Aug 14 livestream in 7 parts

did you think the game would have bad music even though the game is going to be awessssssoooome?

 

I just didn't think they'd have the budget for it to be honest (not that i know what their budget is.). I was also expecting it to be less dramatic, i suppose it's the dramatic nature of most of the songs that i'm impressed with, it makes it all seem like a lot of serious and difficult work went into it, which it has i'm sure, despite the two dimensional cartoony appearance. Gives it an aura of having much more underneath the surface, which is really befitting.

 

Death animations need more attention... much more attention... right now they suck!!!
The death animations in Terraria look much better.

Besides this THE GAME LOOKS AWSOME!!!!

 

Ok, so a few things I picked up from watching the gameplay, as well as reading the youtube comments, and the forum comments there after.

Partial Block Damage:
I noticed when Tiy and Betty were mining that blocks would slowly regen overtime, but multiple blocks could be "damaged" at the same time as well. It got me thinking on some monsters. Rather, I really hope some monsters will do partial block damage, instead of just insta-breaking blocks. Think of like I dunno, some enemy using a cone of sonic force, slowly chipping away at the blocks in it's area of effect. This way it's not so rage-inducing as Creepers can sometimes be. (See explode and all blocks around it instantly explode as well.) But it still adds some danger to the game, as well as another challenge when fighting over ravines, or above lava etc.

Another question, more because it wasn't really touched on. (Or hasn't been as of yet to the best of my knowledge.) How well does this work (See how many blocks can be damaged at once.) In large multiplayer environments, both on the same planet, and on alternate planets in the same universe. For instance if 10 people are all mining at different points in the same planet, will the blocks all stay damaged? Or is it a certain number of blocks that can "hold" damage? I can partially see what it would be limited, more information to keep track of at once, especially in large games or if someone was using a splodey weapon. Still a question I was curious about.

"Lucky Runs"
I bring this up because at one point Tiy says "They was just a horrendously unlucky run." (Or something close to that, not an exact quote.) but from my understanding (As I've had this same discussion elsewhere and somewhere jumped in and confirmed it to be this way, I can't find the link at present.) every world, always spawns the same way. (Including monsters, ore placement, etc.) Which means it wasn't really an "unlucky" run. It just means the planet is really bad, especially for someone who is just starting out. This has me worried though, since that was a threat level 1 planet, that you're more or less "supposed" to go to right off. Will some planets make it so it takes you two or three times as long to get out of the "tutorial" stage as someone else who happened to pick the "right" Threat Level 1 planet? It has me a bit worried, because alot of that land was really, really sparse and had almost no ore in it.

Memorizing Menus
Ok so this has to do with Tiy, constantly having to shift and move his menus around whenever he opened them. Will there be an option, or can we ask (At some point, I don't want to add more work afterall.) that menus will remember where they were moved to? This way we can arrange things how we want them to be on screen? For that matter, is there any plan to make it so you can move your GUI around as desired? Both would be awesome, if neithier makes it in, meh. No big deal, certainly not a game breaker eithier.

Block Colors
This was more a question of curiousity then anything, I noticed when they were on that second planet. (Blue desert) That the bluesand, when originally broken dropped as a red-ish hue. Even though it was blue in the inventory. Is this temporary or a permanent thing? Again, no big deal it doesn't really change anything except a bit of immersion and some "realism" so to speak. (I use the word losely, because the other word I wanted to use escaped me.)

Replanting Trees
Ok so, I didn't notice that they had picked up any item that could be constitued as a way to replant trees. (Perhaps I missed that particular item, it's possible.) I was curious to know whether or not trees will automatically regrow, if the item to plant them isn't implemented or something else. I personally tend to grow tons of trees everywhere, and eventually have a giant tree farm. I realize this may prove difficult since there can be so many variants of trees. (We don't want 14 inventories worth, full of different acorns afterall...or do we? ) Just wondering if someone can clear up for me how the game is handling it.

Death Animations
Ok so, I saw a few youtube comments spouting hate and disdain for the death animations, I remember the old ones weren't that good. (In my opinion.) I'm generally indifferent, if they explode into gore, if they fade away, a puff of smoke all ninja-like, it's all the same to me as they're dying but I've played so many games I think I've seen every kind of death animation possible from the crazily cartooney, to gritty realism etc, and I'd imagine if the devs don't do it, someone will mod a way in for it to happen. That being a menu selection of death animations. Giving the player the choice, eithier exploding into body parts, puffs of smoke, fading away etc. Or make it a server option for multiplayer worlds. Again, this isn't really a big thing at all, I don't think many will mind death animations being whatever. Just a suggestion after reading some of the comments. [/rant]

Anywhos, I realize the game isn't released yet, I realize this is still Alpha footage, please don't mistake this post for me judging the game, I'm more curious as to the plans for some of the things mentioned that's all.

 

I'm probably going to play with the music off. While I think the tracks are great, I haven't seen a single video where I felt that the music fit or added to the situation. It really felt like the music was trying too hard to add a feeling of wonder to what is really not all that wondrous too look at. If this were a 3D game then the music would be fitting, but I don't have any sense of awe when I look at these landscapes, and music which complements a sense of awe is just so out of place that I feel it'd probably make it difficult for me to focus on what I'm doing.

Now this is not to say that I don't think they've done a good job, I'm just pointing out an obvious limitation of a 2D Sidescroller of this artstyle. You're going to have a pretty hard time making anything awe inspiring as it is.

The death animation is really off putting too, puffs of smoke? Come on, we aren't children.

 

When he said unlucky run he meant in loot.
Loot container drops -are- randomized is what I am getting from that even if the generation isn't. Loot could easily be from a general pool pulled randomly for the level and container type. A mod response on the issue would be handy to clear it up though.

As for ore, stone is the first stage and was everywhere. They just didn't bother. Iron and other things not so much but sort of expected that. If they had actually tried to progress past quickly T1 they probably would have had plenty in no time. Wasn't the goal of the stream. They derped around -far- more then we would. (Oh noez is this guy friendly.. and the like putting on a show.)

 

He also said they were unlucky in terms of ore, like when they were in that mini-biome he says there's no ore at all. The ore generation isn't random. (Or so it wasn't 3-4 months ago when this conversation was brought up in another post.) Which is what has me worried.

 

Partial block damage: He did show that one monster that could spit rocks which did partially damage the land (in most of the cases it just destroyed it but there were some cases where only partial damage was done) and that was a level 3 attack, I assume they have considered this as well.

"Lucky runs": Yes, he appeared on a terrible planet, but this can happen really in any sandbox game, in minecraft you can get a bad seed or in terraria start in an area with low coal. But it seems unlikely that you would get as unlucky as a bad solar system, and although Tiy spawned 1000 coal for travel it used only 100 (if I remember right) to get to another planet
(probably varies on distance but not more than 200), and he didn't use it for anything else.

Memorizing menus: I agree that it would be cool if menus remembered their location, but part of the reason Tiy kept moving it about is because he was placing blocks on the left side of the screen and then the right, I feel that proper use of the hotbar will make this issue null but I do like that you can just drag from your inventory to use items.

Block colors: I'm not sure what you mean by a red-ish hue? It looks blue to me. But keep in my if you go back to when they first landed on the planet, the planet was in fact red/yellow not blue. (15:20 of P.5)

Replanting trees: I agree, I did not see anything about replanting trees, it's probably a todo feature as it's not exactly game breaking without it but implementing it while its super buggy could be.

 

Lucky Runs- Right it used 100, the "tutorial" gives you what, 6? I realize it's all very WIP right now, but 1 coal gives 2 fuel. (He spawned 1000, 500 fuels the ship to 1000 right now.) If there's isn't a decent amount of coal on your first planet, because you just spawned into a "shitty" planet, then you're gonna be hours before you get anywhere. All cause of bad luck of the draw, Terraria had this to some extent, but...it was kinda hard to not do just fine in that game. The way stuff spawned at best you had to walk a bit extra, there was no chance of messing anything up to bad. (At least in the 20 or so worlds I played in I never had a problem.) Minecraft, man...vanilla minecraft was easy. 99% of the time I have diamonds withint he first 15-30 minutes and it's just boring from there. Sure some mods make it harder but, base Minecraft was to easy to find stuff in.

Partial Block Damage- Awesome, my apologies I didn't see that the rock shooting monsters actually did partial damage, my apologies for missing that! I just saw them insta-kill blocks.

Memorizing Menus- Nope, totally agree here, it's more one of those " It'd be nice if" things. If not meh whatevs.

Block Colors- Naw, I mean when they are mining blue sand. (Or when the rock shooter is breaking it outside their makeshift base.) It appears on the ground as a red block, not blue. Does that make sense?

 

Lucky runs: I suppose it could slow you down a while but if they wanted the probably could have travelled to the side a distance and found better luck. Also I think part of the reason for their bad luck was the jungle planet as Tiy mentioned they needed to mine deeper for stone.

Block colors: I see what you mean, but it's interesting to not that sometimes it drops red sometimes it drops blue (22:58 in P.5 shows him mining a 3x3 that drops both colors) I think this is just a texturing thing left behind because as I mentioned the planet was initially red/yellow when they got there and then something made it become blue, I'm thinking maybe the local star for the system? And the reason blocks are red is because the sun isn't shining on them? I'm not sure at all what it is but the sand definitely shows up as two different colors when mined.

 

Might be wet sand/dry sand thing. Or just a plain old bug that is yet to be fixed

 

Well, on looking back at the video it does in fact show up in his inventory with the same red texture, there are two stacks of sand in his inventory a blue one and a red one so yeah I believe them to be two different types of blocks (maybe like you suggested of wet/dry). Still looking into it though.

 

Lucky Runs- Yeah, fair enough. Eithier way it won't matter much I think, just tossing it out there, I'm just not sure how patient some people will be if the newbie planet they pick sucks alot. ^_^

Block Colors- Ooooh yeah...hmmm wierd, I missed that originally. Stuff also doesn't seem to auto-stack in their inventories. (If one person drops a stack of something, it doesn't auto-stack when the second person grabs it.) You acn see that in the last one, or almost last one. When Betty is dropping stuff on Tiy.

Quite true. That's why I posted it, see what the official word was.

 

The crazy madness sand cave in was awsome.

Not really. Ore generation isn't random, but same level planets will not have the same ore pool anyway. Remember the star navigation blog post in fabruary? A planet showed "huge gold deposits" in the selection screen. Now, that may have been a mockup and maybe they have removed it or it is unlocked in later tiers.
The whole "You can't find Iron on a clay jungle moon, it will be the same everywhere" concept isn't a bit exaggerated?

As per the block colors. The red block thing may have been caused by the broken beam axe, If you notice the color is the same of the first world dirt.

 

I don't think they will have the same ore pool, infact that's kind of the problem... (IF I'm reading that right.) It's the fact that you might get the short end because the TL1 planet you went to, had little to no ore on it, or it had only gold ore etc. Making it a hell of alot harder to get started and do stuff in it, that's what I mean.

Also, you might be right on that. o.o

Brings up another question, I know they were supposed to have the "beam axe" to chop down trees, I didn't see a starting item as far as a pickaxe went, unless I assume you are supposed to start with wood, which is possible.

 

I can't believe how awesome this game looks. The music, the animations, the level of details of nearly everything, the moving trees, backgrounds etc...

BETA PLZZZZ

 

I'm so loving the space-flight sequence, I'd be hopping from planet to planet just for that.

 

Downloading all the parts now and then.......cinema time!!!

 

Suggestion to Tiy and other livestreamers to use a mic for voice commentary next time, makes it all a bit more fluid.

 

My understanding was that he was unprepared to stream, it was just sudden "okay I'll stream". Also, the text offers people the time to read it especially if they missed anything they can look back when he opens up the chat.