Lo-Fi Games

Adventuring/basebuilding seems like a chore at the moment.
Is Kenshi intended to head in the direction of a world simulation?
Will there be a time when attitudes are per person instead of per faction etc?
It seems development is tightly focused on content stuff for now :s

It is early stages of beta and I believe I read that indeed characters will act on their own, but factions will play a major role as well.

Alpha*

NZJenkins wrote:Adventuring/basebuilding seems like a chore at the moment.
Is Kenshi intended to head in the direction of a world simulation?
Will there be a time when attitudes are per person instead of per faction etc?
It seems development is tightly focused on content stuff for now :s

kenshi will have a ton of stuff, itll play even like this at some time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6zO4yO8QVs

this game needs time and preparation, once Chris gets out the major features, no other game will compete, and DRM free as wel? shit man, with HIGH modability? Oh snap, watch out mount n blade, everything crapDRM'd on steam, all teh suck RTS games, C&C, etc. This game will out do em all once Chris focus's on getin teh major features out.

then maybe chris will allow us to mod nPC behavior... so I can add the number 1 and 2 headband to mah game and have all teh NPCs have a high priorty target for whoever have these items LOLOLOLOlololol

I know the game is in development. I just haven't seen much discussed about AI. I thought it would be done bottom up for each person but that doesn't seem to be how it is being done so far, though I don't know much about AI. It would be cool to hear what plans there are or how Chris is going to approach it because that seems to be where all the fun will be to me.

All i knwo about the AI, is from what Clawdius posted in a couple threads, mostly about walls, he sad they were going to be revamped, now more detials than that dk, except that with the ai revamp the walls would be back.

The FAQ says alot about AI, and this game being in alpha we must assume that some stuff are still not ingame.

Conclusion: Kenshi need time to be developed like any other game.

Chris has stated before, many times, that the AI will eventually be upgraded. As far as being a grind goes, there's actually several games that can be called such, even minecraft (in non-creative modes). The trick isn't removing any resemblance to grinding, but rather to find the right balance to make the game both addictive and fun.

Also: by definition, the game is in both alpha and beta testing phases.
Alpha = testing at the developer's site.
Beta = testing done by potential users at the users' sites.

That's not the definitions of Alpha and Beta, Alpha is generally a playable build missing many features, depending on the game style it can range anywhere from a Vertical Slice to Kenshi style sandbox.

Beta often refers to a build that is nearly feature complete, although still needs a lot of polish.

These terms though are used by every developer, and not every developer has the same idea of what they mean exactly. It's loose terminology, and by no means does an Alpha mean that it's on site testing, not real sure where you got that idea.

As for the AI overhaul, all we know for sure is that the pathing is undergoing a major revamp to properly react to player introduced obstacles like walls. However we've seen some AI updates that I am wont to assume spring from that source, such as character grabbing or filling the nearest appropriate container instead of going to the first built, etc. I'm thinking that, given Chris' work in the past, as he tore into it he saw more room for improvement and expanded the scope of the revamp, but that's just my take on why the walls haven't just been bandaged and reintroduced post haste.

Clawdius Talonious wrote:It's loose terminology, and by no means does an Alpha mean that it's on site testing, not real sure where you got that idea.

I got that from the actual definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing, http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/37674/alpha-test, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/alpha-testing. It really isn't as varied as you think it is.

Alpha testing is internal testing, usually done by the developer, and is done at the developer's site.
Beta testing is external testing done by potential users, and is done away from the developer's site.

Some of the other AI updates that have been promised by Chris are the warring facitons capable of taking eachother over, the traveling merchants being able to buy from your town, and I believe he also confirmed a greater survival instinct for all NPCs.

Well, I can name dozens of Kickstarter games that have "alpha access" available for some pledge tiers, and the entire process of iterative design begins with getting the earliest functional software into users hands so that they can expand the things users like, and work to address issues users have with software. The notion that an alpha only takes place at a developers studio is frankly outdated.

There are many teams of developers who don't even have a studio, and are on different continents from one another. I'm not going to argue semantics of software development vernacular, but the concept that alpha testing can only be done "on site" is more than a little silly. Your third link doesn't mention anything about on site testing, and seems to imply that anything other than the developers themselves testing things doesn't qualify as Alpha testing. Which is also a hilarious notion, when Valve is well known for having a large network of trusted friends and family who get to play with all sorts of software that never sees the light of day.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Tolwrath wrote: I got that from the actual definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing, http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/37674/alpha-test, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/alpha-testing.

wiki is never a valid sauce of information. I can edit it, you can edit it, anyone can edit it as long as they claim to know something.

In my opinion an Alpha can be anything from the earliest possible working form of the game (if the code works its basically a game without visuals), to the finished version of the game with bugs and very minor tweaks un attended to. (also known as the beta)
A game is never truly finished as there is always room for improvement

but thats my opinion anyway

islesofurth wrote: wiki is never a valid sauce of information.

You mean you prefer ketchup ?

Kehlian wrote:You mean you prefer ketchup ?

yeah i know my spelling sux
thats the problem when you live in a country that uses 1 type of english but computers use another, then being on the internet so much that you jsut use anything people can understand

Kehlian wrote:

islesofurth wrote: wiki is never a valid sauce of information.

You mean you prefer ketchup ?

Mustard way better!!!