Coloured Blocks

With a little sexual assault, probably

 

How about it averages colors? Say you have a bunch of red dirt and add a some blue, then it will shift to a more purple hue. Add a bunch more blue and it'll eventually round off to the color of the blue dirt.

 

That was actually what I proposed earlier. I think that's a better solution, personally, but it's likely more work. Changing it to one color or the other might be easier to code and I think would provide a nice compromise. I really do like the idea of being able to keep specific block colors, as long as there is some way to manage the inventory nightmare when you don't care about particular colors.

 

I doubt it would be much more effort to code (just a little bit of math.) The more pressing matter, as I see it, is whether or not player will be inconvenienced by the amount needed to get the colors matching the natural dirt again.

 

My guess would be that changing color actually requires spawning a new object instance (which is something that might not be exposed at the point in the code where the 'drop' operation is being handled in inventory), whereas having it use the target color is just a matter of changing quantity (which the drop handler must already be doing.) In fact, if you just base it on the target, it might be as simple as changing the logic that decides whether a drop is valid or not. Wishful thinking maybe.

It would be nice to have a way to get particular colors back out again, but I'm actually not too opposed to going back to a planet to mine for a particular color if you want it for a project.

 

The selected option would be Server Side.

If a player came onto a server with a character that they normally play in a game world using Option 3 (Universal Materials), but the Server Game Option is set to Option 1(Unique Materials) then all their dirt would remain the same boring Generic stiff they were carrying. They could give the material to another player or do anything they like with it at this point. While in the multiplayer world they would have to "deal" with unique materials stacking individually.

The opposite situation would be bringing a player normally played on an Option 1 game to an Option 3 server. They could have stacks of unique materials in their inventory upon joining the server world. In this case, all their unique materials would join into the Generic one in their inventory. They would have basically lost their unique materials. But they should have known that prior to joining the Option 3 server. And they would now have to deal with no longer being able to gather unique materials as long as they were playing on this server.

Most of that isn't too complex to achieve. Not for the talented programmers Chucklefish employs.

EDIT: This is in regards to having an Option Menu to select whether our game is using Option 3 (Universal) or Option 1 (Unique) and how this would apply to characters being taken into multiplayer servers.

 

That link leads to an error page, but i see now

 

A palette of colours for soil, rock etc. would be good, but there should not be a crazy amount of colours though, otherwise my OCDness of needing to store them in separate chests will require a whole planet for storage and that would not make for a good space game. I would prefer that everything fits in the ship inventory.

 

I think that to add the poll, the thread had to be moved/combined with another or something which broke the link. His post is on page #2.

 

I have to disagree. Looting the world for your own selfish gains is what this game is all about. You go around desecrating tombs and striping planets of their natural resources all for the benefit of you own personal conquest. You should really read the about because you don't have a clue.

The coding wouldn't be that difficult "Seed A" spawns "Plant A". It would be more difficult to code it so that "Generic Seed A" spawns "Specific Plant depending on the Planet".

 

#4: The tiles BLEND WITH THEIR SURROUNDINGS AND CREATE EVEN MORE COLORS.

AHAHAHA

But seriously #3

 

I would love love LOVE to have the ability to transplant original trees AND dirt, via some method or another. It's would be great to have an option while building that allows you to gather specific dirt or trees that are kept outside of the normal UI code in some way, preserving that uniqueness.

I would hate hate HATE that being the default. Building should require specific work to achieve what you want. Exploring shouldn't require specific work to not leave a trail of nasty. It's also an inventory management issue for some people, even if it isn't an issue for you. By making this the alternate option, enabled by a mod or a special tool, it means players can choose to have more difficult inventory issues if they don't mind it and want the variety.

But I think I noticed another, much bigger issue:

All of the people here are making huge assumptions about inventory management, mostly that once it is in a chest or stored on your ship then it isn't a problem anymore. That's not true-- since all of these dirt blocks share the same item name (dirt) you can't search for a specific color! You'd literally have to wade through a list of hundreds of types of dirt. On top of that, actually controlling the color of the dirt would be very difficult because you are still limited to only random dirt colors that you have found.

Look: I'm a pack rat, too. I love to store things away and I never toss anything unless I absolutely must. In Terraria I had tons of loot stashed away, and eventually it became difficult to even find some of the stuff I wanted. I was okay with this. I could spend time organizing, and some people have come to feel that this is part of the sandbox experience, but casual gamers don't like this. They'd rather be out exploring, and have an easy way to access items. Would a better/more versatile UI search feature solve this problem? YES. So would any number of dozens of option #4 suggestions given in this and other threads. Does that mean option #1 is better? NO. It means option #4 is better. Option #1 supposes no changes to the UI, which means a lot of difficulty managing dirt EVEN after it is packed neatly away on your ship.

The speed of how often you change planets doesn't even matter. Consider how difficult it will be when you reach tier 10 and you have thousands of types of dirt. Now consider that this doesn't even really give you more customization, since you can't control the colors of dirt you've found. You have to constantly gamble and hope that the random dirt you find matches what you want to use for your building.

I think this is the best idea (other than Option #3) that has been mentioned in the thread thus far. Let's really put both options to the test-- We can have players choose between the two builds of the game during beta, then after trying both options they can actually vote again having actual experience of how this effects gameplay. Then at least people aren't talking out of their ass, since GeorgeV has more experience with this then any of them (except Bartwe, who didn't really say much about it at all).

This is the key thing. The pixel artist never felt limited, but he did feel frustrated with inventory management. If you really think that you need more options than this artist, then consider again that most people playing this game will be casual players who aren't looking to build the mona lisa in a block game.

People aren't paying enough attention to this. They are ignoring an expert.

Which would you prefer: 16,581,375 different colors of dirt to collect.
OR
16,581,375 different types of unique blocks, tools, drops, potions, furniture, etc...

At some point, there is a tipping point where more variety is no longer a good thing and is just an inconvenience. This typically occurs when a different version of the same thing doesn't excite you. A good example is the difference between a blue dungeon brick vs an obsidian brick in Terraria, because they are almost the exact same color. For a small minority consisting of avid sandbox gamers, each and every new piece of dirt will be a special experience. For everyone else who plays the game, they'll be too enraptured by the sheer glory of the rest of Starbound's content.

Casual gamers simply won't care about dirt that much, so prioritize convenience in this case.

 

Maybe, in the distant Starbound future, they found an easy way to dye anything whatever color you want ... including dirt.

 

Also why are the percentages over 100? Look:

 

Because you can choose more than one, so it's not going to add up to 100. For example, only 9.3% of voters included B in their vote.

 

So why can't we have it the other way? You're basicially saying make it an option for people to have it one way, instead of the other that's the whole point of us asking for Option 4, I don't see how this statment is anything but asking them to do what all of us are already asking.

I'm sorry it became to difficult to find some stuff you wanted. I don't have that issue unless I'm in someone else's "Warehouse" in my own I memorize where everything goes, infact most of the gamers I play with, who are packrats do this, admittedly some to more of an extreme then others. (I can keep 20 or so chests memorized, my friend Kamlyn can do that with about 60 ) I get we're not casual gamers, but I can assume there will be some form of sign etc implemented, I don't think inventory managment is a good arguement, I understand GeorgeV made the same arguement, that doesn't mean I agree with it anymore, then again until I can actively play the game I won't know which one I find to be better, right now I'm going on how I act in other games, here say and screenshots etc.

Actually you can to some extent control the color of dirt you've found, maybe not right off, but at Tier 10? That'll be fairly easy. Go to a wiki, find planet types, or terrain types and find the proper clor. (You know someone out there is going to document the coloration of natural terrain in every planet they visit, I'll probably be doing the same.) That helps you find it, you don't gamble at all. Unless your idea of gambling is planet hopping till you find a color you like, it's not like you go to a planet mine 1000 blocks, go to your building and go "damn this WASN'T what I was looking for, let's toss this." or if you do...I'm sorry you have such a strange way of going about things.

Casual gamers simply won't care that they are leaving a trail of "nasty" behind them eithier in exploration, don't bring casual gamers up, because there are two very, very different categories of them as well. The ones who want to build and make everything pretty in one place (My sister for sure, or capturing cute animals even if they serve no other purpose.) Or the ones who are just playing it as a hack-n-slash adventure game, most casual gamers fit into one of these two categories, sometime's both. I don't think eithier side is going to particularly care how it's set up, why? They are casual gamers. Maybe we're using a different definition of casual here.

 

Why not just have the option to collapse stacks of the same items if you have room, and either make it a default setting or explain to players early on about it?

That way if you have 20 types of dirt but only 10 of each of them, you can collapse that down to a stack of 200 generic dirt that will follow the rules in #2 or #3.

If you don't want to use the feature, you can just check a little box in your inventory(or settings menu) to automatically collapse block variants, maybe?

It just doesn't seem like a single solution is going to make all involved parties happy here, but as it's all the same block there really isn't any harm in letting the players have free reign over their own methods of storage and inventory management.

Or perhaps the collapsed stacks of blocks will actually remember their component types and can be expanded again if you have room(If you don't the blocks will spew forth from you like a bad lunch, maybe.)

This would allow good inventory management but also allow the players to sort the various colors out at their own discretion if they are particularly dedicated to undertaking complex construction projects.

 

I'm totally fine with options. Some types of #4 are even better than #3, I even think so.

However, in the context of modding/updates where you can choose between #1 or #3 or maybe even getting a superior #4, in that case I think #3 should be the default choice for the initial build of the game. This is simply because paint is expected to be used while building, but players don't expect to have difficulty getting alien dirt to match their environment while exploring. Even builders will have to explore, but not all explorers will have to build.

In other words, the possibility of Option #4 is totally irrelevant to my point.

To be clear, this is my opinion: #4 > #3 > #1 > #2
This only applies to certain versions of Option #4, of course.

I had about 100 chests by the time I couldn't memorize them, but Starbond has so much more content than Terraria.I expect to have way more stuff than that in SB, but thankfully there is a search feature.
A search feature that doesn't really help use find specific dirt colors.

Anyway, just because inventory management isn't as big of an issue for you, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be suffering for others. You need to remember that, since if it bother GeorgeV then it probably isn't an isolated thing. Don't forget that he's actually played the game, and we haven't.

Actually, it's more like "I need some darker red dirt, because all the red dirt I've found is too bright."
From there I could either hack the game or seek assistance on the forums (both are cheating) OR I could hop planets.
Let's say that only 1/12 planets is in the right range of color I want. Reds are only 1/10 of the color wheel.
1/120 chance that the next planet has the color I want. Each time I hop consumes fuel and travel time.
I can either repeat this for each time I want a new color, or I can catalog every planet's dirt while hopping.
Meanwhile my inventory has over a hundred slots just for dirt, and I've spent hours gathering fuel.
I haven't spent any time building OR exploring. Just searching for this one dirt color.Maybe I should have just used red gravel, since the base color for gravel is darker and the texture is practically the same.

Would your sister really use the variety of dirt colors that much, or would the current paint tool be sufficient for her?

Wanting to make things pretty (as GeorgeV does) is not the same as needing every possible option.

Since at least half of my friends hadn't even heard of Minecraft before I got them to play Terraria, and most of their game experience came from FacebookVille, I think I know a thing or two about casuals. most cases, they don't even notice details and would find a lot of these Option #4 solutions horribly confusing. I'm not denying that these would be nice solutions in many cases, but they'd probably even get confused by having two inventory pages. I actually had to point out that they could hold shift to take out their torch in Terraria. These gamers are like Yogscast, who take a full hour to figure out that left click removes normal blocks and right click removes background blocks.

With casual gamers, simple is always better.

In fact, I doubt most casual gamers would even notice that their dirt magically changed colors. To them, dirt is just dirt. It isn't special reddish dirt. It's just dirt, and it's still dirt even on a new planet, so nothing changed. When you placed it before it matched the environment, and when you place it now it still matches the environment. It's a totally different psychological state. While you might consciously note the subtle differences in color and texture, most people aren't consciously aware of these details.

This is my favorite version of Option #4.

 

Bartwe presumably has also played the game, but he voted option 1.... just sayin'

I doubt this is a good argument for this audience - probably very few of us are casual gamers, and most non-casual gamers have strong views about simplifying games to cater for casual gamers.

Speaking for myself, I would notice the dirt changing colour, and it would bother me. It may not be a major thing, but things like that tend to be jarring and stand out as anomalies.

 

No no see, that is your personal opinion. You THINK players don't expect to have difficulty getting alien dirt to match their environment, none of us have played except a very select few, one Dev weighed in on one option, the other on another. Yes builders have to explore, explorers have to build as well, if they don't why the hell do they care what the blocks look like? If they are building mini-structures etc, then it's less of an issue unless like you, they have a really bad OCD and don't want to leave a footprint, that's a very specific style of play, 3 isn't better for the initial build anymore then 1 is, except they both serve to satisfy a certain group of Starbounders.

Right, some people will suffer managment issues even less, hell some people won't keep anything they don't immediately need. You and I can both safely assume there will be that guy that drops everything he doesn't need or want, that he can't sell in some way, why? He hates clutter, that's just how some people are there are all kinds of gamers out there. This may more or less be a personal thing but, I wouldn't get colors confused because if I was organizing things, it'd be done by type of block, then color of block, ranging from darkest to lightest, probably all alphabetized. Again I may go to the extreme in inventory managment, I accept I'm not the norm.

I remember that it bothers GeorgeV, please remember it DOESN'T bother Bartwe, so I'm sure neithier are an isolated thing, remember two devs weighed in, one for Option 3, one for Option 1, are you saying Bart's opinion matters less because he has different tastes, likes and playstyles then George? If so you're just acting biased completely.

Right, now I go to make my building (Option 3 was chosen to be pput in.) I toss up stone, because I like the look of it, but I want it to be a bit strange or blend with a nice dark green background, so I'm gonna go with dark blue stone. Except the paint tool only has....well damn they don't have the shade I want. Now instead of it taking LOTS OF TIME (In your example) to find the color I want. I simply can't find it, at all period, I'm screwed because the game limits me. This example swings both ways, except one makes you waste time and effort to get it just right, the other makes you settle for something you don't really like, but have no choice.

You don't know my sister, which I understand so I apologize for using her as a reference. If she can't have something just the way she likes it (Especially if building.) She can get pretty annoyed with a game, the current paint tool we don't know enough about I have still yet to hear if they made a final decision as to whether or not it uses any resources in any way (Including pixels) and how many colors it has, as I said if it has every color under the spectrum I'm fine with it. If it has 100, I'm not fine with it.

I'd say about half the people I bought the game for have, and do play Minecraft on a regular basis, some are extremely hardcore gamers, one used to be a pro gamer (FPS so I don't think it counts, silly shooters) the other half are casuals who don't mind it being hard (As if it's easy the other half gets bored) but don't really care one way or another, so long as we're all having fun. That said of all the Minecraft mods we've had and used the one that most of my casual friends want, is Slopes and furniture to decorate with. (And I caught hell whent he furniture mod only had the furniture in 4 colors.) Why? That's their playstyle, that's not to say it's the only playstyle, just the ones I know.

I doubt most casual gamers would even care that the dirt doesn't change. Maybe if they stand out sure, but to me that makes even MORE sense to casual gamers. "Giant mine-system, fuck how do I get out dude? " "Just follow the bright pink blocks man...they are the ones we placed" we can both use examples from our perspectives, sadly those examples are limitless and generally good examples on both sides. Which is again why I think Option 4 is the only one that could satisfy everyone, otherwise someone, or some group isn't going to be happy. Then again, you can't please everyone right?