SOL: Exodus by Kelius

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SOL: Exodus

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POSTED BY: KELIUS
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 17:16
SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/zRmLWt
VIEWED: 4028
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 12:19 PM

Hey there fellow Browncoats, I hope all is well with everyone. I'm the lead, and only programmer on the game SOL: Exodus which came out last month on Steam. While it isn't the open world space game we'd all love, especially if set in the Firefly verse, it was always meant to be the first major stepping stone for us in reaching that actual goal.

What I'd really like to konw is if there is enough real interest in such an open world game. Specifically, it'd be much like Freelancer for those that played it, only with dynamic economies and factions. A world where you actually make a difference, and whole stations and fleets can be created and destroyed through the course of the game. I've already started on that code base, using all the content and code already made. I have the user able to land/dock and get out of the ship and move around (the Unreal engine is good at that). Due to the larger technical requirements, I don't know if multiplayer will be possible for us.

I know people say there's an interest, but the actual sales numbers on SOL: Exodus make us all here (there are only 6 of us) wonder if this genre really is dead. Piracy has definately taken a toll as well, though I won't get into that here. Only being on Steam doesn't help, but there are always 2-5 million users on at a time. We not even sure that we will bother with DLC content at this point. If anybody has any ideas or suggestions on how we keep taking this to the next level, I'd love to hear them. We kept the price cheap and got really good press (reviews are kind of polarized though), hoping that genre fans would come support a genre that is very under represented but has such a vast potential. We don't have to be very profitable, we just want to keep flying. We really have just about reached the point where we are, pun only slightly intended, out of gas.

Best regards to all,

Kelius, Browncoat since '04

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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:16 PM

FREMDFIRMA

If you create anything even close to the Freelancer Discovery Mod I'll be down for it.

While the Unreal Engine may be workable for now, in the long term you might do better with the Vega Strike engine, but what I know about modern programming would fit in a thimble with room to spare.

I've been waiting for a decent open-space MMO or even single player open world since Privateer, which I adored, and Freelancer Discovery only barely fills the gap cause definately has its own limitations and flaws.

The dealkiller for me here would be Steam, I realize it's a minority opinion, but I consider Steam to be flat-out Malware, and don't even get me STARTED on EA requiring Origin on top of it, or DRM, cause we'd be here all day.
Long as you got no problem with me BUYING and then actually OWNING a copy of your game without having to specifically beg your express permission over the internet every time (making it essentially a rental) I got no problem at all - even if that means shelling out a few bucks more for a physical product/CD.

The gamekiller for me would be non-consent PvP, while I realize that an extremely vocal but very tiny minority love their ganks, exploits and e-peens, I had hoped back in the day the Ultima Online fiasco would have settled that when Felucca all but dried up and died while Trammel flourished, but apparently such wankers (and their inevitable horde of sock puppets) are pretty good at convincing gullible devs that folks LIKE to spend their game time being harrassed, corpse camped and having exploits used on them.

Anyhow, there is definately interest, and prolly a good bit of it from less picky sorts than I.

-Frem

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