How do you do that.
<a href="url here">Link text</a>Thank you.
In my experience, with so many players and given so much room, the limit easily becomes how time zones fill/empty servers, especially if the gameās players are distributed unevenly over the world (e.g. no players in Eastern Asia/Australia = as much as 9 hours gap). Itās all up to how the ships and infrastructure are designed/balanced, but that many players and that much room is more than enough to enable some really epic stalemates and changing tides of battles.
Iām still curious about this - am I wrong that I:B is the only space sim so far that has such large (because seamless) āmapsā and has player counts in the high tens-low hundreds ? Because that is really a big enough deal IMO that it must be conveyed to potential players. Itās the difference between a small group of people picket fencing and a full on riot.
Imagine seeing only the first 43 seconds of this scene. Versus seeing the latter part as well, teeming with tens/hundreds of ships. Itās a night and day difference, and so far it doesnāt seem to be communicated explicitly enough to the KS audience.
I really, really think I:B has the inherent potential to be this epic. Not just in simple eye candy, but in the sheer scope of possible strategies and tactics that a full range of spaceship fleet elements and an astronomically sized battlefield gives us. If the ships are truly tailored to exploit that full and seamless scale, we could have everything from modern BVR engagements all the way down to twist and turning dogfights, from deep space to within planetary rings to high atmosphere and into the canyons.
No other game offers this. And the serious gaps due to funds up to this point also IMHO need to be pimped more. E.G. the lack of clouds. That is the same as everything else ā when you make a racing game, you try to have a maximum of details (greeble basically) to maximize the sense of speed. An empty racetrack in middle of flat desert will always feel slower than a cluttered one over varying elevations like the Monaco F1 GP. Likewise with I:Bās atmosphere with/without clouds, vegetation etc. I say this knowing itās easy to say, and canāt happen without funding, but itās a fundamental element that (if KS succeeds) ought to be just a matter of time before itās present in-game.
Imagine the Avatar scene where the Valkyrie shuttle comes down thru the clouds, or the similar scene in Prometheus when they descend to the surface thru thick clouds. Without the clouds the sense of scale is totally different.
EDIT
What I mean by those last few paragraphs is not that the KS is doomed because it doesnāt try to sell what doesnāt exist yet (clouds, triple digit players, etc), but that it isnāt exploiting those features, which arenāt merely potential but inherent by design. Add those features to the selling points, and (IMHO) many players will get off the fence.
In a perfect world, weād also be able to attempt to belly land a burning cap ship from orbit too 
Ya know, I reckon it ought to be doable even if the real time physics are rigged to get that sort of flying brick (on fire) feeling. Capital ships āsinkingā from orbit with long trail of smoke and debris, as seen from the surface. That would be really awesome.
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Yeah fighting around a control point on the surface and seeing these giant burning hulks streaking through the atmosphere would be amazing.
@INovaeFlavien @Hutchings
Well Iām slowly getting more converts over on the two threads on the SC forums.
and ED forums:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=150306&page=12&p=3001859&viewfull=1#post3001859
and Selbie has joined me on:
The main few replies are generally about:-
- āThis gameās been around for 8 years, so whatās new now?ā.
- āThe game engine was ready back in 2010ā.
- āThereās no persistenceā.
- āThereās no planetary transitioning heating effectsā.
Iām making replies best I can.
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@INovaeFlavien @Hutchings
I could do with more planetary transitioning video clips, new ones. For tonight on the SC thread and over the next week if I can keep the thread moving on that long. So new thoughts and ideas your willing to share, some deeper info please on this subject.
Sunday night (EU and US times), good time for internet pledges from the SC and ED forums.
Some videos and more post kickstarter development plans for planetary transitioning (both ways). And also on large gas giant planetary transitioning down into the cloud layers.
And more on this 'Bespin style floating factories in the cloud layers of gas giantsā idea I read about in the KS comments.
Fleshing this out and explain more and how to transition down and up from these places. How the gravity and pressure will effect the ships. The effects we expect to see and experience.
Will there be 4K detail in the 2017 release?
Most of those are pretty weak. From weakest:
- Reentry plasma is just missing eye candy.
- 8 years and 2010 is either ignorance or disingenuity - the missing context in that assertion is man-hours & money applied in that time. Roberts repeats pretty much every time he speaks that the funding is what makes it all possible.
- 2010 again: the engine wasnāt ready - again misinformed.
- Persistence is a design choice, admittedly, but for the sake of what the whole game hinges on: a reliable, seamless, real-scale, triple-digit player count engine. Once you have that, everything slots in.
Wow, I bow, sir, to your dedication. Great post. It expressed exactly my frustrations and fears. And the solutions to fix them seem sound!
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What isā¦ Infinity Battlescape - Multiplayer Space Sim - Prototype - Hands On
Having watched more of the livestreams, Iām convinced this is by far the best, despite having a graphical glitch near the beginning and a couple of crashes. Reasons:
- He makes it clear from the start, that heās playing a pre-alpha tech demo, and much more is due to come after kickstarter. He reiterates this several times.
- He talks a lot about planned gameplay, ship types, installations, possible team tactics when the game is finished.
- He explains the current flight mechanics and ship systems.
- Heās very impressed by the state of the tech demo and says itās much better than than most heās seen at this stage.
- Heās very enthusiastic and seems to enjoy himself, without being gushy. Says heās not affiliated with the devs and seems objective about it.
- He seems to to a much better job about getting the right message across than even ones with dev interviews.
Basically, he paints a very good picture of what the game should be like when finished and NOT how OMG amazing it is now.
Iād make this the go to video for showing what the gameās all about.
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7 He screws up the landing SPECTACULARLY a couple times proving itās fully under the playerās control to go anywhere during the decent to anyone who might say or think otherwise. 
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@Hutchings I just wanted to mention that your post on Imgur is excellent and definitely helps paint the vision for the game.
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Thanks @NavyFish Iām increadibly happy with how well itās done so far. Itās a valuable tool for communicating the project to people that donāt know us yet.
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The community is doing a pretty great job, but the Kickstarter page and other things coming from the devs seems very lacking.
Youāre developers, I know. I have this problem too and have only been recently learning how to promote things.
I hope you spend some of that money hiring someone who does nothing but marketting.
Itās not really the problem persay of that @ihategigamo said, but just that you arenāt hyping and selling it much.
Someone from another studio was in IRC and we had this back and forth that I think sums it up:
[code]
Seamless flight to a planet != gameplay. There are plenty of videos showing this with Infinity right now, but videos to show gameplay are very lacking. People want to support a game not a tech demo.
Iād really like to see some more focus on the game side which will only help the KS campaign.
<innociv_> There is very little gameplay and thatās what htey need backing to complete
<innociv_> What E:D and Star Citizen did is lied and hyped stuff up. Thatās how you sell something and get lots of money. Yep.
It does not have to be in engine to talk about how gameplay scenarios will occur. Give examples, draw pictures, talk about what a gameplay session will be likeā¦ ectā¦
you need to sell dreams, like TQFE, the reason we are all here
dreams and nostalgia sell very well
Exactly, sell a dream of what this game could be
<innociv_> They give examples on the kickstarter
innociv_: easier to ask foregiveness than permission
they didnāt position themselves like that, itās more of a scale down position they have
<innociv_> like having capital ships attacking a planet
It shouldnāt be a dream that is unattainable, but a realistic vision of what to expect after a year or two of development if it were funded.
<innociv_> and the planet having artillery shooting that cap ships
<innociv_> so you need to go down and kill the artillery with bombers.
<innociv_> JB1, well I mean youāre kind of objectively wrong and thatās just a personal statement.
<innociv_> A reasonable, obtainable outline of what you want to make does not sell well.
yeah, you hint at something huge, just a capital firing on a planet for 2 sec in the video can have a huge impact
<innociv_> Youāre one of the less than 5% of people that feel that way and support based on that. Maybe the other 95% think they feel that way but they use their wallet otherwise, so itās a meaningless feeling
<innociv_> It needs more concept art and pictures in general
<innociv_> Stretch goals need to be pictures.
<innociv_> Reward tiers need pictures.
Youāre entitled to your opinion, but I am a member of a studio who ran the most successfully funded mmorpg kickstarter campaign with over 2.2 Million in funding.
<innociv_> And that kickstarter didnāt hype it up?..
hehe, JB, you work for FD?
concept art helps sell the dream.
CSE
NHL?
<innociv_> Camelot Unchained
<innociv_> Infinity needs to do more to promote to the MMORPG crowd as they have deep pockets.
I agree and selling their vision for gameplay and demonstrating they can support the numbers they say they do right now will greatly help in that regard.
you guys must have been biting your nails 2 days before the end of the KS
<innociv_> But yeah, the I:B kickstarter caught me by surprise and is very lacking. The cinematic trailer isnāt very good. Lacking concepts to give more of an idea of how gameplay will appeal. Yes, it just looks like a tech demo and concepts of ships. Thatās exactly what I said, that they arenāt selling it hard enough.
oh very much so
I agree with you completely on that innociv_
<innociv_> Best part about the trailer is the flying through scaffolding and primarily the score/sound.
<innociv_> The other videos are good, though
From reading the forums and interacting with people here, Iām sold on itā¦ but the general public doesnāt do that much research or will get thrown off by the first 3 minutes of that KS video which are rather boring to be quite frank.
<innociv_> I told them before it launched that pragmatism doesnāt sell well. People look at tech demo and the capability they have and they do not have the same foresight as [the developers] to see where it can go.
<innociv_> You have to hype it and sell it.
<innociv_> Yeah Iām sold on it because Iāve been following this for like 8 or 9 years and theyāve likeā¦ never not delivered. I mean they never set high expectations, but theyāve never lied or pissed anyone off.
<innociv_> I know theyāre capable to make it with the funding. The two head people have industry experience even though for one of them itās in industry and not commercial development.
<innociv_> But most people arenāt going to look into it that much to see itās worth backing, and the KS does not sell it well at all.
<innociv_> I told Keith this, but they wanted to be pragmatic and humble about it.
- innociv_ shrug
<innociv_> I think though, that if they set their site up well and fix these things, they could get 600k-1.5mil by early 2016.
iām just very glad they are asking fro $300k and not $500k that was the initial goal
*that was considered
their āindustry experienceā really isnāt worth anything unless they have a very well known name they can tie to it, like Chris Roberts. What they have to sell is the idea of the game and show off what tech they have to gain the trust of new backers. Iāve seen the tech, itās great, I want to see a 50 person battle or more as theyāve said they can handle 100. And I want to see a lot more information on the gameplay vision.
you should make a thread on the forums and give some suggestions, maybe ping the devs in the post
donāt forget to mention that you are at CSE[/code]
You just arenāt selling it hard enough. Most of these successful kickstarters are prerendered CGI and concept art with nothing playable at all.
Where is the concepts where youāve painted atmospheric reentry effects on the ships?
Where is the in-engine webm from far away where you can see the entire solar system and then zooming in to a fleet of 100 fighters and some capital ship thatās around a moon around the gas giant? Even if itās not real gameplay thatās playable, it shows but youāre going for and that the engine does/will support.
You took up a ton of space just showing ship concepts that could probably be side-by-side when you should be more concepts of what the GAME and GAMEPLAY will be like.
The concepts for factories on the planet surface are largely sort of boring. Why not some stuff that shows how large capital ships could have crashed onto a planet after fighting in space? Or what ships fighting through weather effects might look like? Combine your in-engine with some photoshopping to make convincing concepts.
What about a concept how someone might be able to sneak up on much larger numbers because some weather type thing that makes their sensors and visibility low so they can get up on someone one at a time? Like one different team shipped snuck up behind the formation of some others?
Shit, you could do it on some weak heavily outgassing gas giant that has a moon swooping through its atmosphere, stirring it like soup, with massive storms zapping off the gas giantās storms and onto the moon thatās partially passing through it. Thatās something totally feasible and realistic, even if it would eventually fall into the gas giant due to the drag, these are things that are happening at some point in time somewhere in the trillions of possibilities.
The stretch goals should be an image, ideally that shows the progress bar. I believe Kickstarter has an API for that. If not, you can scrape the page, and have an image regularly generated with the updated amount.
There should be an image for the reward tiers that has a graphic showing an example of what each gets
You need to sell it, hype it up. It doesnāt have to be really real but it just has to be what youāre shooting for. Especially so in regards to gameplay because you just have a tech demo that doesnāt really give people an idea of what gameplay is like?
During the remaining ~25 days you need to do nothing but spend time making and doing things to promote the Kickstarter, pretty much.
ASAP, you really need to improve the page itself and talk more about scale and gameplay like JB1 said, I think. And put up more concepts or new in-engine updates that show the cool stuff youāre going for thatās missing.
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Yup. If I had to pick one thing to change, this would be it by far.
No other game offers what I:B does ā the kind of epic space combat that others pretend to and got funded for in 7-8 digit figures. And yet the I:B sell is so tempered and restrained. The vision and confidence was so good that Inovae as a team has dedicated years to building this on time off from day jobs, and yet that sheer vision and assurance is so undersold in the KS, as if they donāt want to overpromise.
If thereās no chance of overpromising and feature creep, then thereās no reason to not market the shit out of what the game WILL have - hundreds of players in epic battles in a seamless star system, from surface to deep space and gas giant cloudscapes to asteroid belts.
Why sell yourselves short?
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If we had a budget pre-KS a lot of what you mention could have been possible.
Weāre doing what we can to increase content, and there is more coming.
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Ehh, you had to have faith I guess because these things would have lead to a quicker start. Your community was pretty confident youād at least hit 300k if you set it to that, though that original 500k is hard for non-established nostalgia-string tugging developers. You had to pretend you have the 300k the day itās launched already and work on its promotion as if that were the case because thatās what leads to getting much more pledged.
And youāll earn even more by setting up your own funding source to go up when KS ends. Itās almost certainly going to hit 300k as it is now, and could be much higher. Anyway, good luck. Hope you get the KS page much improved before the last week where you tend to get a larger push, to make that last push larger.
But yeah, itās too late now to fix what already happens. But I was saying this in IRC before it launched, that itās just not being sold hard enough and that itās set to mostly appeal to people who have already been following it. Moving forward, it can be a lot better.
Thank you for the support, but keep in mind that we still have more events and content planned, and are taking as much of the critique into account as is physically possible. We may not be replying as often as some would like, but we`re trying to read everything we can.
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