Friday Facts #356 - Blueprint library for real

[NIronwolf]

Looks like it hasn't been mentioned. If we can Shift-Scroll through BPs, could we possibly Control-Scroll to the top of each nested BP book itself?

[PunkSkeleton]

Greatest FF ever. Return of The King!

Game is a game, feature is a feature. But that's not features and graphics that made this game great. Not technical side of the game (I still think that single threaded update, even for pathfinding is just... meh). It is the mindset of the team that makes Factorio a great game. The goal to just make a great game and then maybe make money out of it. Not the other way around.

[nafira]

@Kovarex: Do you realize that factorio lacks a soul? It doesn't give you purpose. Instead it is a learning experience and becomes useless afterwards. There is no infinite replay value unless you become stuck in your development. You reached the next level by playing the game through your son. One day, not so far in the future (though it might be many years on the calendar) he, too, will leave it behind and look for something else. This is the way of life. You had a dream and you realized your dream. You were consumed by your dream but then you were empty. This may be the first time that you experience this but it won't be the last time. Don't fear these moments of emptiness, instead, enjoy them because then you are close to nothingness while still being alive and able to see things how they really are. Now finish the game and move on.

There is less aggressive way to advise him to let Factorio live as is, and move on to another project to find new challenges ?
I let Factorio behind after 750h (rounded), because I never found a friend attracted to it. So I'm missing half of the game.

Also, building Factorio, and playing Factorio are two different things. Don't throw him a massive boulder when you missed the point.

[ske]

There is less aggressive way to advise him to let Factorio live as is, and move on to another project to find new challenges ?
I let Factorio behind after 750h (rounded), because I never found a friend attracted to it. So I'm missing half of the game.

Also, building Factorio, and playing Factorio are two different things. Don't throw him a massive boulder when you missed the point.

It's quite hard to keep going for so long. It's hard to finish and let go. If you look back, you'll be glad that you finished something. As a player just losing interest is easy. Usually there is no big gain just playing through a long game as a player. There are many games you can play. As the creator it's different. This one game is your creation. Very few games are as polished as factorio is now. Everything is coming together very well. To really judge the progress you always need fresh players who see it for the first time. Most people here have seen it many times and are already "consumed" by it or "done" with it. I think that factorio represents a transition in personal development. I was hoping that it would turn into some kind of "epic" thing that repeats forever but it didn't. This is ok for me. Take it for what it is and not for what it's not.

I'm hoping that there will be a time for factorio after 1.0. Either some people (who like to do it) working on improvements and some working on new maps/game modes. Maybe a vibrant ecosystem of fun mods that lives on for decades. It could be something that kovarex is just overseeing like some kind of gardener. Maybe he really needs some time off to regain new ideas and most of the team will do other stuff at other companies in the meantime. That's ok. Some may come back when the next great idea has ripened.

One way ahead that i see is that factorio is actually a game engine that other people can use to tell their stories. I think the team right now is perfect for this. Factorio 1.0 is currently putting shackles to the story. After it is released the time is ready to tell another story.

[vsvasya]

Blueprint mirroring feature is also extremely awaited

[kulib]

Thank you, Kovarex, for sharing such personal story.
Also, danm you, Kovarex, I spent 20 minutes in your version of 2048 instead of trying to sleep... also, I got to laser turret!

[bourne327]

Michal, I have never felt so proud of someone I don't know. Your story is fantastic and your vision for Wube is solid!

[Sir3n]

Thank you kovarex for sharing your struggles with us.
It's very heartwarming to see your son giving you the motivation to work on the game once more.

Placing blueprints from the map is really nice.
Will save lots of running around while also avoiding the frustration of mispositioning things by one square.

[nafira]

There is less aggressive way to advise him to let Factorio live as is, and move on to another project to find new challenges ?
I let Factorio behind after 750h (rounded), because I never found a friend attracted to it. So I'm missing half of the game.

Also, building Factorio, and playing Factorio are two different things. Don't throw him a massive boulder when you missed the point.

It's quite hard to keep going for so long. It's hard to finish and let go. If you look back, you'll be glad that you finished something. As a player just losing interest is easy. Usually there is no big gain just playing through a long game as a player. There are many games you can play. As the creator it's different. This one game is your creation. Very few games are as polished as factorio is now. Everything is coming together very well. To really judge the progress you always need fresh players who see it for the first time. Most people here have seen it many times and are already "consumed" by it or "done" with it. I think that factorio represents a transition in personal development. I was hoping that it would turn into some kind of "epic" thing that repeats forever but it didn't. This is ok for me. Take it for what it is and not for what it's not.

I'm hoping that there will be a time for factorio after 1.0. Either some people (who like to do it) working on improvements and some working on new maps/game modes. Maybe a vibrant ecosystem of fun mods that lives on for decades. It could be something that kovarex is just overseeing like some kind of gardener. Maybe he really needs some time off to regain new ideas and most of the team will do other stuff at other companies in the meantime. That's ok. Some may come back when the next great idea has ripened.

One way ahead that i see is that factorio is actually a game engine that other people can use to tell their stories. I think the team right now is perfect for this. Factorio 1.0 is currently putting shackles to the story. After it is released the time is ready to tell another story.

See
Not hard to be nice to somebody

I agree with you, with these words (not the previous ones). He, and the team made an extraordinary deep and well polished game. It's time to release it.
There will always be something to enhance or change. Don't lose your sanity on it.

[dee-]

Thanks for sharing this story! Now I ponder letting my 4 yr olds play some Factorio as well maybe...

Here are some other games they enjoy:
- Putt-putt series from the 90s in the SCRUM adventure style of Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island, and with lots funny interactive elements and child-friendly game-play: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt-Putt_(series)
- Snipperclips on the Nintendo Switch is a sweet little multiplayer logic puzzle game where you cut each other into fitting shapes or balance or bounce objects as you soon figure out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipperclips
- 2048 was a big hype a few years back and has obviously cooled off, but the game-play is simple and addictive still, as well as many clients available for mobile and all platforms, or even just playable via website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2048_(video_game)

Really need a metacritic of sorts with recommendations for different child's ages. Not only video-games but books and tv-shows and all..

Thanks for recommendations. Btw, you probably missed this http://kovarex.com/2048/

Score: 2668

[Serenity09]

thanks for sharing some of your ups and downs on the game. you've all given us so many enjoyable moments in this game, and that's more than enough for me

i love the new blueprint library ux, it adds a fun top down strategy element for me

[Warteks]

It takes a lot of guts to admit that world of warcraft has deteriorated your life. It cost my brother 10k in student loans, and a friend of mine a marriage. I wasted a good 9 months on it before I said WTF am I doing??? So kudos for escaping the trap. My brother is currently enrolled in a university in England for understanding psychology and brain activity for game addiction. This is how much the realization that the game ruined his life had on him.

P.S. Glad you didn't sell anything. The world needs more real game developers and less robotized conglomerates.

Oh and my son just turned 5. We enjoy just about anything on pbskids.org. The pbskids games app for tablets is awesome and add free. I never have to worry about him clicking on some advert that popped up and installing some crap or getting lost in translation. There's a few I really liked, one that you create a structure with struts to exist on mars or wherever to weather a meteor storm. And another where you build your downhill derby car, but its kinda a bumpy obstacle course so you have to think about counterweights and wheel placement. Kids are amazing.

[ske]

It takes a lot of guts to admit that world of warcraft has deteriorated your life.

To me it reads differently. Yes, he spent some weeks of time with WoW but it doesn't sound to me that it was a lasting addiction. That time with WoW actually relieved him of his factorio addiction. If anything, it made him realize that it lost its purpose and meaning to him. It is normal that people become super interested in some topic for some time, even to the point of addiction where it controls your life. The normal path is that you slowly and then suddenly lose interest in it. If it gave you a lot of joy there comes a time where you feel empty and can't find equivalent joy in other things. This lasts a bit but then it also goes away and you become normal again. The thing with the factorio project is that it's also his masterpiece and gives jobs to quite a few people. If you need to force yourself to go back to work every day and smile even though you are disgusted at times takes a lot of energy and can even destroy people. The difficult part is to push through this and to bring it to a good end or to hand it off to somebody else who can take care of it. After some time, interest may come back or it doesn't, only time will tell.

[exi123]

Am i the only one who wouldnt care if Wube Studios would go a bit more corporate? There are stil some open fields to "milk" the game after the 1.0 release. It is well deserved, the pricetag for the game was always more than fair.

There is a big difference in having to spend money to get all content which was cut out during developmnet to sell it extra, or adding some afterwards just for a better and a more diverse playability. I guess a huge chunk of the playerbase is absolutely willing to pay some money for neat little extra content.

Or i say it the other way: I stil want my bridges or tunnels...

[Amarula]

a bit more corporate?

Is that like a little bit pregnant?

[Illiou]

Could you apply the descrition box for combinators ? So each placed combinator have option to add a description what is his role. It is years asked feature, mainly to prevent re-invent wheel feel, when come back to old/imported scheme. The blueprint of an combinator creation have to contain (potentinaly) descritiption for each combinator.

Yes please! After I just used an a few months old blueprint of mine and realized I have so little understanding of the combinators left that I basically cannot make any changes without reinventing it, I second that even more than before.

[TOGoS]

I know the burnout feeling! I think a lot of it has to do with losing focus and not really knowing what to work on anymore. Having a partner (your kid, in this case) who approaches the project from another angle (like developing content, just playing it, or getting on your case about inefficiencies in the code (thanks Rseding)) can help highlight specific things that need attention and get you back on track. Actually one of the reasons I drifted away from Factorio last year was that my main sub-project was kind of done, and it just wasn't clear what I should be working on anymore. I wanted to add mountains or large natural walls of some sort (for 'adventure mode'), but got frustrated when tiles didn't work like I wanted (all the tile transition logic made adding new tiles complicated!), and it didn't seem like anyone else on the team was too into the idea. It was much easier to throw my hands up and go outside and do gardening. Well, that, and I didn't have any friends to play the game with the same way I like to play it (I like to build compact little self-contained factories with windy belts around lakes and forests and then over-engineer defense systems). So the fun of it had been replaced by anxiety.

Anyway, offtopic: I had a dream that I was visiting the office in Prague. Kovarex asked me to adjust the 'water level' to be lower farther from the starting point, which was an easy enough change. Though I suggested raising the land instead of lowering the water so that there wouldn't be ugly waterfalls at the point where round(water_level) changed (because in the dream I was mixing up Factorio and Minecraft). There were a couple of 'ambience' rooms in the office where you could sit and listen to music. I told Twinsen/Klnonan (who seemed to have merged into a single person for dream purposes) that I preferred the one that was playing Psychill.

[Cyclonut]

Great story about human's/Kovarex's struggles to improve automation and about the happy ending with your son and having you back with the game/WUBE. I just hope that once the robots take over our lives, in the future, they will be kind to us and remember your hard work/toil to get there!

[NotRexButCaesar]

Looks like it hasn't been mentioned. If we can Shift-Scroll through BPs, could we possibly Control-Scroll to the top of each nested BP book itself?

Yeah: this would be really nice. If this were so, one would be able to put blueprints in “categories”: rail blueprints is one book, and in that book we have the modular network, the station components, the special components (penalties et cetera).

[NotRexButCaesar]

Am i the only one who wouldnt care if Wube Studios would go a bit more corporate? There are stil some open fields to "milk" the game after the 1.0 release. It is well deserved, the pricetag for the game was always more than fair.

There is a big difference in having to spend money to get all content which was cut out during developmnet to sell it extra, or adding some afterwards just for a better and a more diverse playability. I guess a huge chunk of the playerbase is absolutely willing to pay some money for neat little extra content.

Or i say it the other way: I stil want my bridges or tunnels...

You mean the spidertron dlc?