in what universe is that ready to ship ? it's all placeholder for now, the unit abilities aren't even all decided yet, you're looking at a good year of further developpement before you can even call it a beta
Kinda my point dude/dudette. I'm referencing the low/rushed standards of game development nowadays. There are some studio's who would consider Creeper World 4 at its current stage of development a finished product and publish it, along with any game breaking bugs/blatant programming failures. Eg. Ubisoft, Sega, EA.
@@Soken50 He's got a point, Soken. Ever since gaming companies have taken to the internet, many have developed a bad habit of selling incomplete/broken games and patching them later or even selling the game in multiple pieces as DLC. EA is especially notorious in this aspect.
I like the edges of the map; much better than just a straight cut all around. Also, I like the flow of the game so far: in cw3, once you got control of the creeper you've essentially won, but this feels more dangerous in a way; which is good. I also think an enemy that creates waves would be good. Might as well make use of those water physics, right? Overall, I'm loving it, and can't wait to play (hopefully on Gog)
Ooh, it could be a super durable one that sucks up a large amount of creeper rapidly, giving you a chance to push forward if you're smart, but could also heavily punish you if you don't defend the forward position in time. Along with all the dangers of the creeper flooding through your base.
I would like an enemy kind of like the ship in partical fleet that directs the particals. So I'm envisioning some large slow moving blob that sucks in behind it and pushes that in front of it, generating a large way in front of it the farther it moves.
My thought for such an enemy would probably be something like the black holes. Suck in a bunch of surrounding creeper, up to a limit or time and then dump it all at once.
I noticed the blobs seemed to make small waves moving around inside deeper creeper. This would be a great idea to have, especially since Virgil seems to be thinking more about how Creeper moves around in general this time around - making the liquid enemy more liquidlike certainly is something I'd enjoy.
Looking good. I rather like it so far, especially the shields. That said, I have a few ideas for them: Totem shields are a great idea, though I'd probably implement them as stronger than the ones you can build. Other types of totems could also be put to use. The shields you build requiring a resource, similar to anticreeper and arg. This makes them dependent on the production economy balance you have going. Last bit, a thought came to mind about a point-to-point wall, similar to network poles but requiring power, blocking creeper flow, but being vulnerable at the joints . Not as effective as the shields but synergizes with them.
I'm half an half. I think a "shield wall" could actually be neat. AKA, not a full bubble, just a wall. Takes a decent resources to stay up, takes heavy resources when actually fending off Creeper. I'm not big into the shards though, unless we get some sort of counter to them.
My personal concern about the shards is more their consistency in appearance and how large their AoE seems to be - I like the idea of the shards, but maybe not every single 'land' enemy should throw one up when it's destroyed.
They also seem to go far above the shields. And nothing seems to shoot them. Also from what I understand, you can't build shields, they are map placements no?
Idea: perhaps play the mission properly, then do a post-game comentary with pausing, slowmo and speed up? That way you can show gameplay without losing concentration and you can explain much more thoroughly in post? :D Good stuff, can't wait to play this game even in this state, i'd love to even playtest it.
I actually quite like this video, it shows the dev still enjoys playing the game himself, which is a very good prospect in regards to the probable quality of the finished product. + it's fun to watch this game. It's strangely soothing to watch a purple ocean recede.
I like the CW community. On mount and blade bannerlords devblogs, all you see is complaints about it taking too long. Most people here encourage it because it will cause the game to have less problems and more content.
A automatic system to filter out cheaters entering the scoreboard would be nice. Some games have that. Steam for example wont let you get achievements if you use cheats and sometimes even mods.
SpaceJohn The current as in CW3? He said that blobs can deposit their load on top or a shield, and it'd slide off the sides. Sounds to me like CW4 would be capable of it.
Suggestion: Give Pylons double or triple range when on crystals, so you can either have long range cannon/mortar, or a pylon that can help you capture a isolated high mountain peak far from your frontline.
They kinda do that with "relays" (pylons) and "power zones" (crystals) in CW3, literally ANYTHING you place on top of a powerzone works better, so it'll probably be like that here too.
YES A NEW EPISODE OF "what virgl has been doing for the past month" MY FAVORITE SHOW!!!! (edit) wow this is the most likes ive ever had on a youtube comment......wow......if i get 50 to 60 likes....ill tell you my new unit ideas (edit) SO SO SORRY I SCREWED UP SO BAD.....time to fix this.....if i get 100 likes ill tell you what my OPINION is about the new units that have been shown so far (basically a run down of what i think about the CW4 units so far)
An idea for a new mission type is a survival mission, the goal is to survive without your main structure destroyed and the creeper gets stronger as the mission continues. You could make it so you can't destroy emitters so it's all about playing defensively not offensively. Not sure if this idea would work that well but it could be cool.
Offensive strategy could still work, you just wouldn't be able to nullify the emitters, but exceeding their output would perform essentially the same job as the current nullifiers. Once you exceed their output, it's just a matter of keeping up with the output.
Could have a mechanic where they put out more creeper when turrets are close and could also adjust the scaling of creeper increase while turrets are close to further discourage that strategy. The hard part of such missions is balancing how much area the player has effectively available versus how much creeper they have to fend off.
Taking the NW totem early is probably a good idea, since all that fortified creeper looked to be giving you some trouble. Drivers would be good too - you're sitting on a decent energy stockpile for most of the mission, while mostly ore-starved.
The one he took right at the end?, i heavily disagree, if that totem is takeable from the start, the mission overall is way too easy. (not enough creeper, its only a good idea if the level is completely rushable). the land between him and the totem is almost indefensible when trying to defend from the east, its all low RELATIVE to the totems that are close and actually defend his economic valley. if you were to land over there instead of using liveries, you wouldn't have the economic base to defend your land. if you spent time fortifying your ground there, all the other totems become as difficult as just that single totem. He had to let it go and just defend his land, it caused a massive delay, yes. but there was no way to grab it. (again making the assumption that the level isn't way too easy/ less capable hands)
Not what I meant. He could have started the same but built the liveries far, far earlier in the mission, and had an easier time because of it. Controlling the extra power zone would also let him use more of the central valley for energy production.
Also consider that if it was taken as early as possible, it would of made it possible to harness another emitter for production, (granted it wasn't needed) and reduced the overall amount of creeper entities that could of spawned. (I think that emitter created some blobs, not sure though.)
i vaguely addressed that thought, but didn't directly do so, because of the reason i gave behind it. that being "it's only a good idea if the level is completely rushable". i agree that he could take that ground earlier, but it was tactically bad to do so. By that i mean, "moving faster" always lets you do more, but for a person who's distracted (streaming) or a novice, a sacrifice of focus must be made, that being, "to do that, he has to not do something else", and none of the things he did were wasteful actions, other than sitting on a large stockpile of underutilised energy. yes, he could use some of the energy he burned at 9:00 to begin the livery tactic, but as a tactical decision (making one decision over the other) he would have to neglect the south, in which case, he would end up in a similar situation as to the end of this mission, the only difference being the south emitter giving grief instead of the north west. Since liveries were used, no energy would be produced by choosing that route over protecting from the southern emitter. (both situations are winnable, but i know which position i'd rather play from)
That would require a path finding set up for the livery so you can set its path to go around anti air. Remember how bad guppies were with the sleeper maps? I would be a nice strategic twist, it would just require more thought to how air navigates.
Fun to watch an old update. What has changed looks largely for the better, as well as I can tell not playing. Lol. Excited for the demo to drop and more videos. Thank you for your hard work! Can't wait for CW4 to drop!
I'm glad there's a functional need for totems - perhaps the different resourced totems could have different effects. Looking great, the amount of work you've done on this is stunning.
I can really see how the game gets more depth with each video, which is great! That's exactly what I felt was lacking in CW3. Edit: I especially like the fact that you have different primary objectives. There's a point (in CW3 maps) where you know you basically won, but the game still drags and drags. Having these objective based missions mixed in is a great change of pace!
tbf i think a lot of missions will play very similary to CW3, given that if you have enough frontline defense, nothing will get into your backline. That said, with all the addes abilities for the creeper, i can't wait for PAC maps and custom maps that really challenge you.
Holy shit this is pretty much how I imagined it back in the day when I was playing the first game on Kongregate, good times :) Keep doing what you do mate can't wait to see more of your work
holy crap im buying this instantly on steam, i didnt know u were making the new one in 3D but it looks amazing and you're still adding cool new features!!!
Whoo! This is looking as amazing as ever. I love all the new creeper 'mobs' that are available, and personally believe some should need more counters then just 'anti-air' but I suppose thats the point of both the snipers, to be anti-concentrated creeper. Another thing is that maybe, if playbuilt shields are going to be a thing, we can have them be somewhat modified in the diameter of the shield, as well as taking more energy (and if they get a resource chain associated with them, that too.) they'll probably have to have a lower 'creeper required to slip inside and enclose the effective safe area' 'value' Totems originally were used to make Aether, I believe, so in that case, maybe having a option to change totems 'specifics' around at cost of a associated resource would be cool, would allow more playstyles of missions, say you have a 'shield totem' (and I haven't seen the forge yet, so this is assuming that its going to be here too.) but don't want a shield in that location or just not happy with the specifics of that shield (too wide or too small, playbuilt one being modified allows players to decide that.), being able to change that totem to a 'aether producing' one would be awesome. Another question is... Are networks that have some kind of energy production but aren't connected to a command center going to be able to generate energy for their network? I'd like that, but I also understand why the command center has been required each time, both as a energy storage and a 'router' for resources.
Two thoughts: First, it seems like the thrown shard mechanic could be very unfair. Without shields, they can effectively disable large chunks of your network or vital defenses and there's not much you can do beyond praying to RNJesus. Maybe only have them drop where the thing died? At least then you could influence things by increasing the strength of your defenses. Second, it would be neat if you could create some sort of forward processing facility, so once you have collectors down on a forward base you no longer need to ferry in energy.
I think this is thinking too shortsightedly. So far, we're only used to building in redundancy at the front lines (more turrets never hurt) but this encourages having more than one supply line ready. Of course, it'd still be too harsh without any way to disable, redirect or destroy them, because maps will inevitably have natural chokepoints (intended or not) where redundancy can't fully mitigate their damage. It'd also feel pretty unfair to take those hits without being able to "fight back" in a way. So far, the name of the game seems to be "threat". Creeper should be able to threaten your infrastructure rather easily. Taking the whole base by storm should be incredibly hard, but the same should hold true for a "perfect defense". In the previous games, there was no real threat after the initial expansion phase left, so I think some "uncertain" elements are needed. Not necessarily "uncertain" in the way of RNGesus, but I like how specialized defenses require limited resources, making it possible to suffer a "strategic defeat" past the 2 minute mark, if you notice that you didn't get enough [resource] to defend against [enemy type] in time. This way, one can adapt their strategy on the next attempt. RNGesus throwing stuns in all the right places would be frustrating without a means to defend. In a mission like this, if one gets overwhelmed by the EMP stuns, one should probably adapt their strategy like this: "Next time, I'll try to repair the totems sooner and at [insert timestamp], I'll stop expanding and divert my resources towards sniper/missile production to get those up in time." Additionally, as VirgilW has demonstrated, positioning is important. Structures both under and behind those shields are relatively save from the shards while you should pay extra attention to the gaps between them. (There was that one lucky hit on his "supply line" (collector) in the back, but most of the shards landed in the gaps between the shields)
I do wish that one could make energy-parrticle-spawners as a replaceable building, but that hasn't really happened; Creeper World 2's Micro rifts were the closest thing to it.
This is the first video I've seen of CW4 and I'm impressed at how well you've utilized the z-axis for user interface purposes. For example, I can tell at a glance roughly how much energy is left in one of the "energon cubes" deposited by the Livery Shuttles just by seeing how tall or flattened-out they are. That's good attention to detail; please don't lose interesting touches like that when finalizing the graphics for those units/buildings/etc.
I can see the gameplay flow beginning to take shape. I'm liking the new way of handling power zones as non emitter entity to give the players a choice of rushing the emitter or taking control of those power zones first. The sparker change further splits the decision making process. I'm definitely interested in how these elements will be further iterated on.
I am so hyped for this, like I don't think you understand. Also I'm getting some Atlantis vibes from the shields, like the creeper just flowing over it.
This is such a cool process. It's a BONUS that the games are _awesome_, but I find watching the game development process from your perspective to be very interesting.
Love your games! This one looks like the best Creeper World yet! Its beautiful! Its gonna be awesome! Great ideas you're coming up with! My humble opinion... Needs more waves! Enemies that make waves. Timed waves being released. Creeper waves reinforcing each other. Corrupted creeper waves. Anti-creeper waves!!! Waves man. Waves.
(I posted this on the last video just a day or two before this video came out, so I put it here so more people can see it) I've loved this series ever since I was a small child, and I am super excited for this game! That said, I have a couple of recommendations. 1. Try to be as consistent as possible with the buildings that are from previous games. Some of the changes to their names or physical appearance seem unnecessary and potentially confusing. I find particular fault with the relay's new name of "pylon", mostly because it'll make it harder to talk about Creeper World 4 without it sounding like StarCraft. And whatever happened to beams? 2. I would be intrigued to see some maps that already have some naturally occurring liquid in them, like seas and oceans of water. All the maps in the Creeper series look rather similar because they are all bone-dry until the creeper comes. How will the creeper interact with water? Will it float on top of it, maybe, or cause ripples in it to damage the player with tsunamis? 3. In Creeper World 2: Academy, the battlefield was changed with a vertical playing field. Since Creeper World 4 is in 3D, one has to ask: Will the playing field be both horizontal and vertical? With the power of the third dimension, one could fight the creeper not only on the horizontal front, as has been done many times, but on the vertical front, clearing out caves and gullies. This seems to be a unique time to implement this, not only to make the game more interesting, but also to keep consistency in the Creeper universe. Wouldn't that be so cool?
Due to the game engine that he's working with, subterranean creeper isn't possible right now. The 'liquid' that he has doesn't truly behave like a liquid, it behaves like a very good _imitation_ of liquid. Because ultimately all that this game really is, is a board with number levels on it. The 'mountains' are number levels, the creeper is a number level that rests on top of the 'mountains'. The creeper is very dynamic in how its number level is calculated, but ultimately it's not a liquid, it's a height level. So, if you were to have a cave system, you would end up having some parts of the board with multiple height levels and that really messes with how the game map generates itself. So maybe in Creeper World 5. (This is just what I've observed, I could be wrong on how the game engine works)
Ah, a beautiful background listening to doing homework. Or something to leave homework to watch... Also, thoughts on calling redite = "rudane", bluite = "safteen". Just some random names I thought up when watching the episode.
One thing i noticed is that the cannons sometimes "derp" a bit. They'll keep changing targets at quite different angles meaning they don't fire as frequently as they could. One way to get around it (that would be kinda cool to see, at least for me) is if they could shoot at a point in their current firing angle while in transition to their desired angle. It means there might be a slight delay to fire at their ideal target since they might have shot just before turning to that position but it should be quite minimal. It might be too much work for something almost no one would notice though.
Looking good so far! Only things that i am concerned about were those "shards" those guys dropped and the possible overcomplexity of resource management.
This looks exciting! Will the viscosity be higher for the creeper in this one? And will Creeper emitters release more creep over time as a level progresses? I really loved Creeper World 3, as I bought it a few months ago (I never played 1 or 2 beforehand, however, so I can't compare to the previous installments). But the levels always got very easy halfway through the stage when you knew the creeper couldn't extend anymore. That kind of made me wish that the creeper could constantly raise its "war effort" almost as much as the player does, to add challenge from about the halfway point of a map to near the end. The most fun I have is the struggle that occurs at the very beginning of a stage, and I'm sure it's possible to keep such a struggle when the player does not expect the creeper's spawning rate of change to increase.
sadly this likely won't happen, i suggested it myself in the discord but appearently people enjoy turtling up and doing nothing past that too much and i couldn't convince them. I don't understand why but then again neither do i understand people who play fortnite 24/7.
Remember the game is suppose to be beatable (AND its a strategy game). It'd make a pretty cool timed mission though, try to hold out against ever increasing creeper til like 'hacking' or whatever is done haha.
The game may be "supposed to be beatable", but the setting tells the story of futility and impossible odds due to constant adaptation that snuffed out entire civilizations. Would be good if we could see _the_ creeper that these civilizations couldn't hold back, instead of that pushover substitute that gets rather easily beaten by a single guy, no less a single guy that employs the same tactics as the peoples that couldn't hold back the stuff. Btw, whatever do you mean by "AND it's a strategy game"? That a strategy game is all about turtling? Pretty much all of them would beg to differ. Turtling is only an option, and usually the one that will lead to defeat. A good idea would be to add some sort of EvolutionVsResearch system that will randomly adapt the creeper to whatever tactics you're using and let you counter that counter. You're using a lot of cannons? Either make emitters produce more creeper, "birth" something that increases the pressure by a number of possible means or make the stuff itself tougher. Encountering said evolution(like destroying some of the tougher stuff, noticing the suddenly increased pressure or killing the new spawn) should give the player a research-based choice from a few ways to counter it - either make cannons cheaper(same damage, less health, lower build cost and higher build speed) so you can make more, make some new alternative with AC shells that costs a little bit of both energy and AC to use, or just make a more costly and more powerful cannon. And so on and so forth. The possibilities of -Tiberium- this system are... limitless. It will add challenge, it will keep the player on his toes, and, more importantly, it will depict the Creeper as the constantly adapting menace that it's supposed to be instead of just a worthless wave of liquid that can be easily contained simply by establishing a frontline.
good arguments but that is about the speech i gave after they threw aside the idea. no effect. turtling is essentially for people who are extremely noobish at the strategy genre however. i have been trough the cycle, and i know turtling will get you killed 10-10 times if your foe actually does what you are supposed to do, collect as much resources as possible and pump out that war maschine as fast as you can. imo creeper world should have increasing creeper simply for the fact it means people who are interested in the strategy genre can be prepared for how things actually go down in other games. the #1 thing that decides the victor for any strategy game that involves resource collecting and construction is doing exactly those 2 things. the #2 deciding factor is building an army and preferably just as fast as you are expanding. only at #3 stands planning and prefect execution because no matter how well you play with what you have, your oponents will just take your valuable resources you are not protecting to boost their warmaschines to a level you cannot possibly win. so in the end refusing increasing creeper power growth will prevent it from ever becoming an actual big strategy game, if strategy game at all.
idea in regards to shields: have the player-built ones work as they do right now, but have the totem shields be impervious, allowing creeper to actually flow above them. might not be feasible depending on how the creeper is currently coded, but it would be an interesting mechanic.
Would be very interesting to see those "towers" use the same effect on AC. Making it "thicker" or overall stronger. Simply doing the same thing to AC that would happend to creeper
I bought the trilogy years ago. And when I got my new laptop, installed Steam and rebought the trilogy and Particle Fleet. Though I have the original three hidden away somewhere on external hard drives, I do not regret buying them a second time.
Loving all the new additions. Still holding out for the return of the solar panel energy collection system that showed up with the mortars, I think a system for energy collection dependent on the terrain would be really cool.
This wasn't mentioned but from what I've seen the shields seem to also block anticreeper in the same manner as creeper. Which gave me an idea placing an sprayer in always on mode in a shield to save more anticreeper.
Interesting mechanic idea: Creeper destroying large swathes of pylons would incur a penalty to punish overexpanding quickly. Unless this is already in-game ;)
I think some maps would benefit from a huge almost boss like threat, where you have to constantly weaken it or the creep grows stronger over time. This would force you to take an active approach instead of a wall of turrets that can never be beaten. btw I really like the idea of the red creep.
Given my time playing CW3, I would have assumed the creeper to be more viscous in nature. I'm excited to see what you can do with the full implementation of 3d gameplay.
the fabricators can be renamed to "refinery", "crusher", " furnace", "fusion" or "compressor" and each type makes from several types of resource (like compressing redon to arg and spark to liftic; crushing bluite to anti-creeper etc.)
I know it's only minor but I do love the integrity of the games natural laws. You haven't just added in units that come and shoot at the buildings. It's still all based around the same concept. Very cool I like that.
Idea: a "radar" building that would do the following: * Show where enemies are going, including Striders. * Show terrain under the creeper (as we see it now), creeper would be opaque otherwise. * Provide a target for out-of-line-of-sight weapons, including nullifiable targets under the creep ("underwater"). Unable to target them otherwise because creeper is opaque now. Perhaps too complex but, you know, just an idea. ;) I do expect you to have already come up with it.
It's kind of week that a livery can only deliver to one spot, what if multiple drones could deliver to an area. you select two drones, drag 1 2x3 area, and both drones fill any empty with no regard to 'one drone per tile'. It would get rid of power stalls and that embarrassing situation where one drone is idle, and the other is working overtime.
you could make this mission more interesting/difficult by putting one extra totem in the bottom right corner (near the emitter), so that after taking the rest of the totems you have to fight through the creeper to complete the mission
Maybe for a unique idea for a special map, like the level with the orbiting planet, you could create asteroids that hit the creeper and send a tidal wave toward a large wall or high structure every 15 minutes or so
it'd be neat if blobs, striders and and other enemies that swim through the creeper could be buffed or "corrupted" by passing through the crimson creeper
A suggestion, instead of running Ores and such along energy pole, maybe make some sort of unit that can transport it for you, you would need to create relatively flat terrain for this unit which could provide a challenge to protect
I love that what most would consider "ready to ship yesterday" is what you consider "in development". That's why you're my favourite game developer.
in what universe is that ready to ship ? it's all placeholder for now, the unit abilities aren't even all decided yet, you're looking at a good year of further developpement before you can even call it a beta
Kinda my point dude/dudette. I'm referencing the low/rushed standards of game development nowadays. There are some studio's who would consider Creeper World 4 at its current stage of development a finished product and publish it, along with any game breaking bugs/blatant programming failures. Eg. Ubisoft, Sega, EA.
Even crappysoft has better standards than that, they would call it an early alpha and make you pay to find the bugs
EA doesn't. They would pay some random guy to fill in the placeholders overnight and call it a $30 game.
@@Soken50
He's got a point, Soken. Ever since gaming companies have taken to the internet, many have developed a bad habit of selling incomplete/broken games and patching them later or even selling the game in multiple pieces as DLC. EA is especially notorious in this aspect.
I like the edges of the map; much better than just a straight cut all around. Also, I like the flow of the game so far: in cw3, once you got control of the creeper you've essentially won, but this feels more dangerous in a way; which is good.
I also think an enemy that creates waves would be good. Might as well make use of those water physics, right?
Overall, I'm loving it, and can't wait to play (hopefully on Gog)
Ooh, it could be a super durable one that sucks up a large amount of creeper rapidly, giving you a chance to push forward if you're smart, but could also heavily punish you if you don't defend the forward position in time. Along with all the dangers of the creeper flooding through your base.
I would like an enemy kind of like the ship in partical fleet that directs the particals. So I'm envisioning some large slow moving blob that sucks in behind it and pushes that in front of it, generating a large way in front of it the farther it moves.
My thought for such an enemy would probably be something like the black holes. Suck in a bunch of surrounding creeper, up to a limit or time and then dump it all at once.
I noticed the blobs seemed to make small waves moving around inside deeper creeper. This would be a great idea to have, especially since Virgil seems to be thinking more about how Creeper moves around in general this time around - making the liquid enemy more liquidlike certainly is something I'd enjoy.
The map seems to be a perfect square to me. The only reason it looks all jagged like that is the raised elevation and your limited perspective.
Looking good. I rather like it so far, especially the shields. That said, I have a few ideas for them:
Totem shields are a great idea, though I'd probably implement them as stronger than the ones you can build. Other types of totems could also be put to use.
The shields you build requiring a resource, similar to anticreeper and arg. This makes them dependent on the production economy balance you have going.
Last bit, a thought came to mind about a point-to-point wall, similar to network poles but requiring power, blocking creeper flow, but being vulnerable at the joints . Not as effective as the shields but synergizes with them.
I'm half an half. I think a "shield wall" could actually be neat. AKA, not a full bubble, just a wall. Takes a decent resources to stay up, takes heavy resources when actually fending off Creeper.
I'm not big into the shards though, unless we get some sort of counter to them.
Chris Mulkey we do have the shields as counter, if worried about losing connection points, get a livery to put a stockpile of resources
My personal concern about the shards is more their consistency in appearance and how large their AoE seems to be - I like the idea of the shards, but maybe not every single 'land' enemy should throw one up when it's destroyed.
They also seem to go far above the shields. And nothing seems to shoot them.
Also from what I understand, you can't build shields, they are map placements no?
From what I garnered from Virgil's talk in this video, it's a matter of not being able to build shields *yet*.
Idea: perhaps play the mission properly, then do a post-game comentary with pausing, slowmo and speed up? That way you can show gameplay without losing concentration and you can explain much more thoroughly in post? :D Good stuff, can't wait to play this game even in this state, i'd love to even playtest it.
Forced G+ Account Yes please, shorter vids, more active, more explanatory
I actually quite like this video, it shows the dev still enjoys playing the game himself, which is a very good prospect in regards to the probable quality of the finished product. + it's fun to watch this game. It's strangely soothing to watch a purple ocean recede.
40 minutes? What have I done to earn this gift?
Be a fan
Lol yeah and no dislikes PLUS A NON FAIL VIDEO!
no dislikes? there is 1 dislike somehow
The developing process is long.... I am sure that it will be good, so I can wait tho.
play creeper world 3 while you wait :P
I like the CW community. On mount and blade bannerlords devblogs, all you see is complaints about it taking too long. Most people here encourage it because it will cause the game to have less problems and more content.
Just hoping there won't be any scoreboards since the impossible 2s cheaters were a plague in CW3
A automatic system to filter out cheaters entering the scoreboard would be nice. Some games have that. Steam for example wont let you get achievements if you use cheats and sometimes even mods.
You should have a mission where you start under creeper in a invincible shield but you have a time limit for when the shields breaks
not possible with the current games engine, it works on heightmaps.
SpaceJohn The current as in CW3? He said that blobs can deposit their load on top or a shield, and it'd slide off the sides. Sounds to me like CW4 would be capable of it.
Yes!
Atlantis
Suggestion: Give Pylons double or triple range when on crystals, so you can either have long range cannon/mortar, or a pylon that can help you capture a isolated high mountain peak far from your frontline.
They kinda do that with "relays" (pylons) and "power zones" (crystals) in CW3, literally ANYTHING you place on top of a powerzone works better, so it'll probably be like that here too.
YES A NEW EPISODE OF "what virgl has been doing for the past month" MY FAVORITE SHOW!!!!
(edit) wow this is the most likes ive ever had on a youtube comment......wow......if i get 50 to 60 likes....ill tell you my new unit ideas
(edit) SO SO SORRY I SCREWED UP SO BAD.....time to fix this.....if i get 100 likes ill tell you what my OPINION is about the new units that have been shown so far (basically a run down of what i think about the CW4 units so far)
agreed
pls dont
why not?
wait i said new unit ideas?
AW CRAP HOLD ON
there i fixed it
An idea for a new mission type is a survival mission, the goal is to survive without your main structure destroyed and the creeper gets stronger as the mission continues. You could make it so you can't destroy emitters so it's all about playing defensively not offensively. Not sure if this idea would work that well but it could be cool.
Offensive strategy could still work, you just wouldn't be able to nullify the emitters, but exceeding their output would perform essentially the same job as the current nullifiers. Once you exceed their output, it's just a matter of keeping up with the output.
Kylee Smalley that’s true, didn’t think of that
Could have a mechanic where they put out more creeper when turrets are close and could also adjust the scaling of creeper increase while turrets are close to further discourage that strategy. The hard part of such missions is balancing how much area the player has effectively available versus how much creeper they have to fend off.
I get what you mean, but in the end, that's exactly what creeper world is now, just without the increase
Taking the NW totem early is probably a good idea, since all that fortified creeper looked to be giving you some trouble. Drivers would be good too - you're sitting on a decent energy stockpile for most of the mission, while mostly ore-starved.
The one he took right at the end?, i heavily disagree, if that totem is takeable from the start, the mission overall is way too easy. (not enough creeper, its only a good idea if the level is completely rushable). the land between him and the totem is almost indefensible when trying to defend from the east, its all low RELATIVE to the totems that are close and actually defend his economic valley. if you were to land over there instead of using liveries, you wouldn't have the economic base to defend your land. if you spent time fortifying your ground there, all the other totems become as difficult as just that single totem. He had to let it go and just defend his land, it caused a massive delay, yes. but there was no way to grab it. (again making the assumption that the level isn't way too easy/ less capable hands)
Not what I meant. He could have started the same but built the liveries far, far earlier in the mission, and had an easier time because of it. Controlling the extra power zone would also let him use more of the central valley for energy production.
Also consider that if it was taken as early as possible, it would of made it possible to harness another emitter for production, (granted it wasn't needed) and reduced the overall amount of creeper entities that could of spawned. (I think that emitter created some blobs, not sure though.)
i vaguely addressed that thought, but didn't directly do so, because of the reason i gave behind it. that being "it's only a good idea if the level is completely rushable". i agree that he could take that ground earlier, but it was tactically bad to do so. By that i mean, "moving faster" always lets you do more, but for a person who's distracted (streaming) or a novice, a sacrifice of focus must be made, that being, "to do that, he has to not do something else", and none of the things he did were wasteful actions, other than sitting on a large stockpile of underutilised energy. yes, he could use some of the energy he burned at 9:00 to begin the livery tactic, but as a tactical decision (making one decision over the other) he would have to neglect the south, in which case, he would end up in a similar situation as to the end of this mission, the only difference being the south emitter giving grief instead of the north west. Since liveries were used, no energy would be produced by choosing that route over protecting from the southern emitter. (both situations are winnable, but i know which position i'd rather play from)
-> in simpler words, just assume 20% more creeper is produced at all emitters, and its a bad idea
Now you're getting airbourne, the creeper needs its own "missiles" to bring down the livery units.
That would require a path finding set up for the livery so you can set its path to go around anti air. Remember how bad guppies were with the sleeper maps? I would be a nice strategic twist, it would just require more thought to how air navigates.
Fun to watch an old update. What has changed looks largely for the better, as well as I can tell not playing. Lol. Excited for the demo to drop and more videos. Thank you for your hard work! Can't wait for CW4 to drop!
Ladies and gentlemen the Bob Ross of video games. No Im serious this man should have a podcast.
I love the way the red creeper flows to where you're destroying it. It ensure that one strategy isn't safe forever.
theres so many amazing concepts in this so far! this looks great, keep it up!
I found the creeper world series today and im already in love. Good luck on the development!
Honestly can't wait for this to come out, each vid you do makes me want it more and more each time
you are one of my favourite devs because of your updates on the game, its so interesting to see it develop over time.
I'm glad there's a functional need for totems - perhaps the different resourced totems could have different effects. Looking great, the amount of work you've done on this is stunning.
Looking good, Virgil!
The Bob Ross of game design, voice included. Keep up the good work!
I can really see how the game gets more depth with each video, which is great! That's exactly what I felt was lacking in CW3.
Edit: I especially like the fact that you have different primary objectives. There's a point (in CW3 maps) where you know you basically won, but the game still drags and drags.
Having these objective based missions mixed in is a great change of pace!
tbf i think a lot of missions will play very similary to CW3, given that if you have enough frontline defense, nothing will get into your backline. That said, with all the addes abilities for the creeper, i can't wait for PAC maps and custom maps that really challenge you.
Can't wait to play this!
Me too
You're like the Bob Ross of game devs. I love watching these.
Dude, good mission start to back. It didn't feel like a guaranteed victory that required a lot more grinding. Nice Job!
Holy shit this is pretty much how I imagined it back in the day when I was playing the first game on Kongregate, good times :)
Keep doing what you do mate can't wait to see more of your work
holy crap im buying this instantly on steam, i didnt know u were making the new one in 3D but it looks amazing and you're still adding cool new features!!!
Whoo! This is looking as amazing as ever. I love all the new creeper 'mobs' that are available, and personally believe some should need more counters then just 'anti-air' but I suppose thats the point of both the snipers, to be anti-concentrated creeper. Another thing is that maybe, if playbuilt shields are going to be a thing, we can have them be somewhat modified in the diameter of the shield, as well as taking more energy (and if they get a resource chain associated with them, that too.) they'll probably have to have a lower 'creeper required to slip inside and enclose the effective safe area' 'value'
Totems originally were used to make Aether, I believe, so in that case, maybe having a option to change totems 'specifics' around at cost of a associated resource would be cool, would allow more playstyles of missions, say you have a 'shield totem' (and I haven't seen the forge yet, so this is assuming that its going to be here too.) but don't want a shield in that location or just not happy with the specifics of that shield (too wide or too small, playbuilt one being modified allows players to decide that.), being able to change that totem to a 'aether producing' one would be awesome. Another question is... Are networks that have some kind of energy production but aren't connected to a command center going to be able to generate energy for their network? I'd like that, but I also understand why the command center has been required each time, both as a energy storage and a 'router' for resources.
I'm super hyped for this game- each one of these update videos just makes things better and better
You have a very nice and soothing voice. Honestly, it's like 50% of why I watch your videos.
Also your game looks cool, that's the other 50%
Two thoughts:
First, it seems like the thrown shard mechanic could be very unfair. Without shields, they can effectively disable large chunks of your network or vital defenses and there's not much you can do beyond praying to RNJesus. Maybe only have them drop where the thing died? At least then you could influence things by increasing the strength of your defenses.
Second, it would be neat if you could create some sort of forward processing facility, so once you have collectors down on a forward base you no longer need to ferry in energy.
I think this is thinking too shortsightedly. So far, we're only used to building in redundancy at the front lines (more turrets never hurt) but this encourages having more than one supply line ready. Of course, it'd still be too harsh without any way to disable, redirect or destroy them, because maps will inevitably have natural chokepoints (intended or not) where redundancy can't fully mitigate their damage. It'd also feel pretty unfair to take those hits without being able to "fight back" in a way.
So far, the name of the game seems to be "threat". Creeper should be able to threaten your infrastructure rather easily. Taking the whole base by storm should be incredibly hard, but the same should hold true for a "perfect defense". In the previous games, there was no real threat after the initial expansion phase left, so I think some "uncertain" elements are needed. Not necessarily "uncertain" in the way of RNGesus, but I like how specialized defenses require limited resources, making it possible to suffer a "strategic defeat" past the 2 minute mark, if you notice that you didn't get enough [resource] to defend against [enemy type] in time. This way, one can adapt their strategy on the next attempt. RNGesus throwing stuns in all the right places would be frustrating without a means to defend. In a mission like this, if one gets overwhelmed by the EMP stuns, one should probably adapt their strategy like this: "Next time, I'll try to repair the totems sooner and at [insert timestamp], I'll stop expanding and divert my resources towards sniper/missile production to get those up in time."
Additionally, as VirgilW has demonstrated, positioning is important. Structures both under and behind those shields are relatively save from the shards while you should pay extra attention to the gaps between them. (There was that one lucky hit on his "supply line" (collector) in the back, but most of the shards landed in the gaps between the shields)
I do wish that one could make energy-parrticle-spawners as a replaceable building, but that hasn't really happened; Creeper World 2's Micro rifts were the closest thing to it.
This guy is like Bob Ross except he's teaching how to hold back an invasive tide of blue stuff. Wonderful.
Dude. I can't wait for this to come out. CW's been awesome since the first game! Keep up the awesome work.
This is the first video I've seen of CW4 and I'm impressed at how well you've utilized the z-axis for user interface purposes. For example, I can tell at a glance roughly how much energy is left in one of the "energon cubes" deposited by the Livery Shuttles just by seeing how tall or flattened-out they are. That's good attention to detail; please don't lose interesting touches like that when finalizing the graphics for those units/buildings/etc.
I can see the gameplay flow beginning to take shape. I'm liking the new way of handling power zones as non emitter entity to give the players a choice of rushing the emitter or taking control of those power zones first. The sparker change further splits the decision making process. I'm definitely interested in how these elements will be further iterated on.
I am so hyped for this, like I don't think you understand. Also I'm getting some Atlantis vibes from the shields, like the creeper just flowing over it.
I like your eye for particle effects. Good work all around.
This is such a cool process. It's a BONUS that the games are _awesome_, but I find watching the game development process from your perspective to be very interesting.
Wow, brother. This game looks absolutely stunning! I can't wait to get my hands on it. Good work.
I am in love with this series, I've finished the funny 1 2 and I'm working on the third. I can not wait to get my hands on this one. Super excited
My favorite CW3 unit is the Terp (ground changer thing), please add it in CW4 too :D
Just found this video and I'm super excited. This is looking great!
Love your games! This one looks like the best Creeper World yet! Its beautiful! Its gonna be awesome! Great ideas you're coming up with! My humble opinion... Needs more waves! Enemies that make waves. Timed waves being released. Creeper waves reinforcing each other. Corrupted creeper waves. Anti-creeper waves!!! Waves man. Waves.
Very cool that you've made a good reason to build shields. They were always my least used unit in cw3.
Fighters to protect the liveries from enemy fighters. And bombers to clean up some hills to land!
I love that relays can throw energy down and up a level.
Love this look for CW4. It's refreshing. Can't wait to see the finalized version.
as a long time player of the series (own CW1 & CW2 separate from steam) that ending is extremely nostalgic
Looking good. I like this implementation of fabs. A lot cleaner then before. Good job!
Keep up the good work man! Can’t wait until it’s ready.
(I posted this on the last video just a day or two before this video came out, so I put it here so more people can see it)
I've loved this series ever since I was a small child, and I am super excited for this game! That said, I have a couple of recommendations.
1. Try to be as consistent as possible with the buildings that are from previous games. Some of the changes to their names or physical appearance seem unnecessary and potentially confusing. I find particular fault with the relay's new name of "pylon", mostly because it'll make it harder to talk about Creeper World 4 without it sounding like StarCraft. And whatever happened to beams?
2. I would be intrigued to see some maps that already have some naturally occurring liquid in them, like seas and oceans of water. All the maps in the Creeper series look rather similar because they are all bone-dry until the creeper comes. How will the creeper interact with water? Will it float on top of it, maybe, or cause ripples in it to damage the player with tsunamis?
3. In Creeper World 2: Academy, the battlefield was changed with a vertical playing field. Since Creeper World 4 is in 3D, one has to ask: Will the playing field be both horizontal and vertical? With the power of the third dimension, one could fight the creeper not only on the horizontal front, as has been done many times, but on the vertical front, clearing out caves and gullies. This seems to be a unique time to implement this, not only to make the game more interesting, but also to keep consistency in the Creeper universe. Wouldn't that be so cool?
Due to the game engine that he's working with, subterranean creeper isn't possible right now. The 'liquid' that he has doesn't truly behave like a liquid, it behaves like a very good _imitation_ of liquid. Because ultimately all that this game really is, is a board with number levels on it.
The 'mountains' are number levels, the creeper is a number level that rests on top of the 'mountains'. The creeper is very dynamic in how its number level is calculated, but ultimately it's not a liquid, it's a height level.
So, if you were to have a cave system, you would end up having some parts of the board with multiple height levels and that really messes with how the game map generates itself.
So maybe in Creeper World 5.
(This is just what I've observed, I could be wrong on how the game engine works)
Sad to inform you that cave system had been thought before aaaand... Sadly it's been put in the "impossible project" section
How do you know?
I'm really glad there's a new creeper world game under development
Ah, a beautiful background listening to doing homework. Or something to leave homework to watch...
Also, thoughts on calling redite = "rudane", bluite = "safteen". Just some random names I thought up when watching the episode.
Great job man. Love 'em all since original CW, and I love watching you develop this.
One thing i noticed is that the cannons sometimes "derp" a bit. They'll keep changing targets at quite different angles meaning they don't fire as frequently as they could. One way to get around it (that would be kinda cool to see, at least for me) is if they could shoot at a point in their current firing angle while in transition to their desired angle. It means there might be a slight delay to fire at their ideal target since they might have shot just before turning to that position but it should be quite minimal. It might be too much work for something almost no one would notice though.
Looking good so far! Only things that i am concerned about were those "shards" those guys dropped and the possible overcomplexity of resource management.
This looks exciting!
Will the viscosity be higher for the creeper in this one?
And will Creeper emitters release more creep over time as a level progresses?
I really loved Creeper World 3, as I bought it a few months ago (I never played 1 or 2 beforehand, however, so I can't compare to the previous installments). But the levels always got very easy halfway through the stage when you knew the creeper couldn't extend anymore. That kind of made me wish that the creeper could constantly raise its "war effort" almost as much as the player does, to add challenge from about the halfway point of a map to near the end.
The most fun I have is the struggle that occurs at the very beginning of a stage, and I'm sure it's possible to keep such a struggle when the player does not expect the creeper's spawning rate of change to increase.
sadly this likely won't happen, i suggested it myself in the discord but appearently people enjoy turtling up and doing nothing past that too much and i couldn't convince them. I don't understand why but then again neither do i understand people who play fortnite 24/7.
Remember the game is suppose to be beatable (AND its a strategy game). It'd make a pretty cool timed mission though, try to hold out against ever increasing creeper til like 'hacking' or whatever is done haha.
Could be made into a setting for the people that want a challenge. I don't imagine it would be hard to have a setting that could do this
The game may be "supposed to be beatable", but the setting tells the story of futility and impossible odds due to constant adaptation that snuffed out entire civilizations. Would be good if we could see _the_ creeper that these civilizations couldn't hold back, instead of that pushover substitute that gets rather easily beaten by a single guy, no less a single guy that employs the same tactics as the peoples that couldn't hold back the stuff.
Btw, whatever do you mean by "AND it's a strategy game"? That a strategy game is all about turtling? Pretty much all of them would beg to differ. Turtling is only an option, and usually the one that will lead to defeat.
A good idea would be to add some sort of EvolutionVsResearch system that will randomly adapt the creeper to whatever tactics you're using and let you counter that counter. You're using a lot of cannons? Either make emitters produce more creeper, "birth" something that increases the pressure by a number of possible means or make the stuff itself tougher. Encountering said evolution(like destroying some of the tougher stuff, noticing the suddenly increased pressure or killing the new spawn) should give the player a research-based choice from a few ways to counter it - either make cannons cheaper(same damage, less health, lower build cost and higher build speed) so you can make more, make some new alternative with AC shells that costs a little bit of both energy and AC to use, or just make a more costly and more powerful cannon. And so on and so forth. The possibilities of -Tiberium- this system are... limitless. It will add challenge, it will keep the player on his toes, and, more importantly, it will depict the Creeper as the constantly adapting menace that it's supposed to be instead of just a worthless wave of liquid that can be easily contained simply by establishing a frontline.
good arguments but that is about the speech i gave after they threw aside the idea. no effect.
turtling is essentially for people who are extremely noobish at the strategy genre however. i have been trough the cycle, and i know turtling will get you killed 10-10 times if your foe actually does what you are supposed to do, collect as much resources as possible and pump out that war maschine as fast as you can.
imo creeper world should have increasing creeper simply for the fact it means people who are interested in the strategy genre can be prepared for how things actually go down in other games. the #1 thing that decides the victor for any strategy game that involves resource collecting and construction is doing exactly those 2 things. the #2 deciding factor is building an army and preferably just as fast as you are expanding. only at #3 stands planning and prefect execution because no matter how well you play with what you have, your oponents will just take your valuable resources you are not protecting to boost their warmaschines to a level you cannot possibly win.
so in the end refusing increasing creeper power growth will prevent it from ever becoming an actual big strategy game, if strategy game at all.
idea in regards to shields: have the player-built ones work as they do right now, but have the totem shields be impervious, allowing creeper to actually flow above them.
might not be feasible depending on how the creeper is currently coded, but it would be an interesting mechanic.
Would be very interesting to see those "towers" use the same effect on AC. Making it "thicker" or overall stronger. Simply doing the same thing to AC that would happend to creeper
Just bought creeper world 3 because I can't hold out for cw4 :)
Me too, I love it so far
I bought the trilogy years ago. And when I got my new laptop, installed Steam and rebought the trilogy and Particle Fleet. Though I have the original three hidden away somewhere on external hard drives, I do not regret buying them a second time.
Really awesome to watch how the game is coming together!
This is serious resource management, I love it!
Loving all the new additions. Still holding out for the return of the solar panel energy collection system that showed up with the mortars, I think a system for energy collection dependent on the terrain would be really cool.
This wasn't mentioned but from what I've seen the shields seem to also block anticreeper in the same manner as creeper. Which gave me an idea placing an sprayer in always on mode in a shield to save more anticreeper.
Would be cool, when placing buildings, to hold shift to place several (already happening) and holding ctrl to place a grid of them, sparsed optimally.
Interesting mechanic idea: Creeper destroying large swathes of pylons would incur a penalty to punish overexpanding quickly. Unless this is already in-game ;)
keep up with that good work! I love creeper world 3 i can't wait to play creeper world 4!
I think some maps would benefit from a huge almost boss like threat, where you have to constantly weaken it or the creep grows stronger over time. This would force you to take an active approach instead of a wall of turrets that can never be beaten. btw I really like the idea of the red creep.
Given my time playing CW3, I would have assumed the creeper to be more viscous in nature. I'm excited to see what you can do with the full implementation of 3d gameplay.
This looks super awesome. I can't wait for the eventual release of CW4.
the fabricators can be renamed to "refinery", "crusher", " furnace", "fusion" or "compressor" and each type makes from several types of resource (like compressing redon to arg and spark to liftic; crushing bluite to anti-creeper etc.)
And they could get there own tab.
CB LS called manifacturing
I just can’t wait to get my hands on some gameplay, looks great!
Another vid! From my favorite dev! Keep it up!
Great game, the way I like to see a good game is how hard it is for the dev love the way it’s going
I know it's only minor but I do love the integrity of the games natural laws. You haven't just added in units that come and shoot at the buildings. It's still all based around the same concept. Very cool I like that.
"there's some land back here, let's use it" ... It's free real estate
it all looks awesome man! :D looking forward to the release!
You are my favorite game developing cowboy.
I'm really looking forward to CW4! Looking amazing.
I think collectors should work like mires in Particle Fleet. That way we won't have to let our OCD get out of control.
Mr.Man The best man. Seconded
Thirded!
i like the collecters small structure and short range, it's not hard to fill area, and yet you actually have to build there.
Collector on powerpoint memes may return LOL
Idea: a "radar" building that would do the following:
* Show where enemies are going, including Striders.
* Show terrain under the creeper (as we see it now), creeper would be opaque otherwise.
* Provide a target for out-of-line-of-sight weapons, including nullifiable targets under the creep ("underwater"). Unable to target them otherwise because creeper is opaque now.
Perhaps too complex but, you know, just an idea. ;) I do expect you to have already come up with it.
It's kind of week that a livery can only deliver to one spot, what if multiple drones could deliver to an area. you select two drones, drag 1 2x3 area, and both drones fill any empty with no regard to 'one drone per tile'. It would get rid of power stalls and that embarrassing situation where one drone is idle, and the other is working overtime.
i like the new 3d style and the way the creeper reacts
I will miss using the creeper spawner as a super booster for buildings put on top of them once destroyed.
I'd like to see 2 videos, one with commentary of a build and one of just you playing a mission with 100% focus. Maybe that's a bit much.
you could make this mission more interesting/difficult by putting one extra totem in the bottom right corner (near the emitter), so that after taking the rest of the totems you have to fight through the creeper to complete the mission
My Creeper senses were tingling earlier today.... I KNEW you were going to upload today!
Maybe for a unique idea for a special map, like the level with the orbiting planet, you could create asteroids that hit the creeper and send a tidal wave toward a large wall or high structure every 15 minutes or so
I love the squared off collector patterns now!
it'd be neat if blobs, striders and and other enemies that swim through the creeper could be buffed or "corrupted" by passing through the crimson creeper
When you can't beat a mission so you develop shield totems to help you. JK looks good, can't wait till it comes out!
Keep up the good work, the game is looking great!
A suggestion, instead of running Ores and such along energy pole, maybe make some sort of unit that can transport it for you, you would need to create relatively flat terrain for this unit which could provide a challenge to protect
Can't wait for this game even though I would wait forever if that's how long you felt you needed to create a product you were proud of
oh this is getting better and better!
Cant wait for this i realy appreciate all the work and these vids
At first glance, I thought they were called "Larry". Better name for them in my opinion, it suits them really well.
More types of creep is definitely a good idea.