Inactive Steam GreenLight

[DNovander]

Hey, recently as most of you probably know already, there is Steam GreenLight which is helping up and coming games get spotlight towards there games and I believe that Terasology could gather a lot of attention, fan base, or help with developing from this. I think that the concept of this game is outstanding and even if you were not to get a lot of votes or such it still could gather more attentionn thus putting this program in a good light.

 

[Josh]

Agreed, even though it's going to have the 8 year old kids on our ass' saying it's minecraft or some shit like that.

 

[mkalb]

This is an open source game. How could you sell it on Steam?

 

[Perdemot]

also I don't think it is very useful :/

 

[glasz]

I allready read some comments that terasology was a plagiat of MC and that Notch should sue us

 

[Perdemot]

I allready read some comments that terasology was a plagiat of MC and that Notch should sue us

They need to try it then they will see that we are even better

 

[Josh]

They need to try it then they will see that we are even better

Or, that it's more of a copy, lol, the inventory is still the same.

 

[DNovander]

They need to try it then they will see that we are even better

It's not where I am saying that this game is better than another that is all personal preference I posted this hoping the Devs of this game would see and maybe other like minded people would help support the thought as of now with it being in Pre-Alpha I don't believe there is a possible way to sell it but it was more to up the promotion of this game and also with Notch suing the devs they state in all sites that i have found it is a game based on the ideas of Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and Dungeon Master. The creators of this game don't claim anything else as far as I have seen unless you have seen something else proving that statement wrong, and though you have seen comments, if you were to have a statement from Notch I would then believe these other comments but as of now i have also not found any based on these besides the statements of other players.

 

[Cervator]

I personally like the idea of Steam Greenlight, and stuff beyond that. There's potential there, like just about everywhere, and I have some far-future thoughts on the topic. Have barely had time to pay attention lately, however, so thanks for the reminder, DNovander

As far as legal issues and Minecraft then I don't believe we have anything to worry about there. Notch doesn't seem very sue-happy of other indie devs. Big gaming studios crying about trademarks on generic terms is another case

The possible cries of "clone!" from trolls is more bothersome than legal challenges. I think we should let both Steam Greenlight itself and our content mature a little more before committing to anything though.

 

[Ten'son']

Also : http://steamcommunity.com/games/765/announcements/detail/1317556891741839763

 

[christutty]

It's well worth eliminating potential copyright infringement issues as early as possible so that they don't bite you later on.

As far as the minecraft clone thing goes my first reaction to Terasology was that the things I didn't like were copied from mc. Everything that I loved was what you were doing differently. There are a couple of small things about the block graphics that scream "minecraft" and don't add anything to the game. A different approach to drawing grass and glass blocks, for example, rather than copying mc wouldn't make the game any less playable, but would establish your own distinctive identity.

Even if you don't start out with the intention of making a profit a commercial version of the game can provide a way for people to put more time into the project without worrying about how to put food on the table, and it gives you a budget to buy music, servers, game assets, etc.

 

[Cervator]

Thanks for the feedback christutty - I read over the Greenlight stuff again and yeah it doesn't actually sound like posting as a game in the "concept" phase would be very difficult, and it would be another "social outlet" to add for awareness. Maybe something we could consider when Light & Shadow is in a playable state. Would be nice to have some playable content that sticks out

I'm not opposed to supporting alternative graphic styles, it might even be something we can leave in the main game via options - blocky vs. more smooth or what not. The grass example might be particularly valid - it reminds me of the wondering aloud here and there if we should treat liquids as non-blocks (as opposed to blocks like in MC). We've also talked about variant blocks that might introduce some novelty. Organic growth generators might be able to spread grass most subtly.

Although when you really start looking at it some game in the voxelsphere somewhere has worked mostly every individual novel angle one way or the other

 

[Immortius]

With the grass, we could actually use a triangle of three planes rather than a cross, as per the GPU Gems example. Making use of our higher res texture support may also help.

 

[christutty]

I pictured grass handled as a layer, in the same way as snow or ice. The same technique could also give you moss patches on rock, carpet in houses, wildflowers in highland areas, etc. It separates the covering from the underlying block. That said, I like the "waving fields of straw" proposed in the article that Immortius refers to.

I also agree with the "liquids as non-blocks" suggestion by Cervator - the behaviour of water in MC is another thing that bothers me. Have you played "From Dust"? It's an interesting exploration of truly natural lava / sand / water interaction at a _very_ granular level. In that game flowing water will pick up and deposit sand, even to the extent of forming river deltas. Tiny game worlds, of course, but an interesting demonstration of what's possible if you focus all of the horsepower on a very small but detailed world.

 

[Cervator]

Separate liquid isn't my idea, I just try to notice everything and bring stuff back up when relevant

Cool idea with the "covering" thing including carpets and such. Sort of like snow. I wonder how we would store that if it isn't just a flat block in the above space (which wouldn't work very well since then you couldn't put things on top of coverings)

Edit: Oh, and yes, From Dust is very cool

 

[christutty]

Good point about putting things on top of coverings. It's possible that this needs two concepts: one is essentially custom textures on surfaces, which would be useful for wallpaper, pictures, etc in building, and the other is a snow or grass, which would preferably occupy a thin physical space.

Off the top of my head I'd say that they'd work if they were either permeable, so that an object placed on top would actually rest on the block below the surface, or that you dynamically remove the covering if a block is placed in their space. My guess is that the dynamically removing option is less likely to produce strange graphic side-effects, and might even produce a degree of realism, in that both grass and snow will flatten if something heavy is placed on them.

 

[Skaldarnar]

Off the top of my head I'd say that they'd work if they were either permeable, so that an object placed on top would actually rest on the block below the surface, or that you dynamically remove the covering if a block is placed in their space. My guess is that the dynamically removing option is less likely to produce strange graphic side-effects, and might even produce a degree of realism, in that both grass and snow will flatten if something heavy is placed on them.

Removing the covering is not my preferred way. Think of a single fence placed on a snow covered block - most naturally the snow should enclose the fence, so the covering should still be active (or a cable placed in a snowy area).

Another issue might be to have something like the coverings for walls (e.g. wallpaper, tapestries) and carpets at the same time. If the covering is a block on its own, you could have just one of it in a room corner.

But that approach would definitely need some tweaking/revision of how (special) blocks are handled.

 

[Immortius]

Having a covering "block" that can be replaced seamlessly is simple enough. Not removing the covering block is a bit trickier, because it conflicts with the fundaments of a grid based voxel world - which is one thing per grid location. One option might be to add support for blocks that extend a little outside of their grid location - then you could have a dirt+with+grass+cover block and build on it. But that wouldn't work for snow without adding an extra block with snow on top for every block that can be snowed on, which is nasty.

Pretty much the only other option is to add specific support and storage for coverings.