⊃∪∩⊂ Awakening - Funcom's survival MMO

[MadMaxHellfire]

what's the point in spending billions on licenses if then they proceed to completely buttfuckrape the lore? shit, i was almost planning on buying this.

 

[bylam]

Lmao the guy with the lasgun (i mean mining laser) in the first trailer.

From the novel - "CUTTERAY: short-range version of lasgun used mostly as a cutting tool"

what's the point in spending billions on licenses if then they proceed to completely buttfuckrape the lore? shit, i was almost planning on buying this.

Some more examples would be useful.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Some more examples would be useful.

99% of the licensed games since licensing videogame existed.

 

[bylam]

Ah sure, I thought you were talking about what we were doing. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people will argue with our interpretation, but I've done my best.

 

[Demo.Graph]

The game in one image.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Ah sure, I thought you were talking about what we were doing. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people will argue with our interpretation, but I've done my best.

wait, are you involved in this? then let me be more specific: sleeveless guy. on dune it means death in a few hours. minutes even if done very wrong.
lasers? even worse: commonly available lasers? in a world full of personal shields? that's not how dune works. lasers are a huge goddamn no in dune.
high-tech looking stuff? dune is a no-computers setting, supposed to look between gothic and brutalist.
if that ship is a monitor, or even worse a no-ship, you're using a timeframe pretty much no dune fan cares for. if that's anything else, it's probably been made up. why pay a license to make stuff up?
windmills? on dune sandstorms are way more than da rude, they strip the flesh off the bones. also sand, it's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. any mechanism in the open is going to grind to a halt soon. very soon.

just call it "generic desert planet survival", do whatever the fuck you want and you're not pissing millions of fans off, which in turn might became real customers. i could buy gdps since it's the closest thing i ever saw to a dune game, but i'm not going to buy a "dune" game only only to mutter to myself every five seconds "this looks nothing like dune".

 

[bylam]

Ah sure, I thought you were talking about what we were doing. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people will argue with our interpretation, but I've done my best.

wait, are you involved in this? then let me be more specific: shirtless guy. on dune it means death in a few hours. minutes even if done very wrong.
lasers? even worse: commonly available lasers? in a world full of personal shields? that's not how dune works. lasers are a huge goddamn no in dune.
high-tech looking stuff? dune is a no-computers setting, supposed to look between gothic and brutalist.
windmills? on dune sandstorms are way more than da rude, they strip the flesh off the bones. also sand, it's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. any mechanism in the open is going to grind to a halt soon. very soon.

just call it "generic desert planet survival", do whatever the fuck you want and you're not pissing millions of fans off.

- Shirtless guy on Dune, as someone pointed out, is early game - figure it out or die.
- Cutterays, not lasguns. Quote above from the novel. Pretty common, used on Dune. Fremen stole them from imperial testing stations. Happy to provide relevant novel quotes.
- Windmills - Behind the Shield Wall (where the worst storms are blunted), they do lose durability fast - especially if you forget to turn them off during a sandstorm.
- "High tech looking stuff" - This can't be a serious argument. Dune has a ton of "high tech" stuff. They don't use computers. Can also provide book examples if needed.
- I see you added a comment about the ship - but you didn't really explain how it contradicts the lore in any way. For the record, in the novel it is called a "troop carrier". It is also specifically mentioned as being used on Arrakis, during the time frame that people care about.

By the way, I am fine with you saying "I don't like your interpretation." That's kind of a different thing to saying "you don't know the lore."

Anything else?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

"figure it out or die" is a weak argument since we know how forgiving videogames are. i'm not on dune to be forgiven, or to have it feel like a modded fallout 4.
https://youtu.be/1S-l7NySFsI?t=72 this looks like a weapon to me. even if it isn't, it's still used as a laser weapon. i'm fine as long as the moment it connects with a shielded person it deletes everything and everyone in a 5 km radius, and then your account gets banned for war crimes.
"lose durability" belongs to the forgiveness argument too, and it's not really an indicator of a harsh environment, only on how much patience the player has. such things belong to gdps, not dune.
the tech is definitely high, but it doesn't *look* "high". the galactic guide paul is given is still a tiny book with a magnifier. the dreaded hunter-seeker is just a floating piece of metal with a spike. sci-fi high technology from the '60s has never been intended to look like how we guess it has to be depicted now.

 

[bylam]

"figure it out or die" is a weak argument since we know how forgiving videogames are. i'm not on dune to be forgiven, or to have it feel like a modded fallout 4.

This isn't a lore argument though. The specific comment was about how quickly an unprotected person would die. They will.

https://youtu.be/1S-l7NySFsI?t=72 this looks like a weapon to me. even if it isn't, it's still used as a laser weapon. i'm fine as long as the moment it connects with a shielded person it deletes everything and everyone in a 5 km radius, and then your account gets banned for war crimes.

No that is a lasgun. They do exist. Again that comment was addressed to the earlier comment about laser cutting devices. Lasguns are not common, but they exist. And the shield contact is a part of the world, but it doesn't happen in game for various reasons.

"lose durability" belongs to the forgiveness argument too, and it's not really an indicator of a harsh environment, only on how much patience the player has. such things belong to gdps, not dune.

Since the books constantly reference the cost of wear and tear on equipment on Arrakis, I don't understand your argument. Again it feels like an argument against game mechanics, not a specific point of lore we have failed at.

the tech is definitely high, but it doesn't *look* "high". the galactic guide paul is given is still a tiny book with a magnifier. the dreaded hunter-seeker is just a floating piece of metal with a spike. sci-fi high technology from the '60s has never been intended to look like how we guess it has to be depicted now.

I'm not sure what specific thing you are referring to here. I don't think anything in the game looks "mass effect" level high tech.

I'll say it again, I'm not going to argue about whether a Dune game should exist or not, because it does. I just find the lore discussion interesting.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Lasguns are viable out in the open desert as shields attract wormsign.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

"figure it out or die" is a weak argument since we know how forgiving videogames are. i'm not on dune to be forgiven, or to have it feel like a modded fallout 4.

This isn't a lore argument though. The specific comment was about how quickly an unprotected person would die. They will.

https://youtu.be/1S-l7NySFsI?t=72 this looks like a weapon to me. even if it isn't, it's still used as a laser weapon. i'm fine as long as the moment it connects with a shielded person it deletes everything and everyone in a 5 km radius, and then your account gets banned for war crimes.

No that is a lasgun. They do exist. Again that comment was addressed to the earlier comment about laser cutting devices. Lasguns are not common, but they exist. And the shield contact is a part of the world, but it doesn't happen in game for various reasons.

"lose durability" belongs to the forgiveness argument too, and it's not really an indicator of a harsh environment, only on how much patience the player has. such things belong to gdps, not dune.

Since the books constantly reference the cost of wear and tear on equipment on Arrakis, I don't understand your argument. Again it feels like an argument against game mechanics, not a specific point of lore we have failed at.

the tech is definitely high, but it doesn't *look* "high". the galactic guide paul is given is still a tiny book with a magnifier. the dreaded hunter-seeker is just a floating piece of metal with a spike. sci-fi high technology from the '60s has never been intended to look like how we guess it has to be depicted now.

I'm not sure what specific thing you are referring to here. I don't think anything in the game looks "mass effect" level high tech.

I'll say it again, I'm not going to argue about whether a Dune game should exist or not, because it does. I just find the lore discussion interesting.

It is possible to make your own servers? I seen plenty of site that sell servers to host this game this is why the question.

 

[Latelistener]

It is possible to make your own servers?

That's practically the only question they should've answered, but they didn't say anything about it.

 

[Grunker]

It is possible to make your own servers?

That's practically the only question they should've answered, but they didn't say anything about it.

For Conan you essentially have to pay a third party to host one. I did with some buddies last year.

 

[Harthwain]

"figure it out or die" is a weak argument since we know how forgiving videogames are. i'm not on dune to be forgiven, or to have it feel like a modded fallout 4.

Is it [a weak argument] though? It's a survival game in Dune setting. So dying without protective measures fits the theme. Will it be "git gud"? Probably not, but I don't expect it to be a Dark Souls of survival games. Then again, you COULD quite literally give players a few hours of real time before they die as a character, to motivate them to find means of survival. As a timer it would be very generous. A shelter could also frezee time you have left (or drastically reduce it). There are options here to make it both fun and lore-accurate.

this looks like a weapon to me. even if it isn't, it's still used as a laser weapon. i'm fine as long as the moment it connects with a shielded person it deletes everything and everyone in a 5 km radius, and then your account gets banned for war crimes.

First of all - using lasgun on shield is not a war crime, it's stupidity. Using nuclear weapons against humans is a war crime. Even Muad'Dib wasn't persecuted for using nuclear weapons, because he claimed to not use it against people (and he was pretty much in place to be de facto the Emperor of the Known Universe, as well as the one to control the flow of Spice. Literally so).

Secondly - lasguns WERE used on Dune. We even have the contact between a lasgun and a shield in the very first book. We also have the Beast Rabban saying "Fremen don't use shields" and the fact that using shields in the desert is very high risk, so even the smugglers don't use them. Which means it makes sense to have lasguns or laser cutting tools on Arrakis.

On laser tools, from Dune:

A Fedaykin went to look, returned, said: "The explosion caused a little rock to fall, but the engineers say it is still open. They're cleaning up with lasbeams."

"lose durability" belongs to the forgiveness argument too, and it's not really an indicator of a harsh environment, only on how much patience the player has. such things belong to gdps, not dune.

Seriously, did you even read the books? Again, from the very first book you should know how harsh Arrakis is on equipment:

"Why is there so little of it? There's volcanic rock here. There're a dozen power sources I could name. There's polar ice. They say you can't drill in the desert--storms and sandtides destroy equipment faster than it can be installed, if the worms don't get you first. They've never found water traces there, anyway. But the mystery, Wellington, the real mystery is the wells that've been drilled up here in the sinks and basins. Have you read about those?"

Hawat turned two pages in his notebook. "After assessing the repairs and operable equipment, we've worked out a first estimate on operating costs. It's based naturally on a depreciated figure for a clear safety margin." He closed his eyes in Mentat semitrance, said: "Under the Harkonnens, maintenance and salaries were held to fourteen per cent. We'll be lucky to make it at thirty per cent at first. With reinvestment and growth factors accounted for, including the CHOAM percentage and military costs, our profit margin will be reduced to a very narrow six or seven per cent until we can replace worn-out equipment.

"And he's a long way from the Emperor," Leto said. "I want those bases. They'd be loaded with materials we could salvage and use for repair of our working equipment."

"Agree? Of course I agree, but it won't be much use. Static electricity from sandstorms masks out many signals. Transmitters short out. They've been tried here before, you know. Arrakis is tough on equipment.

So much for "completely buttfuckraping the lore".

 

[Grunker]

"figure it out or die" is a weak argument since we know how forgiving videogames are. i'm not on dune to be forgiven, or to have it feel like a modded fallout 4.

Is it [a weak argument] though? It's a survival game in Dune setting. So dying without protective measures fits the theme. Will it be "git gud"? Probably not, but I don't expect it to be a Dark Souls of survival games. Then again, you COULD quite literally give players a few hours of real time before they die as a character, to motivate them to find means or survival. As a timer it would be very generous. A shelter could also frezee time you have left (or drastically reduce it). There are options here to make it both fun and lore-accurate.

These mechanics were already in Conan, it will probably be much less than hours

 

[Demo.Graph]

"lose durability" belongs to the forgiveness argument too, and it's not really an indicator of a harsh environment, only on how much patience the player has. such things belong to gdps, not dune.

Seriously, did you even read the books? Again, from the very first book you should know how harsh Arrakis is on equipment:
[snip]
So much for "completely buttfuckraping the lore".

Actually, I believe he meant that durability slider doesn't fit the lore. Because Arrakis doesn't gradually degrade the equipment. It completely destroys it, very quickly. Some of your quotes are exactly about it.

For me those technical details don't really matter. Of course the game would pulpify the source material, most of them do.
The Dune was about mystery, intrigue, ecology and social relations, with nietzschean musings here and there. You can't realistically expect a shooter to portray those topics properly.
The question is, whether we would get a fun gerenic desert survival game out of it. (and whether we need it at all, Empyrion seems to fit the bill for me)

 

[Harthwain]

Actually, I believe he meant that durability slider doesn't fit the lore. Because Arrakis doesn't gradually degrade the equipment. It completely destroys it, very quickly. Some of your quotes are exactly about it.

These quotes also mention equipment repair. Even if it is not caused by Arrakis itself but by the regular use of equipment in question, that's still justifiable inclusion.

 

[Latelistener]

It is possible to make your own servers?

That's practically the only question they should've answered, but they didn't say anything about it.

For Conan you essentially have to pay a third party to host one. I did with some buddies last year.

You can host your own. It doesn't even need some kind of crazy hardware.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lasguns are viable out in the open desert as shields attract wormsign.

But the Fremens still didn't use them as a general rule.

Why? Probably because lasguns were an imperial weapon and would be quite uncommon to see on a backward planet like Arrakis.

If they were also so common among the Fremen it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just blast entire groups of them out of the sky by hiding shields everywhere and wait for someone to set them off. Who cares if they attracked worms. All the better even if they did if your object was to just murder as many Fremen as possible. Hell what if you got lucky and the blast killed the worm too. I can picture the Sardaukar just dropping shields all over across the desert.

Just seems jarring to see something that's supposed to be uncommon and quite dangerous to have around being used as an every day object in the most nonchalant manner possible.

Of course, still not as jarring as using franchises like Dune or Conan for some retardo building game. I never played Conan Exiles but just the idea of your mighty Cimmeran laying bricks is giving me a mild brain aneurysm. I don't recall carpentry being something Conan was ever interested in in any of the books or films, do you?

 

[Nikanuur]

Suppose MMOs magically became the next gen RPGs; as in for real, it happened. I said suppose, just for a minute

Why would anyone give Funcom another chance is beyond me; Anarchy? Conan? TSW?
Name me one fucking MMO they made, ever, that wasn't:
- Bug-ridden
- More and more unpolished if not half done the further you went from the starter areas
- confused about whether it wanted to be just different, good, or massively multiplayer afterall; with all a befuddled direction entails in terms of actual gameplay
- left to die soon, well before its time and slowly. So that even the most hardcore retard would feel it happening

And yet..
I don't understand gamerz; i most certainly don't understand MMO gaemrz.

Nice to know Bylam still has a job and i sincerely hope it pays well, this isn't a jab by all means. But from a customer's perspective, lol..

Would the world be a better place without those games? Yes, they're flawed, but for all their flaws I had great fun with two of them (Conan and TSW) for many weeks. Like, it's true that Conan was sketchy after Tortuga (Tortage?) - but Tortuga was amazing (the art design vibe of it, the main questlines there, the night/day thing, the music), and showed what a game like that could be like. TSW, again, it had bags of immersion for ages (they actually sustained its questage density this time), and that initial build wheel system was pretty cool, but ultimately its combat let it down (it never really felt smooth to play).

I wouldn't want there to not be developers like Funcom, who push the envelope, even though they never seem to have quite the organization, resources or management to pull it off. I've had a fair amount of ... well, fun .... playing their games

I remember hearing about MMOs for the first time in my life, sometime around 2000. We were all excited. We would've gotten something like Baldur's Gate, or Fallout 2, but with so many players all over the world, wow!

...yeah... what we got was grind, awesomely painted worlds, empty environs void of adventure full of ever-spawning mobs and bosses strewn around without meaning or consideration, an ocassional chest or herb or gem-formation in the open, fetch quests, stories that more often than not utterly failed to entice (sorry SWtOR, you are mostly the only one out there), and builds that were designed to fry your dopamine circuits and induce addiction.

Age of Conan tried to deliver on that "promise never spoken aloud." And sadly, it failed half-way there.

And even though I hate to admit it, I must agree with you. MMOs influence is far surpassing its genre or gaming itself; for worse or better, it's changed a great portion of human society. I'd even go so far as to see the founding blocks of social networking platforms in MMOs.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Lasguns are viable out in the open desert as shields attract wormsign.

But the Fremens still didn't use them as a general rule.

Why? Probably because lasguns were an imperial weapon and would be quite uncommon to see on a backward planet like Arrakis.

If they were also so common among the Fremen it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just blat entire groups of them out of the sky by hiding shields everywhere and wait for someone to set them off. Who cares if they attracked worms. All the better even if they did if your object was to just murder as many Fremen as possible. Hell what if you got lucky and the blast killed the worm too. I can picture the Sardaukar just dropping shields all over across the desert.

Just seems jarring to see something that's supposed to be uncommon and quite dangerous to have around being used as an every day object in the most nonchalant manner possible.

Of course, still not as jarring as using franchises like Dune or Conan for some retardo building game. I never played Conan Exiles but just the idea of your mighty Cimmeran laying bricks is giving me a mild brain aneurysm. I don't recall carpentry being something Conan was ever interested in in ay of the books or films, do you?

That's because funcom are massive gays. bylam tried making a singleplayer Conan and they ended up saying no. He's now levelling his XP bar to become CEO.

 

[Harthwain]

Just seems jarring to see something that's supposed to be uncommon and quite dangerous to have around being used as an every day object in the most nonchalant manner possible.

I think you guys keep mixing up combat lasguns and tool-like lasguns. Again, from Dune:

Terminology of the Imperium

[...]
CUTTERAY: short-range version of lasgun used mostly as a cutting tool and surgeon's scalpel.

Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune

[...]

Kynes returned to his Imperial chores, directing the Biological Testing Stations. And now, Fremen began to appear among the Station personnel. The Fremen looked at each other. They were infiltrating the "system," a possibility they'd never considered. Station tools began finding their way into the sietch warrens -- especially cutterays which were used to dig underground catchbasins and hidden windtraps.

 

[ADL]

https://massivelyop.com/2024/03/28/...e-deep-desert-and-getting-rid-of-funcom-jank/

Funcom’s Joel Bylos was among those in attendance at this year’s GDC, which is the stage where he answered questions about the upcoming Dune: Awakening that involved the game’s population size, its activities for PvP and PvE players, and its plans for release as chronicled by Wccftech.

We’ll jump to that release timing question first, as Bylos noted during the Q&A that he wants to ensure the survival MMO will arrive when it’s free of Funcom’s infamous levels of jank:

“We don’t want to ship it till it’s ready. I don’t know how many of you have played Conan Exiles. We have a reputation for interesting ideas and some jank. I would prefer to get rid of the jank. I’d like to launch a game that’s really polished from Funcom. We’ve grown as a company. I think we can deliver a really polished survival experience.”

As far as the rest of the roundtable, here are some of the major highlights that are the most important to us here:

• The game’s MMO size is still fairly robust according to Bylos, but it won’t support the “thousands of players” that Funcom noted previously. The game’s world will be split up into three maps: the regular desert that provides the bulk of the gameplay experience, the FFA PvP deep desert region that lies beyond the Shield Wall mountains, and a social hub. Each can support hundreds of players and will be instanced based on server demands.
• Speaking of the deep desert, that’s where most of the major resource pools will be found. The aim, according to Bylos, is to have PvP focus mostly on fighting for resources rather than “kicking down other people’s sandcastles.”
• PvP will have the usual full-loot rules, but Bylos also brings up the game’s political system as a means to compete against others without necessarily slaughtering everyone. Additionally, bases within the survival desert will be shielded and significantly harder to destroy, and players will see warnings if they enter a PvP area.
• PvE will be available for players as well, primarily in the ecology labs that serve as Dune Awakening’s dungeons. Bylos also claims that players can progress in the game without engaging in PvP whatsoever.
• A business model has not been decided yet. “I mean, it’s an MMO, so we’re gonna keep it running, which means we’ll probably have some form of monetization post-launch,” Bylos said. “I don’t think we’re ready to talk about the details of that yet.”
• Yes, there will obviously be sandworms. No you cannot ride them at launch, but it will be coming sometime post-launch; sandworms are otherwise intended to be a constant threat that players will need to navigate, and sandwalking will be a skill players need to eventually learn.

 

[Harthwain]

The aim, according to Bylos, is to have PvP focus mostly on fighting for resources rather than “kicking down other people’s sandcastles.”

That's good. I find PvP in most games to be an annoyance rather than something I want to engage in.

PvP will have the usual full-loot rules, but Bylos also brings up the game’s political system as a means to compete against others without necessarily slaughtering everyone.

This sounds interesting. I am guessing it means some objective-based faction goals. We need more games like Solium Infernum in general.

A business model has not been decided yet. “I mean, it’s an MMO, so we’re gonna keep it running, which means we’ll probably have some form of monetization post-launch,” Bylos said. “I don’t think we’re ready to talk about the details of that yet.”

This is my biggest concern (with this game and the entire MMO genre). I don't like subscriptions by default. It always makes me think I am "wasting time" when doing anything other than playing a game I got a subscription for. Hopefully they will come with some different idea, but it is still concerning they want to make it into an MMO and not something where the PvP/PvE aspect doesn't have to be "kept running" by the company itself (just look at Dark Souls or Remnant 2).

So I remain interested yet wary.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

“I mean, it’s an MMO, so we’re gonna keep it running, which means we’ll probably have some form of monetization post-launch,”

[Guild Wars intensifies]
or, more like, dims.