FAQ: Planetoid Pioneers Contributor Edition

[Q-Tipps]

Please DO NOT BUY the Contributor Edition UNLESS you are genuinely interested in creating cool stuff with the world-class Crush2D physics engine and its integrated toolkit. If you simply want a polished physics-driven game experience (nothing wrong with that!), please add Planetoid Pioneers to your wishlist and wait until it exits its Early Access period.

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
Alongside our Contributor Community, we will flesh out our first official ‘Primoid’ Planetoid, which is already two and a half kilometers in circumference, and will eventually be completely filled with sprawling cave complexes and physics-driven adventure. Much of this content - ranging from devices, weapons, vehicles, creatures, and even parts of the Planetoid itself - will be made by the Contributors, and then curated to fit into a cohesive experience by the official development team. We hope the first official Planetoid will be fully filled and polished in about a year. At any rate, the physics + sandbox + world-class tools will surely make the journey there a ton of creative fun, too!

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
When Planetoid Pioneers exits its Early Access period on Steam, it will have the first official ‘Primoid’ Planetoid completely filled out with polished content, and also feature a couple of other smaller Planetoids to show the flexibility, modularity, and depth of the game design and engine. We are aiming for the official content that will ship with the game then to be a substantial, replayable, and hand-built experience. It will offer you quite the adventure that will only be expanded as more content by Contributors becomes available both through the Workshop and elsewhere.

Why Early Access?
Data Realms was one of the very first studios to ever try the Early Access model - years before it was even called that, let alone formalized on Steam. It worked surprisingly well for us and the fans of our last title, Cortex Command, which inspired Markus 'Notch' Persson to adopt the model for Minecraft. It worked out there too, as well as for many other games.

With our new project, Planetoid Pioneers, we want to push the envelope again and take Early Access to the next level: We have already spent seven years building a whole new physics-based engine and better-than-developer-grade toolset from scratch (called the Crush2D engine). We did this with the aim to allow you, the user, to not only give us early feedback on Planetoid Pioneers a la conventional Early Access, but also empower you to actually have a chance to build the official game content along with us, the developers - and also to sell your own creations in the Steam Workshop.

Instead of a traditional modding community, which only gets to tinker with content after the game is done, we are building a Contributor Community, which gets involved earlier and in a much more hands-on way can add to the extremely modular game structure and design already established by us.

Why are you working on another project when you're still working on Cortex Command?
Cortex Command is something of a games industry miracle; Data began work on the game when he was in high school, and over the years the project took shape and grew with support from the community into an indie classic loaded with weapons, factions, and vehicles that we're proud to sell in the vanilla game. There are also loads of community mods that a lot of value to what's already a great package.

That said, since Data didn't really know what he was doing when he started, there are some serious design flaws in the code that mean Cortex Command is still being tweaked for performance. A major update is coming that will improve this in a lot of ways, but these patches aren't being added because the game is somehow unfinished. Instead we've added them because the community deserves a more performant game.

It was an older and wiser Data that started work on Planetoid Pioneers seven years ago. Rather than an adolescent adolescent, PP was from the start carefully designed by professional developers. We couldn't undo the errors of Cortex Command, but we could certainly do a lot better with a new project - Planetoid Pioneers.

What happens to the content I make in the Crush2D Editor?
That’s your choice, but there are three options we can support through Steam Workshop. Those who buy the Contributor Edition will be able to submit their own contributions to be considered for inclusion in the final game and, if accepted, their names will appear in the credits. If you’d rather see your content sold on the curated item shop like in Team Fortress 2 or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, you can submit it for consideration and if it’s up to our standards we’ll put it up for sale (with a very favorable revenue split to the creator). And of course you’re free to share your creations for free with anyone by simply giving them the PNG file, which they can then just drag and drop into the game.

So you’re releasing the game engine for free with Planetoid Pioneers?
Yep. Crush2D is Data Realms’ privately developed physics-driven 2D game engine, and it comes with every copy of Planetoid Pioneers. Once you’ve installed the game you’ll be able to modify it on the fly using the same tools we created to build it.

How easy is it to make my own content?
Your first view of Crush2D might be a bit daunting, but the drag and drop swapping of components, plenty of codeless tweaks in the editor, and the simplicity of Lua scripting have most of our users churning out playable content within an hour or so. It’s so simple we’ve used it in schools and been very pleasantly surprised with how creative and productive these students could be within a day of playing with the tools!

How much will Planetoid Pioneers cost?
The Early Access Contributor Edition will sell for $40, with the final launch price coming in at around $20.

Why are you charging more for Early Access?
There are several reasons. First, we want to make it clear that the Contributor Edition isn’t for everyone. The Contributor Edition is less about a chance to start playing the game early and more about the experience of truly helping to build a game. Second, we believe that the Contributor Edition is actually worth more than the final game, provided that you’re interested in creating or remixing content. Content creators will not only have the chance to see their work in the final release, but to sell them in the Curated Item Workshop on Steam when the game launches. With skill and patience a dedicated modder could earn far more than the extra $20 they spent for the Contributor Edition.

So you’re offering paid community-created items?
Yes (In addition to the free Workshop that will also be available!). Just like in Team Fortress 2 and Counterstrike: Global Offensive we want to let the community help create new items for the game and earn money for them. But, just like in Valve’s community-driven content system, everything on the paid item shop will be painstakingly curated. This means our item shop will feature only the best content - stuff that we’re willing to treat as if it were our own work - rewarding those who really add value to the game with the chance to get paid for their work. It also ensures that whoever goes there to spend money knows that the content they are browsing is top notch.

Will there be any free community-created items?
Absolutely. As we’ve said, only the best and most unique of the content submitted for sale will actually appear on the Cuared Item Store. Plenty of people just want to make stuff for the fun of it, and considering the volume of stuff already being produced by the community prior to launch it’s safe to say no one will ever be bored just playing with the free items in the regular Ready-to-Use Workshop.

[BRIMStone]

"ITS F***ING MAGIC!" - announcer guy

i was with you guys when you had that chat up and the game was in an even earlier state. i would love to help contribute to the game, however i find the coding part to be quite confusing, or at least intimidating, anything you'd suggest?

[Diggergig]

How versatile is the content creator? Could I use it to, for example, create a travelling air vortex that sucks in, spins anround and spits out, or a volcano that erupts. Can I lava? Is there anything approaching liquid physics?

[limesoda]

Ya, I thought I saw molten metal in one of the earlier gameplay videos

[Diggergig]

Hoping for an answer... :)

[data010]

Diggerdig, all those things are definitely possible right now, except for the liquid/lava stuff that we are working on implementing and hope to have in there for when the game leaves early access.

Here's a video tutorial which might give you an idea of the power of the scripting environment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYYeyfPZpXo

[Diggergig]

Thanks.

[Walou]

For anyone trying to learn LUA (the code the game uses for everything) i suggest you try Codecombat, its shaped like a fantasy strategy game that teaches you code to complete levels. its a pretty neat way to learn coding in general.

[DeadnCryin]

how about going back and finish your first EA game Cortex Command before you make new fake promises ?

[Puppet #7]

Escrito originalmente por tahmakasa:

4 weeks later no answer. Is this a scam ?

No- its not how steam works for any title.

If you actually wanna contribute without buying just post your art here in the general forum- same difference.

[69th_Zeb]

Escrito originalmente por Walou:

For anyone trying to learn LUA (the code the game uses for everything) i suggest you try Codecombat, its shaped like a fantasy strategy game that teaches you code to complete levels. its a pretty neat way to learn coding in general.

Thanks Walou. I'm a bit A.D.D. when it comes to learning a new coding language. I'm more artist than coder, so it's a good fit.

[Q-Tipps]

The advantage of Lua is that it's a bit more concise than a lot of languages. It has some disadvantages (I'm not a fan of whitespace-sensitive languages) but it is pretty darn close to human readable for a fluent english speaker.

[traeng]

Whoops I just bought it just to support you.

[stan]

I just bought this game :)

[haloace999]

will you make cortex command 2?

[mimi_astralparty_fan]

Hey, if we dont buy the contributors editon, and we have the game only edition will we have access to all the ♥♥♥♥ thats inside the contributors edition when the game leaves early access?