Firstly well done ORE for completing the first capital ship.

From what I understand firstly you need to create an item to get access to the hidden station and then the list is huge of the components required, in fact if it wasn't for a team effort it would probably take a year to build. (I have broken this list down exhaustively).

Once you're all done doing that only one person can actually pilot it.
Oh come on! It just sounds like another coming soon.

This can't actually be good PR for the game.. and must be frustrating.
There are many options for game play if the station key system was implemented.

Morphix

Super old news here.

The Capships are intended to be hard to build and REQUIRE a team effort.

Agreed, the pilot job should be reassingable.

They're not done with it, y'know. People have repeatedly begged them to release the cap ships in any state of incompleteness, and here we are.

release early, release often.
Devs did 1st half well... now we need the "often" aspect with fixes.

And next step, to reward group effort, must be shared ownership, using keys.

player-owned cappies should become a sort of mobile ConqStations...

I think Incarnate has given us a very reasonable accounting of his time recently. Yes, I'd like to see those things done - but I'm glad he took the business opportunities that he did because they will help secure the future of VO.

WHY is this in Suggestions?

"They're not done with it, y'know. People have repeatedly begged them to release the cap ships in any state of incompleteness, and here we are."

I think this needs to be repeated several times just to make sure people get it. Inc specifically said last winter that he could do an incomplete release then, or he could wait until summer and do a more complete one. Many people said "Do it now! We'll make do with the incomplete one." So he did, except there were delays so it was released in spring instead of winter. That means, assuming his earlier estimate was correct and there are no further delays (unlikely), the more finished version would be done in the fall.

Therefore, put your money on winter.

Thanks for the grats, Morphix. Hang in there, have faith (& patience).

I've been extremely busy with work and family summertime, so my dissertation on the entire build and resulting ship is on the back-burner. I've posted the most immediate needs as I've seen them, and shared piloting if not shared ownership is high on the list. I chimed in on Inc's query wether to drop them in sooner or later, and my advice was to put them in as eye candy for all the new tablet users, then get them right as they had time. I can only hope that by the time they do have the time, that a few more type M's are out there flying, as I'm weary of voicing my concerns and suggestions, to be accused of stealing dev-time for the benefit of, well... ME. Player capships are a complete game-changer, and need to be evolved responsibly.

Not to play down the enormous contributions of my team and allies, but I estimate that I personally built more than half the ship. I can't say how long it would have taken to complete it alone, but I would have done it., just to grab screenshots like this:

Odd, Firefox isn't rendering the image you posted. Don't see why not, the html seems okay. Maybe it's something on lefora's side, preventing hotlinking or something. I have to extract the url from the html and paste it into my address bar. Nice image though.

I'm guessing this is why the bug you posted earlier appeared empty to me as well, I'll go back and check the HTML so I can see the image by hand.

For the record, I for one am perfectly fine with them enhancing capships. Up to a reasonable point of course. At least until they have shields and can have ownership and piloting rights moved around.

Therefore, put your money on winter.
I'm beginning to lose confidence in VO, based on the current trends of no actually useful updates for what, 2, 3 months? We'll be lucky if it's half finished in a year.

This is so angering. When I first started playing, I thought that, based on what the devs were saying, that cappies would be done in '08 or '09. Now, it's '11, and it's quite frankly pathetic and useless. When are we actually going to start moving? We've been told that they're making business related movements, etc. But that's been going on for over 6 months now, and great, they have a few hundred more subbers through tablets, etc., but when are we actually going to see some improvements on the game? I came back from a year and a half long break from the end of '09 to mid '10, and nothing of any magnitude has happened. /ragequit

That is a nice screenshot.

The devs have been faced with important business opportunities that they would have been foolish to pass up. A look back on the countless threads imploring them to advertise and to get investors should serve as a reminder that they are doing what they think is best for the game. Getting national exposure via a heavily repeated tablet commercial was HUGE! Getting VO pre-installed on another tablet was amazing. The devs had no way of planning ahead for these opportunities and had every intention of continuing on the development path they had described. I think Incarnate made a series of wise decisions that may ultimately result in much faster development. I'm not sure why you would choose to be angry - you were not lied to.

I'm not saying that it was wrong of them to make the business-related decisions, in fact I think they were the right way to go, but I, and a bunch of other players, are getting fed up with all this waiting.

Thes, didn't you want to help me out with that thing over in that other forum?

When are we actually going to start moving?

Never. These important business opportunities involved getting a lot of exposure to a market that cannot - and will never be able to - enjoyably play VO on their devices. Whatever buzz gets generated will be gone faster than Alloh can mumble flashinthepan!

And then we'll all be right back where we were two years ago, except it will be the middle of 2012.

And then the zombies will get us all.

WHY is this in Suggestions?

Because you're too busy grabbing your ankles to move it?

Meh, you were clever and funny once.

Once.

Unfortunately, I do agree, make the game playable > market exposure.

Lecter has a good point in there is no point in exposure for the game if it sucks.
It's honestly not newb friendly either..

I'm sure it's a fine balance between development and exposure / marketing also appreciating the choice to either get the capital ships or wait longer until their ready. The current player base has waited along time for this and now we have the basic first ship it would be great if it would:

A. be easier to craft
B. work so that a group may use it

either solution would be better than it is currently.

The pirate role play side has no benefit to the current changes as the ships are simply in accessible for the PVP based grey space dwellers. (I can't really see rats running around in XC for that long, although would love too...)

It would be great to hear the plans and or a time frame from the developers them selves. I have always been impressed with there activity in game and however this has just taken a little too long.

I really do think other gameplay aspects that are broken or buggy need to be fixed before the capships get more polish, considering at the moment, you can count all of the players who have access to them on one hand...

All of the publicity in the world wont matter that much if newbs get upset that pieces of the early game bug out on them, or they think stuff like Border Skrimishes aren't worth doing because some vets told them they're broken.

I think you are failing to consider is that these opportunities happen when they happen - and then they are gone. Guild, as a small company, isn't able to make big waves of opportunity - but it is able to position itself to ride them as best it can.