Podcast 161: Star Atlas Weekly Review

Podcast Transcript

This is Matt with Intergalactic Herald. Welcome to my Starless Week in Review podcast. This is podcast number one hundred and sixty one. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website at intergalactic herald dot com. Just look for weekly recap newsletter two zero nine.
So just a quick summary of things that happened this past week in Star Atlas. there was an Atlas Brew, where they talked about Hallowsim and c four. There was a Lore Keepers, and then there was a comment in the Foundation Room about staffing that I wanted to talk about. But before I get to that, just a quick…
reminder of some things I’m working on in Star Atlas. First, of course, is my website intergalactic herald dot com. It’s a great Star Atlas resource website. You can find guides, directories, recaps, and a Discord announcement news feed. You can also check out my Star Atlas merch store at intergalactic gear dot com.
Admittedly not a lot of selection, got some mugs, but it is there and you can check that out. Also have a merch survey. And, love to get together with other Star Atlas gamers who aren’t going to be joining guilds. So putting together my own little community called Intergalactic Coalition, which you can check out at intergalacticcoalition dot com. I do have an interest survey there.
Once you get enough interest, it’s a community all star for me. So, do check all those out. Now as far as what happened this, past week in Star Atlas, like I said there was the regular Atlas Brew and this one predominantly went over HallSim
gotta remember names…
don’t know. Xcode? Yeah. John? Yeah.
I don’t know. Terrible with people’s names in Star Atlas. It’s this whole idea of gamer tags. Sorry. Anyways, he gave some initial stats of kinda how the they use their analytics, so kind of different in game actions that were occurring.
one that he did mention that, at least rated more to people. Said they’ve been adding an average about two hundred players a day, but they’re not sure yet on, I think he called it, the seven day retention. So I’ll be interested as the weeks go on, kind of how many people continue playing. Also was mentioned some, excuse me, monetization options for Holosim. So again it’s free to play, but much like most free games there are ways to…
buy things. So one is again this Battle Pass. again I’m not playing Hall of Sims so I don’t know all the details but again it’s a way you can basically buy to get some bonuses. But they did mention this concept where you’ll actually be able to start buying crew. And again I think crew is one of the bottlenecks in the game.
So if you buy crew faster you can do more with ships. I’m not one hundred percent sure. But anyway, so, that’s great. I mean, it totally makes sense too in a free to play type of game scenario. it was also mentioned that this chapter, I think again chapter two, they’re looking at doing it for about two months.
So I don’t know if that means we’re already a week. I think we’re a week in, maybe two weeks in? Week in? Anyways. So, yeah, so that was it.
So, lots of details. again, just I’m not playing it, so, again, kinda was,
multitasking in the Star House Discord same time. So but if you wanna listen to the entire one, again, do wanna mention that Star Atlas TV on YouTube does do the full recordings. And, again, if you’re on this podcast feed, you already probably received my AI summary of the, Atlas…Pro, that occurred a couple days ago, so you can check that out. So, and then near the end, they did mention some, quick updates…or small volume of updates on the c four PTR test…
version. I can’t remember what it stands for again. Playtest. anyways, so I guess internally they’re doing some user interface passes going through a whole bunch of stuff there, and they’re trying to make do some improvements to the maps. And was mentioned though, actually wait a second, I forgot, foundation room gets sneak previews so never mind, I can’t talk about that.
Anyways oh no it was public, sorry, never mind. The Atlas crew is public. So anyways, that map was given to the foundation room early, but, basically, they’re showing some of those map improvements. So you can check out the visuals if you go back to the Star House TV YouTube channel for that. so they kinda noted that they are wrapping up the internal testing and they are gonna move to a closed community test, which should last a couple weeks.
So again, no dates on when all those will occur. And then, they did mention when we do play the,
PTR, the Playtest…Review Realm, whatever it’s called, I can’t remember. when you connect your crypto wallet, basically what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get a kind of a starter bundle. So again, this test is not well, it’s real. Sorry. It’s running the real software, but it doesn’t have real consequences.
So it’s a you you’re given a whole bunch of things, ships, and resources, and then you can go play. So, but they said it’ll be very similar to how you first connect to Hall of Fame even though the wall, it’s kinda behind the scenes. So so, anyways, that was on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, there was the Lorekeepers…
I ran out of time tonight, so I didn’t listen to everything. in fact, I haven’t even listened to my five minute, summary. But anyways, at the Alice Brew, Jose did, tease that he was gonna release the LoreWiki that he’s been working on. So I believe that is now…out there. I don’t have the link because I didn’t listen to it, but I’m sure if you listen to the Star OS TV YouTube channel, you’ll get that.
So…
and then the last thing that occurred this, past week, and in fact, just now Well, now for me, anyway. So I was, reading the Discord as I was listening to the Atlas Brew. And in the foundation room, there was a, question that was posted, I think, a day or two ago. I’m not really sure. But I think…tonight, today.
I don’t it doesn’t really matter. time zones and things like that. But, anyways, somebody was asking if Chip, one of the team members, had left the company, and the response wasn’t immediate. But then, yes…
Yeah. So, the reply from Michael Wagner was, Chip was a big loss. Sad to see him go. but we have to continue reducing prediction positions to manage costs. So it doesn’t sound like it was, what do you call it?
He left. I mean, sounds like he was laid off. You know? So I mean, sorry, just…you know, nuance is there, but again, it wasn’t like he quit…
But then someone followed up, asking how this kinda affects the, UE five version of the game because, Chip was, pretty much, leading the Unreal Engine side of things and has been gave many…
presentations at town halls over the last few years. And in fact, I can’t remember. Again, I don’t remember titles. I’m sorry. But, anyways, what I thought oh, actually, my screen’s a little small.
There we go. That’s better…
Michael Wagner did reply back to that and so I thought I’d read that…
in its entirety…
because again it does…
talk to, you know, the state of the UE5 version of the game going forward. So…
actually I’ll read the question. So correct me if I’m wrong here, but I was under the impression that Chipdoe was the lead on the Unreal Engine side of things. Can you confirm this…is put on hold to prioritize…the browser experience? Which Michael Wagner then replies, still working towards stuff, primarily Galia mode and the tangential worlds concept. Still have nice potential with that third party Tina I alluded to in December.
But, yes, things are gonna be slow on that side for a while. Holo SIM c four and Zynq are our top priorities at the moment. So, I think what’s…interesting about…
that reply well, actually I’ll get into it when I talk about Star Atlas. So anyways, again, you can read the thread if you want to get in the Star Atlas Discord and you can go to the foundation, which is in a read only mode for everybody now. So anyway. So, yeah, let’s transition, right into my kinda state of Star Atlas thoughts. So first, yeah, it does feel like, HallSim’s going very well.
there are bugs, but those seem to be…dealt with pretty quickly. And, again, it wouldn’t be shocking…to have bugs, but definitely feels like the infrastructure concerns that came with the last…chapter have been addressed, and just, different gameplay…
give different gameplay mechanics are either there or being refined and things like that, and then definitely getting community feedback on things that can be improved. So, yeah, so everything sounds good. On c four, I think, it does feel like we’re getting closer, especially if they’re moving to a community testing thing, and I would assume…that means they have, felt pretty good on in the internal test. Just wanna get, a quick review from a few community members. But, again, since the PTR is, by definition, a test, it doesn’t feel like this, community testing needs to be very exhaustive because you’re gonna just open it up.
So maybe just to make sure there’s nothing…
show stopping or just to get some, people outside the company in there. So, and then finally, kinda saving to the end only because I just got the information, the loss on employees. So, again, to give some context, at least this year, forgetting kinda in the past, there was the, community team…
which two even though, Jose is still around because, DAO proposal to…
fund pay sorry. Salary for six months was approved. So it sounds like he’s at least, returned in that sense. But definitely community team’s gone…
Man, I’m trying to remember. It seems like there was another…
Well, I think they alluded to when the community team was, like, go other employees that weren’t named or department titles or whatever weren’t named. But then, yes, this one seems to have occurred this week. Yeah. Again, Chip Chipto was pretty high up in the game design, definitely leading up the UE five type of effort there. So…yeah.
So, I mean, it’s troubling. this seems to keep happening…
but, yeah, I mean, I don’t know what to say. It’s I mean, there’s no revenue. so, yeah, I don’t know what the alternative is. you I mean, you can’t…
not make salary. I mean, there is just if you can’t pay your employees, you can’t keep them around. They can’t work for free. I mean, they’re not…there’s no, what is it, stock options type of thing for, you know, tech IPOs in the past. And…
you know, I never heard. Now I think about it, I don’t…yeah. Almost well, I shouldn’t say almost all, but definitely the model for tech companies…ten years ago or whatever was, stock options. But…
that’s only if, those companies went public with those stock even matter. So it was, you know, incentive to stick around to try to go to an IPO. But I don’t know. I don’t I never heard of employees got, like, crypto as an equivalent because there’s never been talk about taking the company public. So I just never thought about that.
But regardless, you still gotta pay your bills. So if you aren’t getting a salary, you can’t work for free, especially if you don’t have any, what’s it, equity. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, I don’t again, I guess, going back a couple seconds, I don’t know what the alternative is. If the revenue isn’t there, which, again, they’re…not talking about it and there’s no…
exterior, way to see how they would be making money because, I mean, other than the battle passes and the Zinc…
profile, whatever it is, my ten dollar thing. I mean, those don’t add up that much to equal, full time salaries of people. So, I also assume that with the token prices…
stagnant or down, if that’s been trying to sell, I mean…
if no matter how many you have, it’s still there just isn’t enough. So yeah. So we see. But, again, Michael Wagner did point out that Holosim, c four, and Zinc are their top core priorities. So, we’ve been hearing about Holosim.
Obviously, we’ve been hearing about c four. I can’t remember for sure because it’s been a few months, but hollow excuse me. c four requires Zinc to run, so it would feel like during the…
PTR, the testing playtest version of c four, you would assume Zynq, the network, would come out at that time. Again, purely my speculation, but I thought I remember making the connection there. So, yeah, so I guess we’ll just, yeah, we’ll just see where things go. So, anyways, wrapping up just kinda my journey playing Star Atlas. So, yeah, I’m still playing Sage, still mining, Luminite, I believe, trying to get, what is it, I think, twenty million.
I had to turn off my computer for a reason I’ll explain in a second. Yeah. So just slowly going through that. did go ahead and stop the transport fleet. It was just getting it’s so quick to…
what do you call it…
move back all that stuff in mines. I was like, it’s just easier just to wait till it fills up to the level I want, and then I can move the miner to the next one. So yeah. Anyway, so that’s what I’ve been doing. However, as of today, apparently, the Sly, assistant stopped working, and I did look in their Discord.
And, I can’t talk about what’s on the Star Atlas Discord, but on their Discord they mentioned, something about RPC servers or something. So, getting kinda over my head, but apparently…
it’s external to the tool and Star Atlas. So, hopefully, that’ll get fixed, but I decided just to turn mine off and close the computer down for the night. So, so no mining. No nothing’s going on, but, yeah, we’ll see. Hopefully, that’s just one of those…used to say one of those Internet things, but I guess we’ll just call it one of those crypto things.
So, anyways, yeah, so that’s, pretty much all I’m doing there. still doing the Zinc thing, but I guess if I’m not mining, I’m not doing the Zinc thing. So we’ll see what happens. So, anyway, so, yeah, that’s, pretty much it, that these things that were interesting to me this past week in Star Atlas. So to wrap up again, totally open if anybody wants to be a guest on the podcast, reach out my website, intergrocked carol dot com.
While you’re there, check out the guides, directories, and recaps. I will be…
upfront. Those are all getting kinda outdated, but hopefully with c four, coming out, do some new tutorials and things like that. You can also sign up for the Discord announcement news feed. it’s a great way if you don’t wanna check Star Atlas Discord all the time. You can get an email sent to your email box anytime a team member posts in the announcement channels.
Also again, you can check out my merch store at interactive gear dot com. And again, I’d love to get a community…of Star Atlas gamers that are joining guilds. please check out intergalacticcoalition dot com. Other than that, this was the week in review of Star Atlas. I’m Matt with the Intergalactic Herald.
Have a great week ahead…