Friday Facts #321 - Countdown

[valneq]

Difference here is: Factorio's existence is not a secret. Nobody would accuse them of copying ideas from Satisfactory or Automation Empire

[Inari]

Not sure I'm reading that right,

I read it as, my prototype from 20 years ago is still running, i was 17 years into the testing when some crappy version of a similar thing went on the market, winning prizes and money, before it appears that it was buggy and unstable on the long run ( because not enough test ? ). Now people think i just copied something that is known for poor quality and won't even try my thing.

It is very different understanding ( and also a sad story ).

The comparaison with factorio would be: you could spend 20 years to make a very polished game and you nice enough to keep price low while in the meantime other people put their crappy games 1 year developement at the same price and in 20 years you might buy 2 because you can forget what it is to play crappy game a decade after you bought the first one.

Not even talking about sport simulation, Pay 2 win, and other disguised betting scheme but those do score "wins" sadly, sometimes even just surprisingly. In this view factorio would be the inspiring sucessful underdog .

Still... using up 17 years for some prototype doesn't sound exactly like time well-spent

[mmmPI]

Still... using up 17 years for some prototype doesn't sound exactly like time well-spent

I admit it sounds a lot of time. But, i can imagine for a new cheese receipe that you make you will need to wait for the ripening, and only after you will know if the new ingredient was a good idea or not. In this case i guess you want to test several cheese at the same time.

I guess the problem sounds different when we talk about prosthesis, or video-games when some people would prefer having a wonky thing rather than nothing at all.

Difference here is: Factorio's existence is not a secret. Nobody well-informed would accuse them of copying ideas from Satisfactory or Automation Empire

I added a word to fully agree .

The implication of the secret for testing the new cheese receipe are not very important for most people. But secrecy when developping prosthesis for example is quite a philosophical question: Do you tell people you are experimenting a new promising thing ? What if it doesn't work and people are in despair ? What if someone steal your idea and it prooved to be a good idea that helps plenty ? When do you tell people you have something that function ? when it's 80% sure ? 90% ? What if you realise after 10 years that it has very strong harmful effect on long term ? What do you tell people ? what would you like to be told ? can you even know ?

I guess video-games in between the 2 cheese/medicine. It is taken more seriously than cheese on average, by more people, but it is not life-enabler. Also the money at stake is probably not the same but it doesn't always matter and in this case it could also be roughly the same amount for all i know.

Factorio has this "game like factorio" thread, like you can test other cheese, there's some day you'd want this one in particular

[AndrewIRL]

September next year? Madness. Stick a '1.0' label on it, and ship it, it's beautiful right now, as it is. I'd rather be buying the first expansion DLC in September next year than watch you wonderful people gild the lily ad infinitum!

Second this!

Third this!

[MrBuisson]

DId no one realized why the countdown was announced during this specific FFF ? Or was it a coincidence?
I mean FFF 3,2,1 - countdown should have been obvious ???

[conn11]

Nice observation

[Oktokolo]

DId no one realized why the countdown was announced during this specific FFF ? Or was it a coincidence?
I mean FFF 3,2,1 - countdown should have been obvious ???

It is a nice coincidence - but are you sure, that it proves causation?

[MrBuisson]

DId no one realized why the countdown was announced during this specific FFF ? Or was it a coincidence?
I mean FFF 3,2,1 - countdown should have been obvious ???

It is a nice coincidence - but are you sure, that it proves causation?

Common, they were trying not that long ago to get something cool for the PI FFF so it cannot be totaly excluded. At the very least, you shouldn't underestimate the subconsient of a programmer !
That appart, I totally understand the impact of per capita cheese consumption. I mean, you got the graph
Got a good laugth with your link

[Oktokolo]

At the very least, you shouldn't underestimate the subconsient of a programmer !

As a programmer, i know that.

That appart, I totally understand the impact of per capita cheese consumption. I mean, you got the graph

I find the correlation between "US spending on science, technology, space" vs. "suicides by hanging, strangulation, suffocation" way more disturbing. You know that there a pretty costly plans for establishing a base on the moon...

[paulcsiki]

Some feedback on the release. I've tried to promote the game to lot of my friends and while they are smart people they simply gave up on the game as they felt like there was just too much going on in too little time while playing the first "scenario" then they tried free play and they found it even more overwhelming. I think that the onboarding experience should be polished a bit by having guided steps on how to grow the base in the first scenario, something like here's how to do a basic smelter, now you do it so you cover this much output / second so we can build this dependency to ultimately go to this. Progressive disclosure of the game would be key.

-Paul

[valneq]

[…] I think that the onboarding experience should be polished a bit by having guided steps on how to grow the base in the first scenario, something like here's how to do a basic smelter, now you do it so you cover this much output / second so we can build this dependency to ultimately go to this. Progressive disclosure of the game would be key.

Have you/they tried the current new player experience (introduction campain) since the release of 0.17.0 experimental?
Your description is very close to its current state. It was discussed in detail in the FFFs 257, 284, 298, and 306. Spoiler warning, in case you have not actually played it yet.
The longer term plan for a new campaign was discussed in FFFs 248 and 291 and it comes fairly close to what you describe, too.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Just to belatedly reply re: my faffing about with a prototype for so long. The concept was to mimic nature, which (at least previously) takes care of itself. This was not created for making money, but solving problems. Efficiency is a big deal. To an accountant it means more $$; to a game developer more speed; to me in this regard: a way forward for several industries. Comments that my attempts at efficiency were rather inefficient are correct.

I wanted a thing that not only 'ran itself', but continued to do so. Built in obsolescence might be within the rules, but it's shitty business behavior. If I was to transfer this pet project to a marketable project I wanted to get it right. But surely, at five or even ten years I should have been confident enough to say that it was pretty darn good. Perfectionism: Good in some cases, crippling in others.

All those years observing and measuring a prototype (rock steady) were not entirely wasted I had a life outside of this. A few tests are a minimal demand on my time. But it still hurt to see a crappy version hit the market, get lauded, rewarded, etc. I don't even care about the loss of income till the bills mount up, then it hurts. My business acumen is very poor because I just don't care about the rat race or having an Instagram personality. I like solving stuff. Using my Aspie superpowers.

Factorio team certainly can't be pipped at the post by someone with the same game released earlier, but a new game inspired by it might well hit the finish line while they were napping (being excellent). This game is such a great game and the work and narrative surrounding it is also top notch. I'd like to see others blown away by such an example, not Factorio tucked away by an unscrupulous corporate market grab.

Maybe it's just my own experience has made me paranoid.