Hello everyone! Welcome to the eighth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! If you missed the seventh issue you can view it here: https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=196663331 As you can see, we've now switched to posting the weekly newsletters with RoVerse_Official, since it's only fitting the official RoVerse account posts the official RoVerse threads. Now, on to the newsletter itself: It has been yet another fantastic week for the RoVerse project, we have been gaining so much publicity as of late! Our Twitter has been drawing many new people to RoVerse, so we've set up a Twitch account and have been livestreaming almost everyday, follow us and watch us build RoVerse live: www.twitch.tv/roverse_official Many very well-known ROBLOXians have been giving their support for the project, including Stickmasterluke, Merely, and Blobmista. We have so many great builders on our team now and with each of us working on our individual areas, we've ended up with quite a long list of newly built designs. Take a look at all of these new ships! We're racking up quite a vast collection of environmental assets now! With all of these and more, we'll be making sure your travels through space never get repetitive. Here we have the interior of the industrial player outposts. Picture you and your crewmates advancing through these abandoned structures, searching for valuable items while scanning for hidden dangers that might lurk around any corner. And we've even got the first in-game outfit finished too, with some very nice renders. Progress is being made on the flight mechanics every day, both hull and shield systems are now fully functional and very soon we'll be ready for our first public tests! Keep an eye out for our next livestream build, where we discuss planned features over voice chat and answer your questions in the chat, be sure to check it out! Once again, thank you all for your continued support, we're working every day to bring the collective dreams of the clan world to life, so every bit of support counts. Hello everyone! Welcome to the seventh issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! If you missed the sixth issue you can view it here: https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=196134080 Wow, it's been a great week for us - so much going on! Hardly know where to start... We've gained many new developers on our team, most recent being Vido_Santiago who has already transformed the equipment dealer section of the station, and that's only his first hour on the job! He's not the only one has been busy, as the rest of our builders have been making great progress creating the physical assets of RoVerse. Here you can see two new fighters, the first being a light fighter and the second, a medium fighter: These are just two of the many different fighter variations you'll be able to pilot in the upcoming Dogfight Alpha. In preparation for the Alpha we've been working hard to give you an exhilarating battleground to commence your dogfights throughout and find who the best pilots really are. The Alpha will take place within a war-torn debris field, a graveyard filled with giant hulking wrecks of aeons past, and once again this place will play host to the carnage of battle. Many different elements work together to create as immersive a world as possible and truly bring the clan world to life. Along with all of these physical assets we combine many different GUI images to ensure as high a performance as possible - RoVerse isn't just for people with perfect internet connections and super computers! The end result, is something we hope you'll enjoy playing for yourselves: We've also been getting a lot of scripting functions done for handling player travel between star systems which exist as separate ROBLOX Universes, which are then sorted into separate servers when the player count requires it. A new Developer Diary has been released! This chapter is all about space stations which those of you who have been following us through development will know a lot about from the previous newsletter. Thank you everyone for all the support and believing in this project, it wouldn't be possible without you! If you want to keep up to date, don't forget to follow our Twitter @RoVerse_ROBLOX for the latest on development progress! Hello everyone! Welcome to the sixth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! If you missed the fifth issue you can view it here: https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=195553270 Summer vacations! Lots of us have been out with our families enjoying the Summer over the past week, so for this newsletter I will talk a bit about how stations will work in the world of RoVerse. Unlike player-made outposts which are built by wealthy pilots, stations can only be built by the 'government' of a nation, that being the leaders of a clan. When expanding into a new star system, a clan can choose from a selection of four different types of stations to construct as their economic focus in that system. The four different station types are: Refinery, Shipyard, Farm and Research stations. Each of these stations both produce and require commodities specific to their station's purpose. The commodities produced are sold cheap and commodities needed are bought high, the overall economic system works a bit like rock-paper-scissors in that each station type relies on the other to play its part in the nation's economy. Refineries buy raw ore that players mine from asteroid fields and produce construction materials. Shipyards buy construction materials and produce machinery parts. Farms buy machinery parts and produce energy cells. Research stations buy energy cells and progress research development on new technologies for the nation to use and sell to their pilots across all of their stations. Of course all station still buys all sorts of commodities but these are the ones vital to a nation's progression in the universe, both economically and technologically. An extremely important aspect of choosing which sort of station to build is the location. Refineries benefit from being in star systems with asteroid fields, as it means less distance for miners to travel to sell their mined ore. Shipyards benefit from being in star systems that are closer to your core territories where your nation's ships are safe to manufactured away from hostile raiding parties. Farms benefit from being in star systems near your shipyards where they can get a healthy supply of vital machinery parts to maintain food and energy growth. Research stations benefit from being in star systems with unusual environmental anomalies for scientists to use for study, such as ion storms, black holes, radioactive nebulae, xeno worlds and even binary or tertiary stars. Regardless of the type, all stations offer the numerous standard services to pilots who visit them: a ship dealer, equipment dealer, commodities market and clothing stores along with repair and rearm facilities at all docking ports. Also the basic station design offers (not entirely legally) a rather hazardous and challenging race track for those who pride themselves on their fine-tuned piloting skills: Clans will be able to design the unique style and architecture of their nation's stations however just like ships and equipment there will be regulations in order to maintain fair play and enjoyment for all sides. Even with developers on Summer vacations, we've still managed to make progress over the week with our space flight mechanics which I will be uploading a video of to our Twitter sometime tomorrow! We hope you enjoyed this little insight into the mechanics of RoVerse's world and we look forward to bringing you more very soon! Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! If you missed the fourth issue you can view it here: https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=194981973 Finally got around to creating an official Twitter account "RoVerse_ROBLOX", be sure to follow it for the latest updates on the project's development! Flight mechanics are really starting to come together, especially the cinematic camera movements and smooth directional control: More progress on the physical assets of RoVerse, not as much as usual due to some developers moving to college however progress will be back to normal for next week This is the very early WIP version of what will be the clothing shop on board stations, where you can browse a wide variety of clothes from clean civilian jumpsuits, to shady smuggler trenchcoats, to bulky military armour. And now here's the Q&A section that we talked about in last week's issue: Q1: What restrictions/how will clans be able to make their own customised ships? A1: When we reach the stage of accepting clans into RoVerse, we will be publishing a model of a cube that will designate the maximum dimensions of a ship, within it will be another cube which will designate the minimum dimensions of a ship. The ships that clans design will need to have 40 or less unions in total in order to ensure performance. These designs will need to fit the architecture and 'feel' of the clan they represent, for example ships belonging to WIJ would be light grey with blue rather than jet black with red. When we receive designs from a clan, our builders will go over it to ensure it meets the specifications as well as refine it to be up to par with the building quality of all other RoVerse ships. Q2: What will the requirements be for clans to have a "nation" on RoVerse? A2: There several requirements for clans to apply to join RoVerse, not all of these have been 100% finalised but some of them will be as follows: Clans will need to have a certain level of average daily activity, such as being able to gather at least 20 members each day and be hosting events regularly. Clans will need to be generally known in the clan world, doesn't have to be famous but known enough that the average clanner would have heard of the clan's name. Clans will need to prove they are culturally developed by designing their ships and equipment to be at least semi-original and not just be the 20th Helghast group, building the designs will also prove the clan has sufficient organisational skills and members with dedication. Q3: Is there a planned release date? A3: It's too early to say reliably but I'd estimate sometime during late Autumn/early Winter. However, we'll be releasing an arena-style public alpha test in roughly a month and an open sandbox style public beta test sometime after that. Q4: Will there be any place in RoVerse for clans that aren't sci-fi themed? A4: Initially RoVerse will only be for clans who are either sci-fi themed or willing to make use of space technology. However, as the game expands after official release, we plan to add gameplay support for all genres of clans after we add planetary gameplay. The reason RoVerse originates as a sci-fi game is because everything exists in space, so there's room for everyone, whereas if the game started off as a land territory game, there would be no room for space clans that shouldn't be all stuck on one single planet. It will take quite a while after the initial release but eventually there will be certain special planets that are 'quarantined' to preserve the natural habitat of the species on that planet. On these quarantined planets clans of all eras will be able to exist in their own worlds, whether that be a WWII style country, a medieval kingdom, an American Civil War era civilisation, or even tribal clans that hunt in the wild. 99% of the time these clans won't ever even know that there are vast space empires all around them (just like humanity in real life?). But there will be extremely-extremely rare occasions where their planet can be visited by a sci-fi player in their 'unidentified flying object' who will be able to draw some crop circles and even abduct a 'specimen' for whatever purposes they may have. Q5: Will we be able to land on planets and walk around cities and wilderness? A5: Yes, there will be planetary gameplay, however it won't be in the initial release of RoVerse. We don't want to take on more than we can handle in one go, and RoVerse is already a very big project, so for now we're going to keep it simple and build up from there. Q6: Will RoVerse's alpha tests be only for Vaktovians or open to everyone? A6: As this is a community project, everyone will be more than welcome to join in the alpha tests. In fact we're most likely going to keep the dogfight arena open as a long-term way for people to hone their flight skills in preparation for RoVerse as well as to hopefully give you guys a fun mini-game to enjoy while we build the full game. Q7: How will you stop RoVerse from becoming overwhelmed with people not from clans and turning into just a regular space game? A7: It's a pretty big concern of mine that RoVerse doesn't end up leaving clans behind if we get hit with a big popularity boost. To counter this, we're going to be designing the game so you have to be in a group that has joined RoVerse in order to make a character for the game. This way, new players will be 'raised' by the clan they join and hopefully learn how to be a good team player in the process. This should at the very least discourage front page "noobs", for the lack of a better term, from flooding in and rampaging mindlessly. We're hoping that RoVerse will bring clans back into the spotlight and attract a wave of fresh new players into our community by showing them the potential clan have always had since 2006. Q8: What sort of difficulty curve will RoVerse have, will there be any place for casual gamers or will it be all about spreadsheets like EVE Online? A8: When players join RoVerse for the first time we will have a helpful tutorial GUI that will get people set up and explain how everything works without being overly complicated. The gameplay itself isn't too demanding but fast paced dogfighting will have a lot to do with your skills as a pilot. Unlike a lot of games, only a portion of RoVerse is combat-orientated, so there are plenty of ways to enjoy the game for people who aren't interested in fighting, such as trading, mining, exploring, scavenging, or even scouting and supporting in combat which isn't as skill-demanding as direct dogfighting. These activities are all very to-the-point and none of them are overcomplicated with accountant-level details, we carefully balance functionality with simplicity, in every aspect of RoVerse from conquering star systems, to trading commodities, to dogfighting and flight controls. Q9: Will my old computer be able to play RoVerse or will it be super laggy? A9: Don't worry, we are taking every precaution with the development of RoVerse to ensure high performance for even players with low-end computers. Q10: Will owning certain star systems give perks to a nation? A10: Yes, the environments of the planets a faction controls will give perks, not stat perks but rather economic benefits. Alpha Prime, the star system which houses the spice planet, will generate spice as a commodity to the market on board the station and/or colony in that system. The spice is extremely expensive to buy from Alpha Prime but even more insanely valuable in the rest of the galaxy where spice cannot be manufactured. If a faction owns the bases where this spice is sold, they will reap massive profits from all the traders who purchase spice from them. This is similar for other planetary environments, for example a desert systems would buy water for a lot more than an oceanic system would. Economies are player-driven, so keep in mind that prices will change depending on how much a station needs a certain commodity and how rare it is in that part of the galaxy. Q11: Will RoVerse be pay-to-play or pay-to-win? A11: There won't be any gamepasses, as we don't want anyone to get an advantage of others just because they're richer. Nothing in RoVerse will require Robux or any other currency from outside of the game. Q12: Won't small nations that join RoVerse late and are only just starting out get crushed by the older bigger empires? A12: The way RoVerse's clan warfare has been planned out, small clans will still be able to stand up to bigger clans as long as they have skilled and dedicated fighter pilots. A small nation will always have an advantage defending their patch of land while a massive empire will have to face a lot more challenges in expanding into foreign territory. Thanks again everyone for all your support, please don't forget if you'd like to help RoVerse get noticed, to follow our Twitter and retweet our updates so your friends don't miss out! |
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AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |