So after someone completes a main story mission, it is completely gone from the game? That's intense. This game will probably not be for the casual audience. I just hope it's not extremely complex like EVE, and that it doesn't require a supercomputer to play.

Basically this, only I love EVE

Eventually one of them will go FOSS instead of dying completely when the creator runs out of money/loses interest. Hopefully it won't take decades :frog:.

mind blown

That. Is. AMAZING. I've never been interested in MMO's but this... If it ever gets an official release, I'm definitely getting it.

EDIT: Since it's an MMO, I hope you're able to fully customize your ship. That would be awesome O:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2rcjpVTmm4&feature=related

Looks aight.

Edit - That vid was from 2006, so the actual combat in the final game will probably look a bit different.

Same here. A lot of talk has been directed at this game, mostly from EVE players who think it's on its last legs (or at least the last legs of what the game used to be). I'll say it does look gorgeous and the amount of detail is incredible (the planetary rings..). If it ever gets released, I sure hope it delivers on what it says now; it would surely be in the running for greatest game ever.

It's not surprising it's taken this long to make it considering the size of the development team, not to mention that they aren't actually making any money off it yet.

I'm definitely skeptical. There is going to massive hype for this game if it ever nears release, and that just might be the downfall of it. If it turns out to be anything less then the greatest game ever, people are going to be disappointed. Also, what is Project Offset?

Well, it'll be an MMO once it's finished, so I'd assume we'll get objectives similar to EVE, but hopefully a less complex game overall.

Project Offset is what immediately came to mind for me as well.

A highly scalable science fiction world sounds like it should be right up my alley, but honestly after the initial "that's cool" little about this video did much for me.

The stepped mountains look very strange, as if the scalable terrain are set up with a simple blocky model (almost like minecraft) which is then given more texture and form when you get closer. But mountains should have slopes. One set of stepped mountains wouldn't have bothered me, but much of the terrain seemed to be built this way - unless this is the land of the ziggurat people it doesn't work for me. Other parts of the landscape did look pretty, even if they were utterly devoid of content, but too much of the terrain (even excluding the stepped mountains) looked utterly unnatural.

If this game is focused on a single solar system, with only a handful of planets, I'd be confident that the content is coming and the current emptiness isn't an issue. But if they're planning on having scores of generators worlds I think the scalable terrain system will be little more than a fancy graphical gimmick - it will be astonishing the first couple of times, and after that the impact will be lost and the barrenness of the planets will overwhelm any beauty.

If I were running the project, I'd probably opt for doing one system for the first release, then expanding the scope in an expansion pack or sequel. Would give a balance between size and content, and also get some money in to keep things going.

BTW, having most planets be barren and lifeless isn't necessarily a bad thing, since that's actually quite realistic, but I agree that there definitely would need to be some more interesting and populated ones.