[feedback] Space Trader (updated)

[cam]

Hi,

We have a new version of Space Trader for you to try out. This time its a regular download and install. Old thread is here.

website: http://www.playspacetrader.com

I'm looking for any feedback, but in particular I'm interested in:

1. Thoughts on the website: interesting, confusing, good, bad?
2. Demo experience: too short? not enough information?
3. Play experience: performance or graphical issues, sound issues?

screenshots:



Thanks again!
-cam

[mrkwang]

Too short trial time. I started at Moon, visited Convoy, and trial ends. I just bought 2 times, sold 1 times, and no more trial play.

Well. Too short to get the idea, how this game works.

[mrkwang]

Another reviewer of Pig-Min experienced 'Crash' - 'Down', while playing [Space Trader]. As he told, error message was sent automatically to you.

Well. Not sure exactly, however foreign people outside Korea doesn't like the idea 'whenever connected to internet by the game automatically', as I was told from somewhere else before. And it's blocked by 'Firewall' originally. People will not like it very much, when 'Firewall' appears.

You'd better let player choose to connect internet. If not, people could think it's another kind of backdoor.

[cam]

Thanks for the feedback, we create a report when a crash occurs but we don't send it anywhere, it sits in your 'My Documents' folder. This can be e-mailed to us if needed.

We only send information over ip when the user tries to register the game, however I think when the net code is initialized it triggers the windows firewall which happens each time the game starts. I am going to change it so no net code is run until after the user agrees to it and only when its required.

I don't think anyone likes and 'backdoor' type of communication, foreign or not.

[Nexic]

I agree that the demo is way too short. 5 or 10 minutes is fine for an action game, but for a strategy like this you need more like an hour.

Very well presented but seems pretty boring compared to the original Frontier (never played Elite). For the very short time I got to play it seemed like literally the only thing you could do was trade. No missions, no errands, no combat etc. Getting rich is only fun if you can do something fun with your money. As far as I could tell, there was nothing. Getting rich itself isn't fun enough for me.

EDIT: After playing again it seems that you can use weapons later on in the game (I looked on the keyboard config screen). You need to show some of this in the demo. I couldn't even see anywhere to buy a weapon when I played.

[cam]

Thanks for the feedback, the demo is much longer now. I'm interested in why you didn't find and quests or combat missions. Maybe the demo was just too short?

[Nexic]

Yeh that's my guess. If you explore all of each star port with your 3 travel limit then it's fine. But most people (like me) end up trying to trade without doing much exploring and the demo ends too quickly. On my first play through I didnt even notice the 'explore' button. I figured you only clicked between merchants etc.