Suggestions and feedback

Future Game
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Hi!

So i’ve been following thrives progress for about 3 years now. And one thing ive noticed is that the development team and overall community is far too ambitious and makes mechanics far too realistic

Dont get me wrong. Realism is a great thing, and having cells that look like cells is almost refreshing. But you have to understand that implementing all these mechanics will take far too much time. Not only that. All the features and mechanics in the game make it far too complex for any casual gamer understand. All it does is clutter the screen with - to a casual gamer - junk. Realism is great in a game like this. But artistic liberties must be made for an enjoyable game to be made. This game isnt meant to be a perfect replica of the world and its workings. It is just a miniscule simulation that is both educational and fun

Now take my standpoint with a grain of salt. I am not and i doubt i ever will be as talented as some of the people aiding in the creation of this game. And i can respect their choices of not wanting their game to be funded.

In my honest opinion i think that many complex mechanics need to be scrapped.

Now forgive me if my points are horribly outdated and filled with holes. Its 3:00 am in the morning and i havent even bothered to look at the games development road map or anything else.

Edit:
It seems my points are a bit vague and come off as negative and rude. First of all let me start of by saying that i do not want thrive to become a ‘spore 2’ thrive is capable of so much more. Spore could have been so much more but was ruined by ea. And i fear that thrives fall will be due to its tightly knit community. There is a level of realism and game enjoyability that thrive will have to find the perfect equalibrium too. And if everything keeps on progressing like it does now. I feel as if thrive will no longer be a fun game that everyone can enjoy (but dear god dont make it as dumbed down as spore was) but instead just a boring and too complicated simulation that will push away any possible consumers who are afraid of its complexity. Slowly making thrive disapear until its just forgotten like cubeworld.

Currently progress is. . . Slow . . . But it is getting somewhere? Who knows. Maybe i am wrong. Maybe thrive will be universally known as spore. But done better. Just know that such tightly knit communities such as yourself are against ideas that challenge your beliefs. Proof of this is when nasa launched the challenger. Which blew up and killed 7 people. Despite the warnings from the engineers. Just think about it.

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But you dont need to downsize it could have tutorials that explain the mechanics of the game

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Please dont take my reply negatively. I honestly do love this game. I dont know where in my comment it made you believe i hated it. Im sorry if my comment offended you.

Edit:
I never did mean that i wanted this game to turn out like spore. Spore was absolutely wasted potential. And a failure at best. All im saying is that with a development team like this. Your goals are almost impossibly large and will take years to develop. And i would hate for such a game like this to be wasted just because people bit too much off than they could chew

Edit x 2:
If downsized thrive is realistic evolution simulator. What is normal thrive? Super realistic evolution simulator?

Also your balloon/game metaphor. I dont really understand it? Could you elaborate?

Tutorials may seem like a simple fix. But can you really expect a box of text to explain every detail and neccesary mechanic in the game? What i found to be mediocre choice in spore was the tutorials. In the cellular stage to the creature stage The game is straight forward enough and the player learns how to play naturally. But for some reason they decide to give the player useless text that really doesnt serve much purpose. The tutorial is only really meaningful when the tribal stage, civil stage, and space stage arrive. As at that point the mechanics change from “find food, makes babies. Get stronger, repeat” to more complex things that the player will need to learn quicker.

While thrive on the otherhand. if each stage is complex its going to bombard the player with text and leave them a bit confused. Dont get me wrong. tutorials will work and will do a good job. Its just that its going to feel like the player is bombarded with text that just complicates things. Over the alternative which is more natural and fluid. Mmos are full of tutorials which can make the game seem far too linear while another gane like minecraft sort of nudges you in the right direction without giving you any real tutorial and thats one of the reasons minecraft was so popular.

Im getting a bit tired now. Ive got exams to study for and am spending all my time awake at night on a games forums. Ill gladly discuss more with you in a few hours though! Alright. See you soon

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never mind

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image
image
jesus

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First of all I’d like to say that the goal of Thrive is to be a fun game about evolution that is also scientifically accurate.
I can’t speak for everyone, but to me the plans as I understand them will have a lot of depth and realism in them, but it is also possible for it to be a fun game at the same time.

And regarding the scope, it is definitely huge, but there is no rush in finishing the game. If there is a steady supply of new developers thrive can go on for the next two decades and just then start nearing completion. Thrive is an open source project that, even if everyone on the team left right now, it could be continued by developers who have passion about this topic.

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Thrive’s goal seems to be somewhat vague from what i can read about from your description. I can understand that the community wants this game to be scientifically accurate and fun at the same time. Ive wanted that too infact. But instead of asking what thrives goal was. I think i should have really asked about how. How Will you be able to find a good spot for the game to land on the spectrum of realism and game enjoyability? Beta testing? And if so how do you expect casual gamers with no idea how to play this game to give genuine feedback? And the rest of the community that knows how to play this game will be far too biased when it comes to feedback. You can already see how hard the game is based on the words of some people in the community.
Of course while the difficulty of the game is related back to its complexity. Its something diffrent that can be changed without changing the core mechanics. And while thrive is scientifically accurate.(which in my opinion is a good and bad thing). Can you please tell me what is so fun about swimming around and eating pools of color? The only fun thing i can confidently say i enjoyed was the creature creator. And i dont even know why.

Edit:
I just read the 16th devblog about realism. So disregard some of my statements. M

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We are working on making things more fun for 0.4.0

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I cant wait to see what this community makes.

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So I like the way this game really involves the community, while still in the earliest stages of development. We can help to sculpt and evolve the evolution game lol