Trove: Scott's Trion on voxels

Caliane_sl said:

then why aren't you making modules/mods in skyrim, Neverwinter online, sc2, dragon age, shadowrun, etc? "dev tools", campaign building tools, and SDK's for building worlds are available in a TON of games.
I think the simplicity of minecraft/terraria is a huge part of its appeal. or at least it starts simply, and you add the complexity.

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That's a bit of a silly argument. For a variety of reasons. For instance, I have a full time job and my free time is limited. I simply don't have time to get down and dirty with these games, while the dev tools in Landmark will be integrated into the core gameplay. However, the most important reason would probably be that those games do not interest me in the least, hence why I am not playing them or discussing them on forums related to those games. I also think the simplicity of Minecraft and Terraria are awesome, which is why they already exist and are already played by many many people. If I want simplicity, there is already a market out there for it, and it is already saturated. I mean Terraria just went through a complete revamp, and Minecraft always has new and interesting things going on in the many mods available for it. If you don't care for the building aspect you can play CubeWorld, or one of the other many voxel based adventure games out there.

That said, I'm sure there is appeal for it out there, but I agree with youtube downvotes on this one, not needed imo. It feels like a couple of devs saw the EQNext reveal, played around with some concepts to see if they could make voxels work, and claimed they made an awesome and interesting game. So again, I might be their target audience, but I'm just not interested.

but I'm also assuming there isn't a whole lot of money behind it so maybe they weighted the risk vrs reward and saw it pretty low.

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I agree with this.

this is turning into a Trion thread but I never tried defiance how is that game doing ?

Wild guess would be it's abysmal failure drove the company to the brink of collapse and had negative repercussions for all their projects (End of Nations and that korean import MIA/retooled, people laid off, etc). I think they are floating solely on F2P Rift right now.

Dahkoht_sl said:

It's stupid to not expect them to look like a small brother copying big brother and compared as so.

SOE just went through the media blitz with pc gamer articles to the live stream and so on for a mmo with the EQ name that has folks building their own shit.

Trion then follows suit at the same time in a much smaller way at the same time ( and obviously far behind).

It just comes off as pathetic , because when the little brother tries to copy and say " hey I can do it look at me too" it's cute , when a business does it it shows desperation.

Which is sad because I like Hartsman.

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this is just silly logic.

how is this any different from Hearthstone or Dota2?
Or any of the other clones there of? or what about diablo and its clones?
or every 3d shooter after doom.

Perception matters alot, and what Dahkoht wrote is exactly what I thought when I first read about this. Mind you, if Trion had put out word about their game first I would be thinking the same about Landmark, but the announcements of forging ahead into a new genre mix so close together had me shake my head. If it matters, I think heroes of the storm comes across pretty weak too, Blizzard being late and trying to jump onto a running train that came from their own station a decade ago is funny.

I'm sure there we lots of people that will enjoy Trove, but it just seems so 'middle of the road' to me. I'm not sure what niche it's supposed to fill exactly. The RPG aspect doesn't seem like it will be robust enough to draw the MMO crowd, and the world building doesn't seem like it will differentiate itself enough from the MineCrafts/CubeWorlds to draw that crowd.

I think they could have done a lot more with this idea. Landmark atleast has the eventual goal of allowing people to create their own MMO worlds by giving players developer tools - and this type of game seems PERFECT for that. There's not much art requirement, the worlds are large, can be procedurally generated, etc.

All this when all we really need is a good MMO where the community can add content... they just can't seem to get the first part right.

Faddor_sl said:

Yeah, those fucking idiots. How dare they share some design characteristics with an unreleased game, which may never go gold, from a franchise who has pretty much written the book on failing to deliver on all sequel and expansion promises?

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I'll try to wade through your sarcasm to say that there isn't anything wrong with making games with similar designs. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone upset over that.

The problem is that typically, if you want to copy someone's design, you want to make itbetter. From what I see of Trove (haven't played it) it doesn't appear to be improving on anything voxel related already proposed. Destructible environments? Woo. We've got that already. There isn't anything being presented in Trove that looks better than EQL/N or Minecraft, or is that just my opinion?

Point is, if you're going to waste time and resources to launch a game, why not go with something different? Otherwise you look like what Trion does right now.. a company full of copycats. And Blizzard already proved to competitors in Asia what happens when you make copycats of something, people just stick with the original.

This game doesn't seem poised to pull anyone who's interested in EQL/N away. I don't think anyone who supported Cube World as a small indie would like it very much and give Trion much money after what looks like a heist. And Minecraft players.. what does anyone who plays Minecraft for years already gain when they already got worlds they can go around in?

Again, Trion has every right to waste money. We've seen them do it already with Defiance. And Warface. And End of Nations. But sheesh...

Iannis_sl said:

I'd be surprised is this genre of game took off the way that SEO and apparently Trion are expecting that it might.

Minecraft strikes me more like a deviantart platform for a different type. Some really great stuff there and all, but I don't see how you turn this into a corporate moneymaker.

I mean you'll be able to make some money just offering the service. There will be enough sustained interest for that. But not the kind of money that these guys hope/expect/want to make. It's just not there.

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It's clear from a interview Hartsman gave three months ago he believes this. He says he thinks there is room for Trion to make big budget mmos as well as smaller projects like this that can be profitable.

Imo, I don't think that's true. The Minecraft type games are exactly what you say, good fun stuff to muck around in but it's not like a mmo. In mmos, someone pays a fee (or F2P) but they spend their entire time leveling characters up a tree or to endgame, try out different raids, etc. Perhaps some crafting. But every game they do this with, it's a brandnewexperience for the most part. A new story, new character style/art, quests, etc from the developer. Even if they are kill 10 rats, it's slightly different.

With a Minecraft type game,youare supposed to make all the content which means it comes out of your head. So when you play in one Minecraft game you probably pushed out 90-95% of every interesting thing you ever wanted to make in that game already. So going to a new Minecraft clone with a clean slate, you build the same stuff you already did in the last one? (most) people aren't that creative to fill a brand new Minecraft up with content all over again.

Maybe there's the hitch that you can see other people's worlds but again, you're probably going to go with the well-established one with the worlds already made.

Convo_sl said:

Seems like a waste tbh but I'm also assuming there isn't a whole lot of money behind it so maybe they weighted the risk vrs reward and saw it pretty low.

My thing with Trion is I was hoping they would take on bigger or more niche ideas. After rift they seem to have taking a huge step back. This was an unanticipated project so hopefully they have something else cooking. Id like to see them take a crack at a more traditonal old school mmo. Go after the slice of the pie nobody wants and own it.

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Hartsman said they have several other games in development or words to that effect 3 months ago.

Scott Hartsman on the Future of Trion Worlds a Interviews at MMORPG.com

Finally we came to the big question: are there games being made at Trion we don't yet know about, or is the company focused more on "partnering" as they have with XLGAMES' ArcheAge? To this Scott said, "We're doing both. Yes, there are new games we're making internally that we can't quite talk about yet. There are also games we're looking at bringing into our fold as we have with ArcheAge. And that's a big part of my job now, is finding these new opportunities and what might fit well within our culture moving forward."

.......

Prying a little more, I asked about the unannounced upcoming projects. When will we learn more about these mystery games? "Frankly, it's too early to talk about them just yet," he said. "But we are working on new things. It's just our focus right now needs to be getting our current stable on track and making them shine." I then asked if he thought the company's future games would be al F2P? What's the "best model" for a company like Trion? To which Scott had a lot to offer:

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Teekey_sl said:

and the world building doesn't seem like it will differentiate itself enough from the MineCrafts/CubeWorlds to draw that crowd.

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One of my concerns is how transient the world seems. One of the cool things I always enjoy in Minecraft is wondering off to see the cool things other people have built. Having neighbors that I could lend a hand too or would help me with something. With the constantly shifting worlds it doesn't really seem this game will have anything like that.

shabushabu_sl said:

this is turning into a Trion thread but I never tried defiance how is that game doing ?

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Do yourself a favor and just get into the Destiny beta.

It can't be that much worse than Defiance as it is right now.

There will be no wood elfs to run train on.

Caliane_sl said:

this is just silly logic.

how is this any different from Hearthstone or Dota2?
Or any of the other clones there of? or what about diablo and its clones?
or every 3d shooter after doom.

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My guess is, that Hearthstone doesn't look EXACTLY like D and D CCG games and LoL doesn't look EXACTLY like DoTA.

No denying Trove looks exactly like Cube World. The only difference is the cel type shading look.

This is a Big Mac:



This is a Big King:



Now do you see the problem?

It's a mistake to try to compare this to EQNL as they clearly are targeting different platforms. They must want this game to be compatible with all mobile devices which is the likely reason they are sticking with the lego look. This would run on any Android / iOS device, EQNL obviously will not. I haven't played a ton of Minecraft, but from the little I have played I find it hard to believe you couldn't implement more tools into the engine that could make it a more fulfilling and less limited experience. You really can't tell from a 2-minute video what types of new tools they might be implementing.

EQNL is fighting for a different pie with its current competition being Project Spark, and Titan? I know Titan was "cancelled," but there's no way Blizzard isn't working on something like that. More likely they just weren't happy with the way it was progressing and did a reset, but yeah that is probably years off. This tier of "complete game-builder" games is going to be the next big thing. Minecraft was just a limited stepping stone. I'd put my money that the next truly great MMO will be born of one of these tools in a way we can't even yet fully see because they are going to bring together so many imaginative minds that otherwise would have no window into the world of game creation.

interesting that reddit is their official discussion forum, but the subreddit only has 422 subs as of today (11/16). I kinda feel bad for Trion, they remind me of the hot chick in high school who everyone wanted to fuck, but 10 years later at the high school reunion she is fat, works at Mcdonalds, and always talks about senior prom. Of course thats like 90% of the eq thread posters here too

It would be cool if they release this before EQN, I signed up for alpha at least i don't have to fucking pay for that privilege