[Aspettando...] Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game

[Jon Irenicus]

Si sa anche il prezzo: $29.99
Fonte: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index...2#post-5753039

[Jon Irenicus]

Ebbene, pare che Amazon nel 2016 aveva depositato i diritti per un MMO, New World. E che il progetto non sia destinato a fallire.
Indipercui si sceglie un nuovo titolo.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10997
Anche sul thread Irontower.
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum...ic,7609.0.html

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #30 - There Be Monsters

Ebbene, dopo tutto sto fermento (un paio di sondaggi sul forum e ovviamente can can sul codex) , il nome è diventato: Colony Ship. Come all'inizio ma senza rpg. Sull'immagine c''è un bel "a post-earth role playing game", chiaro e giustissimo richiamo a fallout che approvo in pieno.
E cmq ad averne di dev che interagiscono così con la comunità (sarò polemico io oggi, pensare ad altri team che se la tirano che manco miss universo per avere un update... E sì che gli Irontower non sono un gruppo enorme, anzi).

Per il resto parla dei mostri, criticandoli in quando l'antitesi di quello che si propongono (e senza nascondere la mano perchè su Dungeon Rats ci sono e con le caratteristiche criticate, per ammissione stessa di Vince), perchè di solito sono poco interessanti con poca varietà. Per cui vogliono rendere interessanti anche quelli. Non si vede spesso una cura del genere per i particolari (nonchè ammissione di cosa non andava).

Incollo qui l'update che ha qualche bella immagine di arte e interessanti descrizioni:

First things first: we had to change the name so now the game is called Colony Ship. While it's not the most original name, it's the most straightforward one.



Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about what RPGs are really all about - monsters. As a wise man once said:

“As one would expect, the game shines the most during the fights against humans. This is true because of all the reasons that made AoD combat great – humans are the most tactically diverse in terms of abilities, weaponry, armour, etc, which makes almost every fight against them unique to some extent.

But then you have the monsters, which are more or less the anti-thesis to everything that makes AoD combat good. Sure, the first time a new monster type appears, you might be surprised by what it can do, and act accordingly to counter it. However, monsters don’t really go beyond 2 types (and even that is usually limited to “small scorpion”, “big scorpion”), and don’t present any tactical flexibility. They are simply one-trick ponies that stop being interesting dangerously fast. Scolopendras rush forward and hit you and poison you, and that’s it. Same goes for scorpions and ants. You’ve been to one of these fights, and you’ve been to them all…”

It’s a valid and helpful point, so naturally, we want to do better. In AoD/DR most critters were melee ‘fighters’, half of them poisonous, with high DEX (to close the distance fast) and two attack types. Predictably, this design didn’t bring anything new to the table and what little it did bring got old fast.

So when it comes to creatures our goals are:

Tactical flexibility
Unique abilities that humans don’t have
Focus on various effects rather than direct damage (i.e. no 'fighters')
Different enemies working together or taking advantage of other critters’ abilities
Effective counters of ranged parties

Of course, having lofty goals is one thing, achieving them is another, so we’d like to run some ideas by our core audience and see what you guys think. Nothing is set in stone yet as we won’t start implementing the creatures until 2019, so we can easily make change at this point. We’re planning to have 6 creatures, mostly found in the Hydroponics and Wasteland. Let’s start with the creatures’ origin:

The Ship is en route to Proxima B, an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. Ninety percent of its surface is covered with water, but the planet is slightly bigger than Earth, providing approximately half of Earth’s landmass.

Losing Terran plants and crops to local pests and fungus would be catastrophic, so the Hydroponics Division was tasked with adapting the plants to the anticipated environment of Proxima B and developing biological forms of pest control (introducing predators from old Earth to change the native ecosystem and eliminate all local threats was the most cost-effective way to ensure that the colony would survive and grow).

Extensive gene-editing was employed to develop resistance to alien fungi and pests, and accelerated adaptation hacked into the plants' genetic code. Like many other critical systems, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. The carefully cultivated flora and fauna was left on its own in harsh environs designed to propagate rapid and brutal evolutionary cycles.

When human beings finally decided to reclaim Hydroponics, they discovered an environment as wild and hostile as any Earth jungle...

So today we’ll show you 3 predators from old Earth:



Frogs are already used in agriculture as a form of biological pest control as they have a healthy appetite for insects and are highly resistant to insecticide. Plus they have a wide range of natural abilities: jumping, toxic venom, hallucinogen, even retractable spikes (the wolverine frog), which would make them a top choice when it comes to cost-effective terraforming.

The frog is a 'hard to hit, easy to kill' critter (high evasion due to the small size and mobility, low hit points and no damage resistance). They will attack in packs and come in 3 varieties: fighter, poison spitter, and 'mind flayer'. It's a low level critter that prefers easy prey (i.e. low level, poorly equipped parties). They aren't very aggressive and won't attack unless threatened. When you run into them for the first time, they'll be busy feasting on a corpse. If you want to go through that corpse's pockets, you'll have to kill the frogs first.



An avid predator and an opportunistic feeder, the starfish is one of the keystone species which makes it an excellent addition to any terraforming arsenal. It can regenerate damaged parts, swallow its prey whole, and it even comes with its own body armor (hardened plates and spines).

The mutated version will shoot its stomach (yeah, it's actually a thing) to drag the victim within the attack range. It will also release a spore cloud, greatly reducing the visibility and your THC with ranged weapons. During its turn, the starfish will envelop you and drain your HP, regenerating some of the damage it sustains during the fight.

Unlike the frog, the starfish is easy to hit (with melee weapons) but hard to kill due to DR and accelerated regeneration. One starfish isn’t a serious threat but 2-3 would be able to ruin your day pretty quick.



It’s a mutated jellyfish originally adapted from the Portuguese man o'war and designed to hover over crops and zap insects, while turning away larger animals. Things got a bit out of hand during the Mutiny when the mutation cycles ran wild and now the few remaining floaters haunt the ruins of the Mission Control Center.

Upon detecting oversized insects, the floater will slowly move to intercept them. Bullets have no effect on it but energy weapons would bring it down in no time. In the absence of such weapons or cells to power them up, you can hack it to pieces, which isn’t an ideal solution because the floater will zap every enemy next to it (crowd control), dealing energy damage. On top of it, the floater is equipped with a primitive version of brainwave disruptor, so the closer you get, the higher the chance to forget what you were doing and just stand there, drooling like an idiot (aka skip turn).

In short, the floater is easy to kill if you have energy cells to spare or hard to kill with melee weapons if you don’t. Certain implants and helmet will increase mental resistance. Other creatures and rival parties might (surely will) attack while you’re busy fighting the floaters.

Anyway, if you like these creatures, you'll definitely like the other three, including Old Beelzebub. If not, let's discuss.

[andry18]

Ottimo

[T_zi]

Interessantissimo il setting. Seguo con interesse.

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #31 - The interface
Non credo che ci saranno grossi problemi su quest'aspetto.

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #32 - The Skills & Learn by Using
Parla del meccanismo con cui si migliorerà il personaggio. E' interessante e indubbiamente c'è molto margine per bilanciare la cosa.
Come già detto, l'esperienza fa guadagnare livelli e acquisire feats, l'uso delle abilità invece migliora le stesse. Interessante che evitare exploits vari sia spesso menzionato: per esempio colpire un nemico aumenterà le capacità con l'arma che si sta usando, ma non all'infinito.

Un paio di animazioni che è giusto postare:

[cronos1990]

Al momento niente italiano

[Jon Irenicus]

Eeeeeehhhh... Aspetta e spera, che già con AoD non si vede luce col progetto di traduzione amatoriale. Poi dagli Irontower è tanto anche solo avere il gioco fatto e finito.

[cronos1990]

Veramente io non ci spero affatto, parto dalla convinzione che dovrò giocarmelo in inglese.
Non si tratta di un gioco con una visibilità pari a quella che può avere un DOS2, lo stesso Tides of Numenera ha la traduzione in altissimo mare. Figuriamoci se questo me lo fanno in italiano (ufficiale o amatoriale che sia).

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #33 - State of the Game
Hanno una build giocabile, con tanto di screenshots.

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #34 - Demo update, new screens
Altro aggiornamento con screenshots, i lavori proseguono.

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #35 - Demo update #2, more screens
Come sopra.
In più elemosinano followers su steam... Se po' fa...

[Jon Irenicus]

Non ho seguito per un po', ci sono aggiornamenti:

CSG update #36 - Demo update #3, more screens
CSG update #37 - Demo update #4
CSG update #38 - Demo update #5
CSG update #39 - The third iteration
CSG update #40: closed beta in mid Jan

Procedeva tutto bene, poi è morto l'animatore... In ogni caso stanno proseguendo e, per il mese prossimo, è previsto il combat demo.

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #41 - Closed Combat Beta

Qua le cose si fanno interessanti. Xcomiane le immagini con le coperture. Bella l'atmosfera, l'UE rispetto al Torque si fa sentire alla grande.
I rirtratti son veramente belli.

[Darkless]

Sempre più in Hype.

[andry18]

Originariamente inviato da Darkless

Sempre più in Hype.

Idem

[Jon Irenicus]

CSG update #42 - Combat Beta progress report #1

Tutto bene.

[Darkless]

Son riusciti a far salire la scimmia persino a me che maldigrisco lo sci-fi.
Peccato Vincent veda male il crowdfunding, con un kickstarter avrebbero potuto fare ottime cose e velocizzare lo sviluppo.

[Jon Irenicus]

Concordo. Magari investendo sulle animazioni vista la recente disgrazia.
Ho proprio voglia di provare il combat demo non appena diventa pubblico. Se non altro ho appena iniziato DOS2EE per cui per un po' sono a posto.