Star Atlas Event Recap 77: The Atlas Brew 201

In this episode, hear an AI summary of the latest Star Atlas community event.  Full video recordings can be found on the YouTube channel of Star Atlas TV at https://www.youtube.com/@staratlastv.

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Star Atlas Event Summary

Hi, this isn’t Matt with the Intergalactic Herald. I am an AI. Welcome to a Star Atlas Recap of the latest Atlas Brew from the Star Atlas Community Team. The following summary of the Atlas Brew was AI generated so no guarantee it is 100% accurate because I am an AI after all. If you want to listen to the entire recording, please check out the YouTube channel of Star Atlas TV. Enjoy the summary. What’s up, citizens of the Atlas! If you missed the latest Atlas Brew, you missed what might be one of the most significant “plot twist” sessions in the project’s history. The vibe was high-energy from the jump, as the team gathered to pull back the curtain on the creative engine driving the Star Atlas experience. The theme of the day was all about evolution—how the game looks, how it feels, and how the community is helping shape its destiny. The big headline was the formal introduction of a man who has been working behind the scenes to build the Atlas from day one: Jeff Wagner, the Product Design Director. In a fun reveal for the community, it turns out Jeff is the brother of CEO Michael Wagner, and he brought a wealth of experience from designing apps for the PGA Tour and JetBlue to help make the Star Atlas UI as intuitive as possible. The excitement hit a fever pitch when Jose shared some exclusive alpha on the upcoming C4 crafting system. We got a first look at a massive, interconnected UI featuring over 3,150 recipes. The system is designed for deep complexity but extreme ease of use; for instance, if you’re missing an ingredient for a high-level craft, the UI allows you to click directly on that component to start its specific crafting sub-process. Jeff explained that the goal is to make these “lived-in” experiences enjoyable rather than just a series of chores, balancing the addictive nature of the loops with a clean, navigable interface. The discussion then shifted to the broader ecosystem as the “Emperor” from the DAO Council joined the stage for a critical community moment. He issued a rallying cry for citizens to cast their votes on the Star Seekers 2 PIP, noting that participation was a little light. It was a great reminder that the DAO is the heart of the universe, and the team emphasized that every vote helps the Council iterate on the governance process. In other news from the event, John provided a comprehensive update on the recent Holo Sim “Super Phoenix” event. While there were some initial bugs, the team successfully applied retroactive credits to everyone who participated. He also shared that the leaderboards have been fixed to properly display ranks below 300 and accurately track Zinc gains. Perhaps the most interesting takeaway for competitive players was the announcement of the “Star Atlas Inquisition.” The team is moving toward a proactive moderation stance for future chapters to ensure everyone plays within the intended game design, with clear warnings and leaderboard removals for those exploiting mechanics. Looking ahead, Jeff teased some incredible features on the horizon, including RTS-style multi-select for fleets and conditional menus that change based on whether an enemy is at intercept or attack range. The vision is to eventually move away from menu-heavy navigation and toward a map where players can interact directly with selectable planets and asteroid belts. To wrap things up, the team left the community with a clear call to action: head over to the DAO and do your civic duty by voting on the current proposals. And for those keeping track of the secret codes, this week’s phrase was a nod to our guest: “My name is Jeff.” Make sure to keep your eyes on the horizon for the next chapter of Holo Sim and the continued rollout of C4. See you in the stars!

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Star Atlas Event Transcript

DM. Can you guys hear me? >> can hear you.

Can you hear me? >> Awesome. GM John GM Aonda Jindo Lilo Laror.

You guys have no idea what’s about to happen today. You guys have no idea.

It’s literally going to be literally one of the biggest plot twists of this project history. GM serial killer. >> Howdy.

>> How you doing my friend? >> am doing excellent sir. >> That’s good to know.

We are going to introduce you in little bit. Let me just build up little more hype please. All right.

And wait for the remaining members of our community to join us today.

No, Larino, it’s not uh was serial killer many years ago. True story. I was addicted to cereal at point in my life.

So had to stop >> like boxed cereal that you eat. >> Exactly. The one that destroy your life.

Exactly. >> Oh my goodness. >> had bowl of frost for dinner last night for >> dinner.

>> In Brazil here is is used to eat this like every day of my life. >> Okay. >> It’s so good.

It’s so good. Laro knows what I’m talking about. >> My kids are pretty funny.

They they got huge box of cereal the other day and they had completely decimated it in like two days. >> So ate one of those in single day by myself.

So >> Okay, that’s crazy talk. >> Yes, absolutely. Jindo, I’ll hook you up with the good stuff.

Don’t worry. That was before started training.

So was one of the things that took me to more fit life to be honest.

So, it was good.

But let’s stop with this small talk because we have very special guest today. Uh don’t know, John. Uh how could we introduce our guest today?

Like how could we explain to the community who is this individual that’s with us on stage today? >> Very carefully.

So, uh, I’m not sure if we if we want to do cameras on or not today. think will do this because want to be want to be part of this moment, but you guys feel free to do it or not. And >> what are we doing?

Camera’s on it. cameras. >> See, I’m representing the place right now.

>> Oh, yeah. I’m representing too, thankfully. >> Ah, Jesus.

John, your camera is loading. It seems the gods of Stadus don’t want you you to do yourself. >> This is this is the way.

He was expecting you to be holding serial box. Awesome.

So guys, without further delay, we have here is Mr. Jeff Wagner. He’s our lead UI UX guy and he is very very important member of Staratlas in all fronts.

You guys don’t know him directly, but he’s one of those guys that have been carrying the project from behind the cameras. He’s friend, it seems. >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And he has lots to talk about about the present, the past, the present, and the future of Status today.

And in honor of his presence here, I’m going to share some alpha on C4 as well. And we are going through very interesting conversation about what he’s working on, everything that we are building.

So yeah, John, think your camera really doesn’t want to be part of this epic moment.

So >> don’t know what to say. mean, my screen share doesn’t work. My camera >> Exactly.

John, we need we really need to we really need to work on your Discord skills man. >> It’s here. I’m going to take screenshot just just so that people know.

There there is actually camera on the other side of this screen.

It’s just you guys aren’t seeing it.

So, don’t know what to say. >> So, uh think need to to close my camera so can share my screen. Hold on.

Got my son in the back working on Minecraft skins, too.

So, can you all see my screen? >> Oh, yeah. >> Yep.

Yep. >> So, as you guys know, we are getting close closer and closer to the moment where the community is getting their hands on C4. And today after much negotiation called the ministry of Pakistan.

spoke with everyone involved and they allowed me to share little bit more of massive massive thing which is the crafting system that you guys are going to experience in C4.

So get ready to see how cool things are moving. They the compromise that needed to do was make everything placeholder so they have the ability to change other stuff in the future. Nevertheless, think you guys will be more than happy to see how things are moving forward.

3,150 recipes This is such cool system. Need >> music.

Yes. Music. Exactly.

So yeah, this is the the new UI UX that we are working on for C4. It basically is allows you to see very complex recipes with their ingredients. And if you don’t have something ready, let’s say one of those ingredients, you can click in one of those uh here.

Let me put here the video again. If you click here for example, it will go to the energy mat crystal matrix and you’ll be crafting that.

So you can open up the main thing that you want to craft later.

So yeah guys, we are closing.

We are really close to finishing all the things, all the requirements for our initial test of the C4PR. And we are all super excited, super excited about this.

No, shouldn’t be doing this.

Sorry. >> Giving away all the secrets. Are you >> wrong screen?

Wrong screen. >> Me. >> Yes.

Mandalorian for sure. For sure. Uh we are going to add every single saw two me.

Respect the free love please. And yes, Mandalorian, we are going to add all the arts, all the elements, all the recipes, and it’s going to look gorgeous. am am uh am super happy to to see this.

And see that emperor or member of the DA has arrived. He has he has something to share with us today. Emperor, my friend, please come to stage.

Hi guys.

Thanks for having me. >> Always pleasure, friend. >> Appreciate it.

Yeah, not to interrupt the uh the nerd talk, which I’m loving, by the way. This I’m so excited. Um needed to come on here real quick and ask the community, we’re getting uh we have PG’s Star Seekers 2 PIP up for vote and we’re little light on votes.

We don’t care which direction you go, but um if you would while you’re here or after the brew or when you’re listening to it, um if you wouldn’t mind going and and casting your vote, being part of of the governance.

So that’s uh that’s ad for today.

But yeah, >> and am watching it now.

It’s super close actually like >> Yeah. >> So guys, make sure you go there and vote. think PG shared the link here.

I’ll share it again. Hold on. >> Yeah.

And and as the council, as you’re finding that, as the council, we have um certain thresholds of participation and PVP that we try to hit by week one and week two, and we’re little short of it.

So, those of you that uh you know, we don’t come on here every time and pander for votes, but we do when we haven’t met those thresholds.

So, little little nugget of information about how we operate.

Yeah, it’s it’s important guys like it is part of the DAO’s life. The Stratus DAO is the heart of our universe. You guys are here every day uh sharing your preferences.

How do you want to see the game develop and this work voting on the projects the pips that the community put puts forward it is part of this. It is super important. It helps drives the creators, drives the Statatus team, drives the overall community.

So, go do your civic duty. Go vote. And yeah, it’s super important.

>> Yeah. And one last thing that that you saying that um makes me think um all these PIPS set and and the process that we’re going through every one of them the council alone learns lot about the process and think the community um you know we’re kind of still getting everyone the community included is still getting our feet under us on on the DAO and uh PPP and all that.

So, even if uh if stuff passes, if stuff doesn’t, either way, it helps us iterate.

Well, appreciate everyone voting. >> Awesome. Thank you, Emperor, my friend.

Anything else you want to you want to cover? >> He’s gone. >> He’s gone.

Yeah, >> he left us. >> He left us, but it’s okay. think he got his message across.

Go vote as soon as possible. Uh, make sure you are expressing your opinion and may Iris bless us all.

So, let’s go back to our man of the hour, the legend, the myth, Jeff Wagner. Jeff, uh, welcome to the Atlas Brew. First of all, right, it’s your first time here.

And can you give us quick intro about yourself? How do you get involved with with Stratus and what’s your official role here in the company? >> Oh, you you bet.

Yeah.

So, uh guess to start, am the product design director for Star Atlas and it’s little my title now is little different than when first started with the company. My original role for the company was under title of design director. And basically what that means is the early stages um when was brought on was intended to create UX and UI environments and back software environments for our our development staff.

So basically like creating tools right and moved forward with um with the tool set in creating the DAO.

So designed out the DAO um and did some other community facing things like golden tickets and blinks and and bunch of different things really. Um as we started to like as the company started to move those products into the live environment and put them out in front of uh front of you all um my role kind of changed focus so that wasn’t actually doing just background things.

So like labs was a project that was under under kind of my belt as well. Um when we moved that out, we kind of evolved my title to be more of the product design director since was actually making products that were communityf facing.

So as far as where my involvement with the company began, I’m guessing the community probably can make the the the leap right now to know that I’m Mike Wagner’s brother.

So Mike and had been chatting about his grand vision for this for this thing we call Star Atlas and you know was pretty excited about it. It was pretty large project and kind of discussed with him. My background originally was in print and web design but uh throughout my design career actually like when Apple made announcements to to that they were going to come out with an app store moved into mobile.

So, began mobile designing before the app store was even thing. And went in and designed some large experiences for for some pretty big companies like PJ Tour, March Madness, JetBlue. And kind of had that background.

Um, but anyway, like little bit behind that, my brother knew that kind of had design sense for new newer technologies and that’s where the the web 3 and integrating it into gaming kind of came into place. We started talking. got pretty excited about it.

had wrapped up some pretty big projects with PJ Tour and JetBlue and the training tracker for like the Marines. And with those things kind of wrapped up, you know, saw the need for somebody and as will as my brother seeing the need and he brought me on to kind of start doing the backend software for the developers.

So, or like designing out the backend software and testing environments for the for the developers. Um, with those with that, that’s pretty much how was kind of brought on at to Star Atlas.

That’s super cool, man. And how does it feels to work on design specifically on UX UI for game as massive as Star Atlas compared to your previous experiences? Like, is it harder?

what imagined should be or it’s way cooler. How How do you feel overall about this? I’m curious.

>> Well, well, it’s definitely fun. Um, and you know, enjoyed enjoyed all the design projects that I’ve ever kind of worked on. mean, there’s common thread with design that at least with my kind of discipline here, which is how do make something that people enjoy using?

How do make something that people love, right? Whether it’s task that they have to accomplish, let’s say, you know, banking app or something, you have to complete that.

Well, as as user/player, your goal is to get it done as quickly as possible to be to enjoy it and to make it simplified, right? And that applies over on the gaming side of things, too, with the exception of the goal on like say mobile app is to get you through the experience as quickly as you can, whereas in game, you you’re going to want to spend time here, right? like you want it to be enjoyable the entire time.

And so that’s kind of one of the fun things about designing for Star Atlas. The other the the one thing will say too that’s challenging towards working on Star Atlas products is that they are very complex in that they do lot of things. We want to give people we want people to feel that they’re in livedin experience and that they can accomplish their goals for the day or for the you know some of you know have provided the feedback that it’s almost too clicky or too addictive right and so that is a balance that we try and find whereas like okay we want you to live your real life in addition to having fun here but anytime that you spend time with us we want it to be enjoyable so it’s kind Uh that’s my broad I’d say kind of approach towards things that designed for Star Isilis is is it enjoyable?

Am delivering on the thing that our players want?

Right?

And then last but not least, uh does it accomplish those goals without a high level of confusion?

Right.

So >> love how you just admitted that you are basically taking everyone’s souls. You are making it enjoyable.

So it’s fine. Uh Jeff, want to talk little bit now about our most addictive product at this point at least, which is Holo Sim. >> Sure.

>> Uh everyone like most of the people here in the brew is playing Hollow Sim. They are enjoying it, having fun. And wanted to ask you like what’s the most like the feature the thing that you like the most in hollow scene right now in terms of UIUX especially after the recent chapter 2 updates.

Um sure.

So it’s like there the especially after the the last the chapter 2 updates is it’s like kind of two parts and but they’re connected in my view. think am proud of what we released so far and obviously I’m really excited about what we’ve got coming up in future chapters both in Hollow Sim and C4.

But if I’d had to choose like one thing and to start, it’s more intuitive navigational structure and more in-game activities, right?

So, I’m kind of pairing couple of things together, but like when talk about in-game activities, mean, I’ve given players or we’ve given players things to do now with activities, you know, through achievements and activities through quests and engagements at star bases, through protecting things like that, you know, and everything we’re designing right now is being designed to scale and to expand, right?

So like when talk about the overall intuitive navigation structure, what I’m kind of meaning there is that like while you guys are seeing smaller pieces of it at the moment, like know that it is being built for growth.

So things that things that we put in place and we’re starting to kind of show, okay, well here’s user pattern of where somebody can go for something like it’ll be intuitive to you when we say hey by the way we’re adding feature X, Y, or Z. you as player should already go, “Oh, well that makes sense if that lives here. ” So like, okay, well, we’re going to expand the crafting bay or we’re going to add in, you know, like, and I’m just making examples here, but like we’re going to add in territory control.

Well, where as player would go to do that?

You know, in the future, it’s going to be like, okay, well, can click on the planet in the map and will know that that’s where kind of manage properties at that location, right?

So things like that.

But I’d say for right now, especially with the last updates, is basically setting the groundwork here for good navigational system that makes sense to people.

So interesting.

Yeah, you just touched on what was going to ask you next. Like hol scene and the overall strata’s vision is enormous. Like it’s massive thing.

>> Yes. And it has so many different faces like the economy, the politics, combat, scanning, the future, uh we have politics and etc. >> Right.

>> Etc. uh right now what’s the most challenging part for you like in terms of designing fleet command for example going for the achievements or it’s something like the overall flow for new players you know I’d have to say I’d have to say honestly one of the and and it’s super rewarding to design for is evolution right like knowing that these products are going to change, that they’re going to grow. Like when we look at when we go back in the way back machine and look at what like Labs was, right?

Like Labs was a good experience to kind of start to go, okay, well, here’s some of the things that can do.

But and it was tied very much based on my initial design work as like menu type system where it’s like, okay, go through the menu and this is how get to this thing, right?

But like when we look at es even when we kicked hollowosim off you know and any any of our products that you look at are kind of snapshot in time and eventually the plan goal will be to kind of get everything aligned with similar look you know our look and brand style is evolving with like the different needs that we come across as as you guys will see when C4 releases it’s going to look different than even holosim is right at the moment right and we are tasked with trying to make sure that everything is in with an alignment, but you’ll see that evolution. Things grow over time. And so I’d say that’s probably one of the most challenging aspects of it is like especially when to design something.

And it’s like, well, what I’m I’m focused on the current ask/goal set of player right now in specific experience, but always have to keep in my mind, okay, well, how does this tie to how player might interact with this same feature in C4 or play to, you know, the the paid version or how is this going to work or interact in the Unreal version, right? Because I’ve worked on the Unreal stuff as well. And so it’s always finding that evolutionary alignment across all the things when everything is in different kind of conditional state of like all right well here’s where this product is right now based on the goal set for that product and then saying okay well hollison what do need to focus on here and then tying that navigation together so that there is familiarity with the player so that they can go into any of the experiences and kind of know what they’re doing right it all of This is really to kind of tackle the onboarding aspect of the game and especially complex game like this.

So >> yes.

Yeah. As you guys can imagine, no one in the company in vice Jeff’s position on keeping the consistency between UEI5 C4 Hollow Sim making sure they are all evolving together at pace that makes sense etc. It is hard work.

It’s hard work and think there’s also tips on the next question that I’m going to ask you Jeff like if you could let’s let’s imagine that you have magic wand and you and you sententally can improve some UIUX element in the Stratus ecosystem right now. What would that be like? Where would you focus on right now?

>> I’m gonna cheat little bit on this question. Uh, and it and it’s because have the magic wand. Honestly, think what what would if had my magic wand, what would actually like to do is just say the complete experience, right?

Like there are so many pieces of this game and you guys are only kind of scratching the surface with what you’re being able to see right now, but there is so much planned for the future and like a full Jeff, we lost Jeff. We lost him.

It’s full. >> It was the magic wand was too powerful. >> Yep.

>> It dropped him. >> was just about to tell you guys what the ingredients were. think I’m just going to leave that so that my connection doesn’t get wrecked.

>> Exactly. John, he was serial kill it. Oh, guys, by the way, didn’t say anything, but if you guys uh have any questions for Jeff, which think you should probably have, and you should ask him because he’s the guy making the decisions on UI, UX for Hollow, Sim, C4, and etc.

You guys should ask like it’s literally your opportunity to influence how the development of the UIUX of Holene C4 U5 will move forward.

So make use of this power of this possibility right now man that this frame that he was he’s frozening he really looks like Michael Wagner. Jesus Christ. >> Mhm.

Mhm. >> usually don’t see the resemblance, but right now it he really looks like Michael. >> have feeling Michael pulled the plug on him.

>> Oh, maybe maybe >> he’s leaking too much. >> Mhm. >> Exactly.

>> Yep. >> John, while we don’t have Jeff, >> why don’t you talk to us about the Super Phoenix event?

Yeah. >> And the leaderboards and holos singing over our state. >> Okay.

In true Starless fashion, we worked out all the all the bugs in the Super Phoenix event during the event. And think everybody got credit. Uh we we were able to go back and retroactively apply people who um didn’t see it right away.

So that was really good. One one advantage of blockchain. Um so that system is ready to go.

we’re we’re ready to start implementing it in other ways. Um, thinking of like daily quests and uh triggered events and scanning events and things like that. Um, uh, just pushed an update to the leaderboard.

So now at the bottom of the leaderboard, your XP is going to pick up where it left off and it’s going to show you your your active XP. And that way you can track your zinc gains throughout the season even though the um you can track zinc on that bottom number even though the top number is frozen and it shows your leaderboard spot. Um also fixed bug where if you were below rank 300 it was showing zero.

So now now your rank shows properly even if you’re below 300. And um the other piece to that was there was two parts. It was showing zero shows your real rank and it was showing the wrong amount of XP.

It was showing like onchain XP for things like crafting and mining which we had filtered out of everybody else’s.

So anyway, that’s all fixed. The leaderboards good now. And we are preparing for what the second part will be.

Um, and that’s going to be few days. Uh, think everybody is interested in having break, taking some downtime. Um, so I’ll be working on the combat achievements with you, Jose, the mechanics to to get those achievements.

I’ve got couple new things in mind. Um, and um, Chris and are working through the prize pool. Uh, believe the prize pool is going to be um, that $10,000 prize pool that we had discussed uh, early on in the chapter.

And we haven’t decided where the cut off point will be for prizes yet.

Somewhere in the 200 to 300 rank. Um, so anybody in the top 200 or 300, some something like that will get prizes. Um, yeah, but that gives you kind of a brief overview of what the prize pool looks like and and how that’s all coming.

Uh, we discussed yesterday we discussed at length like what the second chapter’s prize pool would be like and what the conditions would be. Um, the second part of chapter 2 is going to be little more experimental.

It’s not going to be so cut dry.

There’s going to be lot of experimental um pieces added. And so we’re going to announce, it hasn’t happened yet, but we’re going to announce that there will be more strict moderation and that moderation will be done in in in proactive way. And I’m trying I’m trying to think what the right words are here.

But the point is that we’re going to try and make the objectives simple for you guys to achieve. And if we see people that are like actively working outside of those boundaries, we’re going to tell those people this isn’t the intention for how this piece is supposed to operate and we don’t want players to to use this exploit or use this mechanic.

And then we will just we’ll give them warning and then we’ll just remove them from the prize pool in the leaderboard. And so there will be clearly communicated consequences for working outside of our intended game design. And that get that’s because we want people to have lot of fun and we want to, you know, we want to push people in certain direction and we can’t change certain pieces of the program mid mid chapter like we are right now.

We can’t just go and start rearchitecting things.

So, we’ll just say, “Look, this is we we understand that you found this thing and that you’re using it in this way, and that’s great, and we’ll get that fixed for the next chapter.

However, you need to stop. And if you don’t stop, we’ll we’ll pull you from the leaderboard, and we’ll pull your prize, and then there won’t be this like hot discussion inside of Discord. We’ll just take more more um proactive like this is the stance we’re taking on this subject, and we’re going to moderate it this way.

” and and then there won’t we won’t have to have these heated discussions and there won’t be any miscommunications about it right so um so yeah we did yeah go ahead >> no was just going to explain in ter in gamers language for them John to make it >> very direct >> we are going to start the status inquisition and if you are deemed heretic we are going to stamat you your fleets and drop you from the leaderboard Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then that way think players >> give Xcode some relief. Stop making guys please. >> No, I’m I’m good.

I’m good. I’m good. I want to >> just want players to to to know whether or not they’re they’re working in the in the boundaries that we’ve set.

And then we’ll just be really clear. There won’t be this ambiguous like, well, maybe we will, maybe we won’t. We’ll just be like, no, you know what?

we’ve decided that thing that’s happening isn’t appropriate and we’re just going to pull you from the leaderboard if if you keep doing it. And hopefully that’s hopefully that’s enough to get that message across, right? Um >> if it’s not, Michael Wagner will get his fleets and destroy you.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. >> Yeah. Anyway, >> um >> Jeff’s back.

Yeah.

Thanks. >> Yeah. Apologies.

I guess suffered the same uh internet connectivity issue that my brother often suffers.

So it mean guess it makes sense that it would land on me today. >> Yeah, we were theory crafting here saying that he rug bullet you because you were leaking too much. >> I would not put it past him.

>> But yeah, Jeff, going back to where you were, you were talking about your powerful magic wand. Oh, yeah. On what what could do um if had my my brothers, guess.

And like said, or like was kind of saying, and forgive me if I’m repeating anything that you did here because didn’t realize that had dropped for bit there, but uh you know, the it would be complete experience. In all honesty, if could make uh wave magic wand, it would be it would be basically to deliver everything so that players had the grand vision right in front of them, right? We we want to eventually provide players with the ability to do multitude of things.

And right now, we know that we’re kind of just providing out like, hey, here’s this little piece. Here’s this little piece. and and I’m loving the engagement with those pieces, but know that it could probably be frustrating sometimes to be locked into, well, this is just game loop that have to live in, right?

And that is not so much like the the grand vision of things. The grand vision is like, hey, want to do, you know, be whatever want to be in this universe that has this beautiful lore and these great graphics, right? And and that’s what I’d like to do if could wave wand.

um you know in the near term if were locked into kind of what we what want to deliver right away and again this is fitting in line with like the features that we’re going to be releasing. think the initial things would be things like entity uh individual game entities. What mean by that is like plan selectable planets, selectable uh asteroid belts, selectable you know fleets.

We’ve got some of this now, but then adding layer of interactivity on top of that, which would be like conditional menuing.

So, can select, you know, when we look at these things, realize that there’s, you know, you’ve got your faction aligned versus enemy faction aligned, and then you’ve got near and far distance.

So, like the the menuing that we present player with is going to change based on one of those three kind of those factors, right?

So, like if select, and I’m kind of getting into the weeds little bit, but say select an enemy fleet that’s far away.

Well, the menu option that should be kind of surfaced to the player would be can do an intercept.

But if that same enemy fleet is wi within attack range, then attack should be the conditional menu that’s presented to me, right? And what that does is give the player the tool set that they need to actually do the game activities that they want to do. And so like near-term, that’s what would like to start us to function, you know, like kind of fe kind of focus on.

In addition to that, you know, like said with the game entities, it’s like, okay, well, we can start expanding the universe by breaking things off of right now. We’re kind of putting lot on the CSS’s and we know we’re doing that with the idea that future growth is eventually going to be that we can take some of that stuff and say okay well if need to manage property well you know that own you know or want to put crafting habs on planet well now have planet entity that’s out in the universe on the map that can click on can navigate down to and then start to add some of that functionality to it.

So, you know, like said, we have to focus at the moment just just on pure like internal resources and design work.

It’s lot. We’re designing giant game, right?

But like um you know, the vision the vision and the goals are there and we’re thinking through those problems.

So, don’t know if that clearly answers what you were kind of asking, but that’s kind of my take on things. >> No, no, that’s that’s very helpful. mean, we all know what we signed for here in Star Atlas and yeah, it’s it’s massive vision that you need to wrap everything together.

am particularly excited to see this last piece that you spoke about coming to life. Like for me, playing the planets, being able to engage with planet, add your flame stake and deploy your crew members there and do stuff.

It’s game changer for me. >> Yeah. And yeah, it is super exciting.

Uh looking ahead, Jeff, uh what sorry uh my question now is more for the people that want to work in the same field as you are working right now. Uh UI UX maybe even in gaming or design uh as well. uh what advice would you give them to someone that wants to get started on this field like working in the gaming industry in the UIUX uh systems and overall work?

Sure.

Yeah.

So, and mean like said I’ve I’ve done the I’ve been designing for multiple different experiences for long time and so there there is common thread especially for like somebody that has design focused type career. The one thing would say to anybody that’s looking and it it’s kind of true of any kind of design experience that you want to like grow towards would be to try and balance your goal of the moment.

So what does my UX UI need to do right now to best inform like how would engage something? Um, and how do make it easier for my users/players to easily accomplish that goal for the moment with 30,000 ft view of what your overall experience is going to be, right?

So like when we talk about Star Alice, mean there is this grand vision, but we have to balance out these specifics towards like um you know like okay well right now need I need this thing to do this for the players or you know my the player or communities are starting to get like locked into this little loop that they are getting tired of. How do make that better for them?

Right?

so we can add these small features so that things grow. And and what would say is that applies to just about any kind of design experience you want to bring to the table, right? And it’s it’s just kind of finding that balance, right?

>> I’d also say be ready for adjustments.

So, you’re going to have you’re going to have things that you design out and you think, “Okay, I’m done with that. Let me go ahead and put that >> down on the desk and can move on to the next thing. ” But what you’ll find often is that when you move on to the next piece, there are implications based on what happens on that current focus that are going to go backwards in time and say, “Oh, designed it this way in the past, but need it to do this now.

” And so that you’re going to go back and you’re going to adjust and tweak and and you know, anyone in this community has seen us adjust any of our experiences with this kind of mentality in place. And so that’s it’s good thing to know upfront is that like everything is going to change. Um and so you have to kind of balance that in your mind, but then don’t get frustrated when it changes, right?

Like be inspired by the growth, be inspired by the new possibilities.

That’s how find joy in things that design is that like it’s always fresh, right? might design something and think, okay, well this is done.

But there’s million ways to design something so that it does something new or that it surprises people or it creates this affinity for your product, right? And and mean when we look at the community feedback on things um of experiences we’ve designed and John I’m sure was talking about this little bit, right? Like we don’t want it to feel like punishment if we have to change something.

just know that we’re trying to find that sweet spot of like, hey, this is something new and we want to get the most people loving it as they possibly can so that they, you know, they they feel like their time is well spent. And so kind of that’s kind of my take.

I know that’s probably that may be little wordy, but that’s kind of my feeling. >> No, no, that that was awesome, Jeff. And the community asked actually few questions for you, Jeff.

>> Sure. And let’s start with Groove question for our guest. Can you talk little bit about the strategy for switching context slash perspective between multiple fleets, individual ships, individual avatars, etc.

We said that little bit, but I’m interested in how those views will all link and flow together in the future. >> Sure. And mean, you know, like we’re again, it’s kind of evolving, but like think, you know, it’s creating contextual relation point to it.

So like the it kind of goes back to what was talking about with like the game entity itself, right? The the selectable game ent game entity and conditional menu will be able to allow players to say, “Let me select this thing and then go into, you know, what we’re calling it the observe view and it’s the full screen view. ” So, like if you go into Starbase now, you can we’re presenting it modally, but we’re not going to that eventually is going to change too to where we have this full screen experience to where you go in and you’ve got your tab selection where you can go and it also is going to kind of bring this feeling of like, well, I’ve entered the Starbase.

you know, in in like relational type experience where it’s like, all right, feel like I’ve gone into the star base and um you know, like in here is specific part of the star base where I’m going into the hanger to start managing my ships, right?

But then there’s also going to be that same kind of experience where if my ship is flying around the map, can select the game entity being the launch point, go to the menu, and then enter this full screen to where I’m like managing what’s inside of the ship with the hanger or managing the inventories in there.

So then you start getting multiv- view where everything kind of layers on top of each other.

But that’s the that’s the overall plan that have at the moment for that, right? is like making you feel like wherever you’re at is what you’re actually like focused on at the moment, right? And so it gets tricky.

Um it gets tricky when we start to expand that out towards things like multifleet select, you know, like creating like quote unquote armada or something. think some of the things that we don’t have in in the game right now that are definitely on our map and radar are multi select.

So this drag and drop experience of like you would expect in any RTS where you could select multiple things and again the conditional menuing solves some of that aspect because if select multiple objects then the conditional menu that says what can you do with this amount of this thing is going to be you know if we present it to the players in smart way they’ll never even have to think about it. They select multiple fleets and then they can have an action set to do with that multi multiple fleets. They don’t have to try and sit there and individually manage, but they can go back and say, “Okay, well, let me pick this fleet and go into this fleet and repair it or manage its inventory, X, Y, and >> down to that granular ship level.

” Sorry, get get kind of lost in the weeds and know it’s just there’s lot rattling around up here with all of these little aspects. >> was laughing because Mandalorian said, “God bless you. >> The community really wants to see this happen Jeff.

” Yeah. Uh Jindo Jindo also has question. Uh will will we get dynamic movement in hollow scene or C4 for our fleets at some point?

>> I believe that’s part of the plan. Um you know definitely especially with the C4 release being next, we’re going to definitely take some inspiration on the Hollisim side.

So like Hollisim got out in front of C4 uh just because you know there was need here and it like we wanted people to start on boarding and figuring out how to play it and then we were going to release or we are releasing C4 to be this like next step forward. And so we’re going to be ping ponging back between these two products for while to say, “Okay, here’s what we’ve got inspiration behind on the C4 things. Here’s what the community is saying about these things, these features that they love.

Let’s go ahead and bring some of that back to Hollow Sim. ” And then Hollow Sim very much is play, you know, because it is the free-to-play experience. is very much place for us to test and to kind of like dry run things, you know, dry run our assumptions with like design and game mechanics and balances of things.

mean, again, you like we all work pretty closely on making sure or trying to make sure as best we can how balanced things are.

You know, the ultimate goal is always do we make something that people love and want to keep using, right? And so like that’s kind of the environment. don’t know if really answered the question, but that is kind of the so like dynamic movement being one of those things is like, okay, we’re pretty sure we’ve made pretty strong assumption that we enjoy using this.

Let’s put this out in our our, you know, feature product and then let’s see how it goes and then if it works, we can and people love it. Then we can bring it back to the Hollis side and then advance and improve it.

So that’s kind of like our testing environment but free.

It’s free to play and you know again testing our assumptions. Hopefully that answers that question little bit. >> Yeah for sure.

And learner also asking very interesting question here Jeeoff moving forward we are now looking at much more complex product C4 and even though that’s awesome worry comes to mind local resources. Is that part of the tough process to keep it as clean and simple as possible so that performance doesn’t get too affect too affected affected? Uh maybe could we get two versions of the game, light and full versions?

What are your thoughts on this topic, Jeff? >> Yeah, and mean think that’s one of the things that like it’s definitely one of the main things that try to address with like the Hollison aside. mean, think with like the C4 product, those th those those resources and assets that you get, they’re ownable.

They’re take you can take them out of the game, right?

So, there’s whole other functionality set there that don’t necessarily have to worry that we don’t have to necessarily worry about in the Holim experience, right? Holim things can live locally. when it comes to performance again, you know, like we know we’re tracking massive amounts of these things and so like, you know, lean heavily on the development staff to tell me, well, what are the capabilities and what am going to have to do to design around the sheer inventory management of whatever it is, right?

whether it be ships or anything else. can tell you like when sit down to design things like the hanger, it’s always with, you know, me imagining players with thousands upon thousands of ships and how do make that easier for player, right? And that applies to just about every resource.

So like you know don’t necessarily have to worry on the holllesome side of people like improving those things and then taking those things out and putting them on the marketplace and making profit because like in in holosim they the improvements are for that season and chapter right that they don’t have to live past that.

So there there’s some concerns there. again I’m sorry if I’m kind of going in multiple directions with my answers.

It’s little tougher to to >> explain, but like definitely being from design standpoint, something that we consider and try to try our best to address.

So, >> uh, say question here that’s more of John question about the hol map. John, if you want to talk little bit about that. >> Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, as Jeff just mentioned, there’s season one hollow sim. We’re in chapter 2 right now. We could release chapter 3.

We could release chapter four and five. And all of these chapters will use the Sage Star-based game engine and underlying systems. And we may add entities, we may add zoom levels, and we might add more systems, but the core pieces of the game system will be based on Sage Starbase.

And we’ll continue to do that until C4 is mature enough to release as as as hollow sim version. And that would be season two. And so season 1 could continue on into infinity if we wanted to.

using the C4 mechanics and that map and um all of those objects and all of those ships and everything. Um so that’s how you can think about it in your mind.

It’s like season 1 is like kind of this runaway branch. um that was born out of Starbase and season 2 will be um branch from the the C4 ecosystem and yeah this is the simplest way of looking at it.

So yeah >> interesting yeah guys any questions for either John or Jeff or Joseette? realized that we only bring people to the brew whose name starts with J. Interesting.

>> Yeah, >> it’s requirement. Hard requirement. >> Exactly.

>> Don’t tell Chris. He’ll be devastated. >> Yeah, that’s Chris never came to the brew.

That’s interesting historical fact. He has his own show at the economy forum.

People are asking for the code. The code for today is My name is Jeff. >> My name is Jeff.

>> Yes, that’s the code for today. My name is Jeff. And any last questions before we close today, ladies and gentlemen?

Uh Jindo is asking, “Can we add Max cargo buttons to the game? >> Where? Where?

” >> He said, “Everywhere. ” >> Everywhere.

Yes. Send me screenshot.

It’s just one screenshot away. Groov is saying, “Just want to say thank you very much for you all taking the time to chat with us.

It’s our pleasure, Groove. Thank you guys for taking the time to listen to us. And if we don’t have any other questions, think this is good time to close.

doubles in the chat for Jeff for joining us today. We hope to have you many more times here, Jeff. It was pleasure, friend.

And >> of course, >> yeah, that’s the Atlas Brew 201. Thank you guys for being with us and I’ll see you all next week. Bye.

See you guys.

Cool.

Thanks, guys. See you.