I know that sounded a bit large to me and your comments made a lot of sense. I mean I understand the whole huge universe and everything, but Infinity has a lot of promise and I would hate to see it be a victum of its on hype. Darkfall ran into this issue and they are being bashed for it right now with server issues and content etc...

With all the comments and hype that people say about Infinity it can give you a false sense of what to expect. Yes people should wait on official comments but people speculate and that can be either positive or negative.

A large universe in a Elite style MMO game is needed and wanted but people today are not like 20yrs ago. the bar has been raised on all games in general and if people don't see the few things they want they consider it a failure nowadays.

I have a huge respect for the indie developers out there that work tirelessly on a game to just give it away most of the time. And it seems that those games get judged at the same level as a pay to play game.

I don't want the world of Infinity to be empty space with no activity because that will turn so many people away after a few weeks of playing. So big worlds are nice as long as you fill them with things to do or communicate with.

Doesn't matter how big the universe is, it what's in it that will count.

Content is king and I think that will be very true for this game,even given it's other selling point of being able to fly from space to the planet surface.If there nothing to do on the surface or if all the Habitable planets in the systems are the same basic type players will become bored of it very fast.as Darkone said players expectations are lot higher today.

I for one am for the 1000s of Billions of stars. And the fact that no-one will ever be able to see them all is the whole point of a game like this. It means exploration is a viable means to success in the game.

Think Frontier First Encounters, but with secrets in the galaxy, the ability to own multiple ships and stations and perhaps even colonies of your own, more diverse planets that actually look like real planets and of course other players in the galaxy 🙂

As far as I know, there's not much chance of it all being 'empty space'. It will be similar to Eve, as in you start in or around your chosen nations Main worlds. Which would be populated by npcs, new players and most probably 'care bear' type players 🙂

There was talk on the forums a while back about the inclusion of ground vehicles and ground assaults on colonies. And players could initiate or take part in battles like that, either from a ship or on the ground.

But as far as I know, that particular feature will not be included at release, It is hard to find all the official comments on the game and all its features.

To add to s20dan's point: you will find most players will not stray too far from the core because making a living on your own out in the middle of nowhere is boring.

So most players I beleive will have a high tendency to frequent the same few hundred systems.

This means that infinity can't have too much space because the only real purpose of having so many systems is to ensure no annoying immersion breaking barriers

I am not against a universe with billions of stars I just don't want it to be empty space with 1-3 planets per system and a space station. I want to have plenty of NPC pirate factions, hundreds of NPC races both peaceful and hostile, space wreckage from hundreds/thousands of years ago still drifting in space and things like that. Personally what would keep me playing Infinity for the long haul is exploration and just being able to do what you were able to do in Elite.

This would be a nice twist and add to the game play. Is that official?

I would think so at first to get your feel for the game. But I now I would want to start the deep space exploration. But we'll have to see if we will be able to do that with current low end ships. Or will the fuel and jump distance be an issue for deep space travel.

On the questions of 'is the universe too large?' two games come to mind; Planetside and WurmOnline.

In Planetside you only have a few battles going on at a time with 95% of the world/system not being used.

In WurmOnline there are large parts of the continent left to the wilderness and that is good. Gathering raw materials would be difficult for a new person if most of the raw materials are fenced off by farmers and ranchers.

I agree with what some said here about people will stay somewhat close together for trade.

At least the Davy Crocketts will have a place to go 😀 (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) [if he could smell a neighbors cook fire, he was too close to them]

So many systems are bad but also good .....

GOOD: you can explore till you drop dead + you can harvest resources without anyone ever EVER interfering with your operations, which is definatelly a plus in my book

BAD: as with EVE, most of the players will be concentrated in a few systems and the rest of the solar systems will be abandoned

another GOOD: if you wanna start your own colony or "run from the law" you'll have billions of possibilities, you can make yourself untraceable, again a plus, if you wanna be a hit-and-run pirate with a hideout ... that is actually hidden ... far in the depths of space. Brilliant 🙂

SO that's 2"+" and 1"-"

It all depends on what kind of player you are ..... and all players are different, thus there's no certain way to gain the hearts of every player.

You were absolutely correct in that all players are different! I think this would be a GOOD thing. 😀 Excitement has it's place but sometimes there is fun in just exploring a map and building an empire. It would be nice if there was a game mode (possibly a sandbox mode?) that you could happily play in without having to worry about constant attacks from alien armadas.

I know when I do get to play Infinity that my main focus is exploration with the occasional mining operation to make gas money 🙂 I also want to make that secret base that I can use to store all my loot from the deep space haulers. So basically unlimited space does suit my needs.

But on the flip side you don't want to always be alone when your playing.... guess that is why I will be build SSC Station and everyone is welcome to stay as long as they promise to protect it with their lives 🙂

Damn I can't wait for this game.... I fell in love with that galaxy map video (infinity-quest-for-earth-f18/galaxy-generation-t316.html).

I've got a simple yet effective response.

The galaxy isn't big enough for me and you.

let alone for thousands of players.

I don't mind battling it out with ya RedChico in Infinity, we can let the thousands of other players play in the sectors of space we don't want 😆

This question only has one answer for me, yes!

My anser is a big no. Because the question is necessary?

Is it a key gameplay feature? If not then no ! Then 1billion wil do to 100Miljoen is realy insane big to. 1 Miljoen. it's realy big to. Put the game in the pegasus satelite galacy and you got plenty of star systems. For a game where exploring is the key feature it make sens, but if not, its just "icing on the cake."

Argumentation is.

Does the game need it for a key gameplay feature? If big realistic universe don't support gameplay directly. Combat Trading building thinking doesn't depend on that, its more optional. For emersion

But if so that its a key gameplay feature. like Lot of effort in space exploring gameplay. The game is about searchin the galacy of points of interrest like strange fenomena advance live and alien flora, fauna, artifacts, salvaging, derelic ships, Advance civilisation ruins, astrofysial fenomena. There must be a nice balance of point of interrest per n(number) of Stars. Then big YES if you aim for realistic space exploring.

If not, the gameplay is concentrated around a few key point of interrest. Like save space for leveling up. Then some places to do combat. Some conflicting aliens or pirates. Dispersed some where close. That doesn't need a large galacy. It is Icing on the cake. And for gameplay resources a expensive feature. The value would be some dosis of emersion. For some free exploration hours. With nothing to find.

If there is time for it then yah why not. But does the game need it. Not if the game goal is to be the king of the hill ELITE fighter. Or the next dagobert Duck in space.

Fleet battles. Pirating space.

But this game is a MMO no experience with that. But my opinion is in general. Don't know the feature set of this game.

But wenn I think of a real exploring aimed space game. You need a lot of point of interrest in miljoen size play field and then some bigger. Point of interrest on 1 out of 1000 stars wil get boring searching. So some hint can be handy. There must be some balance. Like startrek astrophysical room with very advance and hi-fidelity sensor array. Where the density of point of interrest can be lower. Wenn searching with deep space reaching sensors.

And with such big large play field roughly 100.000 LY accross. there is a great need of fictional FTL solutions. Wich is Fiction. So simulation of fiction! realism?

So how do you fill a 200Bil galacy. Procedural is a must. But even then a extreem difficult task. 1 on 1000. means 200mil point of interrest.

So do i want it. Yes me to. Way better fill with interresting things. I do like well polsihed games with lot of icing on the cake. As long as the gameplay is solid.

Well the more I think about all those billion star systems idea, the more it grows on me.

It's not an expensive feature, with procedural generation it's effectively free. So the question really is why not have 200 billion star systems when you're modelling a galaxy that has 200 billion star systems? Having less would mean imposing artificial walls.

Yes, all that space will mostly be empty and only a small proportion of players will head out there. The same could be said about the wilderness of Canada. Will there be anything worth seeing out there? Maybe, maybe not, but it's a "free" feature and I think it will be fun to find out.

Hi Crayfish

I have always been the explorer type and will probably waste all my credits on fuel for my ship so I can keep exploring the vastness of space. Yes you could come across sectors of space with no real resources. But I am looking forward to the visuals and hopefully the Infinity team will make exploration a wow 😯 factor. If you have seen some of those nebula effects and those big planets ahhh bliss 🙂

Well if it cost nothing why not. But it still stands.

Also there noting wrong with artificial wall. Especialy if gamers can't reach them. Or doesn't interfere with normal gameplay. It just reduce a lot of extra work that has not much value to the game. That why there are artifical walls.

A bad example of artificial wall would be GRAW. A fps shooter in a town where you aren't able to flank from the next streets. That is a wall gamers collide on. A example wich solve this is the way you hop from mission to mission in crysis. Lot of freedom to flank. And a bit more freedom then you realy need.

Games where flankin is a tacktic as part of the gameplay. The play field just need room to flank.

A example of your galactic overkill is. Having Farcry2 with a play field as large as whole earth. reduce to whole africa.

Overkill a bit reduced is still overkill. No much colliding of gamers with that artifical wall.

Beside in space the fastness off space just act like a natural wall of nothing. Compared to mountains and Ocean's.

In X3 the universe map is abstract restricted and simplefied. That wil do for bulk of gameplay it offers.

But each sector it just seams you can go on and on in a direction. There isn't much value in that. As game engine you could set a artifical wall if you travel for a month real game time in a direction. But then again wich gamer would do.

The question is. "Is it necessary?"

True. I guess sometimes artificial walls might be necessary. With 200 billion possible star systems we automatically know that even at the peak of population on Infinity all of the 200 billion systems will never be discovered by the player base. So sometimes in this instance why not have a wall...? You could have 1 billion star systems and they still all wouldn't be discovered by the Infinity population. I just look at it as a wasted resources that could be put back into the game doing something else.

For me the scale is great and I love it. I think of myself as an explorer and do I think I would discover or visit even 5000 systems in my playtime in Infinity? Probably not, not that I wouldn't be dedicated. But even me visiting/exploring 3-4 systems a day it would take over 3+ yrs to visit just 5k systems and that is playing daily.

I could easily see myself taking off and just exploring for 6 months, or getting far away enough from others to build some crazy inpenetrable fortress of a system in which to run operations from. Granted that during exploration, as someone else mentioned, you run the risk of running into something harsh like the borg or something. It'll all get tied together somehow, thats what wormholes are for.

That is my whole reason to play Infinity when it comes out is the exploration. And I two wanted to build a outpost (hehe SpaceSimCentral) that players can visit and hang out at. But might not get too many players depending on how vast the universe is.

According to the dev team there is no alien life in Infinity.... least right now. So anyone that you will run into out there will be the long haulers and explorers (all human).

And I can pose as a lowly supplies trader to the SpaceSimCentral, silently pirating any lone players I come across.

😈 😆 Missiles away!

Guess I am going to have to hire some merc's to those pesky pirates away, unless I can equip the station with some sweet firepower. It will definitely be interesting to see what we will be able to do in this game and how open it will be.

Q: Is billions of star systems really necessary?

A: Yes. I enjoy the idea of getting lost in a sizeable universe. (kinda like a toddler let loose in a playground that's a 1000 miles square)

It's relatively easy for any game that uses procedural content generation to make these kind of "billions of star systems" claims. The real question is how different are they from one another? That's the question you need to ask. If they all start to look the same after visiting a few different systems, then who cares? But if there's actual differences (both graphically and game-play), then agreed, it's a cool feature.

Although practically, 200 billion isn't any different than 1 billion, or even 10 million. Any of those numbers is more than you (and maybe even a server full of people) could ever see in a lifetime of playing the game. It just sounds cooler, I guess. 😉