It is very cool seeing many of the finer details getting tweaked to perfection.
The ground textures have been the biggest concern for me, and is perhaps one of the reasons that for many people there hasn’t been much visible improvement on the planetary tech for a very long while. Though in the end how much time are we really going to be spending that close to the ground? The moment you get the slightest bit of altitude it looks absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking forward to any implementations of clouds, foliage and/or other ground greeble.
How about next planet video starts from or goes over a city? (Or save that for KS video… but…maybe don’t?)
The buildings we have currently in the demo were to fill out the horizon, we don’t want to get too close to them because they were not fully scoped, designed & textured to standards. They are very much background assets only, and that’s all we have time for atm.
In our KS demo video, we will get closer to a portion of the ground assets that are of higher quality, but ofc we will not be showing those until the actual launch of the KS.
Certainly not the only ones in fact , I probably spent more time in there than out jousting! See my [warp tunnel prototype][1] if you have any doubt to how much I enjoy that aspect of gameplay
EDIT: Whoops, that was some blatant necro. Still getting used to the new forums!
[1]: The old contributions topic!
The good news about this recent outpouring of screenshots and the video is that it goes a long way to silencing those who cry “vapourware!”. These are the first steps to bringing Infinity back into the public awareness and I must say, it’s looking good.
I’m gonna be a critic and say that the general public has not noticed this spike in release activity, we had what, one or two new guys here in the past month? It’s still just us fanatics here…
This post isn’t directed towards anyone in particular, it’s more just a general observation I’ve made reading through this thread (yeah the whole thing, because I was hungry too).
I understand that the urge to criticize and dissect each screenshot/video almost always comes from a deep appreciation for the engine and the desire to see its ultimate KS succeed, plus perhaps a bit of boredom/looking for something Infinity-related to discuss.
That having been said, there are a lot of posts in this thread which reek of self-entitlement. I’m impressed (though perhaps don’t agree) with the team’s patience for it. They don’t owe us anything.
Of course, it’s critical to continue to build a central community so that the KS has a strong base for crowd-sourced marketing, etc, so perhaps this has tempered their innate response. Or perhaps I’m grouchy and am the only person who detects the tone. If that’s the case, tell me to fluff off.
But if I’m not alone in being bothered by this, can we take it upon ourselves as the kernel of what will someoday hopefully be a huge community to self-moderate and keep things in perspective? It doesn’t matter if you have been haunting these forums and following the engine since 2006 as I have - that has always been, and continues to be our choice, no one made us come here. They don’t owe us anything. So why allow ourselves to sound so pessimistic and thankless when they choose to share their work?
The biggest plus I see in those screenshot is to have something on the forum and twitter, interested people, coming from the Kickstarter page, could dig up. If they like to go a little deeper into the forums or twitter coms, it’s like a treat from the past!
I never said anything against those people demanding that weekly screen shot or info dump because I saw it as some kind of training for the Inovae team. After all they themselves said they wanted to change that, and ignoring their shortcomings and do as if nothing happened wont help them build that trust. A team that puts out regular updates can be trusted and can build trust over time. And I think that Screenshot a week we suggested for years now finally come to reality. Showing us that there is something going on. Also Answering of questions on all platforms (only those they feel comfortable of course). All things that may seem like wasting Kickstarter material or wow info but it isn’t. It is reasuring info. Is this game even real? Is this game worked on? Was there progress? Is this game something for me?
Questions that need to be answered to someone interested, else that person gets frustrated and walks away with a negative feeling instead of a “Oh cool, will keep an eye out for that.”
I can see that there isn’t really that much of publicity or positiveness coming out of it. But as said, it build trust.
I see your perspetive, and I too like the team’s recent willingness to share. But my fear is that, if not already, eventually that ‘training’ will become abrasive enough to sour their attitudes, even just on an indivual basis, leading them to disregard community feedback altogether. That would be bad.
Let me pour some fuel on that rant of yours, we are all here because of the “promises” (used very loosely) that were made many years ago, a MMO, full galaxy, corporations, procedural planets, NPCs, community content, dozen ship classes, player background story, Earth mystery and the list goes into some 100k posts in the gameplay forum alone…
I just hope that what they “promise” for KS, when there is actually money and customers involved is something that they can deliver. Also the community is something that INS is supposed to help shape, a few months ago we had no involvement, if the community is looking poisoned it all happened with no dev input.
/water
The spike in activity from the devs is really great and a positive action for the community, keep it up INS.
/off topic
You back from deployment Navy, you were absent since before these new forums came online iirc?
I stopped participating in the forums mid 2010 as our training and deployment cycle started to ramp up and life just got too busy. Since then I’ve deployed several times and moved back and forth across the country even more than that. But I’ve finally ‘settled’ back down (in Colorado) for a bit while as I ride out my last 2 years in the Navy. I’ve lurked the new forums fairly irregularly for a year now. What got me back to being active in recent weeks was seeing a fellow old-timer posting some new contribution work on the old contributions thread. I guess a bit of nostalgia struck me, and I ended up sending him a PM. It’s the personal relationships which keep the community together (in my case at least :)) Thanks for asking
I don’t see the trend of pointing out negatives as a feeling of self-entitlement. I see it as a result of a community with high expectations who want INS to be successful.
(Or save that for KS video… but…maybe don’t?)
in fact , I probably spent more time in there than out jousting! See my [warp tunnel prototype][1] if you have any doubt to how much I enjoy that aspect of gameplay 
