Podcast 149: Star Atlas Weekly Review

Podcast Transcript

Hi this is Matt with Intergalactic Herald. Welcome to my Startless Week in Review podcast. This is podcast number one hundred and forty nine. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website at intergalactic herald dot com. Just look for a weekly recap newsletter one hundred and ninety seven.
So gonna mix it up a little since it’s the end of twenty twenty five and, Star Atlas team is on break. So not no Atlas brews and…well, wasn’t any content this week. So I’m gonna actually do a Star Atlas year end review. so I’m gonna break it into two chunks, do part one that’ll come out first, and then obviously part two kind of divide it up around summer of twenty twenty five, and to just kind of go through the highlights of what happened this past year in Star Atlas. So but before I get to that, just wanted to mention a couple things that I’m doing in Star Atlas.
One, of course, is my website, intergalactic carol dot com. It’s a great,
Star Atlas resource website. I have guides…
directories of guilds, content creators, Star Atlas tools, and other things. You can also check out different recaps. And I do have an email sign up that you can get, emailed to you, Star Atlas Discord news announcements. Also I have a Staros merch store at intergalactic gear dot com, open for business, not a lot of selection, got some mugs, we can check that out. Also if you want to join other Staros gamers trying to get together a community of people who aren’t going to be joining guilds but nevertheless want to hang out with other Star Atlas gamers, please check out intergalacticcoalition dot com for that.
So as I mentioned, I’m gonna do kind of a year review of Star Atlas. And what I did is I went back through all my weekly newsletters and pulled out different highlights. So I’ll kinda go through that so we can kinda go through what happened this past year. if I mention dates, it is in relation to when my newsletter came out, not necessarily when that specific event or announcement or whatever happened. So, yeah, so that’s pretty much it.
again, if you want to…find out different things, please check out the newsletter. I’ll have some links in there to some of the other newsletters you can look at. So, anyways, so that’s pretty much it. So let’s go ahead and get into what happened this past year in Star Atlas. So going back to January of twenty twenty five, again, similar pattern, happened as this year, which was the Star Atlas team did a town hall at the end of the year and then took their two week, kind of studio break.
So kind of mid January twelve I have, Michael Wagner, the CEO, did make an announcement about some Sage transaction issues. as I recall, things weren’t…
well, when you tried to…
what do you do? With the transaction accepted, those weren’t happening and things like that. So they actually unfortunately, we were dealing with lots of different issues at the time. What…
was interesting and I’ll do this kind of through there. won’t just do a laundry list. I’ll either give some thoughts or actually, you know, say, you know, spoiler alert because this didn’t happen. So, this was, I think, in hindsight, the kind of start of the whole at the time, was the idea of maybe having our own blockchain. But as we now know, as the Zynq…blockchain, I think that was sort of one of the points where the team was looking at this, hey, this might be something they need to do.
Later in January, we did get the, four year announce four year anniversary of when Star Atlas was actually announced. I haven’t been with it that long, but, somewhere there. So, I think I’m only well, now four, but three back then. So, anyways, yeah. So I guess sometime in January was the first announcement.
At the end of January,
one of the big things that occurred is the Discord Foundation room. So, this is a or now it’s read only, but back then it was actually private. This was a way for, certain people to be able to get in to be able to ask questions of the Star Atlas team. it was decision was made in late January to make it read only. Still couldn’t post, but at least you could read.
And so that actually…allowed for more sharing of information and things like that. Additionally, there was a mention kind of a twenty twenty five look ahead. And so I’ll kinda dissect this because here’s what they said was coming in twenty twenty five. Again, this was early twenty twenty five. Fleet Rentals, we did get that.
UE five, definitely did have a not a constant cadence, kinda slowed down a little bit in the last half of the year, but definitely updates to UE five came pretty consistently. Community week, yep, definitely was and they even expanded that. I mentioned a hackathon, nope, didn’t happen. Sage, and I’m not exactly sure because at the town hall a year ago, they that was the first time they ever mentioned the c four,
idea. So I’m not sure if this was more changes, Sage, or this was c four, or what. And then the last thing that was mentioned kind of as a look ahead was the Atlas locker, and that did not occur this year. So…
in early February of twenty twenty five, at one of the UE five updates, and so this was kind of the monthly cadence. one of the interesting things back then, and I think it still continues to this day, you don’t need a wallet to play. And so this was the first time that was removed. Now I think there are still benefits of adding the wallet, especially with some of the tracking and now with the Zinc airdrop…experience thing. But it was, again, a way that people could finally get into it.
next week in February, at the monthly economic forum, there was a announcement they’re gonna do a free to play test, and they were kinda going through this. as we now know, this came out as basically the Holesome product. So, yeah, that had been kind of in the works most of the year…
middle of February, there was this announcement of the, Atlas Locker addendum being, published. And like I said, nothing came of it this year. But it still sounds like it’s on the road map. And, again, this was an idea where they’d, I think, add a couple more levels to the Atlas Locker, but add a lot more benefits. And one of those benefits was gonna be the Solana fees, which with Zinc coming out now, I guess doesn’t really have as much appeal.
So who knows what’s gonna come out of that. also in that mid February, they did announce the, fleet rental system coming. It was a little bit quiet for a few more weeks. And then, early March, the fleet rental, did launch…
and there was more information at the econ form on the free to play…
development, which, again, we now know is Holosim. Mid March, there was announcement of a investment from Shaga, which was a cloud gaming system. The, way this worked was you could, I guess, install something on your PC and then people on other devices like mobile or tablets could then control remotely. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything about that since then. So, I don’t yeah.
Not sure what happened to that in hindsight…
Later in March, another UE five patch came out. And so this again was that kind of cadence of one version of UE five excuse me, UE five, once a month. And then at the end of March, I think this was posted in the foundation room, the mobile app…was mentioned that it was gonna be sidelined indefinitely. And if I remember correctly, it was that the…system to kinda track…
movement was not able to be, secured enough so it couldn’t be hacked or manipulated, and so it just, couldn’t go forward. I mentioned at the time I was quite disappointed in that because it sure felt like that was the real benefit of the crew cars so that we could have the mobile app. But and, guys, since then, crew hasn’t really done that much. So, there also was a partnership mentioned with somebody called ASI Alliance, which was some AI things. Haven’t heard anything in that since then.
So, anyway, so had a kinda quiet, start to April, and then they had some, road map updates in, late April. But, again, April was kind of a quiet month…
In, let’s see, May, there was an announcement. I forgot what they were called, but a new group was formed so they could have, UE five game testers. He totally forgot what the name of it is. definitely a lot of information at the pres at that time, but I have to admit, it kinda has gone quiet. I haven’t really heard anything from that.
Now those game testers were under NDAs and things like that. So…they still may be involved, but, of course, can’t talk about what they’re doing. So, yeah, guess it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still there, just haven’t heard of them. Early or mid May, there was another UEFI patch. And again, so definitely there’s a ongoing…monthly thing.
Also, on the end of May, the first iOS Quest tournament. So this was a community driven. I think it was one of the guilds, started a…tournament basically to play
got different teams together, had round rob or not round robin, but, tournaments, and then, you know, whoever won the last tournament there. So, I think that was maybe not the first, but definitely the most, publicized kind of tournaments. And, again, it was made possible by some of the changes and the ongoing changes to the e five client…
Early June, they did a town hall. And at this town hall, they, gave some updates on, the c four, which, again, is this next version of Sage, updates on the UE five. And, I think this was the first time they actually announced Holosim as a product. mid…
June, they mentioned the star path, which was the referral program was finally ending and, again, gave more additional…information about the c four. in fact, if I remember correctly, there was kind of a lot of nice, kind of updates and things like that. And, also, near the end of June, they announced, the upcoming community week coming, in the rest of the summer. So, yeah, so that’s pretty much the first half of the year. kind of thinking back on that, definitely, had a lot of good cadence with the UE five updates.
the fleet rental system came out. Unfortunately, I think after a few months, became, not sure for sure it was boughtted, but, again, reading some of the comments in the Discord, people weren’t able to…get a fleet. It was automatically kinda renewed or, get I had memories of, like, eBay where you’d never could get things once the auction was dying or ending it. So yeah. So,
fleet the fleet rentals exist, but kind of died down, I think. so, yeah, UE five, definitely the tournaments, which have continued since then on different people hosting them. the town hall was a great midsummer, update, which I think they had done the year before. So definitely in this kinda cadence of one town hall in the summer, one in the…
end of the year. So everything’s kinda good there. Yeah. Disappointed on the mobile app disappearing…Nothing on the Atlas locker, and some partnerships that haven’t really…gone very far since then. So yeah.
So that was pretty much it. again, some quietness…
Yeah. And, again, the was this calm before the storm because there were a lot of, things released in the second half of the year, but you’re gonna have to wait till the next podcast a week from now to hear that. So, again, that’s the first part of the year. So…
again…
yeah, I won’t I haven’t been playing Star Atlas, so I won’t even talk about what I’ve been doing. But, anyway, so that’s it. thanks for listening to that. Again, I totally open if anybody wants to be a guest on the podcast. You can reach out to me through my website, intergalactic hero dot com.
while you’re there, do check out any of the guides, directories, or recaps for my Discord news feed. If you’re interested in a Star Atlas mug, please check out intergalactic gear dot com, and love to get together with some other Star Atlas gamers. I have an interest survey at intergalactic coalition dot com. Other than that, this is Matt with the Intergalactic Herald. Depending on when you’re listening to this, hope you’ve had a good holidays or will have a good holidays or whatever.
And, again, that’s this, first half of this year in this…
this year in Star Atlas review no. Star Atlas year in review first half. Anyways, have a great week ahead. This is Matt with the Intergalactic Herald.