Introduction
Today is one of the best days of my life. I believe that my colleagues feel it the same way.
The days when we release a major feature or announce a new game are the leading motivations of why we keep developing games. On days such as today, when we present something new and await feedback from our fans and community – that’s when we feel our bond with you increases :)
2014 was an exciting and challenging year, and that’s a combination we seek at Keen Software House. We were able to develop Space Engineers to a much more mature level, while also prototyping Medieval Engineers to be ready for today’s announcement. 2015 will be even more challenging (...developing two games in parallel...). That is how we like it :)
In this blog post I will talk about Medieval Engineers, why we decided to develop it and a little insight into its development history.
About Medieval Engineers
Medieval Engineers is our second game about engineering and construction. The first one was Space Engineers and it is still doing very well.
Medieval Engineers is inspired by real medieval technology and the way people built architectural works and mechanical equipment using medieval technology. Medieval Engineers strives to follow the laws of physics and real history and doesn't use technologies that were not available in the 5th to 15th century. Players build cities, castles and fortifications; construct mechanical devices and engines; perform landscaping and underground mining.
Medieval Engineers brings three major upgrades to our VRAGE engine: structural integrity, natural landscape and Physically Based Rendering.
Web: www.MedievalEngineers.com
Web: www.MedievalEngineers.com
Why Medieval Engineers when Space Engineers is still not finished?
We were expecting that many people would ask “why are they developing a new game when Space Engineers is still in development and not finished”?
First let me assure you that the development of Medieval Engineers hasn't had a negative impact on the development rate of Space Engineers - you can see this from the frequency of our weekly updates – culminating in major updates at the end of 2014: super-large worlds, procedural asteroids, exploration, in-game programming, modding SDK and API.
We didn't want to keep creating space games only. Instead we wanted to have a game where you get to experience life and nature.
By creating a second engineering game, we are leveraging our existing technology and experience.
By creating a second engineering game, we are leveraging our existing technology and experience.
The thought that we should postpone the development of Medieval Engineers for years was a no-go. We had to find a better solution.
We started to hire new people so that we would have the resources to develop both games in parallel without sacrificing any of them. The size of our team is nearing 40 people and we are still growing. There are separate teams for Space Engineers, Medieval Engineers and our secret AI project.
Very early we realized that even Space Engineers could actually benefit from the development of Medieval Engineers. A medieval setting has different requirements for volumetric environments and it forces us to look at the engineering genre from a different angle. To be more specific, these are the things that Space Engineers earned (or may receive in the future) thanks to Medieval Engineers:
- Compound blocks – multiple blocks being positioned into one grid cell; this will allow better ship designs
- Mechanical blocks
- Auto-generated details for some blocks (e.g. roof endings in Medieval Engineers, armor edges in Space Engineers)
- Voxel hand – a tool for modifying terrains (asteroids); you can alter shape and material
- Structural integrity
- Natural landscape
- Procedural terrain generator (this is why we were able to easily add procedural asteroids to Space Engineers)
- DirectX 11 (we decided to add PBR - Physically Based Rendering)
On the other hand, Medieval Engineers inherited (or will get) these features:
- Multi-player
- Physics, rendering and all 'core engine' stuff
- Steam Workshop
- Modding SDK and API
Developing two early access games with the same theme (Engineering) at the same time will be beneficial for both of them. As happened with Space Engineers, many of the features that were released later on were inspired and suggested by our players. Now we are expecting that player’s suggestions for one game might give us new ideas for other games – ideas that we might have missed due to the limitations of the environment of each title. Now everyone will have more options and possibilities!
In a certain way, the development of the prototype of Medieval Engineers was more challenging than the development of Space Engineers. In Space Engineers we could invent new types of blocks. In Medieval Engineers we couldn't invent something that wasn't present in the Middle Ages or something that one person in single-player mode wouldn't be able to operate. On the other hand, the possibilities of survival/realistic mode in Medieval Engineers are fantastic - just imagine starting the game with Stone Age technology and slowly building your way up to the Iron Age.
Announcement video
Until now the medieval team focused only on preparing the announcement video. First we selected features that had to be finished prior to recording. Then we wrote a simple story script, crafting what we wanted to show in each individual section. Together with this we started composing a draft version of the music, which got re-recorded later by a live orchestra. We hope you will enjoy the video and get the feel of what's coming in Medieval Engineers.
The video was shot in creative mode (no survival) and shows a blue player building a castle, block by block (of course we skip through most of this), then a red player comes and builds a trebuchet and attacks the castle, after which the blue player escapes through a secret passage.
Our motivation: why we keep doing these things
We believe that one of the strongest forces in the universe is the “need to create”: every time you build something out of nothing, every time you give a shape and organization to something that has no structure – you are creating a miracle.
Add a team of people who don’t want to settle for the easy but strive for the challenging and impossible – and you will understand why we do what we do.
We have a strong need to create and we take pride in completing unachievable goals.
This is Keen Software House in a nutshell :)
Development of Medieval Engineers
We wanted to bring Medieval Engineers to a presentable state as soon as possible (sacrificing the number of features that could be shown on day one – therefore only focusing on core and must-have mechanics). Getting real feedback from you was our topmost priority. Working on a game behind the veil isn’t fun and is altogether much less effective. Real people with real needs and real voices you can listen to are the heart of game development.
Early prototype screenshots:
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/04_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/08_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/09_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/12_14.jpg
Early prototype screenshots:
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/04_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/08_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/09_14.jpg
http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/12_14.jpg
Note: these images are old development screenshots and don’t represent the actual state of the game
You can download more development screenshots from here: http://mirror.keenswh.com/Pics/Development_screenshots.rar
Timeline:
- 6/2013 – this was some time around the day we started preparing the trailer for Space Engineers. We realized that the volumetric-block idea could be used for another game as well and that we did'n need to stick to space forever.
- 1/2014 – new programmers were coming to the team and we started to consider working on Medieval Engineers. We bought tons of books about medieval and ancient technology and discussed the subject with various medieval fans and experts
- 4/2014 – the first real work on block designs had started, but things were progressing slowly because there had been a lot of work on Space Engineers
- 9/2014 – fulltime work on music composition had started
- 9/2014 – real work on Medieval Engineers had started, new artists and programmers joined the team, and we started experimenting with structural integrity and destruction. We set our topmost milestone: prepare the game for an announcement trailer on Jan 13, 2015
- 1/13/2015 – today: Medieval Engineers announcement
- ?/2015 – release on Steam Early Access
Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers share the same code base.
Designing blocks that fit well together and occupy exactly the required area and provide the needed functionality was a very big task and we spent several months iterating through the options.
Two different approaches to destruction and structural integrity were tried before we agreed on using Havok Destruction and writing our own structural integrity algorithm (that runs well in real-time and handles majority of situation properly and could support voxels/terrain in future). We are still trying to perfect this approach.
The music for Medieval Engineers is being composed by Karel Antonin - who already worked on music for Miner Wars (later used in Space Engineers). We analyzed various medieval musical instruments and styles from different countries and then applied this when composing songs to produce something that’s modern yet medieval, heroic and inspiring. I am very happy with the results and I hope you will like the music too.
What's next
In regards to Space Engineers, we are preparing a few major updates within the next months – just a hint: AI, real campaigns and goals, more optimizations and fixes. There is nothing to be afraid of that will affect or change our development plan.
We will keep Thursday releases for Space Engineers. Once we release Medieval Engineers on Steam Early Access and get our first real feedback, we will try to keep updating it as well – probably every Tuesday - but it’s hard to make a promise here, because having one update per week is challenging enough and two updates will be total overkill – on the other side, we don’t want to have easy life :)
We are still working on the Xbox One port of Space Engineers.
The first release of Medieval Engineers will “probably” feature:
- Creative mode
- Steam Workshop (SDK + API)
- 'Heightmap to terrain' conversion tool
- Special gift for all space engineers players :-)
- Multi-player and survival will come later
We hope that the community of space engineers will welcome the medieval engineers’ community and that these two groups will join into one community of “engineers”. We are very much looking forward to the things you will create in Medieval Engineers and what you will surprise us with (just like you surprise us with what you keep accomplishing in Space Engineers).
The future looks bright and there’s a lot of work in front of us. This is good :)
Please let all your friends who may be interested in engineering games know about what are we creating. Thanks!
---
Thank you for reading this! For the latest news on our games, follow us on Facebook or on Twitter.
Medieval Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalEngineers
Medieval Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MedievalEng
Space Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers
Space Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG
Medieval Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalEngineers
Medieval Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MedievalEng
Space Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers
Space Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG
I've got to admit Marek, I was worried you'd be announcing some new game that would throw doubt's on SE's continued development.
ReplyDeleteME however I think is the perfect thing for you to come up with. The things it can bring to SE will be great, like terrain alteration and compound blocks (Thank you, I've been asking for that since day one).
Next can you do Water Engineers? So we can get pressurisation put in? Pretty please? I'll definitely be getting stuck in to ME when it comes out.
Some people on Reddit have already started to worry, but I think they are underestimating the amount of people Keen currently have employed atm. If you've seen the credits of SE you would know they have a TON of programmers. And the fact that this game have been in development for this long without anyone complaining about the speed of updates(which is amazing, I love you keen for doing so) proves that we don't have to worry.
DeleteWater engis sounds amazing: having to build whilst thinking about water pressure and leakage, water craft, oxegen generation, epic implosions....
Deletehey, naval engineers! :D
Deleteyouknow.. water engineers might sound a bit unrealistic-ish, :P
That's exactly what I was thinking one day while playing Space Engineers - how amazing it would be for some kind of Water Engineers! Perhaps with a similar Science-Fiction feel to it, similar to Anno 2170, but being able to actually go INSIDE the ships / underwater bases.
DeleteLots of great ideas when you have physics simulation to play with.
Medieval Engineers was also something I hoped would eventually come, so wish granted!
it would be fun to have a pressure malfunction and the players head explodes if not properly outfitted, pretty much anything with engineers slapped on the back of it, with this company behind the development wheel, will be fantastic, however; i do wish that space engineers had a bit more of a kick to it i should say. i always find the game becoming repetitious. crafting ore, then assembling, repeat. still amazing though and i cant wait for the survival mode for ME.
DeleteI've always been extremely fascinated by underwater games, especially since I played Subculture, an overlooked open world underwater game that unfortunately seemed unfinished once you got about 25-30 hours into the game. So I want to reiterate the other poster's idea: "...how amazing it would be for some kind of Water Engineers! Perhaps with a similar Science-Fiction feel to it, similar to Anno 2170, but being able to actually go INSIDE the ships / underwater bases."
DeleteIn the short term, I would love to see water added to Medieval Engineers, because currently there aren't any motes or rivers. That would be a really amazing feature if it didn't slow down the engine too much.
Something like FarSky (survival on the ocean floor)
DeleteStranded Deep (survival on an island and around it in shalllow water, like 300ft deep max i think) Both games would be inspiring for Underwater/Nautical/Ocean/Deep Ocean Engineers.
(Yes, I love Anno 2170 as well, especially with the deep ocean expansion)
I love spacesims and I would love to play a good underwatersim/FPS/RTS as well! :D
Hopefully KSH comes up with this, it would be a great addition to medieval engineers but most of al for space engineers (with the advanced tech)
I'm really exited about this, I played Life is Feudal a bit, but it was pretty clunky and weird. I really liked the way they did the skill system though, and I really hope you will think of something like that. Basically the way they did it was to make it so you can't become everything at once, this encourages cooperation. But they leave it up to you if you want to have a higher skill cap you can. I bet you guys already have played it ^^
ReplyDeleteexited? why have you exited?
Deletei think he meant 'excited' and not 'exited'
DeleteLOL ^
DeleteBeen playing Space Engineers for 9 months now - am definitely going to play this as soon as it's available!
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only one :)
Deleteme and my friend are gonna buy it day one and derp about in single player till MP is put out
DeleteI love Space Engineers as much as Minecraft.
DeleteBut this puts creativity on a WHOLE NEW LEVEL.
No electricity, no modern technology, only basic elemental resources and whit's!
Wood, stone, fire, blood and iron! THIS IS MY TYPE OF GAME!
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
Excellent. The idea of these two games being developed side by side boggles my mind with genius. Still, I feel there are a few key issues Mr. Rosa has yet to address that will affect the success of both games.
ReplyDelete1) How similar will ME's and SE's engines be? (Could someone make a mod that treats both games as one and the same, and deliver assets to both games at the same time?) I feel that versatility would be a tremendous asset in the hands of the community.
2) There are several game crippling issues with SE's physics. Specifically with the physics calculations spiraling out of control when movable objects interact (as with pistons, rotors, landing gears, and connector). Will this be a limitation for our structures in the long term of SE? How stable will ME's physics be in comparison?
Congratulations to you guys for the reveal of your latest game.
I have 788 hours in SE, and concur with the above comment.
Deleteok i left a comment on the video but now i have read this and you have shown promise befor im right with you and this should be really good just one thing i hate you for the secret suprise i hate that first the big anouncement now the big secret suprise hate you for that lol only joking good luck with its all anyways cant wait to see what you can do
ReplyDeleteA lot of people complain that you probably leave SE unfinished. I can't agree with that but I'm also not happy and worried. I will give ME a try but I would be much happier to have planets in SE. This would give SE much more sense, using ships for travelling from planets/asteroids to planets/asteroids, landing on planets and gather resources which are just existing on some planets but maybe needed for ships as well. This would mean we could build on planets too, building houses there, bases or leave planet to scan another planet or even galaxy for more and other resources.
ReplyDeleteI was very excited until I read your announcement and I'm a bit disappointed. The one thing I was always missing in Minecraft is to be more modern, future. That is why I always hoped you would add planets and building on them. So sad that this is probably not coming but to get a new game.
Maybe all the feedback you'll get here and on facebook now will help make SE better and I'm still hoping to see planets and gathering, building on them. You are inspired by reality, so why not discover the Mars?
Adding planets into SE isn't possible at this time, or else SOMEBODY would be at least working on a mod if not releasing a mod. Unless I miss my guess it would require massive edits to the base code, the whole game would have to work different, not to mention the performance would likely drop drastically.
DeleteBased on one of the developer interviews ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfOtooxsBAM ), I suspect that the enhanced LOD updates built into the VRage engine for Medieval Engineers may eventually allow implementation of planets in Space Engineers, since the world they are working on in ME is just a 4 Kilometer voxel asteroid. Since the current largest size of asteroid useable in SE is about 900 meters radius, this is a huge increase for the base engine with both of these games share.
DeleteThere MUST be possible i hope to have PLANETS in SE, I hope they be able to do that.
DeleteOh man.. Planets would be so cool. How about we colonize space around a planet, but be stuck with medieval tech on the ground. hahaha
DeleteJust mod Minecraft. Space engis is not trying to make Minecraft again. It's a completely different game.
DeleteBefore we get planet we should be able to alter the maximum speed of objects. Imagine a planet is near to you and after flying 30 minutes with 100 m/s ... the planet is still there.
DeleteBut wait, the last update enables a variable maximum speed of objects in SE. Maybe planets are not that far away :)
stfu Dr. Glickenstine I've played minecraft almost sonce the beginning and now to me its just another shitty game.
Deletethats only playable if you add 500 mods to it
and don't you dare compare minecraft with mideavil engineers
shit how many words did I spell wrong?
"A lot of people complain that you probably leave SE unfinished. I can't agree with that but I'm also not happy and worried"
DeleteOk.... How are you different from that "lot of people?" Youre complaining.
As to parallel development: Since they increased the staff I see no problems. As the Devs said, working on one set of issues often helps solve a different set of issues.
DeleteAs to some of the stuff SE has in the pipeline: Keen has shown more ability to listen to players than any other developer I've seen. We wanted cameras? Ok. Remote-control? Ok. Infinite worlds? Check. Make no mistake, I would be happy if they'd fix the longest-running bugs as those might drive away players but for now I'm content.
As to planets: Let's put things in perspective for a second. The circumference of the MOON is almost 11 MILLION km. Now imagine the largest SE map you've ever seen. Ever fly 100,000 km in SE? How about a million? Now do that TEN times and you begin to get an idea of what a single trip around the moon would be like. The moon is small compared to the Earth and Earth is NOT that big as planets go. In other words, even if the engine could handle it, the idea of having a planetary body even as large as our moon is overkill by several orders of magnitude.
I'm happy with infinite worlds and the ability to go faster between them for now. Once the bugs get fixed this game will blow other space sandbox games away.
The potential of this game (and Space Engineers, of course) is incredible.
ReplyDeleteOne of the core areas of focus should be ease of modding, for users to create their own games using this magnificent engine.
Quake, UT and Half Life spawned hundreds (if not thousands) of games that exist only because the engine was available for them, and Warcraft 3 spawned thousands of maps, inventing popular new genres such as DOTA (aka MOBA) and tower defense.
I feel that Medieval/Space Engineers could be the next game to spawn the next generation of gaming.
Keep up the awesome work, this is something I'll buy on day one!
I think its great to have two games means anything that added to the game could be added to SE and the other way around if they fit that games style
ReplyDeleteWhy not just patch this into Space Engineers. I believe a lot of Si-fic fans dream that we could land on a Middle ages planet.
ReplyDeletethen mod something for it.
DeleteBecause of the mother of Lag Lag
DeleteAnsioso! Direct X 11 não seria um exagero?
ReplyDeleteHow quickly can we expect a playable alpha?
ReplyDeleteMarek, if you continue to create projects in this direction, I start to whish I lived in Prague and apply. :D
ReplyDeleteAfter being disappointed game by game in this sector, waiting eagerly on something which tries to recreate medieval stuff, as well as space stuff, you just deliver two games rapidly after each other.
I think you read the players' whishes right, you must have an awesome connection to your inner child :P
Okay, nuf of flowers. This is a great idea, and a genre which since UO and AoE did not receive any love in creating worlds by players, albeit many tried (Life is Feudal comes into mind). Especially great to start with the "construction" element.
However, one addendum I have to make. While creating a Creative / Sandbox Client for these games is great, your Engine still uses a lot of resources, and your server engine still is nonexistant. One day, these games need better servers, or they will stall at a point, where people say: fun to build all this, but what now?
Just imagine, Minecraft would have stayed creative / lan only. But it was exactly the opportunity to create your own microcommunities, that boosted that game into high heavens.
A happy new year anyway.
I am really hyped about ME, even though I am already hooked by games like "Life is Feudal" and similar. However, I *bet* even if you start each and every communication with stating that Space Engineers' development won't be impacted by the development of ME, people will still think that to obvious reasons. We all know how refreshing it is starting a brandnew project...so my worries are indeed, that SE will not get the attention it deserves when it comes to gameplay mechanics and optimizing (I am not talking about technology or the product being unsuccessful etc.).
ReplyDeleteI'd totally vote for rephrasing "The first one was Space Engineers and it is still doing very well." It kinda indicates SE is the past and ME the future and the word "still" feels like "a few more months" ;) Nah, keep up the great work guys, it's just unreasonable fear over here thanks to the Early Access bubble in 2014.
Congratulations! :)
ReplyDeleteOnly a question: my pc can run Space Engineers at medium settings. I could play Medieval Engineers?
I have an Intel i5 760 quad 2,88 ghz and an Nvidia gtx 460.
Thanks.
Generally, everyone should know, that working on the performance of a game is usually one of the very *last* steps in overall game development. Once a game is feature complete performance/speed will most likely be addressed next. Imagine you're building a plane - you wouldn't work on the aerodynamics if you don't even know how big it will be in the end.
DeleteBut hey, I hear you, I'd *love* to see a performance increase, on individual machines and regarding dedicated servers and sim speed, myself. It will come, for sure :)
Ehm... I'm not talking about performance, I'm talking about "can my pc run it?"
DeleteIf I cannot even start the game I cannot buy it.
If your computer runs space engineers, it should run this as they use the same base rendering, physics, ect. engine, the only differences between the games are the models + textures used, and in space engineers, performance would probably be worse because of the fact that you can rotate 360 degrees on 2 planes, meaning that the game would have to change rendering and know how everything is positioned, this looks like its a game on a flat surface, no need for the engine to figure out what this ship would look like if it was at a 260 degree angle on one plane and 60 degrees on another.
DeleteI LOVE IT! I`ve been waiting for this specific type of game forever and I can`t wait to start playing this!
ReplyDeleteYay! I think the work at the same time interacting 2 studios will significantly improve my favorite game - Space Enginers.
ReplyDeleteI care more bug fixes and improved interaction between the blocks.
I hope in survival mode will be available hand voxel.
Want more units, a new interface and menus G with categories.
Very nice! But i think it should be a Space Engineers DLC or something...
ReplyDeleteBtw. This i a very good concept to add Planets into Space Engineers!
I disagree, much as I love SE I would love this sooo much more. Should be separate from SE, not dlc. IMO it's like saying Bohemias' Take On Mars should be DLC for Arma II.
DeleteKeep it separate & take my money ;)
To be honest it looks like a more advanced Minecraft and I don't think it's a proper way to go. Furthermore, and there is no other way to put it, you're a small indie dev studio and as far as i can work out, you don't have a big money-throwing publisher behind you. What I want to say is, people work for money and SE is in alpha for the past year and a half. I'd like to see it done and finished, before you start hiring even more people and develop another project that will take years to complete. I don't want to see your reach exceeding your grasp and that did happen before to other studios.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I'd be happy to be proven wrong and see both (or even all three games with that secret AI thing) complete, done and finished. I'm just worried that you'll crash in the long run.
They sold a million copy's of space Engineers already, that is 20 million, paying 40 devs for a year costs them less then 2 million, How will they ever run out of money lol...they can develop 10 games like this and still have money to spare.
DeleteCool, a new game to create crazy stuff :D
ReplyDeleteThis game will be amazing, i am definitely looking forward to its release! Its a setting more constrained by reality than space engineers, which i approve of (I still LOVE getting into firefights in space!)
ReplyDeletealso: OH. MY. GOD. Structural integrity in SE will be AWESOME!
"We wanted to bring Medieval Engineers to a presentable state as soon as possible (sacrificing the number of features that could be shown on day one – therefore only focusing on core and must-have mechanics). Getting real feedback from you was our topmost priority. Working on a game behind the veil isn’t fun and is altogether much less effective. Real people with real needs and real voices you can listen to are the heart of game development."
ReplyDeleteReally, that's so laughingly pathetic it's nauseating considering the second anyone speaks out with something other than kissing your dev teams asses they remove someone from the CTG and then ban them from the forums. If you really wanted actual real feedback from your player base you would actually listen to the entire player base and not just the select few ass kissers in your CTG while your devs are stating that if they wanted to hear anything negative they would just go check through the rest of the forums.
So what about the people that have already pre-ordered and given you the money for the Miner Wars MMO that you keep saying you're not abandoning and yet you have someone on your forums that's posting that they have been trying to get a refund for two years and yet are still not getting a single response so they have taken to the forums.
Instead of developing yet a another game while you still have serious issues with your last one that's still in development and blowing smoke up people's asses why don't you look within your company and fix your shit first.
Hey paladin, mad much? :D
DeleteNot Paladin. He may have been the most outwardly vocal about thing, but he was far from the only one. I am however one of the more veteran modders.
DeleteI'm on a mac, and ive owned SE ever since it came out and I use to have a VM called VMWare that had windows 7 on it and it worked just fine. But then that Windows got a virus on it and so I deleted my VM for safty purposes. Now I use a program called CrossOver and it works great but not for SE. So I was wondering if you guys could add support for Crossover, or port the game to mac.
ReplyDeleteI am a programmer and a good tester so I could do testing for you if your working on a mac version.
dude.... just rebuild your windows 7 VM, and in the future save images of it. It'll save you the hassle of a virus removal should you have issues in the future. Also, I know you're a Mac guy, and it's somewhat difficult to get a virus on a Mac (yes, for the love of God it's possible), but if you're a developer you should be able to keep decent enough habits online to avoid infection. If you're busy torrenting things or doing other things with a high risk of infection use privacy mode in firefox or incognito in chrome, and use an antivirus. Better yet just use a second VM and transfer the files over once you know they're safe.
DeleteAnyway, right ME! I've been playing SE for a while now, and as a developer I'm pumped about the addition of the programming block. I have an excuse to get familiar with C# and I get to play SE while doing it. Also much love for the features SE has inherited from ME, and I'm looking forward to what comes of it in the future. I've always wanted to be able to create a game like what ME promises to be, and I'll be watching its development closely. Among other things a nodding API that is similar or matches in both games would be fantastic. Keep up the good work guys, we appreciate it.
you are using mac for VMware?! OMG mac is not good in hosting a VMware man...
DeleteWindows is the best VMware hoster and Linux comes after Windows (in VMware hosting).
Btw. Windows is actiolly the best OS especially for gaming!
And one more Btw.
Widows 8 is not bad (better than win7 [for gaming] because games are running more smooth on it... i would say it is good! Everybody thinks that its bad because ALMOST every second OS by windos is bad but this is not up-to-date...
but 90% of the human life dose not want to have it true...)
so use win8.1 for gaming... its better ;)
Wow, are you ok man?
DeleteWindows 8 and Windows 7 each have their problems, but I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to computers and I was sad back when XP replaced 2000, even though 2000 had alot of problems, so I use Windows 7 Professional. I had Win 8 for a while but I switched back since the update from 8 to 8.1 broke my comp and I had to do some technical crap and replaced my OS with 7. Anyways, Linux has alot of potential for gaming, the OS saves quite a bit of memory and if games were made more around working with Linux I would probably switch. OS rant finished.
DeleteNative VR support for ME and SE please! Pretty pretty please!
ReplyDeleteI develop on the Oculus Rift and I simply cannot help myself but I use VORPX with Space Engineers. It's such a fantastic game and it just fits with the VR immersion and I love just being able to look where I want. I feel like it's something the game can benefit from immensely and can entice new mods and larger fan base. Of course this is still a new thing and in development, but adding native VR support will not only help spur growth for that gameplay style, but also will add value to those who have VR and they will seek out games that support it.
As a beginner developer (although a decade-old vetran in the IT field) I truly lookup to you guys because the way you have developed SE, interacted with us, and continue to please.
Now that someone mentioned Miner Wars MMO, I'm interested in this as well and will look it up. But I am curious I'm curious about the factual status behind what they said...
However given SE and ME fall somewhat close in terms of game mechanics and utilize many of the same tools to build the game, I am very excited for the future of both.. But I am also anxious to become an early tester right away! :)
I will make a medieval roller-coaster and no one is going to stop me.
ReplyDeleteI wish you the best of luck. Please post it on the steam workshop when youre finished :)
DeleteWill there be a weather system?
ReplyDeleteRain / Snow / Lightning Storm / Hail Stones / Mist and other various weather affects.
This would be an interesting game mechanic.
Player needing to make a fire to keep warm when it is cold, this could be an interesting Game mechanic also.
Perhaps sometimes in the sky at night there could be Aurora Borealis
Perhaps the player could upgrade his clothes to keep warm to go out when it is cold.
This type of game has so many possibilities.
Will there be animals?
It would be awesome if you could start here and technologically progress a game world that would eventually land you seamlessly in Space Engineers.
ReplyDeleteNow that would be AMAZING! starting on earth in stone age, then build your way to industrail age and fly your rocket up to the space!
DeleteWhat a endless game that would be!
That would be amazing! Starting in stone age, getting to the industrial age then building a rocket and fly up to the space :D
DeleteThat would be awesome, and endless game!
Anyhow, cant wait to see how this game turns out!
and then, after you fly up, there would be a promo promoting space engineers, and at the bottom it would show three buttons: one that said "visit the store page", the next one that says "play SE" (it would be greyed out if you didn't own the game) and "continue playing ME"
DeleteI believe that would be sweeeet! Some form of progression like what Age of Empires has would be cool. Blocks will update their "look" depending on what age you are in (i.e. from only wood to stone to metal etc.)
DeleteHeh, so like Civilization III and Alpha Centauri, eh?
DeleteWhen will we get a cross over !!!! that would be so cool nerds minds will be blown
ReplyDeleteKeen, you did it again, you blew my expectations out of the water and made other more prominent games look like generic garbage.
ReplyDeleteI only ask that you dont rush your development and make this game with it's full potential!
I have a few ideas, if you are not a dev (or are :D ) please spread these!
-Make bows & Crossbows have realistic damage. The average longbow of that time had a 100 pound drawback
-make it so you can "register" citizens in your town. (or Factions similar to Space engineers)
If you do implement it, make it so the town cant be seiged unless atleast half of the town is online. If you dont, then players will wait until no-one is there and easily destroy the hard work of the other players. a easy fix is some mechanic that'll defend the town (such as the turrets in Space engineers)
-Keep it purely medieval please don't add magic or any advanced technology. this will help with the immersion of the game.
Keen, you did it again, you blew my expectations out of the water and made other more prominent games look like generic garbage.
ReplyDeleteI only ask that you dont rush your development and make this game with it's full potential!
I have a few ideas, if you are not a dev (or are :D ) please spread these!
-Make bows & Crossbows have realistic damage. The average longbow of that time had a 100 pound drawback
-make it so you can "register" citizens in your town. (or Factions similar to Space engineers)
If you do implement it, make it so the town cant be seiged unless atleast half of the town is online. If you dont, then players will wait until no-one is there and easily destroy the hard work of the other players. a easy fix is some mechanic that'll defend the town (such as the turrets in Space engineers)
-Keep it purely medieval please don't add magic or any advanced technology. this will help with the immersion of the game.
At first I was thinking "bah, over expanding the dev studio until it's pointless".
ReplyDeleteThen I was thinking "holy crap, are they building a trebuchet?"
Then I was thinking "this needs to be released right now for me to throw money at it".
=)
Please, please, PLEASE add the Compound Blocks to Space Engineers! I'd LOVE to be able place an Interior Light over a Steel Catwalk Plate!
ReplyDeleteBeing a software developer myself, I am absolutely blown away by the productivity of Keen Software House.
ReplyDeleteStill, I have my doubts with the concept behind Medieval Engineers.
If it focuses mainly on creative building and PVP, I see two main problems:
- Building fortresses is less exciting than constructing space ships. Especially if much of this is purely cosmetic.
- PVP looks extremely slow paced.
Imagine you spend hours for building a "perfect fort" with friends and then some jerks are digging a tunnel into it, keep killing you and sabotage your castle.
Having a main focus on PVE/AI on the other hand might look very interesting:
- AI controlled animals, bandits, etc. would bring in tension to the game world.
- Survival aspects to engage coop gameplay and a smart fortress design.
- AI controlled neutral wanders which can be recruited to fulfill certain jobs (hunt, gather, protect, ...).
- Possibly leading up to building up a living medieval settlement (instead of just a castle that looks pretty).
- "Wealthier" forts attract attention to the AI.
- More possible immigrants, bandit attacks or even sieges.
Yes! I agrees with everything after PVE/AI ((well pvp would be interesting too))
DeleteI think pvp would be VERY interesting with AI in place.
DeleteImagine leading a small army together with a bunch of friends against a castle ruled by some other players. The walls are filled with archers while the enemy troops are getting ready behind their gates.
But I guess this sounds more like a strategy game then... Which I would find great, but it probably differs from what their intention is.
Soooo... Dwarf Fortress Online? ;-)
DeleteTo add to that, take a page from Terraria, the assaulting AI scales according to the number of players active in the settlement. That way solo players like me and teams of 10-20 on a multiplayer server can have equal amounts of chaotic fun, without guys like me being discouraged because there's way too many baddies for me to keep everything going (looking at you, Shores Of Hazeron [RIP]).
That's amazing, I ALSO had Dwarf Fortress in mind :-) (and I am a huge fan of it). But unfortunately only very few gamers like the level of complexity Dwarf Fortress has.
DeleteThe other challenge of course is the implementation and performance of a game with this amount of complexity... DF could only be realized because it does not have much a lot of a graphical representations of what's going on.
This is an excellent idea!
ReplyDeleteI just spent the last of my money on SE and now you announce a castle building game...
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go sit in a corner.
I just spent the last of my money on SE and now you announce a castle building game...
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go sit in a corner.
ok ur bringing out weekly updates on space engineers, and somehow u managed to create another great game wich is gonna suck up most of my time, in total secret..What kind of monster devs are you xD
ReplyDeleteFull marks to the most on-the-ball devs I know of. Please never become corrupt AAA DLCmongers. :D
ReplyDeleteI've allready sent out a link to everyone i know who are into any kind of building game, this might just become the best ever out there, Space Engineers set the bar really high but I have a feeling this will shame every other builder game in existance once it's finished.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I really hope the trouble with water will be solved, that way we can allso have other fluids like hot tar to pour (or launch in clay pots) on enemies who attack, I'd allso say don't rule out weapons, can you imagine real castle sieges in this with entire communities sieging a castle? I can!
I'll say it to both dev teams, keep up the excellent work, and a special thank you to Marek!
WOW!!! A medieval building game that uses physics and stuff!!!!! Medieval architectural design is something that I EXCEL at and enjoy building as well. I actually got my best friend (who also plays Space Engineers) to get HOOKED on this as well. We discussed over lunch about us coming together in multiplayer and having me build massive holds and keeps (which is what I'm great at) while he designs the fortifications and weapons for the castle (which is what he is great at)! I do have a question though. Will we be able to make ballistas and scorpion crossbows in Medieval Engineers?
ReplyDeleteThank You for the AMAZING Games,
AgentOrange232
I must say, you guys over at Keen Software House are doing a TREMENDOUS job of producing these record holding games. I really appreciate how much effort and love into the products you release, and i feel that Keen Software House really cares for the players and not for the money. Keep it going KSH! I'll never stop playing your fantastic games :D
ReplyDeleteAll aboard the hype train!!
It will never be a minecraft clone for one simple reason: Structural Integrity! It will be a Keen Engineering Game. Good Luck in the process!
ReplyDeleteZdar, prvne nejsem zakaznik, ale kdyz uz konecne nekdo zacal poctive makat na napadu co uz nejakou dobu piluju do supliku, tak by me zajimaly potom cisla podle regionu/kulturniho zastoupeni, kdyz prostredi a mechanismy pocita jen s evropou a mozna trosku s blizkym vychodem a to jeste zda se asi pouze vnitrozemim.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coastal_fortifications_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crusader_castles
...
If you going to utilize DX11 functionality, then we can't launch * Engineers on WINE anymore. How about to release Linux (and maybe Mac) port that utilizes OpenGL 4.* at the same time?
ReplyDeleteHere's a video of the development pictures, if you can't/don't want to download the file or something.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aOeVIOZmAg
lord of the rings castles/citys here i come
ReplyDeleteCan't Wait, this is going to be great. ME world/terain gegeration could eventualy be used to ad earth like plannets to SE. Im realy hoping SE gets te compound blocks soon.
ReplyDeleteKeep the updates coming.
If the devs (Keen) don't do it, I imagine modders will create tons of skins and meshes for characters not just skin tones or genders but clothes ect aswell.
ReplyDeleteHere's an idea. Why don't you guys just do SE updates one week, the ME updates the next week then keep switching back and forth like that?
ReplyDeleteBecause I would be pissed, I wouldn't get the SE updates I always love every week (which feels like a long time when waiting for updates) and ME would have a similar problem. They can afford to do weekly updates for each instead of staggered bi-weekly updates for them both, you can almost say that the ME devs are a whole different studio from the SE devs, with guidance from the higher-ups in Keen
DeleteSo far they've focused on functional additions. I'm sure decorative items like additional meshes will come once the important features are in. Though as bulky as the space suits are, I'm not sure a female would look any different inside one.
ReplyDeletePlease let us use our own logo on flags :P Simplest way would be probably to import our ,png (or whatever format) and sync it when MP is ready.
ReplyDeleteWhen there will be barbarians, will you also have your own AI troops defending the castle? That'd be awesome, mount & blade style
ReplyDeleteYep. It would be nice. It looks a bit wierd to defend/attack a castle alone (or even with a few friends). Battles are big. I know that thousands or even hundreds of AI soldiers would be a no-go if we look at preformance but 20-50 would be doable in my opinion without loosing much FPS and would give a Lot to the feeling. They dont have to be really smart, just follow our simple orders, like follow; attack with your sword; use a selected thing on my mark, things like these.
DeleteAhh and a bonus idea: let us climb on ropes (think about climbing through walls), and add ladders of some kind. Either "ready to use" ladders or the more complex way...we build the ladders, but the character have to recognise somehow what is can be climbed and what not.
Zdajecie sobie sprawę iż jesteście żałośni pod względem polityki aktualizacji ? Gdzie optymalizacja dedyków SE. itp.. ? poco komu kasiaste wytryski byle sprzedać. Umiecie to wo gule naprawić. dedyki puszczają w szwach już po tygodniu z max 3 graczy :) . bez rotorów bez pistonów i czyszczone codziennie.. = zamiast choćby bazy użyć xml . -.-' Chryste. bierzcie się s powrotem za lektury i do poprawnego myślenia. ;) a co do ME to ciekawa sprawa. mam nadzieje że nie spierdolicie tego tak jak SE :)';/ zresztą was klienci chyba nie interesują :D
ReplyDeleteYay, but what about finishing old projects like "Miner Wars MMO"?
ReplyDeleteI just hope that it really won't impact on the development of Space Engineers.
I would rather see development of planets and building on them ...
ReplyDeleteI am already impressed with Space Engineers. Very unique, Play-ability is beyond expectations. We play a dedicated server religiously every weekend. Me and mine have played Space Engineers more than any other game to date as a group. In my personal opinion your next endeavor has been a bit played out. However the day it hits steam I will without a doubt Purchase it. If nothing less to support your company. You are headed down a road I like. I have every intention of riding along.
ReplyDeleteCuddos to you and your team.
Check out "From Dust's" systems of water and fire. Liquid dynamics could be very cool with rivers, motes and boats. Sailboats would be absolutely epic. The water doesn't have to look great to have great functionality. Congratulations on the new project.
ReplyDeleteSHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY NOW !!! (Throwing my money on the screen)
ReplyDelete9/10 - Do to simple graphic`s only. (Feedback)
Well, it would be the most awesome thing in the world to combine medivial engineers and space engineers, to get a game where you start with nothing on a planet. You start building, fighting, mining and researching until you can build engines and spacecraft. Then you can leave your Planet, live in space as in space engineers or stay on another planet.
ReplyDeleteWell maybe not perfect for all of you... but my dream-game!
-RichEy
Will you add troops and other workers to the games SE and ME, after all it gets boring if you don't have friends and are playing by your self. Ho and you need to have Character editing, I know it's a pain but it makes it more personal feeling and draws people into it more. And it would be nice if there were real enemies (AI ones that build and try to kill you.) But mainly i just wan't to have followers like my question.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePřesně něco takového potřebuju smažit. Chci to na steamu hned! Za týden se mi narodí kluk a nebudu už mít čas :-D Vážně, jste borci, skvělý nápad.
ReplyDeleteWould you add building ships? That'd be awesome to sailing in your own ship.
ReplyDeleteIt looks very great! I had already a lot fun with SE but I prefer medieval szenes so it is some great news. After reading this I´ve already started building catapults in my head ;-)
ReplyDeleteA good idea, but as the previous post says, they have to finish the base game before making additions as trivial (I use the word trivial as something that isn't game breaking to not have in the game) as player models. We DO want this game as fast as possible, after all. What they could do before the full release is add a character customization window, like Skyrim and nearly every other MMO that has ever existed.
ReplyDeleteoh when is this game going to be released!!!!!!
ReplyDeletethere is a proposal tester games write to my work mail nikita-baradah@mail.ru
ReplyDeletethere is a proposal tester games write to my work mail nikita-baradah@mail.ru
ReplyDeleteDoes ME run on Windows 8?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can add kind of a turret - Knight/Solider that automatically fire from catapult/balista/crossbow...
ReplyDeleteMedieval Engineers + Mount and Blade = Ultimate medieval simulator.
ReplyDeleteBe in charge of designing and constructing your own villages, towns and keeps like medieval engineers lets us. Fighting, managing, politics, trading in mount and blade style.
Just some ideas for suits:
ReplyDelete1-You change into normal clothes and are quieter and run faster
2-Construction suit carries a LOT more energy the standard suit but has no armour and a very limited air supply, and maybe more storage?
3-Battle suit, you have lots of armour and two heavy MG's? but has a limited air supply and runs out of energy quickly when firing for extended periods and you can die from shorter falls because of the weight, you walk and run slower and cannot jump as high.
4-Pilot suit, gives you positive buff when flying ships, so like thrusters have a slight power increase, increased reactor effiency, and ships are more stable when being flown, has a large oxygen supply, but no armour and storage.
But so maybe these suits have to be built and cost resources, but come without a jetpack and helmet, which you have to make with upgrades?
If you want to contact me go here:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/E-Man720/
Or here:
electronman720@gmail.com
Will it ever be possible to "port" (for lack of a better word) ships from space engineers into the world of medieval engineers?
ReplyDeleteDo you plan to enable DirectX 9 in Medieval Engineers? On Intel HD 4400 card is SE in DX9 ok, in DX11 is black/white and unplayable.
ReplyDeleteWHAT HAPPENED TO THIS!?
ReplyDeleteTo be more specific, these are the things that Space Engineers earned (or may receive in the future) thanks to Medieval Engineers:
Compound blocks – multiple blocks being positioned into one grid cell; this will allow better ship designs
WHAT ever happened to this?!
ReplyDeleteTo be more specific, these are the things that Space Engineers earned (or may receive in the future) thanks to Medieval Engineers:
Compound blocks – multiple blocks being positioned into one grid cell; this will allow better ship designs
can you buy the medieval engineers code
ReplyDelete