2016-04-05 20:13:07

@Aprone, yes, I was thinking of flint tipped arrows and hunting bows just for hunting and gaining firs and other products from hunted animals, particularly if firs are to play more of a part in the game, not to mention perhaps shooting game as another food source.

As to sand, well personally I like self sufficiency, however imho it's better for the economy and for games if players could! always make themselves self sufficient but as you said earlier regarding arrows choose to interact with others to short cut lines of production, particularly when it's for resources you might need lots of, quite aside from the fact that single player versions of the game will require at least a degree of self sufficinecy. Also I confess lack of sand I just find a bit weerd given all the mining you do, hell, there is limestone and salt, why not sandstone? and even if there aren't any huge tyle sized lakes, there has to be some! water somewhere or otherwise you'd be in a desert which is a sand overdose big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-04-05 21:02:37

The sand thing is just another realism vs game balance issue I suppose.  tongue

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2016-04-05 21:04:37

Hi
I would like to ask a couple of questoins. I was in your last baita and was unable to expand to a new plot of land. I got do the point where it says i can expand and it says that i have a plot of land in my inv but i can't get on to it. it says i only have one plot of land. What am I doing wrong? I love this  game  though! big_smile

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2016-04-05 21:28:02

Jescat, it sounds like you are playing single player and not multiplayer.  While there is a single player option in the game menu, it hasn't been developed yet.  At the moment it is just raw game mechanics running, like a version of the multiplayer that just lacks the server.  As a result, many features in it will not work correctly or won't work at all.  The public beta is meant for the multiplayer portion of the game right now.  Single player will be developed further down the road.

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2016-04-06 00:18:45

Something else that Goldfingas suggested (I don't know why he doesn't come on here and tell you himself instead of telling me) is that when in the mine view, pressing ` will take you back to the entrance of your mine.  This could be used as a starting point to remember where you are in the mine.

2016-04-06 01:29:24

So am I understanding correctly that at this time, you can't expand to another plot of land in single player mode? I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed about that. It would be too late for me to start on the server now, but I've gotten pretty far in single player anyway. I'm totally addicted to this game at the moment. smile

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2016-04-06 02:19:40

Good idea about the mine entrance.  I think I'll end up adding that.

Turtlepower, that is correct.  The things that Do work in single player sort of work by accident rather than by design.  You're limited to a single plot because normally the server handles that and there is no single player version coded.  I don't actually think you'd be too late to join multiplayer.  You'd be behind others, but new people have been joining each day.  The other thing to remember is that you've spent this time familiarizing yourself with the game mechanics in single player, so if you joined multiplayer now, you'd be instantly productive.  Many people joined and spent the first day (or 2) doing things randomly because they didn't have a plan yet.  So your slow start might be as much of a disadvantage during this test.

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2016-04-06 04:54:28

Cool, that makes sense. Since I'll soon run out of logs in my current single player game, I think it's just as well if I start a new multiplayer game.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2016-04-06 06:25:10

Ahoy all
Aprone, I have no clue if its meant to be just so or  bugs but here's what I've noticed.

New days and stages, I don't exactly remember where I read it,but I was under the impression with each day a new story section would get unlocked and new stages would come into play. I.E new technology quests and so on. That doesn't seem to be happening so far. It did happen before when I loged onto the server just a few minutes before it restarted for sunday and I got quite a different story from what I have been hearing since the last few days.


Hunting might also be bugged. if not,imo it seriously needs some work. 100% of finding a animal but 10% to find a fur or stake and so on? ahem what does the hunter do with that found animal, I wonder. :d
related to hunting,Iron bar required for arrows which you do loose very often, if you want to build leather goods or leather for any reason you may as well run out of all the iron you happen to have just building leather or hide this way!
Why not stoneheads arrows? or some such

Balance in randomization of tiles when starting out.
While randomization is all well and good and something that makes things more interesting and useful for trading and such among players, certain imbalances can just screw the game up.
I have started with 5 water tiles which are utterly useless because you can't fish before you have gone quite far,and even for that 1 water tile might be enough,unless other activities requireing water are added in the future,of course. Let me make it short. I  started with much of everything but too less of trees and such. I had at least 4 swamps or so,same sand,water and so on and trees? hardly even 10
so perhaps keep the randomization,but with a minimum fixed amount of things that a player must have to begin with.
I.E at least 1 water, enough trees and so on.

I think that's all for now, at least that's what I remember of the top of my head atm. :d
Cheers man, just like all your other games this is unique and addicting!
grryf

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2016-04-06 08:20:51

Grryfindore, the game's stages do not change each day.  I believe the second stage starts on the 4th day, then the 6th for the third.

The hunting job was indeed bugged so that's why it was giving 10% on the rewards instead of 100%.  It has been fixed on the server now, even if the client still Says 10%.  The arrows require iron, but you do get 5 arrows for 1 iron bar.  When it comes to things like leather armor, I don't believe it would require too much iron.  There are ways to get iron that don't require arrows (cows for example), but even if a player relies only on hunting they will spend an average of 1 arrow per hunting trip.  So you'd get 5 furs for 1 iron bar.  Each plot has an absolute minimum of 5 iron ore tiles (almost always more), and each of those tiles will be either 2 or 3 ore once mined, if the player never gets any fast enough to get the "newly discovered" +1 ore bonus on any.  That comes out to about 12 iron bars for the plot, minimum.  Most plots will likely be triple or quadruple that amount.

If you do find yourself on a plot with very little iron, then I'd recommend sourcing leather from methods other than hunting trips.

The water tiles have a use from the beginning.  Fishing is broken up into multiple jobs, ranging from simple spear fishing (needs a stick) all the way up to using a fishing boat.  They are a source of endless food that relies only on your number of available workers and equipment, whereas food sources like apples and bee hives only mature at a certain rate that you cannot control no matter how many free workers you have.  In a lot of situations, players would rather have water over the other 2 starting food sources.

The minimum number of trees for a plot is 12, which was carefully chosen to make sure players can get on their feet before running low and being forced to start planning their future accordingly.  The game does use randomization when it creates new plots of land, but it is very controlled randomization.  What I mean is, each random value has a weighted range chosen so that players should always have enough minimum supplies to establish themselves.  It is always possible for a player to screw themselves over with some poor choices early on, like lets imagine a player who chops down every tree and cuts them into firewood, but I don't consider those situations to be game-balance related.

Glad you're addicted man, haha.  Game devs sometimes sound like drug dealers.  smile

- Aprone
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2016-04-06 09:01:50

I have a problem and got 2 plots with sapphires one copper one coal and I can not bite them I have 11 hammers 18 woods a peak and in no way let me nibble on them could help operate the sting on tiles of my mine of these minerals? thanks and I hope you can help me I apologize and I use the q translate

2016-04-06 10:58:00

@lucho.juridico
You  need an iron pickaxe to mine most things besides iron ore and dirt.

To check what you need for a job, press space then find the job in the big list, (you can type letters to make it faster eg, type min to get all the mining jobs). when you get to "mine saphire"  or whatever job you want to do, press  left arrow and you'll be told what you need.

@Aprone,  As I said on the balance issue I'd personally always prefer to make crytically needed resources for growth available to a player on his/her own if she/he works hard enough, rather than happening to depend upon someone else having it around to sell, economies are cool, but self sufficiency should be a valid choice, also i confess the realism thing does bother me at least a little, sinse it does seem a little screwy that gold dust is more readily available than sand big_smile.

I can understand the variety in terms of resources like fish or trees that force expantion, but for resources like sand which is now absolutely required for expantion and some of the more extensive tech options with glass etc, it does seem there should be a way to get some, particularly sinse unlike seeds that you can buy from the market and ten have a sustainable supply to start producing yourself, you'll always need to buy sand.

Anyway I'll stop winjing now, indeed I wonder if I happen to have a bit of an antisand thing, sinse when I was playing wayfare1444, I had precisely the same problem, running all over a 100 x 100 planet hunting for some ground up rocks to make cylicon chips with.

maybe it is because I am so wet big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-04-06 17:57:41

Lucho, I'm going to guess that you are being affected by a pesky bug I intend to track down and squash today.  For some unknown reason, a few random underground tiles become bugged and you are not able to perform jobs on them.  This has now been reported by only 3 people, so it's pretty rare, which is why I've had a little trouble recreating it in order to find out its cause.

Dark I completely agree that every essential resource should be obtainable by a player who is willing to do the work.  I need to split my thoughts into 2 directions to continue my reply, so here goes with thought number 1.  I disagree that sand is absolutely required for expansion.  It is used to make glass, and the glass is only used in the church, tavern, city, and tudor house.  Each of those building types are purely optional and don't produce any of the things a player needs in order to expand.
Thought number 2 would be a question about timing.  If we assume that glass Is actually a necessary item, then I still wouldn't see any issues.  All players have mineable resources under their land, but cannot access them until they've done the work of gathering resources and constructing a mine.  After the mine is built they may have to spend some time tunneling around to find the exact things they are looking for.  In a similar way, if your plot doesn't start with sand, expanding to a new plot is the self sufficient way to search for it.  If you're unlucky you may have to expand to a 3rd, but I view it no differently than I view mining metals or gems out of the ground.  As long as the person is willing to put in the effort, no outside help is ever needed to get any type of metal, gem, or even sand.

When it comes to the gold dust verses sand thing, it depends on how someone is picturing the sand.  Your average handful of sand from a beach is not necessarily going to work for primitive glass making.  Finding silica sand is the way to go, and not every place (even with bodies of water) is going to have this type readily available.  Whenever possible, I do try to lean in the direction of realism, lol.  It isn't always possible, and sand may be a time where reality was stretched rather than broken.

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2016-04-06 18:09:32

if I wait is soon solved my problem and solve doi thanks for bugs minority clarified that I could exploit silver and hhierro but not  can in the case of coal copper and sapphire

2016-04-07 09:11:52

Hi Aprone.
So, I won't get more time to play this week because I'm busy with other things. But I have enjoyed testing and playing the beta so much this week, and I know I didn't made it far compared to other players. smile
So, next week, will the server then be closed again, for more bug fixing, or do you think it is so stable so it'll just reset and the beta version will continue for online gameplay?

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2016-04-07 09:52:27

SLJ, thanks for participating while you could man.  I'm still not sure what next week will hold, but it's possible the public beta will continue for another week.  I have a list of code changes, but none that I think would actually prevent me from doing another week of public beta.  I guess I have another 3 days to figure out what I'm going to do.  smile

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2016-04-07 10:11:15

maybe it states this in the readme, but whats the difference between single player and multi player?

can i get a peace double harmony burger? no chaos

2016-04-07 16:50:13

Multiplayer is where the game's main focus will be (like Swamp), but the goal is to put enough together into a single player mode so that players can decide if Castaways 2 is their type of game.  There will likely be a series of quests like in multiplayer, but they'll be predetermined and given in a specific order to talk the player through making things.  I may have computer simulated vassals send soldiers to rob you, and goblins will likely show up at some point.  That's really about it for the single player plans.  Time will pass on there as well, so the various story sections will play and the different technology and job options will become available.  When the final stage has ended, single player may end just like multiplayer, but I haven't really given that much thought yet.

This single player stuff is still all in the pre-planning stages, meaning I haven't even planned it yet, haha!

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2016-04-07 23:32:54

Hi, is anyone else having trouble loging into the server? Thanks so much Aprone for such a well-developed game!

2016-04-08 07:46:34

o ok got ya, I like chatting and hearing other people on the map/game with me so that's exactly what I wanted to know if it was like a open world like swamp, def about to download it now then....

can i get a peace double harmony burger? no chaos

2016-04-10 05:42:58

aprone love the game, I can tell you put a lot of thought and creativity into this one....I notice a lot of gold can be gained by selling things to players that are to lazy to make them lol but my question is when are you going to reset the servers? I put off playing for now so I won't do all that building and grinding and everything will be gone

can i get a peace double harmony burger? no chaos

2016-04-10 06:27:40

The week just ended at midnight on Sunday morning (so like 20 minutes ago at the time I typed this message).  I have decided to run the public beta for another week, so now would be the best time to jump in.

Everyone's lands and inventories were reset, so this next week starts everyone out on an even playing field.  I've already seen people talking about their strategies/battle plans, so lets see how this week turns out.  I'm still working on code, and will do my best to keep the server running smoothly as I make changes.  I think this past week ran constantly, with the exception of a few times I restarted it to bring about new version changes, so I'm going to try and do the same this week.

I still don't have the code done that will handle high scores at the end of the week, so I'll post results here once I can get them listed.  Eventually the plan is to have the results (including other cool details such as a way to view their ending lands and inventories) posted online as web pages.  That should be more interesting than just a simple text list of names and scores.

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2016-04-10 07:27:55

o ok got it, back online I go, and again great game

can i get a peace double harmony burger? no chaos

2016-04-10 10:12:18 (edited by keyIsFull 2016-04-10 10:18:38)

Um, so I started out with a new plot of land today and ate some apples, and they were all worth 1 energy. Because I'd already eaten a bunch last week, I guess. So now I'm in a really bad situation. I don't have ay energy really. All I have are apples and corn, both of which I used up energy wise last week so I don't know what to do.
Probably the best course of action is to fix the bug and reset everybody. It doesn't really seem fair otherwise because people who fought their way through the bug will have more points, but less food, than those who waited for it to be fixed, so you put everyone on an even playing field that way.

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2016-04-10 16:21:34

Sorry about that Key, it should be solved now.

I understand what you mean about a reset, but I don't think that's an option since many people have already begun building up their lands.  None of them are going to want to start that over just to get back a little food energy they may have lost.  I don't imagine many people even tried eating anything since at the beginning everyone's plot starts out with 150 energy.  If, however, you can remember how much energy you lost from eating during the bug, let me know and I'll reimburse you.  I'll do that for anyone else who also ate food when it was bugged (assuming they let me know I mean).

What happened was at midnight it reset everyone exactly as it was supposed to, but then the server experienced a few errors.  I've fixed the code that caused the errors, but unfortunately those errors occurred after the reset but before it had saved the "reset" data for the first time.  As a result it had missing pieces of data which were then loaded from the last saved backup... from Saturday just before midnight.  So yeah, that caused a lot of things to appear as if they did not reset, including food.  I was awake when midnight hit so luckily I was around to see the errors and manually reset the different things it had loaded back in from Saturday, but I didn't notice the food thing too.  That's a tricky one to notice until someone actually eats something, haha.

Hopefully things will go smoothly next Sunday morning now that I've corrected that code.

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