Hi everyone! Two important announcements today - first of all, the main storyline has been decided, and second, we are releasing the Alpha 0.2 today! Before we get into the exciting details of the Alpha 0.2 release, we want to thank you for voting on the narrative of the game and reveal the results of the vote! It was a close race, with all four options receiving a lot of interest, but in the end, option #4 Future Forecast came out on top with 35% of the vote, with Machine Learning at a close second! We have already begun planning the full narrative arc of Future Forecast, and we will keep you all up to date moving forward. We would also like to thank the many of you who offered mission ideas in the recent backers surveys! We noticed some areas were of interest to a lot of you, and so we will work on incorporating them into the storyline! The NITE Team 4 Alpha 0.2 is here! We have been working hard to design the various modules, to get a distinct feel for the Stinger OS and unique looks for the various UI skins, and now it's time to get your feedback on our progress. The Stinger OS is far from complete, but we wanted to involve you as early in the process as we could to gather your first impressions. We’ve included an early draft of all the various skins that will be available, so please let us know what you think of each. An email was sent to all our backers with access to the Alpha client, so be sure to check your inboxes! Alpha 0.2 comprises a single simple Recon mission. This is not representative of the full scope of missions that you can expect to play in the full game. It is just a test of the terminal functions, and an early look at the Stinger OS skins and game UI. We will explore different aspects of the game with each subsequent Alpha, building in complexity and immersion as we move forward, so you will get to see the development of game progress from these very early stages to the full release. Thank you!
1) Awesome. I already love it. 2) The recon map is REALLY hard to read, in-client. The text is too close in color to the background color. Any way to get a higher contrast?
Yes, that should not be a problem. We will make it more contrasted. The hard part was to get it automatically imported from Maltego.
Yes, all our Kickstarter backers and those who pre-ordered the game received an email with access to the Alpha and a link for the feedback survey. If you can't find the email, you can just message me or Anashel and we'll help you out!
This needs a tutorial. For someone who had no issues with the prior version of the game I'm completely lost. I know some beat it quickly but think of the players with limited experience. Really want to play this but have to wait for someone to hand-hold me.
For the first alpha, I was unable to put resources on coding a tutorial since the tools are likely to change and we would have to redo the tutorial. But we could do a training thread on the forums, including some video screengrab. I like the idea that the community comes together on this rather than having everyone trying to solve it on their own. We have in the past beat much harder challenge. Also, some paranoid mind could think that I may have hidden bigger puzzle in this than just a mission.
Some opinion on Alpha 0.2: - I love the UI, much better than 0.1 and consistent with TBW universe - the console is not as effective as 0.1 (fonts are too small and not enough contrast with background) - the recon chart is excellent, however it should be interactive (at some level) - I agree with the idea of the tutorial, or at least some kind of guidance on how to approach the mission and how to use the tools. - 0.1 was very clear in what to do (albeit some bugs such as the map); 0.2 is not linear at all, in that respect
Also, when running the client, I noticed how my laptop is much slower running other programs (such as mail and other office stuff) than with 0.1 and TBW
A friend of mine walked me through this and I still have 1000 questions. We should really have a help/tutorial section. Not a whole lot makes sense at this point.
Just my 5 cents: I think the joy from using various tools and commands comes from finding out what are they used for and what they mean. So reading the manuals and figuring out what to do, at least for me, was part of the fun (the help <command> is very helpful). I imagined a new NT4 agent, who is just discovering his shiny new toys Also, at least in this demo mission, you can approach it in a reverse direction - like "hmm they tell me I have to use this FOXACID, but let's see what I need for it and where can I get it..." But I know not all people are familiar with networking/hacking terms and concepts, so an optional tutorial (maybe something like a NT4 handbook explaining the basic concepts - maybe in an interactive way) would be nice for them.
One comment on the Server descriptions: the syntax for the commands should not be detailed in the general description. At that level, there should be the description of the purpose of the command. The syntax and correct usage should be detailed in the <help command> descriptions. Otherwise, people might be misled by the presence of some parameters (such as "-t 10", indicating that this is the "best" value).
