[Johannes]

@Rob, there’s a HUGE appearance of survival games everywhere, at the moment. Everyone is doing a great job (Rust, The Forest, H1Z1, DayZ…) So, how about THIS instead?

Instead of adding survival aspects to the entire game for everyone, how about giving the players a choice? Not blatantly selecting Survival yes/no, that would be too easy, but instead you could introduce races or factions with different “properties” and “traits”. There could be a race that simply doesn’t have to eat while another race walks superslow but can float… 😉 Of course once avatars are implemented one could be able to change his appearance and also acquiring the “properties” and “traits” at a later stage via items or powers to achieve the exact avatar he desires could be an option, too.

[Johannes]

What about natural terraforming? A beacon could influence the terrain slightly at the edges, but outside of the beacons and its “influence” there could be some basic “desertation” or “flattening” happening. This way you could get rid of messy landscapes…the chunks shouldn’t differ *too* much when being “renewed”, but I think this would make a lot of sense.

[Johannes]

To avoid scattered discussions about the same thing: Proximity VoIP was mentioned in this thread as well: http://oortonline.com/forums/topic/chats-and-clans/

[Johannes]

@FluffyTop: Absolutely. Way too few games make use of proximity based VoIP! I had created a thread in the suggestions for only that. I would even push this further and tie in RPG elements, so that you have to “learn” a language or build a “communicator” to even understand the others (Voice could be distorted based on your avatar or turned into gibberish until you understand each other). I am linking the thread here just in case this becomes a scattered discussion:

Proximity Based VoIP
http://oortonline.com/forums/topic/voip-immersion-and-track-ir-oculus/

[Johannes]

Exactly! Actually I think it would be a great idea to tie ALL mechanics to RPG elements. Games like Everquest Landmark will gain a lot of reputation soon, where the creativity is tied to the building and crafting in an RPG stylish manner.

I just realized that I can place block QUITE far away in Oort. Maybe it could also become a feature, like…increasing the range within you can place blocks with building a required tool for that, or gaining a certain perk, leveling a specific skill etc.

[Johannes]

I am very confident here as the dev reputation already enables me to put a huge level of “trust” into the game development. It actually is the only reason I backed the game as a Wayfarer without even looking at a single video 😀

However, what I am really interested in right now is: what procedure do you have in mind regarding the backers’ influence on the roadmap? I really do hope you’re not going to ride with the forums as these have proven to be a terrible thing when it comes to suggestions, bugreports and rants about release cycles on several other early access games I backed.

Are you planning to streamline the process via surveys and segmentation of the backer database? And the actual “voting” you mention in your pitch is what I am really curios about. How do you separate the “kiddie-dreams” from constructive critics?

[Johannes]

What hooked me was an article on gamestar which stated that the devs would be former employees of Lionhead and Hello Games. Though it is the most basic marketing strategy it is indeed a proper one that should be followed for a while. I wouldn’t waste too much money on marketing now, looking at the sheer amount of survival games and pixel-/voxelart out there, but instead “free ride” on articles about those games somehow… simply spreading the word “manually” until the game has reached a more polished state.

Also, marketing budgets don’t just exist but need to be generated first. ^^
However, I don’t think KS or Indiegogo and such would work right now, as it is contradicting their plans regarding the “modular funding” they offer.

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