Astral Terra - A New Voxel Sandbox RPG

Thrasher said:
Neat! I'd like to see what they do with procedurally generated worlds and quests. But $52K seems like very little.
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@Thrasher - Gratitude for your comments and feedback. AT is an Indie game. :) Regarding funds, look at how much Minecraft or Terraria cost to produce - we have most of what they had at launch now(on our own budget) and we are still 9 months out (to spend our new budget on polish, refinement, extending systems and filling out the rest of the worlds). We are also using the same strategy, make a big little game to release at Beta (where our funding takes us) - then as we make sales on Steam and other places we push out FREE updates every other month that continues to fill the world out. We feel this is the nature of Sandbox type of games. The model doesn't work for some, others are happy to participate in that way. For those who just want to play the finished polished product and not be a part of the making and history of the video game growing, they will want to wait until it becomes "gold" status. :) Gratitude again guys for the dialogue and feedback, we really are scouring the net and trying to assimilate as much data as possible right now.
 
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Astral Terra said:
Also, RPG stands for "Role Playing Game". That doesn't mean a static world full of static quests - it means "be whatever role you want to be, do whatever you want to do, because you are ROLE PLAYING" I don't understand where the lack of static quests ruins the players ability to pretend they are somewhere and someone else. For Astral Terra we are trying to do the very opposite of what you are saying. Make a character, do what you want - the adventure is what you make it, not a connect the dots hold-your-hand every step of the way on rails system. I understand though some people want that, if you do then obviously this is not the game for you.
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I understand the design decision but I don't understand the appeal personally. Even playing pen and paper D&D there was structure to the gaming experience through quests. The difference is there's a limited amount of quests in games where as playing P&P, you could go on forever, or till people died/got bored and wanted to try something else. I still think there's room for quests in open world games without allowing them to become the focal point and sole driving reason to play. Think they can work as an asset to add some optional structure for people who like them.

That said, I generally hate story lite and combat centric RPGs but, the Kickstarter seems well put together and there's an obvious passion so I'm willing to roll the dice anyway.
 
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I've never been attracted to Minecraft or Terraria, or paying for incremental development, for similar reasons, so I'll probably stay on the sidelines for this.
 
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Great feedback guys, we really like to hear these things that can help us steer our development in the right direction!
 
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@Astral Terra
Oh wow, I've been following the development for t for a little bit. I have been looking forward to it, as many of the 3rd Person Sandbox RPG's I've seen.

If I could make a suggestion is to dip into some kind of quest system. Not the MMO kind, of course, but more like a Metroidvania/Terraria.
You could adapt your world generation engine with this branching quest, just one, but it'll be a big one. It could involve a simple choice from something you find to big sprawling battles. I'm not sure if you could apply this to what you have so far but think of it like this:
-Player finds a dungeon.
-Player finds a Lich in dungeon. Kills it.
-Player finds a tome in the dungeon.
So what does he do with the tome? Let's say he reads it.
-Player finds only one page written in it, a summoning scroll.
-Player finds all necessary ingredients inside the dungeon, and follows the steps to summon it.
-Player summons demon.
The player has ANOTHER decision. Does he kill the demon or capture it? Well, he kills it.
-Player gains favor to some divine force.
-Player declares war on demons, since he just killed a prince.
Now this world has the player fighting a war with demons. Yay.
Just like Terraria, this would be the only thing not generated. Or at least like Diablo II. I just think the little decisions would work well for the sandbox aspect.

Well it was worth a shot. TL;DR Like Terraria but with choices™.
 
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siveon said:
@Astral Terra
Oh wow, I've been following the development for t for a little bit. I have been looking forward to it, as many of the 3rd Person Sandbox RPG's I've seen.

If I could make a suggestion is to dip into some kind of quest system. Not the MMO kind, of course, but more like a Metroidvania/Terraria.
You could adapt your world generation engine with this branching quest, just one, but it'll be a big one. It could involve a simple choice from something you find to big sprawling battles. I'm not sure if you could apply this to what you have so far but think of it like this:
-Player finds a dungeon.
-Player finds a Lich in dungeon. Kills it.
-Player finds a tome in the dungeon.
So what does he do with the tome? Let's say he reads it.
-Player finds only one page written in it, a summoning scroll.
-Player finds all necessary ingredients inside the dungeon, and follows the steps to summon it.
-Player summons demon.
The player has ANOTHER decision. Does he kill the demon or capture it? Well, he kills it.
-Player gains favor to some divine force.
-Player declares war on demons, since he just killed a prince.
Now this world has the player fighting a war with demons. Yay.
Just like Terraria, this would be the only thing not generated. Or at least like Diablo II. I just think the little decisions would work well for the sandbox aspect.

Well it was worth a shot. TL;DR Like Terraria but with choices™.
Click to expand...

@siveon - Wow this sounds really great. Something along these lines is what we would really love to do and were working towards something similar (there is at least 1 unique dungeon for every world that sets off events). We absolutely loved Terraria - haven't had a chance to play Metroidvania yet but it looks like another gem. Gratitude for your feedback - I am sharing your thoughts with the team. :)
 
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