Factorio:About: Difference between revisions

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German video:
German video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lywJUWYM3Yw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lywJUWYM3Yw
On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Myratax <mail@myratax.de> wrote:
> Hello Tomas,
>
> There are some questions that are already covered in some posts on the forum
> but since not all the viewers will know your forum I ask them anyways.
> If you have anything that I should not mention in the video please mark it
> in red or something. So here we go:
>
> 1. First things first, please introduce yourself to us.
>
> 2. How big is the Factorio team, where did you meet and how long have you
> been working on the game now?
>
> 3. Where did the idea of Factorio come from?
I will answer the first three questions at once because they are
somehow related.
A friend of mine called Michal (kovarex on the forum) quit his job in the
spring of 2012 to start working on Factorio. He has been an avid gamer
and had a lot of ideas for the game. Many of those are now present in
Factorio. I joined him in the summer of 2012. We are both in our late
twenties, with reasonable programming experience. We share a flat in
Prague which is now our "office" as well. We both do programming for
most of the time, but share other tasks as well (discussing the game
design, game propagation, interacting with the community, managing the
freelancers etc.)
The graphics is done by Albert. An artist from Barcelona whom kovarex
found via an advert on some artist forum. He even comes to Prague now
and then to live and work with us. We have become good friends with
him and plan to visit him at Mallorca, where he lives now.
Recently we have been joined by Kuba (blue cube on the forum) our
former school mate. He also does programming. So the core team is 3
programmers and 1 artist.
There are other people who help us now and then. Namely some of
our friends, the player on our forum, etc. Big thanks to all of them.
A lot of work on the game has been done by the freelancers as well -
music, concept art,
current character animations, etc.
>
> 4. What are you currently working on?
We make feature releases (more or less) once a month. At the moment we
are finishing the 0.6.x release. It should be out by the end of the
week. There will be for instance game speed optimizations, the map of
the world and some new (undisclosed:D) content.
>
> 5. You recently delayed the multiplayer mode. What was your reason behind
> that?
We made some estimates how much work would it be to make the
multiplayer. And it turned out to be at least 2 months for 2 people
full time (with still somewhat uncertain result). That is too much for us now.
Therefore we decided to focus on finishing the singleplayer experience
first and get back to
multiplayer later. We are still committed to building the multiplayer
however there are more important things to work on now (combat, extend
and improve main campaign, polishing, more content).
>
> 6. I am a peaceful player and my current "Let's Play" is on a map without
> enemys. Will there be a way in the future to obtain alien artifacts if you
> play peaceful?
Probably not. The alien artifacts are sort of a reward for players
scouting the map and fighting with the enemies. On the other hand not
having the alien artifacts will not be a "blocker" for players who
don't like to fight (I am not a big fan of fighting either). The
artifacts will be used for late technology upgrades that are nice to
have, but not essential (faster logistic robots, more efficient
weapons, better modules). In
other words it will be possible to finish the game without fighting
(though it is not now because you need them to build the rocket
defense which ends the game).
Also we still consider adding the market that would allow you to trade
items that you don't have.
> 8. There are already a few mods out there for Factorio. How important is a
> good community and modding scene to you?
>
It is really important to us. The game has been designed to be
friendly for modders from the beginning. We try to make it as easy and
powerful to mod as possible so people can come up with new interesting
things.  On top of that we actively communicate with the modders on
our forum to solve their problems and extend the scripting API for
their needs.
>
> 10. You already have a Steam Greenlight page in the concept section (link in
> the description), do you plan the release on other platforms like Desura or
> GoG.com?
At the moment the page on the steam is only a concept. Our plan is to
start a proper Greenlight campaign by the end of the summer. And of
course the goal would be to get greenlit and publish the game on Steam
in their Early Access section (at the moment they have other awesome
games in the process of creation like Kenshi, Gnomoria, Prison
Architect, KSP, etc.).
AFAIK the GoG.com is only for finished games (I could be wrong). And I
don't know how "Indie friendly" they are. When it comes to Desura I
heard that the exposure there is not big (also could be wrong). For
these reasons our main goal is to get to Steam Early Access and see
what comes after that.
> 9. Do you plan to support Factorio after the 1.0 release with additional
> contend like for example "Don't Starve" ?
>
> 7. What can we expect with version 1.0?
>
> 12. Of course the last question has to be "What is the planed release date
> for 1.0?"
I have reordered and grouped these three questions because they are
tightly related.
We decided to take a "continuous development" approach to Factorio in
a similar fashion many games do nowadays (like those mentioned above
related to Steam Early Access or what Minecraft did). We will update
the game as long as there is interest in it. And as long as it will
cover the development costs:) We might end up being in alpha for a
while (which I think is not a bad thing).
We don't have a definitive specs or release date for 1.0 (sorry:)). We
have a plan for more or less two months ahead and keep updating it
based also on the feedback from the community. But to get more
specific, Factorio will be called beta when there is at least
following: meaningful combat, extended main campaign, more content
(new energy sources, at least one new industry and new resources),
extended scenario pack, overall polishing (both logic and graphics). I
suppose we can start thinking about having 1.0 when there is the
multiplayer.
>
> 11. Is there anything else you would like to mention?
>
Working on Factorio has been a great experience for us. There has been
a lot of downsides but also a lot of upsides. The indiegogo campaign
we did in the February has been probably the most intensive month of
our lives. We would like to thank to all the people who helped us
during our work on this project. This includes our friends, people on
the forum or youtubers (like you :)) who help us to propagate the
game.
> Thank you for your time
Thank you for doing this interview.
>
>
> So these are my questions. As i said, I plan on making a german and english
> version of the video, as always with links in the description ect.
> As soon as I have completed it, I will send you a link to the english video
> before I make it public, so you can tell me if you want to have something
> changed.
I hope some of the answers are not too long. Feel free to reorganize
or rephrase them when you feel necessary. Also if there is something
missing then just let me know.
Looking forward to the interview:)
>
> Best regards
> Myratax
Regards
Tomas


=== February 5, 2013: [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=125195010 Steam greenlight campaign] ===
=== February 5, 2013: [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=125195010 Steam greenlight campaign] ===

Revision as of 22:29, 6 April 2014

Roadmap

There is an own article about that.

Sozializing

History

July 29, 2013: Developer Interview

Interview from Myratax.

English video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuatfFHT9L0

German video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lywJUWYM3Yw


On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Myratax <mail@myratax.de> wrote: > Hello Tomas, > > There are some questions that are already covered in some posts on the forum > but since not all the viewers will know your forum I ask them anyways. > If you have anything that I should not mention in the video please mark it > in red or something. So here we go: > > 1. First things first, please introduce yourself to us. > > 2. How big is the Factorio team, where did you meet and how long have you > been working on the game now? > > 3. Where did the idea of Factorio come from?

I will answer the first three questions at once because they are somehow related.

A friend of mine called Michal (kovarex on the forum) quit his job in the spring of 2012 to start working on Factorio. He has been an avid gamer and had a lot of ideas for the game. Many of those are now present in Factorio. I joined him in the summer of 2012. We are both in our late twenties, with reasonable programming experience. We share a flat in Prague which is now our "office" as well. We both do programming for most of the time, but share other tasks as well (discussing the game design, game propagation, interacting with the community, managing the freelancers etc.)

The graphics is done by Albert. An artist from Barcelona whom kovarex found via an advert on some artist forum. He even comes to Prague now and then to live and work with us. We have become good friends with him and plan to visit him at Mallorca, where he lives now.

Recently we have been joined by Kuba (blue cube on the forum) our former school mate. He also does programming. So the core team is 3 programmers and 1 artist.

There are other people who help us now and then. Namely some of our friends, the player on our forum, etc. Big thanks to all of them.

A lot of work on the game has been done by the freelancers as well - music, concept art, current character animations, etc.

> > 4. What are you currently working on?

We make feature releases (more or less) once a month. At the moment we are finishing the 0.6.x release. It should be out by the end of the week. There will be for instance game speed optimizations, the map of the world and some new (undisclosed:D) content.

> > 5. You recently delayed the multiplayer mode. What was your reason behind > that?

We made some estimates how much work would it be to make the multiplayer. And it turned out to be at least 2 months for 2 people full time (with still somewhat uncertain result). That is too much for us now. Therefore we decided to focus on finishing the singleplayer experience first and get back to multiplayer later. We are still committed to building the multiplayer however there are more important things to work on now (combat, extend and improve main campaign, polishing, more content).

> > 6. I am a peaceful player and my current "Let's Play" is on a map without > enemys. Will there be a way in the future to obtain alien artifacts if you > play peaceful?

Probably not. The alien artifacts are sort of a reward for players scouting the map and fighting with the enemies. On the other hand not having the alien artifacts will not be a "blocker" for players who don't like to fight (I am not a big fan of fighting either). The artifacts will be used for late technology upgrades that are nice to have, but not essential (faster logistic robots, more efficient weapons, better modules). In other words it will be possible to finish the game without fighting (though it is not now because you need them to build the rocket defense which ends the game).

Also we still consider adding the market that would allow you to trade items that you don't have.


> 8. There are already a few mods out there for Factorio. How important is a > good community and modding scene to you? >

It is really important to us. The game has been designed to be friendly for modders from the beginning. We try to make it as easy and powerful to mod as possible so people can come up with new interesting things. On top of that we actively communicate with the modders on our forum to solve their problems and extend the scripting API for their needs.

> > 10. You already have a Steam Greenlight page in the concept section (link in > the description), do you plan the release on other platforms like Desura or > GoG.com?

At the moment the page on the steam is only a concept. Our plan is to start a proper Greenlight campaign by the end of the summer. And of course the goal would be to get greenlit and publish the game on Steam in their Early Access section (at the moment they have other awesome games in the process of creation like Kenshi, Gnomoria, Prison Architect, KSP, etc.).

AFAIK the GoG.com is only for finished games (I could be wrong). And I don't know how "Indie friendly" they are. When it comes to Desura I heard that the exposure there is not big (also could be wrong). For these reasons our main goal is to get to Steam Early Access and see what comes after that.

> 9. Do you plan to support Factorio after the 1.0 release with additional > contend like for example "Don't Starve" ?

> > 7. What can we expect with version 1.0? >

> 12. Of course the last question has to be "What is the planed release date > for 1.0?"

I have reordered and grouped these three questions because they are tightly related.

We decided to take a "continuous development" approach to Factorio in a similar fashion many games do nowadays (like those mentioned above related to Steam Early Access or what Minecraft did). We will update the game as long as there is interest in it. And as long as it will cover the development costs:) We might end up being in alpha for a while (which I think is not a bad thing).

We don't have a definitive specs or release date for 1.0 (sorry:)). We have a plan for more or less two months ahead and keep updating it based also on the feedback from the community. But to get more specific, Factorio will be called beta when there is at least following: meaningful combat, extended main campaign, more content (new energy sources, at least one new industry and new resources), extended scenario pack, overall polishing (both logic and graphics). I suppose we can start thinking about having 1.0 when there is the multiplayer.

> > 11. Is there anything else you would like to mention? >

Working on Factorio has been a great experience for us. There has been a lot of downsides but also a lot of upsides. The indiegogo campaign we did in the February has been probably the most intensive month of our lives. We would like to thank to all the people who helped us during our work on this project. This includes our friends, people on the forum or youtubers (like you :)) who help us to propagate the game.


> Thank you for your time


Thank you for doing this interview.

> > > So these are my questions. As i said, I plan on making a german and english > version of the video, as always with links in the description ect. > As soon as I have completed it, I will send you a link to the english video > before I make it public, so you can tell me if you want to have something > changed.

I hope some of the answers are not too long. Feel free to reorganize or rephrase them when you feel necessary. Also if there is something missing then just let me know.

Looking forward to the interview:)

> > Best regards > Myratax

Regards Tomas

February 5, 2013: Steam greenlight campaign

Indiegogo-Campaign

From Dwarf Fortress forum

We put that into the wiki, because it can be seen as a kind of "historical document" and a prove, that no essential point of the original vision has been lost. Because it is over a yer since then, we added some comment, see down!

Factorio - Factory building game « on: February 01, 2013, 12:46:49 am »
What do I do in the game ?
You will be in charge of a character that is building a factory from scratch. You will be mining resources, automating production, managing energy sources, designing the flow of items in your factory, researching technologies and defending from hostile creatures.
What is the game inspired by ? [*]
We drew a lot of inspiration from Transport Tycoon-like games, Civilization and Minecraft.
Why should I care ?
This game is made by geeks for geeks. The core of the game is building things. You can create huge almost self sufficient factories. There are machines crafting other machines. All the stuff is travelling on transport belts. There are simple means of "programming" the robotic arms that move things around. You also have little logistic robots that transport things among designated containers. The ultimate goal of course is to have self replicating factories:)
When & where can I get it ?
Public demo is available at http://www.factorio.com (win, osx, ubuntu linux). Go and try it now.
The game successfully finished crowdfunding campaign (March 2013). The alpha version of the game can bought on our web page.
What is the current state of the game? [*]
We plan to start greenlight campaign in the start of december 2013, we are doing all the preparations needed for this to happen. (New trailer, consistent graphics, bugfree gameplay).
The current version is alpha, but we try to fix all the reported bugs, so the stable releases (latest is 0.7.5) are quite stable.
We put some effort to make the game moddable from the start, so you are can already choose from several mods extending different parts of the game. The modding support is made in a way that mod incompatibility isn't an issue.
I want to know more [*]
Check our website for trailer, screenshots, demo download and more information in general.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2013, 12:36:32 pm by kovarex » Logged

Comments

What is the game inspired by ?
From some threads in off-topic board: we add to the above list a number of games like
  • Dwarf fortress,
  • from transport tycoon like games especially OpenTTD,
  • from minecraft especially the built craft mod
  • Civilization
  • SpaceChem
  • Creeper world 3
  • Terraria
  • Starbound
  • Grobots
  • Rimworld
  • DayZ
  • FTL
  • Unclaimed World.
  • Into Space (shortly mentioned that the game will include elements from there)
  • (To be continued...)
Current state
See Roadmap for more or less actual current state.
I want to know more
look especially into the blog; the Factorio Friday Facts (FFFs) have become a weekly happening and provide good information about the near future of the game.
Retrieved from "https://testing-wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Factorio:About&oldid=108480"