One of us is funding a new video game.

[Casey Pones 87]

By one of us I mean a fellow MLP fan, I can't tell if it's a brony or a pegasister. I assume he/she is a fan as they use an MLP pony as their portrait.

I've been following a channel on Youtube for Wolds of Trains. It's an online game in the early stages of development, in which you command gigantic locomotives. And a fellow MLP FIM fan has become one of their top financial contributors on Patrion. When I saw this, I asked if Worlds of Trains might create their own version of the Friendship Express as a tribute.

The game itself is sci-fi and fantasy but is a long way off from release. So far it's mostly AI generated concept art but I thought you'd like to know. See below...

 

[Axiom Crash 87]

Man. I'm not accusing these devs of anything, I'm just realizing how AI art and other AI assets is going to make scamming people on Kickstarter so much easier and cheaper.

Absolutely love the concept of gigantic trains. Also think it's absolutely brain-dead, since trains are so dependent on rails, but a lot of really cool things ask you to shut off little parts of your brain for a while.

I think the idea of a giant rainbow nuclear train sounds absolutely badass.

[Casey Pones 87]

2 hours ago, Axiom Crash said:

Man. I'm not accusing these devs of anything, I'm just realizing how AI art and other AI assets is going to make scamming people on Kickstarter so much easier and cheaper.

Absolutely love the concept of gigantic trains. Also think it's absolutely brain-dead, since trains are so dependent on rails, but a lot of really cool things ask you to shut off little parts of your brain for a while.

I think the idea of a giant rainbow nuclear train sounds absolutely badass.

There are things about this game that, when you look at them, I want to go like Pinky Pie and say "Supiscious!" 

It's been up on Youtube for so long, has so many videos, yet only one with any footage. And even that is about a minute of one 3D locomotive.

Every time someone (including me) makes a decent comment or suggestion on their video, they give them likes and hearts and long replies dripping with so much positivity even Pinky would think it was a bit much.

I can't help but think it's a scam to get donations and sell their NFTs. I actually called them out about that and even then they gave me a positive reply.

 

The really dumb part is they keep saying how much exploration it going to be a part of this game. I know what you're thinking "How can you explore with trains when they can't go anywhere without rails?" Well apparently this game's world is filled with ancient rails that go to forgotten places left behind by "the ancients." Seriously, they couldn't think of something better to call them? That's 3 instances of dumb in that one paragraph. 

[Axiom Crash 87]

8 hours ago, Casey Pones said:

There are things about this game that, when you look at them, I want to go like Pinky Pie and say "Supiscious!" 

It's been up on Youtube for so long, has so many videos, yet only one with any footage. And even that is about a minute of one 3D locomotive.

Every time someone (including me) makes a decent comment or suggestion on their video, they give them likes and hearts and long replies dripping with so much positivity even Pinky would think it was a bit much.

I can't help but think it's a scam to get donations and sell their NFTs. I actually called them out about that and even then they gave me a positive reply.

 

The really dumb part is they keep saying how much exploration it going to be a part of this game. I know what you're thinking "How can you explore with trains when they can't go anywhere without rails?" Well apparently this game's world is filled with ancient rails that go to forgotten places left behind by "the ancients." Seriously, they couldn't think of something better to call them? That's 3 instances of dumb in that one paragraph. 

This just seems like the way all projects are run these days. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that this team doesn't have a proven track record, otherwise they'd be running this a little differently. But I think the internet itself is responsible for why ever group of new devs seems to take this same path in terms of how they market themselves. Just an interesting observation.

Now ... wait ... are they actually selling NFTs? Oof. I would stay the hell away from that. Mostly because it means they're willing to expose their customers to a crypto environment where it's very easy to get robbed or scammed. You heard about the tokens that can be sent to your eterium wallet, that you can't get rid of, and if you ever interact with them in any way, the scripts attached to them will transfer every asset in your wallet to some other wallet. Literally, they're willing to expose their customers to that environment. I would stay the hell away from this because they're either clueless, extremely callous, or don't care about their long-term.

Yeah, the concept sounds like they have very limited investment in the idea, as well. If you're gonna this big, these trains should be able to build their own rails, blast through rock, tunnel, and bridge terrain on their own, at a resource cost, of course. Built out your own rail network, stations, outposts, mines, harvest resources to build more, take rock from one place and drop it as fill somewhere else. Drive piles into soft terrain, have trains of varying weights that need better engineered bridges.

... and it seems like a relatively easy thing to do, honestly. Take some cues from Total Annihilation for how to treat a big central command unit, maybe a little from Homeworld, a little from Against the Storm, and then ... I don't know exactly where I'm pulling most of my other ideas from, but I've played so many games they just kinda blur together.

The question still needs to be answered though: "Why trains? Why not big sandcrawlers?" And for that, I'd say, make speed the issue. Add a threat big enough that even these trains can't withstand it, only outrun it. Make it show up at night, maybe, so you have to retreat to shelter at the end of the day. Could be a flood, could be giant worms, could be any of a number of things, but a combination of threats during different phases of exploration that make sense of "big, heavy and fast", and building out rails so you can move your big nuclear city on wheels at high speed makes a ton of sense.

... oh yeah, I had this idea a long time ago, come to think of it. The trains just weren't as big.

Damn I might actually have to make my own game now. Sounds metal.

 

Edited March 19 by Axiom Crash

[Casey Pones 87]

2 minutes ago, Axiom Crash said:

Now ... wait ... are they actually selling NFTs? Oof. I would stay the hell away from that. Mostly because it means they're willing to expose their customers to a crypto environment where it's very easy to get robbed or scammed. You heard about the tokens that can be sent to your eterium wallet, that you can't get rid of, and if you ever interact with them in any way, the scripts attached to them will transfer every asset in your wallet to some other wallet. Literally, they're willing to expose their customers to that environment. I would stay the hell away from this because they're either clueless, extremely callous, or don't care about their long-term.

Honestly I don't know anything about NFTs other then South Park said to stay way from them.

 

7 minutes ago, Axiom Crash said:

This just seems like the way all projects are run these days. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that this team doesn't have a proven track record, otherwise they'd be running this a little differently. But I think the internet itself is responsible for why ever group of new devs seems to take this same path in terms of how they market themselves. Just an interesting observation.

You mean like starting hype and selling merchandise before you've even developed a demo?

I've actually seen worse. About a decade ago there was a guy developing a franchise about wars fought with steam-powered Pacific Rim-like robots. Had all this concept art, merchandise, even a list of terms and slang the crew would use. But last time I checked, he gave no indication he knew what medium it was even going to be.

13 minutes ago, Axiom Crash said:

Yeah, the concept sounds like they have very limited investment in the idea, as well. If you're gonna this big, these trains should be able to build their own rails, blast through rock, tunnel, and bridge terrain on their own, at a resource cost, of course. Built out your own rail network, stations, outposts, mines, harvest resources to build more, take rock from one place and drop it as fill somewhere else. Drive piles into soft terrain, have trains of varying weights that need better engineered bridges.

... and it seems like a relatively easy thing to do, honestly. Take some cues from Total Annihilation for how to treat a big central command unit.

The question still needs to be answered though: "Why trains? Why not big sandcrawlers?" And for that, I'd say, make speed the issue. Add a threat big enough that even these trains can't withstand it, only outrun it. Make it show up at night, maybe, so you have to retreat to shelter at the end of the day. Could be a flood, could be giant worms, could be any of a number of things, but a combination of threats during different phases of exploration that make sense of "big, heavy and fast", and building out rails so you can move your big nuclear city on wheels at high speed makes a ton of sense.

... oh yeah, I had this idea a long time ago, come to think of it. The trains just weren't as big. Hm.

 

They say you can build your own tracks which seems dumb to me.

As to "why trains" I told them that was a question they should also ask themselves but they only seem to want to make a game where you command trains like they're warships.

I love trains, I like the idea of a game where you command a giant train. But I also want it to be believable.

I too had an idea about a world where trains were commanded like ships and taken on adventures to unknown regions. But I realised the nature of their necessary infrastructure didn't lend to that.

If you haven't take a look at their other videos about game features. There's one where they do a Harry Potter parody.

 

[Axiom Crash 87]

On 2024-03-18 at 8:40 PM, Casey Pones said:

Honestly I don't know anything about NFTs other then South Park said to stay way from them.

The concept of an NFT has been around forever. The idea is just an idea, but the culture that's sprung up around them is something truly vile.

1. In short, it's another business cult, exactly like Amway. It boils down to a pump-and-dump scam where the 0.1% are bilking the 1%, just with enough internet-era abstract concepts built in that the dinosaurs that run our country can't see through it.
2. The technology its built on is deeply flawed and shockingly inefficient. Minting an NFT costs over $100 because it's using that much actual, real electricity because of the sheer amount of calculations required, because it has to build its own contract subsystem on top of the existing smart contract system. Every NFT has to recreate all the functionality from scratch. It's an absolute bizarro world, but because cryptocurrency's security is fundamentally based on the fact that it will never, ever change, this ludicrous cost for what should be a few hundred bit flips is just accepted as the cost of doing business.
3. Just look up "going to the moon" and that's pretty much all you need. They just keep people to keep buying in because it raises the price, and thus everyone's valuation goes up. It seems like magic to the ones who get scammed, but they simply ... just ... don't realize that to actually turn that back into money, someone has to be willing to buy all of it. Then when all the gullible buyers are used up, it's not the savvy ones who are left holding these stocks, or NFTs, it's either overconfident 1%ers who have the money to throw away, or much more often, just regular people who got misled into investing their life savings, and then are left destitute after the fact.
 

On 2024-03-18 at 8:40 PM, Casey Pones said:

You mean like starting hype and selling merchandise before you've even developed a demo?

I mean poor communication between devs and customers. I mean videos and demos and infrequent updates. It's just more common now for companies to put up walls between themselves and the community they depend on. It's just necessary in a world where tiny things can blow up in hours. It's just best to say nothing at all unless it's been meticulously poured over for anything that could offend someone. When employees started getting in trouble for things they said off the clock, that's when I realized we'd entered a horrific new world where we're expected to represent out company 100% of the time, and that's so messed up.

On 2024-03-18 at 8:40 PM, Casey Pones said:

I've actually seen worse. About a decade ago there was a guy developing a franchise about wars fought with steam-powered Pacific Rim-like robots. Had all this concept art, merchandise, even a list of terms and slang the crew would use. But last time I checked, he gave no indication he knew what medium it was even going to be.

*Sigh*. I have a friend who invited me to a game jam. About an hour in, I realized he had no idea what he was doing. It was like watching a cult of making video games. So I asked to join another team. He never got beyond making some pipe graphics and putting them in a grid. The team I joined produced a fully-playable game, and actually asked me to keep working with them, but I chickened out because that's not why I went there in the first place. And ... honestly ... the team wasn't my cup of tea, either.

They're wannabes, with no dev experience, that don't realize that you will have to constantly iterate your design many thousands of times before you create what you want. With no experience, they have no idea how to make their ideas solid and realizable, they just keep working on concepts and ideas and never actually make anything because it's tiring and too hard. Ideas are easy to play with, writing is hard.

On 2024-03-18 at 8:40 PM, Casey Pones said:

They say you can build your own tracks which seems dumb to me.

As to "why trains" I told them that was a question they should also ask themselves but they only seem to want to make a game where you command trains like they're warships.

I love trains, I like the idea of a game where you command a giant train. But I also want it to be believable.

I too had an idea about a world where trains were commanded like ships and taken on adventures to unknown regions. But I realised the nature of their necessary infrastructure didn't lend to that.

If you haven't take a look at their other videos about game features. There's one where they do a Harry Potter parody.

Trains that big should be treated like motherships. A crucial asset that is both extremely durable but also extremely vulnerable. They're big enough to have hangars and garages for other vehicles that can more efficiently explore and exploit the terrain.

Ugh. It could be done well, but I don't think they're on the right track to do so.

Edited March 23 by Axiom Crash
Profanity

[Casey Pones 87]

11 hours ago, Axiom Crash said:

The concept of an NFT has been around forever. The idea is just an idea, but the culture that's sprung up around them is something truly vile.

1. In short, it's another business cult, exactly like Amway. It boils down to a pump-and-dump scam where the 0.1% are bilking the 1%, just with enough internet-era abstract concepts built in that the dinosaurs that run our country can't see through it.
2. The technology its built on is deeply flawed and shockingly inefficient. Minting an NFT costs over $100 because it's using that much actual, real electricity because of the sheer amount of calculations required, because it has to build its own contract subsystem on top of the existing smart contract system. Every NFT has to recreate all the functionality from scratch. It's an absolute bizarro world, but because cryptocurrency's security is fundamentally based on the fact that it will never, ever change, this ludicrous cost for what should be a few hundred bit flips is just accepted as the cost of doing business.
3. Just look up "going to the moon" and that's pretty much all you need. They just keep people to keep buying in because it raises the price, and thus everyone's valuation goes up. It seems like magic to the ones who get scammed, but they simply ... just ... don't realize that to actually turn that back into money, someone has to be willing to buy all of it. Then when all the gullible buyers are used up, it's not the savvy ones who are left holding these stocks, or NFTs, it's either overconfident 1%ers who have the money to throw away, or much more often, just regular people who got misled into investing their life savings, and then are left destitute after the fact.

That doesn't make it any clearer to me but you clearly show a lot of knowledge.

11 hours ago, Axiom Crash said:

I mean poor communication between devs and customers. I mean videos and demos and infrequent updates. It's just more common now for companies to put up walls between themselves and the community they depend on. It's just necessary in a world where tiny things can blow up in hours. It's just best to say nothing at all unless it's been meticulously poured over for anything that could offend someone. When employees started getting in trouble for things they said off the clock, that's when I realized we'd entered a horrific new world where we're expected to represent out company 100% of the time, and that's so fucked up.

People are so tense about any kind of offense these days. People should just take a moment to recognise what is hateful or bigoted and what just has some racial or gender content. Or just have a sense of humour about it.

The people behind this game keep using Snowpiercer as a reference. Are you into that? Personally I hate it, the film and tv show. 

Also, please don't use the F word, it's very possible there are children on this site.

[Axiom Crash 87]

On 2024-03-19 at 9:49 AM, Casey Pones said:

That doesn't make it any clearer to me but you clearly show a lot of knowledge.

Basically, NFTs run on pure hype. It's one thing if people buy an NFT because they want it, but they're convincing people to buy in because the price keeps going up. "It's the next bitcoin, techbro! Get in quick!" Except bitcoin is fungible and NFTs are not.

On 2024-03-19 at 9:49 AM, Casey Pones said:

People are so tense about any kind of offense these days. People should just take a moment to recognise what is hateful or bigoted and what just has some racial or gender content. Or just have a sense of humour about it.

The people behind this game keep using Snowpiercer as a reference. Are you into that? Personally I hate it, the film and tv show. 

If only it was that simple. There's a lot of complex social upheaval going on right now. Young men are under a microscope but don't have a clear guidepost to follow to find their way. A lot of what's happening is a symptom of confusion and fear caused by ignorance and lies. So many lies.

I've never heard of Snowpiercer before. But a quick look at the wikipedia page tells me it is indeed relevant. But it's not a point in their favor if they're heavily leaning on another property like that.

... I guess I'll take an actual look at what they have going on so I can give a better opinion about the project.

On 2024-03-19 at 9:49 AM, Casey Pones said:

Also, please don't use the F word, it's very possible there are children on this site.

Omg, you're right. Fixed! Thanks for reminding me. It's still in your quote, though, and I can't edit that.

[Axiom Crash 87]

Okay, after looking at their website and twitter, whatever this is, it's really half-hearted.

The videos on Equestria Iron Horse Lover's channel are ... odd. The quality of the videos are really high, there's no sense of authenticity to them. I clicked on the 2 commenters on their first video and the first one had a very amateur voiceover that marks it as genuine, and the other was shaky camcorder footage clearly captured on the spur of the moment.

It really gives me the feeling that these videos are just taken from professionally filmed trains and then edited together. There's no coherency or throughline to it at all. No personality or enthusiasm for the trains themselves. Just ... trains. It really seems like camouflage just to make the account look like it was doing things before it started promoting this game.

That said, train people can be deeply weird. But it still smacks of content with no real effort put into it.

They've got a rocket emoji next to the number of NFTs they've (supposedly) issued on their twitter. That's "to the moon" right there, they know what it means.

It's very, very sus, that's for sure. And hooking up games to NFTs has been a recent trend.

Omg, their discord server is locked down tight. Literally can't see anything at all when you join it. Creating a sense of exclusivity is one of the tactics they use to create buy-in. Discord is where a lot of the action happens with NFTs. This is not run like any other kind of community discord server for a game that I've ever seen.

Edited March 23 by Axiom Crash

[Axiom Crash 87]

I don't want to just tear people down, you know. I'm well-informed on the technical aspects of NFTs, bored ape yacht club, cryptoland, etc., but in the end I can't tell what's really going on here.

How'd you find out about this project in the first place?

[Axiom Crash 87]

Um.

Hope I didn't drive you off the site. I just talk as I think, sorry.

[Casey Pones 87]

On 2024-03-25 at 3:35 PM, Axiom Crash said:

Um.

Hope I didn't drive you off the site. I just talk as I think, sorry.

No you didn't. I sometimes feel I've offended or driven people off too.

 

On 2024-03-23 at 9:04 AM, Axiom Crash said:

How'd you find out about this project in the first place?

I don't quite remember. I think one of their shorts showcasing locos showed up when I was browsing Youtube.

 

On 2024-03-23 at 7:13 AM, Axiom Crash said:

I've never heard of Snowpiercer before. But a quick look at the wikipedia page tells me it is indeed relevant. But it's not a point in their favor if they're heavily leaning on another property like that.

Snowpiercer is a TV show that's based on a weird movie that's based on a much weirder graphic novel series. The show thinks it does a great job talking about the nuances of class and exposing it's injustice. But all it really says is "A class system is bad" and "Rich people are evil." And it's too full of dumb stuff to be taken a serious piece while being way too dark, gritty and extreme to work a a surreal piece.

Personally I wouldn't recommend anything from the franchise but that's partly out of my personal taste.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,275]

Sci-fi and trains, what else is there to add?  

[Casey Pones 87]

47 minutes ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

Sci-fi and trains, what else is there to add?  

Well they seem to also be planning some horror elements and some kind of technology-based magic.

[Axiom Crash 87]

On 2024-03-26 at 3:24 PM, Casey Pones said:

Snowpiercer is a TV show that's based on a weird movie that's based on a much weirder graphic novel series. The show thinks it does a great job talking about the nuances of class and exposing it's injustice. But all it really says is "A class system is bad" and "Rich people are evil." And it's too full of dumb stuff to be taken a serious piece while being way too dark, gritty and extreme to work a a surreal piece.

Personally I wouldn't recommend anything from the franchise but that's partly out of my personal taste.

Pretty much the same impression I got from reading the synopsis. I certainly have better things to watch.