Transverse, a persistent, player-driven sci-fi MMO

[Dr Tomo]

Mechwarrior Online studio announces Transverse, a persistent, player-driven sci-fi MMO


Piranha Games did a pretty solid job with Mechwarrior Online, but now the studio is trying its hand at something even more ambitious: Transverse, a flight-based sci-fi MMORPG set in a distant part of the galaxy where humanity has transcended mortality, and the players control everything.

In some ways, Transverse sounds similar to Mechwarrior Online, particularly with regards to combat. "The physically-inspired close range combat will require strategic management of your ship's systems. With each burst of weapons fire, high speed turn, and shield deflection, your ship will expend power and build heat," the game's description states. "Every battle you engage in will play out differently."

But it's the story that ties those battles together that makes Transverse sound so potentially interesting. It takes place in the 24th century in an area of space known as the Fringe, where four factions of humanity vie for supremacy. But years of augmentation and enhancement have created "humans" far different from those on Earth, while the advent of synthetics has rendered mortality irrelevant; now, the people of the Sol system live in a closed, rigid society, while out on the Fringe, the only laws are the rules that each man and woman chooses to live by.

That freedom will extend to the in-game economy as well, as there will be no stores, pre-made mines or manufacturers. Instead, players will have to establish themselves with nothing more than the "humble colonist goods" they're granted when they enter the Transverse, and create and grow the economy themselves, as they see fit.

It all sounds rather EVE Online-like, while the reveal trailer strikes me as a cross between Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, with a dash of Babylon 5 on the narrative side. But that's not a criticism: Original ideas are nice, but a mashup like that—if it's done properly—is something I'd throw money at all day long.

Speaking of which, there is a crowdfunding campaign. Pledges start at $30 for a basic, all-digital package, and go all the way up to $250, which includes all kinds of cool physical stuff like a map of the known universe, a hardcover "making of" book, a pin and a t-shirt.

Transverse is by all appearances an incredibly ambitious project, and that makes it risky—especially since Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous are already so far along. But the possibility that it could live up to those ambitions makes it worth paying attention to, which I thus urge you to do at TransverseGame.com.
*source

Is this studio capable of such a project? I heard of them over Mechwarrior and that they were running that game into the ground.

 

[Infinitron]

Ahahahaha these guys have been squatting on the Wing Commander license all this time: http://ultimacodex.com/2014/09/ea-s...ander-to-piranha-games-and-they-didnt-use-it/

EA (Sold? Gave? Licensed?) Wing Commander to Piranha Games…And They Didn’t Use It
BY KENNETH KULLY · SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

Our friends at the Wing Commander CIC reported yesterday about the announcement of Piranha Games’ Transverse, a multiplayer, online, space combat sim. The basic premise of the game is, I gather, thus:

Synthetic physical forms allow humans to pursue an existence in space and have opened the door to immortality.

This future is not without danger and the very substance of humanity will be tested in the distant regions of space known as the fringe. Out in the Fringe, factions of humanity race to explore space, claim resources, and create new technologies to tip the balance of power; with this race for new power, all of humanity is plagued by conflict with the remnants.

Out in the lawlessness of the Fringe humanity faces its greatest enemy: itself.

Human civilization’s journey into the fringes of space has only just begun. The Sol system has retreated into a closed society that does not tolerate disruptive influences. On the Fringe, players rule themselves, creating player run factions with their own laws and governance.

Players can choose to stay near the bounds of newly settled space, or take the risk to push into new space, and profit from undiscovered rewards and resources.​

The game is being built with Unreal Engine 4, and the visuals are very…Star Citizen-esque, really. Even the ship designs that Piranha Games is selling as part of their effort to crowdfund Transverse bear striking similarities to the lineup of ships on offer forStar Citizen.

Now, as baffling as it is that a smaller, Vancouver-based developer whose main claim to fame seems to be MechWarrior Online(unless you count the console ports of Duke Nukem Forever, I suppose) is attempting to basically build I Can’t Believe It’s Not Star Citizen on a shoestring budget by means of a self-hosted crowdfunding campaign, here’s what I really don’t get: Piranha Games has the Wing Commander license, and chose not to use it:

We do indeed currently hold the license of Wing Commander. We first contacted EA about the WC brand in the spring of 2012, long before the initial announcement of products like Star Citizen. We approached EA because we had a deep love for the space combat genre and Wing Commander was right there alongside MechWarrior as our most beloved franchises we grew up with. In short at the time we thought we were going to be the ones taking that big initial risk to try and bring space shooters back.

Over the course of the next 18 months a significant amount changed – Star Citizen was announced, and by Late 2013 we found ourselves in possession of an exclusive license to Wing Commander and assembling a small team to craft a new experience. We spent six months developing, designing, and working on a marketing video with help from outsourcing partners. As we approached our reveal date, there was a moment of pause when we started to reflect on the brand, and design concepts. We reached a pivotal moment when some of our best design ideas were being pushed to the side as they just didn’t fit within the constraints of a WC game.

We looked carefully at what our WCO product was, looked at other competing products, and decided that we needed to move away from the Wing Commander universe. It was a tough choice, as we have a deep love and respect for the brand.

It became clear that our very best and original game idea was contained within all of the concepts that were pushed aside for our WC product. The concept for Transverse was born from a single thought, and inspired by all those unused ideas. In the end we realized we should be making our best idea and in doing so we found a corner of the spacesim genre that would make us stand out. In doing so we would also be providing Star Citizen with the respect it deserves and what it represents to their customers.​

The current crowdfunding total for Transverse, just for reference:

“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.” It’s a quote that has been attributed to Samuel Johnson, and whether he actually is the originator of the criticism, its point would seem to apply here. Transhumanism can certainly be an interesting concept to mull over and explore, but there’s nothing particularly stand-outish about Piranha Games’ handling of the topic. The concept of player-driven universes is nothing particilarly special given EVE Online, and while the idea to have no NPCs in the game is a bit more novel…it almost seems like one of those things that works better as a thought experiment than as an actual game feature.

This comment on the Transverse forums basically says it all, I think:

So basically you are saying that you are responsible that Chris Roberts had to reinvent an entire universe because you were squatting the Wing Commander IP and you aren’t even using it.

I am literally lost for words. Probably a good thing.​

Except he did eventually think of some words.

Blaine raw

 

[felipepepe]

 

[Stompa]

At this point I'm convinced PGI is doing this on purpose, no one can be this incompetent. At least this time they don't have an established fanbase of idiots with disposable income to milk.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.incgamers.com/2014/09/tr...n-wing-commander-online-gamer-backlash-begins

Transverse could have been Wing Commander Online – Gamer doubts begin
10 Sep 2014 by Paul Younger

Earlier this evening Piranha Games revealed Transverse and it’s not going down well.

Gamers appear not to be embracing the new crowd funded project from Piranha Games which was revealed as Transverse, an online, open-universe space exploration and combat title that would be taking on the likes of Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous in the space adventuring space.

Since the game was revealed, the Piranha Games team has been kept rather busy on their forums as comments started to flood in from sceptical gamers and disgruntled Mech Warrior Online players/backers.

The most interesting discovery was that the game could have actually turned out to be Wing Commander Online. According to a member of Cloud Imperium, the studio behind Star Citizen, EA had offered Piranha the license. CIG’s Ben Lesnick commented:

“It’s a real project. We were worried it was going to be Wing Commander: Online – EA offered them the license at one point”

Now that Transverse has been announced, we have to assume that EA thought better of entering the space sim arena now that Star Citizen has raised so much cash and Elite Dangerous is looking very solid.

Fans of the Wing Commander series sound relieved that Piranha is not going to have the opportunity to revive Wing Commander . The way in which Mech Warrior Online has been handled by Piranha has not been stellar.

Star Citizen backers have also been quick to investigate what’s on offer and there has been quite a few comments from the Start Citizen community over the ship designs which look similar to what we see in Star Citizen. Perhaps that was to be expected.

Since the funding launched this evening, which was around 8 hours ago, there’s been a total of 28 pledges and the message to wait and see what happens appears to have sunk in. There’s a thread in the Transverse forums which is filled with comments from gamers not willing to part with cash.

With Transverse not being Kickstarted and funds being gathered directly, there’s no protection for backers and the funding goals set out by Piranha are almost absurd. So much so they appear to have changed their funding page. In case you missed the funding goals, they were as follows:

• $1,000,000 – Space Flight
• $1.5 million – Customise your ship
• $2.0 million – Space combat

We’re a little perplexed why it would take an additional $1 million to shoot your lasers. What if they don’t reach $2 million? Does that mean you won’t be able to shoot? The whole campaign is bizarre and for that reason alone do not back this until there is more concrete information, gameplay, or you are completely sure you want to play this.

Not backing the game scuppers Piranha’s plans, but I think there are enough reasons to be slightly concerned about the project especially at this early stage.

Piranha Games may surprise us, but based on what’s gone before, just be wary.

Update: Piranha shadow banned on Reddit as Transverse fallout continues.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.incgamers.com/2014/09/piranha-shadow-banned-on-reddit-as-transverse-fallout-continues

Piranha shadow banned on Reddit as Transverse fallout continues [Updated]

Piranha Games had a lot to deal with this morning on the Transverse Reddit channel and subsequently Piranha now find their accounts have been shadow banned.

When Transverse was announced yesterday it opened a whole can of worms and this morning the situation hadn’t improved. When the game was announced Piranha dashed to get the Reddit channel for Transverse up and running and it all looked fine for a few hours or so. It was fine until the Reddit community actually started posting.

Overnight Reddit users started posting their concerns about the project and any comments questioning the game were subsequently removed from the Reddit channel with nearly all posts having been removed by this morning,

One important point to note is that Reddit is not supposed to be used for self promotion, channels are set up by the community and run by the community and must follow the Reddit rules.

With the Transverse channel being controlled by Piranha Games it was obvious they would remove any negative comments from the channel. Reddit users decided to take action into their own hands and contacted the Reddit administrators to look into the problem.

Reddit deemed that the channel was breaking their guidelines and subsequently the Piranha Games accounts, which included the community manager PGI_Niko, were shadow banned. What this means is that these Piranha Games accounts can not post anything without a channel moderator approving the post. Their profile pages are also removed. It’s essentially like being sent to Coventry.

With the removal of Piranha’s control over the Reddit channel it has now been taken over by community members and new moderators are now in place.

The reveal of Transverse has been a complete mess and Piranha have handled the whole announcement terribly. 24 hours in and there are still only 50 backers so it looks like it will take a very long time to fund this with community cash, or Piranha are going to have to find the funds internally.

Developers should take note that this is great example of how not use Reddit.

Update: A post on the MWO forums from the community manager confirms the banning and also includes a copy of their correspondence with Reddit.

You may have heard the amusing news that we have been shadow-banned from Reddit. We’re looking to get the situation fixed as soon as possible.

The issue in question stems from the fact that we had created a sub-reddit for r/Transverse in order to pre-empt any possible recreation of the events which occurred leading to the creation of r/OutreachHPG following the take-over of r/mwo. We also have some indications as to which group of players may be responsible. The shadow-ban did not stop at r/Transverse related staff. All PGI Staff have been banned and will be unable to address any concerns raised by players on OutreachHPG as a result.

Here is the message I have provided to various Admins and Moderators of Reddit.​

The post then goes on to show how they are handling the situation with Reddit.

Greetings,

Taking from the points raised by Rlight below (http://www.reddit.co…ng_reddiquette/), as well as the fact that those requesting our SubReddit already have one of their own here: http://www.reddit.co…ansverseTheGame

We kindly request that our accounts be un-banned and our Reddit restored. Your Admins have already been messaged twice regarding these same users performing a take-over of r/mwo, forcing many of our fans to create new sub-reddits. You can refer to that message below:

Hi there,

My name is Nikolai Lubkiewicz, Community Manager for Piranha Games Inc. We have set up the r/Transverse sub-reddit to be an official sub-reddit for our upcoming game. It seems request for ownership has been made by those who already took control of the fan sub-reddit for our other feature game r/mwo, as has been discussed here:http://www.reddit.com/r/mwo/comments/1u7hb2/rmwo_hostile_takeover/and here http://www.reddit.com/r/mwo/comments/1uvnm0/farewell_rmwo/The end result of this matter was catastrophic to our Reddit fan-base, resulting in many leaving to set up a new home in http://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/ We apologize for this matter disturbing you. Please ignore any requests for seizure of this sub-reddit. As we do not wish for it to fall into the hands of the gaming group which now controls r/mwo, one which is also strongly associated with events of player and staff harassment in multiple games.

We have otherwise followed any rules presented regarding the use of Reddit as directed here:http://www.reddit.com/rules/ If an error has been made, please let us know.

Those requesting our r/Transverse Reddit today have also already populated their own reddit here:http://www.reddit.co…ansverseTheGame , where they may behave and moderate as they please. As has been already discussed with your Administrative team, we remain concerned regarding the use of the term “Official” alongside our own trademark on r/mwo in a manner which seems to be used to misdirect many of our new and old players. We hope both these matters are resolved as soon as possible.

Thank you for your time.​

Readers of the MWO forums are also being encouraged to express their “concerns” regarding the shadow banning of Piranha staff.

Here is where you can express your concerns to the Reddit Staff regarding their decision to shadow-ban our staff, whether you agree or disagree with that decision, and your concerns regarding the individuals they are offering the Reddit to. Feel free to include your concern regarding Reddit’s decision to remove PGI staff who have had nothing to do with the r/Transverse project or it’s sub-reddit, individuals like PGI_Fox, PGI_Karl, and so forth.

http://www.reddit.co…ng_reddiquette/

In the event that we are unable to recover our accounts, we will simply ask that players who are keen and interested create their own threads here Requesting /r/Transverse to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

http://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/

If we are unable to have our shadow-bans removed, then we will simply have to say farewell to those accounts. Some individuals on r/mwo have already taught us all too well how easy it is to simply generate a new account. We might return. We might not.​

​

 

[Ninjerk]

Wasn't MechWarrior Online a raging dumpster fire?

 

[Infinitron]

Wasn't MechWarrior Online a raging dumpster fire?

Oh yes: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/mwo-is-finally-dead.86036/

BTW they're calling their backers "Transversetites":

 

[Drax]

in SPAAAAZZEEEE!!!!

 

[Drakron]

Oh God ...

 

[PocketMine]

http://www.incgamers.com/2014/09/piranha-rethinks-transverse-goals-reddit-lock-down-and-apologies
http://www.incgamers.com/2014/09/piranha-rethinks-transverse-goals-reddit-lock-down-and-apologies
tldr : - crowdfunding campaign goal lowered to 500k (for alpha) and promises refund if goal is not met in 30 days (27 days left)
- funding now at 1% funded

- PGI takes control of subreddit cleans it posts (non)apology.

 

[GarfunkeL]

What an amusing disaster.

 

[Ninjerk]

What an amusing disaster.

Fucking brofist discriminating scum

 

[Shannow]

Wat

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.incgamers.com/2014/10/transverse-funding-campaign-cancelled-by-piranha-games

Transverse funding campaign cancelled by Piranha Games
3 Oct 2014 by Paul Younger

There was no way Transverse was going to be funded after the disastrous campaign launch.

With seven days to go, Piranha Games has decided to pull the plug on the crowd funding campaign for their space based title Transeverse. The message from Piranha reads:

It’s a bitter sweet day. Thank you for taking a chance and showing us that you are interested in seeing our vision come to life. As you can see, the velocity of our crowdfunding campaign never gained the momentum needed to bring Transverse to life as a community funded concept. We are going to shut down our funding today, ahead of the 30 day deadline and begin the process of refunding as promised.

We plan to take Transverse behind the curtain for now. One day, I hope to see you on the Fringe!​

The campaign launched under heavy criticism from the Mech Warrior Online community who were frustrated with Piranha’s progress in providing expected game features. The campaign also started with some very odd funding goals that made no sense whatsoever. Let’s also not forget the Reddit debacle which really didn’t help Piranha’s public relations.

With Star Citizen and Elite Dangeros on the horizon with all their funding in place, Transverse was always going to struggle. There’s a lesson here for all developers looking for money directly from gamers, make sure you support your community properly and deliver on promises.

Will the game return? Who knows. Piranha will want to put this campaign behind them for now and hopefully get their house in order before trying again in the future.

 

[Drax]

 

[Luka-boy]

Good riddance.

I'd say it's a good thing they probably not only didn't make any money but also lost a lot making those videos for Transverse, but they probably simply took it from MWO's development budget.

 

[Perkel]

And nothing of value was lost.
Retards shouldn't play with matches.