COMBAT AND SUPER MELEE

Okay so, before I start, I want to make it perfectly clear that I trust your best judgement, and will definitely play any product you put out. THAT BEING SAID...

I really like the idea of battles being fought across the entire solar system. I always wondered why we focused on a single planet in Star Control as a kid. I like multiple gravity wells, because it creates a need for tactical planning. For example, you come into a system, see it has hostiles, and before they make contact with you, you look at the entire system to get an idea of what the battlefield will look like. Admittedly, in pure pvp, unless you give the player some means of looking at the system before battles start, that planning cannot occur. I'm okay with 1v1 battles being the primary form of combat. If you can get more ships working at a later date, that would be cool too.

The camera tilt is still able to be controlled by the player, right? Like, that's still an option, or is there something you guys haven't told us yet? I'm not a fan of bouncing off of the edge, I'd prefer a no-fly zone that forces you to forfeit if you stay in it longer than like 10 seconds or something. Radar is okay, I guess. I don't really have an opinion of that. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT CAMP 2?

I think it's possible and preferable to have both single planet and multiple planet battles. Mix it up a bit, even if single planet battles only show up in super melee. I like the idea of hazards and boosts and such littered around the battle, that again pushes a more tactical gameplay rather than impulse gameplay. Not even going to comment on the camera again until we hear back about player-controlled camera. I wouldn't be opposed to wraparound, but I don't think it holds up that well in this day and age. It's more frustrating than anything, especially for players who are playing with slower ships. I don't think it's impossible to reconcile keeping both ships on screen, at least for...LOCAL. MULTIPLAYER. 

AS I said before, I'm a mix of both camps. 

I guess that's a good point - in an ideal world there would be variety with the combat and long solar system style battles (or even ones where you had to hop into hyperspace or travel across several systems chasing down a ship) would make for more interesting gameplay. 

I understand it can be annoying after some time, so i hope for fast-forward when pressing the mouse or like you said, just being a easily enable-disable thing on the menu

The camera angle is still controllable. They guaranteed that.

Regarding boundaries, there are a number of arena options.

• Escape zone
• Warp edges
• Hard walls
• Bouncy walls
• Damaging walls

 I interpreted the walls listed in Camp 1 as hard walls, not bouncy walls (like planets in SC1/2).

Here is my feedback (removed from the OP):

• Team @ Table: That is a pretty messed up conference room. The seating arrangement is not Feng Shui.
• Shadows: I don't care if they are present or not. Take them out and go for a higher frame rate.
• Resources / Lander Screenshot: The resources remind me of Super Mario Galaxy starbits.
• I'm in Camp #2. Let's all raid camp #1 and steal their monitor cables.
• Ships: Ship 3 + Ship 7 = Ship 15?
• The alien in the video still looks like he has two arms and two legs, man-spreading style. Even having the animation didn't clear that up.

I noticed that they seem to be saying that if it is top down they won't have radar?  So I guess I am actually in Camp #2... but want the radar from Camp #1 in my top down camp 2 combat.  Forget the screen zooming of SC.  Only have one level of zoom, short range and medium range.  Radar is long range, but actually all ranges.  This is the Subspace/Pirate Dawn way:-)

Think of it as Zoom#1= Short Range Visual/Short Range, Zoom #2 = Long range Visual/Medium Range, Radar = Beyond Visual Range/Not Necessarily the entire map, but double the range of Zoom #2.

I think the Great Debate is faulty. It is a fallacy that the two camps are wholly separate.

1. Whether there is planet-wide or system-wide combat is not relevant to perspective. I can top-down navigate through 9 planets (pardon, 8, Pluto sends his regards). And I could play a slanted view in a single-planet setup too. My vote is for top-down; but I concede that it might be possible that somebody might want to play at an angle and I guess that means it is okay to just make perspective an option. (But let me tell you, irrespective of how much you love the idea of angled cameras to see an enemy at the distance. If you've played any FPS then you'll know and understand that seeing 3 pixels of enemy in the far distance isn't really all that.
    
2. For that matter, even with 8 planets, I would still also want ion storms, gas clouds, power ups/downs. Don't think you get to take those away from me just because you have to render a couple of round rocks. "It'll be too much to handle!" - no. No it won't. Regardless of Camp 1 or Camp 2, we (I generously include all Founders) want special zones inside the combat area.
   
   
3. "It is 1 ship vs 1 ship at a time" - hold-up. I don't believe that this is really saying what it is saying; but if "Camp 1" specifically is 1v1 while "Camp 2" potentially is not; then we do not really have to discuss anything. Camp 2. Obviously. I assume that the intention was to clarify space combat in general; not that system-wide over-the-shoulder ship combat somehow has to be limited to 1v1. You should have somebody read through your PDFs first - most of us are relatively hardcore gamers and/or developers. That means we're rules lawyers.
    
4. Ship bouncing of edges. This is something I don't like. And it is also not Camp-specific. A single-planet top-down view could implement edge bouncing. I just don't wanna, okay.
   
   
5. Radar. Again not something Camp-specific. I think Radar is a good idea - especially because I also support (future) multi-ship combat. And also because that would be a fairly important requirement for some potential custom games / mods.
   
   
6. Both units always being on screen... I'm not strictly in favor of this. Given a large enough combat space the models start getting fairly tiny. Situational awareness and understanding (and radar) are a valuable trait and skill to learn. The aforementioned custom games and multi-ship combat also suggest that having all ships on screen at all times is not a good thing.

So. Plenty of important issues. Plenty of good/bad ideas. Do not lump them together into two Camps. This isn't US politics. This doesn't come down to being a red voter or a blue voter.

TL/DR: give me top-down, multi-planet, multi-ship combat amidst a sea of vortices, plasma fields, gas clouds and ioun storms. Hold off the hard edges, but add extra radar on the side.

*******Disclaimer*******

This is my direct response to the Devs update. It is not wrong, nor do I care if you disagree with it. Cheers!

Update Response:

1. Planet Interface: I really don't have that much of an opinion since it is so much in the infancy stage. I like what I see, but I'm hoping that the world will be big enough to actually explore in a time consuming manner. Thanks for showing it to us so far.

2.Shadow Draw: Shadows take resources. If your going to add them make their draw distance closer. Can I live with out shadows for the sake of the budget? Yes I can. I would hope the sacrifice was made up somewhere else and not used as just a budgetary management tool.

3.Aliens 3d Scenes: I think a 3D alien with a cleverly drawn background which gives 3d appearance would be cool and still keep your resources needed down.

4. Alien Skin Texture: This should be on par with the rest of the game as part of transitioning for one game mode to another. If you have sexy ships but cruddy looking aliens if will show. It really has lot to do with the what you can get away with and not be a resource hog.

5. Control Interface: WASD/mouse is cool but I would love the Xbox 360 Controller Interface as well. I use Padstarr to get around most games locked into the keyboard binds, I would rather not though.

6.Camps: I'm not really I agree wholly with either camp. I never was a big fan of the melee portion of the series as I was a bigger fan of exploring. I like the original melee style but it really did tick me off at time when it would switch views based on distance. I didn't always like the wrap around screen making it a pain to dispatch enemies quickly at times. I'm not sure I would want it to be a game of tank pong either. I'm just going to have to rely on the devs to find a happy medium.

7. Ships: The ships are neat and I look forward to seeing them implemented. I think you should keep the numbers down and introduce them gradually. Drop a entire bag of candy in a kid's lap and he/she will get sick of it quick. Better to give it to them a little at a time.

I do think I may not have noted enough (re: savage's post) that I also, honestly, care about 10% about the melee combat, and 40% exploring and 50% talking to aliens haha

Don't ignore SuperMelee, even if you only care about it 10%. Some of the propositions like solar-system-wide arenas, off-screen ships, and RADAR go hand-in-hand with longer space battles. If you care more about exploration, the last thing you want is having to spend 5-10 minutes fighting. (Or having to save-reload to skip battles.)

For the record, I am favoring quick 1-on-1 dogfights that take place on the same screen and last between 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

If I have to look at the radar to find you, the battle is taking waaaay too long.

For those of you who don't like a barrier edge, the alternatives are not very good.  A disengagement edge makes logical sense, but you will think it is annoying when you lose just for staying out-of-bounds for too long.  You REALLY don't want "realistic space" where it is endless and the map is infinitely large.  That takes away A LOT from the ships that can be made to work.  They all have to be somewhat similar speed, is the big thing, but it really limits the ships you can make work by a lot to have no map edges (or an "open map").

Maybe the devs should try that Subspace/Continuum game I've posted here before, just a little while to see how it worked in that game.  Subspace had no level of zoom, just "visual range" and "radar range".  The 64-player map was MUCH bigger than radar range.  If you got good at it, and a little lucky, you could hit ships on radar by "blind firing" based on judging the shot by the radar.  I've always thought this worked perfectly, except I would add in a single level of zoom to have both "short" and "medium" visual range like I mentioned in another post.

Yeah, definitely not ignoring it. will continue to give feedback. if it IS as fun as SPAZ was, I'd be overjoyed! But my number one concern is that, yes, it's not a distraction from the gameplay I'm most interested in, or even worse, so frustrating I never actually make it through the rest of the game. 

These types of systems are great for MMO's like Subspace, but you should scale your systems down to short, quick, arcadey engagements. I know that is hard for you to do. :P Remember that the goal is fast skirmishes, not a war of attrition. Keep the systems simple, but add depth.

If I can't see you, you can't see me. If you can't see me, you can't hit me. If you can't hit me, I can just fly around until you get frustrated and quit playing internet multiplayer SCO for good.

It wouldn't be, IBNobody.  The whole point of containing the faster ships is so that the players are always engaging each other.  In an SFB tournament you generally lose a decision at the 3-hour point if you were running away most of the game.  It's the biggest problem of this genre, faster ships that refuse to engage.  That's one of the main reasons for containing a dual in a small area.

I am just talking about how the player is viewing the world, and a "1v1 Tournament Dueling Map" that works for the situation.

I would love it if it looked more like we are on a starship!

The Orange doesn't look so overpowering now.

This is what i posted half a year ago. It didn't resonate with anyone:

Here's my take on that encounter dialog screen:

1. Don't make it fullscreen. It takes away from immersion. It makes me feel like I'm visiting their ship, being right infront of them during talks which wouldn't make sense if your encounter fella is hostile or their environment isn't human biology friendly (Mukay?).

2. Make it a non-transparent holographic screen inside Vindicator Magellan. See picture. !!! IMPORTANT !!! You also want to have player see his immediate surroundings during the conversation, I think it'll add tons of flavor to immersion and make those encounters a lot more memorable. Imagine meeting hostile Scryve around bright red gas giant... Or Mukay at a serene blue/green waterworld... MEMORABLE.

3. Drop your encounter vessel hologram here, some useful [and useless] info there and it'd be preeettttty good.

Quoting Hunam_, reply 44

This is what i posted half a year ago. It didn't resonate with anyone:

 

 

 

Here's my take on that encounter dialog screen:

1. Don't make it fullscreen. It takes away from immersion. It makes me feel like I'm visiting their ship, being right infront of them during talks which wouldn't make sense if your encounter fella is hostile or their environment isn't human biology friendly (Mukay?).

2. Make it a non-transparent holographic screen inside Vindicator Magellan. See picture. !!! IMPORTANT !!! You also want to have player see his immediate surroundings during the conversation, I think it'll add tons of flavor to immersion and make those encounters a lot more memorable. Imagine meeting hostile Scryve around bright red gas giant... Or Mukay at a serene blue/green waterworld... MEMORABLE.

3. Drop your encounter vessel hologram here, some useful [and useless] info there and it'd be preeettttty good.

Reduced 52%

Original 1080 x 608

Still remember this and still agree

Unless this is done very well (and I'm a little skeptical of it - though the hologram conferences in mass effect felt kind of accurate to how it would go down), I feel like I gotta offer a dissenting opinion.

It doesn't take a lot of work on my part to understand that I'm looking at the "screen" of the communication. And I think the doohickies and text to the side would mostly be awkward/distraction and and an awful lot to design for to keep it from looking too busy. I would only want it there at all if it somehow gave me information or actionable items that related to the conversation/quest that I was currently discussing. Otherwise, I'd rather concentrate fully on the alien interaction. 

At the very least, though, I'm not sure I'd want to see my arms like that. I certainly don't keep them still while talking! haha

Is everyone in agreement that the lander needs to have a bright green window on the top, and a single red afterburner in the back? Maybe a red nose?

Well, I'd like to spice things up for lander looks. Currently it's kinda bland looking.

Well, wouldn't a big green window on the top and a red afterburner help? It's such a simple thing that will be a super-duper-throwback to the original.

Any other changes would be welcome. Give it some aerodynamic wings? Does it need wings? Moving wings??? BUTTERFLY WINGS?!?!

It's easier to do the full screen, but so much more character to have your ship all around you.  Even Star Control did not go full screen.  I like having some context with my interactions.  Not to mention the inside of a precursor ships would be hella awesome.

Precursors were over 10 ft so the bridge would be cavernous.