Podcast 138: Star Atlas Weekly Review

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, this is Matt with Intergalactic Herald. Welcome to my star os Week in Review podcast. This is podcast number 138. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website@intergalacticherald.com. Look for a weekly recap newsletter, 186. So just a quick summary of things to go over this week. Basically a standard start outs week of the Atlas Brew occurring on the past Wednesday, at least if you’re in US time zones, yeah. Yeah, I guess it could be on a different day if you were in what is it, Asia Pacific. But anyways so that’s pretty much it. So I’ll go over that. There was a announcement later in the week from Star Atlas on their medium page about some changes. Community events. So anyways, sorry.

[00:00:42] Just, yeah, it wasn’t a lot. Anyways but before I get to that, just a couple of quick things on things I’m doing in Star Atlas. Again, my website, inter car.com, great resource for many things about Star Atlas, including guides beginners, guides different parts of the game. You can get directories both star House content creators, guilds tools and things like that do have my recaps.

[00:01:03] Both my newsletter recap of. Content this past week in Star OS plus recaps of any of the Star Os community team events. And then lastly, if you wanna sign up on an email, you can get the announcements from the star os Discord sent directly to your email. So check all that out@intergalacticcaral.com.

[00:01:21] Do have my star outs merge store. Admittedly, not a lot of selection. Basically it’s gone on on hold until other things change. So you can check that out@intergalacticgear.com. And again, I’d love to start a star os community of non or gamers that are not joining Guild Star os gamers. So you can check that out@intergalacticcoalition.com.

[00:01:39] As far as the content they occurred this past week as is typical a, the STARLESS scale publish their weekly, newsletter of what’s going on. Star Atlas, which is a great resource to keep up to. They actually published their 200th issue. So great milestone and compliments to them for their consistency in putting it out.

[00:01:55] ’cause they do seem to always grab some little tidbits of information from water sources. So I always put in my weekly recap you can find a link to that there. As I mentioned star Atlas community team did do their Atlas Brew, as is typical. They had some noteworthy news. They did reiterate that the zinc blockchain testing is ongoing or started no deadline on how long, but again, we still a little bit of news at least that has started.

[00:02:20] And then the bulk of the Atlas Brew was dedicated to some issue some things about lore. Upcoming, how it relate to, I think it was UE five update by the end of the year, which again, in some senses they’ve done that traditionally. So I guess I didn’t think of that as news, but yeah, sounds like they’re maybe targeting that and given, actually now I think of this through it’s October, they had pretty decent cadence during the year of once a month.

[00:02:45] And then they came out with the one in September. But, huh. I wonder if they will have any more before this end of the year one. Anyway, so the lore was some things about the sommes, which I realized I don’t actually remember what faction they are part of. Again I’ll get into talking a little more about lore, but if you wish my podcast for a while, unfortunately, or just, yeah, I have a hard time with it.

[00:03:08] Anyways. So that was pretty much it. They did tease something which then was announced on Friday that there is a new initiative I think it’s called Iris Blessings. Anyways, they are gonna do ongoing double xp weekends in the UE five games. So I think that is both the shooter and the racing.

[00:03:26] So you can double up your xp and again, that XP will be redeemed or dropped for ink. Which is a new material. Component. I’m not really sure how we classify that. That has some bearing in the sage version and definitely in the new C four that’ll be coming. And then they also announced a new monthly drawing that’ll occur via showing up at community events, getting codes.

[00:03:52] And then I guess they have a discord bot. That, can you, I don’t know, redeem it through it and then any anyways, I’m not a hundred percent sure I ’cause read the article late, but anyways there is some monthly drawings that are occurring to that. So that was pretty much it from the past week.

[00:04:07] And I’ll mention later, I actually was quite busy with some other things, so I wasn’t really. Following on Star Atlas this past week. But anyways so I’ll go ahead and go into the next section, which is kinda my thoughts on the state of Star Atlas. And of course I just alluded to not much, but definitely think the ongoing community engagement sounds really good.

[00:04:25] It wasn’t dis specifically said this is gonna tie into a zinc rollout, but it felt like when we saw some of the things about how you could earn zinc, there was some community engagement, so this could be preparing for that. But nevertheless, the first double XP weekend for the UE five version was well received.

[00:04:43] And makes a lot of sense that they would make that an ongoing thing again, for nothing else. Gives people a reason to keep coming back. And then the monthly drawing, I think they had talked about, and maybe they used this bot, discord bot in some capacity for the, what was it? Start out summer.

[00:04:56] So again that was where we see and so it makes sense they would do that. Also, I think it’s a way to continue keeping community engagement going. Realize they haven’t really done anything like that. Golden Carnival going back. I don’t know. It feels like a long time. It was last. Spring, I don’t remember.

[00:05:12] So I think all those things make a lot of sense and I’m glad to see they’re coming up with initiatives that don’t require what it sounds like, a lot of team members and things like that. Again, the never alone campaign, if you’ve been around for a while was I think a great effort, but unfortunately was tied in with the layoffs and so it just fizzled and finally just disappeared.

[00:05:32] And I think we got our, did we get our, what did we get? Yeah, we got the. Things we earned, but we weren’t able to. We haven’t been able to redeem them yet. Yeah, I’m not really sure. Again, it’s becoming almost unfortunately distant memory. So anyway, so yeah, that was pretty those are the thoughts on those things.

[00:05:48] Scenes and just because I couldn’t really think of anything more. I thought, maybe I’d, actually, I think I’ve vaguely talked about before, but I thought, eh, might as well talk about again, because again, the start out with BREW was a lot about lore, which is usually dedicated to a specific lore keepers event.

[00:06:03] And I’m not sure if why they maybe combined them or whatever. But yeah. So I just thought I would maybe expand upon my thoughts on lore a little bit. And first I wanna say I’m obviously do not consider myself at all an expert on video game lore. Completely not something in almost all the games I’ve ever played.

[00:06:22] I’ve been aware of things, so mentioned in the past that I’ve played a lot of RTSs and there’s usually description of the factions that are involved. A little bit of backstory if dating myself. But if you go back to the Command and Conquer series, which were known at the time for their really cheesy, campy, full motion video. Which of course nobody would even consider that revolutionary nowadays, but they were over the top. They used actual real actors and, it had a little bit of the humor ’cause it was completely over the top, but you knew which the sides were other ones.

[00:06:53] Age of Empire, for example, which I played. The they, they were historical based, so you didn’t really need too much. But they had, some real. Historical figures in there. Other series I liked com Company of Heroes was World War II Base. And yeah, they were not true soldiers, but all the battles were real and things like that.

[00:07:12] I have not been an R-R-R-P-G person in the past, and I think definitely character driven and story driven. Has a lot more do in that. I remember back in the day when I was listening to more gaming podcasts, PC gaming podcasts and talking about games like bios, shock and oh.

[00:07:28] Anyways, just they all were story and again, excuse me, where’s Laura? Where’s story? I don’t know if those are just words. I’m gonna use ’em all interchangeably in this kind of rambling thoughts. Yeah, it makes I think a lot more. And then you get into the bigger open world games like world of Warcraft and grand Theft Auto and things like that.

[00:07:50] So again, story. Definitely has a much more thing in that. But Star Atlas is a sci-fi game, and sci-fi is one of my interests. As I mentioned in the past, obvi that I’m really, star star Wars was quintessential to my development of personality and things like that. And watching Star Trek and things like that.

[00:08:11] And then there are a whole bunch of other ones, just. Remembered, like things like aliens and stuff like that. But one thing I realized a lot about sci-fi, at least in those ones I bring up, they weren’t initially first they were stories. Star Wars was just a movie. Star Trek was just a TV show, things like that.

[00:08:29] So only later did they become, I think the cultural phenomenons they were and now are pervasive. May the fifth. May, excuse me, may the fourth. It’s just a date, but again, it’s been taken over by that. You could say no, I was about to say something about comics, but to me, auto comics come out of superheroes, which is totally not star atlas.

[00:08:48] Yeah. So I think a lot of the sci-fi things alstar Galactica TV show that became a second TV show rebooted later on. Yeah, there, there’s a formula. I mean in the sense of TVs and movies and stuff like that, but we all like video games that have things in it that we like, whether it’s, fantasy or sci-fi or combat or whatever. But if you think of some things like shooter games, for example, yes, they have things quake, unreal tournament and there’s some reason why you’re shooting something. It’s really been more about the game mechanics. And you think of more recent games like Call of Duty, yeah, it’s set in different war, modern or previous wars, the actual who does what. Again they’re shooters and stuff like that. So I do think, not that sci-fi games can’t have story, can’t have lore, but again, in other mediums, they were the story first, and then they became everything. So again, perfect example. Sticking in Star Wars, when you’re playing what was it?

[00:09:51] Tie fighter. X Wing, which was a flight simulator back in the day. There was, there, there was an RTS for it. There were definitely the shooter ones battlegrounds and things like that. So they just existed within the worlds, but you had already experienced the worlds through a different medium, in this case, movies.

[00:10:07] I think there’s a challenge with Star Atlas that it exists as new, a new ip, a new property, a new concept, and yet it’s trying to be a video game and have lore. Yeah, I don’t know. I think that yeah, I think that’ll be a challenge. And moving into kind of more specifics now in Star Atlas, I do think it’s been, at least for me, I can’t say this for everybody.

[00:10:28] ’cause again, I think you have to first come from what your perspective is. Some people love this stuff and, and. So I mentioned recently, I’m like, I never played Dungeon Dragons. I’m just not into total fantasy type of stuff. I watch Game of Thrones, but. Never read the books, didn’t read token and Lord of the Rings, but like the movies, things like that.

[00:10:49] Yeah, it just, this wasn’t me. So I think part of the things, looking back over the last few years now in Star House one, I think it has been hard to keep engaged on the Lords aspect. I think the comic book, graphic novel, whatever you wanna call it was a great start, but unfortunately it stopped and I don’t know what the current standing of it is.

[00:11:06] I think there was this thing, if you. Bought all the NFT covers, you’d get a physical copy and yeah. Don’t know where that is anymore. Just recently in the Atlas Brew, they were referencing the original posters which I’ve have a little more appreciation for. ’cause I’m trying to get those in my merch store as Walmart.

[00:11:25] So I had to find the images read the descriptions, and yeah I came in after the poster series, so they weren’t part of my star Atlas introduction. But it was mentioned that some of the. Lore for this next coming effort is based upon things that occurred on the posters.

[00:11:42] And again, that’s great, that’s cool. But those posters were, I think four years ago. I would wonder if a lot of people don’t even know they exist. And I know there was lore in Sage. Each star base had some more you can click on. Again, I was trying to just figure out the mechanics and move my ships around so it, it wasn’t really integrated in a capacity.

[00:12:01] I did watch see on beyond the Rises videos of Hall Semi I mentioned before. I just didn’t make the time to play that, that the tutorials had a I don’t know if it was a ai well, lemme back up. An end game character AI. That then was helping you figure out how to play. So there was a story driven plot line as a learning tutorial, and I think that’s a great direction to go because again, it’s it gets you involved.

[00:12:26] And that’s, I think, been no fault of anyone’s that was been the problem. A lot of the game play up to date. There it was just. Tech demos and getting forward, Hey, we got a racing, why are we racing? Here’s a, what was the volume at the station was just a showroom. It was just show, see your ships.

[00:12:43] The ships all had manufacturers, but that they’re just names. Could be Ford and Chevy, as opposed to the ones we’re using they didn’t do it. So I think there’s been obviously a lot of forethought and in fact, I know that for sure. A couple years ago had an, my one and only, or I guess second interview, one, first interview with Jose, the lore rider, and he.

[00:13:03] It was really insightful ’cause again, know all this stuff and I know there’s a lower Wiki and I haven’t read it. So again, this just kind of some of probably why I haven’t gotten engaged. But again, I’m not sure from a personal standpoint, this is things I would, it’s no, it wasn’t why I came to start Alice.

[00:13:20] And again, we all realized lots of people came to start house for lots of different reasons and none of them are better or worse or better. They’re all individuals. So anyways yeah. I think a rich all lore for star o makes a ton of sense. Definitely as new characters, there, there isn’t a movie, there isn’t a book to build from.

[00:13:39] This is being built as the game is being built. Definitely the three races is a fundamental concept. Your uniqueness is also, I think, drives well to why you might want specific care crew to play the game. So again, there, there is a very large vision that I see. Working.

[00:13:56] And I think that will probably hold more so as we roll out the next couple projects, in this case, C four, which. Again, sounds like some of this stuff that was talked about, the last bruise coming, definitely the UE five version. So again, partly to fill up time on this podcast so it wasn’t six minutes.

[00:14:15] Those are kinda my thoughts on lore and indirectly I’ll just call it story in Star Alice. So again, totally a fan of or totally like that it exists, unfortunately not a personal fan, but again same reason why the shooter just. Doesn’t I glad it exists. I probably would play if I had the time I used to play shooters, but now I’m was definitely much more interested in the space exploration space.

[00:14:40] Ships and definitely feeling more, not fully hardcore into the supply chain, but definitely the idea of economy based gameplay with claim stakes and things like that are things that are just interesting to me. So I’m glad they exist within a larger metaverse of concepts and things like that. That again, I think there, if there was anything I could suggest and I guess this goes back to just.

[00:15:04] I like consuming content whether that’s reading magazines or books, or watching tv or listening to podcasts. And if you’re listening to this podcast, I come out at one every week, whether it’s a. Content filled or not. So this one, I guess we could say it’s way more padded, but it’s a way to keep up with the game, know what’s going on, summarize everything so that hopefully for you, the listener, this all is interesting.

[00:15:28] I think same thing could be said for maybe, could be a benefit of Lure. Because unlike the game development, which is more technical in there, that, if we did have and I think again, and it could just literally come down to resources there was way more than I remember the medium articles.

[00:15:44] I. Cadet win, I think, I’m not sure, can’t even remember the name. Anyways, there was things that came out on our basis. There was some sort of story again, could just come down to lack of staff. Totally get it. But again yeah, so maybe, again, a lot of this is just becoming a smaller team and things like that.

[00:16:01] So anyways, yeah, so those are my thoughts on star lore. We finishes up with my journey playing Star Atlas and my journey last week was absolutely zero. Had a whole bunch of business stuff that consumed my evenings and I didn’t even. I didn’t even log into Discord for a week just skimmed it all.

[00:16:16] I shouldn’t even say skimmed it, just marked it all as red last night and start fresh this weekend. So anyway, so yeah, I didn’t do anything. Overall though, I’m still just waiting for zinc. I think come to the conclusion that’s the next thing that I’ll get engaged with and then I’ll feel justified in spending more salona fees to keep mining things.

[00:16:33] I guess now that I just thought about it slightly now disappointed that the Mamba X is potentially completely outta range. I don’t know, hopefully, maybe I’ll put some other ships. I do I disagree with that. The ships and things is fun, but if they had more ships at different levels, I guess I could consider that fun.

[00:16:50] Hope that does come true. In the short term, but maybe that’s something in C four. Still definitely interested in C four with the expansion of all the different things you can do in the game. So I think that is definitely the interesting thing going forward. UE five. So as it’s gone ongoing development I think is again, a positive sign for the people that like shooting aspect, again, I think racing’s still involved, but they d we haven’t had any e-sports tournaments on racing type of thing. So anyways, so yeah, so that’s pretty much it. Again, just kinda waiting for zinc. So thanks for listening again. Do check out my website, intergalactic caral.com. Got a lot of star out resources, guides, recaps, directories news feeds and things like that.

[00:17:29] If you want a mug, I got one for you@intergear.com. Do have a little bit of the Walmart if you want some of those original posters starting to, had started rolling those out, but haven’t moved much beyond one or two of the images. And again, if you’re a Star, Atlas Gamer doesn’t wanna join a gi but nevertheless wants to hang out with Star Atlas, other Star Atlas gamers.

[00:17:47] Definitely willing to put together a community for us. So please check out intergalactic coalition.com. Other than that hope you had a great or that was a week in review of Star Atlas. Hope you have a great week ahead. This is Matt with the intergalactic Caral.