Nice podcast maksw. You went into some nice little details about the universe and the role of the npc's. Those are the sorts of things people have been looking for its just the hard part is getting the people to know about it. I was wondering too on just how you were going to track and monitor all of these data points in the game and not slow the game, almost seems that you would need a database or a highly effects flat file sort of layout to get this data quickly.

I do kinda like the idea about paying for alpha game and use the funds and the feedback towards the greater goal.

Hey D1 - cheers 🙂 If I could only print what's in my head for Dominium for all to see...

I've been a DB admin in the dark past - the power of a well structured relational database is not to be sniffed at, I've been implementing them in games for over a decade (yike!).

They key is only to process "what you need" - instead of "update all 1,000,000 objects at once every game turn". There will be a management thread running in the background which manages the flow of data in/out and keeps the universe "ticking" in the background with small groups of pertinent changes. These can be "story" related, or related to your actions, or missions, or minor unrelated changes just to evolve the context of the game as you play.

I think the Alpha pre-sale is the only way Dom is going to happen now. I'm 50/50 about trying IndieGoGo - it's free so no risk of course - but I'm not totally enthused with the "charge up front" on backers... I prefer Kickstarters approach to charge on success instead.