JULY 2021: IMPROMPTU & SCHEDULED CHIEF CHAT NOTES - First draft of the T.H.M.P.R Encounter & Emberdon - Fauna, Plushie, or Both?

[Faeryl]

IMPROMPTU CHIEF CHAT BRIEF SUMMARY FROM WEDNESDAY, JULY 7TH, 2021

► Grummz: It's a special day tomorrow [Thursday, July 8, 2021]!
It's going to be the FIRST time people will be able to thump since Firefall shut down. That's a momentous occasion; even in its rough first draft form. It's going to bring back the feels, I guarantee it. Even at this stage where we're just starting out; we're doing white box graphics because we're hiding everything. It's going to bring back some feels for Firefall fans.

► Grummz: I wanted to let people know it's the last 24 hours for the Freya and Wrenga skin. These are limited skins. The Freya & Wrenga skin is Legendary, that means it is only available, on average, once per year. It's going bye bye at midnight (Pacific Time) on Friday [July 9, 2021]; or early morning Saturday [July 10, 2021]. Sometimes we give you a little bit of leeway.

► Grummz: Yeah. Thumping! We hopped in there with Miss Aemilia, Nizuul, myself, and someone else. And we did it. We did four or three player thumping and it was fun! Even at this early stage. It was coming together and for the first time it was like, WOW, you actually have to defend the thumper, you have to scoop up the resources, and there's a lot to do. AND... there's a NEW UNIT that you'll be fighting. I'm not gonna say what it is. It's going to remind you of something from Firefall.

► Grummz: I'm very excited about the stream tomorrow [Thursday, July 8, 2021]. It's going to be a HUGE, HUGE, biggest we could make it map. 64 square kilometers without world composition.

► Grummz: I want to emphasize, it is a rough draft. So please be aware of that. There are some limitations. You cannot cut bait and run on the THMPR, you can't send it back yet when you want. You will have to finish the encounter... or PERISH!! Everything is literally in white box. There's no textures on anything except pretty much your Omniframe and THMPR.

It's like we wrapped everything in a Christmas present. That's the way I like to think about it. No shaking the box. You can destroy the boxes. But even with white boxes, I think you're going to get a different feeling from this. And that's what's important. If we can get the feeling across with just white boxes, think what we could do with graphics, right? So that's the plan for tomorrow [Thursday, July 8, 2021].

► Grummz: I just wanted to pop in, brief Chief Chat, and let everybody know we're doing a Chief Chat tomorrow [Thursday, July 8, 2021]. There will be raffles. An email that went out but, I did not mention this in the email. So you guys will be the first to hear about it.

We have new raffles! Gigabear has sponsored 3 packs to giveaway at these raffles; and we're going to do them tomorrow [Thursday, July 8, 2021]. 3 Newcomer packs are being raffled off, thanks to Gigabear's enormous generosity; thanks Gigabear for that!

And of course we have our other usual raffles; and there might be a Catch Up pack because we are going to be talking about the Freya and Wrenga skin will be going away after Friday [July 9, 2021].

This is going to be a pretty BIG stream.

No more Copa. We're on a new map. A very white box map. But I still think it's enjoyable in its own way. And it's all up to the game play.

==== Q & A ====
Question: Can I use that mount without needing to be the anime girl?
Ronyn: Pilot [Character] skins are not locked to the [Wrenga] mount.

==== QUOTES ====
"Wait, wait, wait... what is the Skyrim quote? 'It just works!' " [laughing] ~ Grummz

 

[Faeryl]

CHIEF CHAT BRIEF SUMMARY FROM THURSDAY, JULY 8TH, 2021

==== MAIN POINTS ====
► Featuring the first draft of the T.H.M.P.R encounter! It's all or nothing as waves upon waves of enemies come to destroy your T.H.M.P.R. You cannot send the T.H.M.P.R back midway through so fight to the very end and protect your loot reapers!

This test build is taking place on an untextured landscape, and features an enemy type that is only a cube for now. New assets are currently in the works. They are hidden for now and safely tucked away in the hard drives of the Dev Team.
▲ Also described by Grummz as: “We have replaced your regular coffee with Folgers crystals, white boxes that are amazingly blank and devoid of texture but hopefully with substance.”

► Reminder! The “FREYA & WRENGA” a Legendary Rarity at a Peerless Grade Level is only available until midnight Friday [July 9, 2021] or early morning Saturday July 10, 2021]!

► There will be unique flora and fauna to EM-8ER! They won't aggro on you, and now Grummz presents to us, one of the first beasts we will encounter called the EMBERDON!



And… along side a very cute plushie sketch for it!!!

Please answer this poll so we can gauge how many people would buy the plushie so that we can consider producing some to sell!
https://forums.em8er.com/threads/em8er-merch-which-would-you-rather-see.2025


►We are around 1,310 subs! Remember for you Reapers who haven't already, Now is the perfect time to become a patron on the EM-8ER website! If we reach a steady 1,500 patrons we get a playable Heavy mech for the Kickstarter, and you will be grandfathered in if you sub before Kickstarter, meaning as long as you don’t cancel your sub after Kickstarter, every skin you get via the Patron program will be a Peerless skin for $7.95! Usually worth $34.95!

==== GENERAL POINTS ====
► Today’s [July 8, 2021] three Newcomer pack raffles were sponsored by GIGABEAR (or dubbed as GIGACHAD )! Thank you to our fellow reaper for your amazing generosity!

► Just as a reminder, during the last stream [July 1, 2021] Grummz revealed the entire skin grading system for player skins. However MEK’s and weapons system will be DIFFERENT and Grummz has yet to plan out that system.

►Grummz pointed out that the sound effects in this developer test build are temporary!

==== KETCHUP SPILLED! ====
► “The new Omniframe will be a little bit more compact." ~ Grummz


==== CHANGES! ====
► The map is no longer "New Copa", but a huge landscape with mountains and plenty of plateaus to wander around on!
► The map instead of being 2x2 kilometers (4 square kilometers) in size, is now 8x8 kilometers (64 square kilometers) in size *(with each square being 1x1 meters)!
► You can now see a human character compared next to the Omniframe!
► The ship is now still and you can compare the size of it to the Omniframe and character!
► Now when gliding around the edge of your screen you get some white line effects to show that your moving fast through the air!
► Currently to go with the new T.H.M.P.R encounter, it is balanced for 4 players!
► Shooting Missiles at the Tsi-Hu now stagger them!
► The Tsi-Hu now come from different portals!

==== FUTURE PLANS ====
► You will see later on that the Tsi-Hu will use the debris to their advantage so they hide behind cover and slowly get closer to your T.H.M.P.R to attack and destroy!

► The Thumper encounters in Firefall were 4 minutes, but for EM-8ER the T.H.M.P.R encounters are planned to be 8 minutes.

► The drop ship does not have a true collision box, as it was only meant to be in the sky, but that's changing soon as this will get a true collision box and it will get bigger.



==== Q & A ====
► Question: Is there a height limit?
Grummz: There is a limit, it is 1 kilometer from zero, but there is a glass ceiling up there.

► Question: Can all the skins be unlocked through grinding (regardless of how long it takes) or are all of them cash shop only?
Grummz: No, you can grind for them! The grind is not trivial though, for the core drop probably not to bad, but once you have the core you can unlock them at anytime. But remember you cant grind for them all the time.

► Question: Is there going to be a more immersive first person view in the future?
Grummz: I will admit the animations are not done, and the first person view is not where we want it to be at. That is something that we are going to be working on.

► Question: Are we still keeping the resource names named after the team?
Ronyn: Yep. Until we do the real resource name pass. At that time any of these names could be gone or kept, we wont know until then.

► Question: Is there any damage meter for the T.H.M.P.R?
Grummz: There’s no damage meter on the T.H.M.P.R’s yet, that's something we need to add.

► Question: Will it be possible to be pushed back to our starting bases and actually lose, or will the starting areas be invincible?
Grummz: You can actually lose, the only place you cant actually lose is home, which is the space station in orbit.

► Question: Are the skins what they look like at core grade, and will they be getting mesh variants at peerless?
Grummz: We came up with the core systems after we drew a lot of the skins, so I’ll be going back through all of the skins and they will all be peerless, if they do not look peerless enough then we will add things to it. If the art already looks peerless you cant count on it having material and mesh variations as well.

► Question: Will there be bigger wingspans?
Grummz: They vary, this is science-fantasy not science fiction. You can have bigger ones or you can have smaller ones.

► Question: Will we have OP-AI voice in Kickstarter?
Grummz: Yes! We will record lines for the OP-AI.

► Question: Will you consider going bigger/seamless?
Grummz: Not promising anything, as there's a lot of tech issues with that and we are a small team.

► Question: Will the world be empty or will it already be developed by the Tsi-Hu?
Grummz: Initially this is a story of first encounter. And it happens somewhat after the book, and after the Gatestriders are able to get their act together and form military to push back. So I would say that there are places where the Tsi-Hu are stronger and I’ve already been starting to think about this in the world and they do have a foothold and you can push on that foothold and reclaim some territory from them.

► Question: How will mount speed compare to an Omniframe?
Grummz: It depends, mounts and bikes they are fairly fast, but gliding is still going to be a great way to get around the map, mounts are mainly a cosmetic.

► Question: Is the long term idea to simply terraform more and more of the same planet or are we going to take this fight to other planets or possibly even dimensions in the long run?
Grummz: Just one planet please were not trying to simulate a universe *nervous laughter* we have enough to do.

► Question: Can you dig a tunnel and make your base underground? Maybe even find some mobs and resources that can not be found on the surface?
Grummz: Remember this is a game where you can have a lot of players, so you can’t as an individual change the terrain, the terrain technology does not support that at all. So terraforming is more of a texture change, it’s not about changing the actual shape of the terrain.

► Question: Will there be any unique rarity materials?
Grummz: Materials aren't on a cosmetic grade but they do vary in rarity and quality.

► Question: Will there be any “no fly zones” or are we able to fly anywhere?
Grummz: No. Flight will not be restricted **but** if you go outside of the terraforming bubble you will get shut down eventually, I mean your equipment will cease to function due to it being to cold or acidic or too whatever and there’s only so far you can go past the terraforming shields.

► Question: Does the encounter scale?
Grummz: It scales only up to four players right now, so yes it does from one player to four.

► Question: How are resources going to be shared when someone is thumping?
Grummz: Undecided at this point, but we do want to make it more rewarding as a group, but we don’t want to make it so you're getting less resources, but you are able to do more T.H.M.P.R encounters faster alone so it's balanced out by that to some degree.

► Question: How many T.H.M.P.R’s can be on the map at a time?
Grummz: There is no current limit but there is a radius limit and it's probably too big at the moment so you can't thump near each other.

► Question: Will every cosmetic detail be tied to the skin and unchangeable? Like visor and trail color?
Grummz: No, not every cosmetic detail is tied to skin. Some things like effects like trails are interchangeable. In fact there are some cosmetics that can be interchanged like some outfits can support gloves from any other
outfit, that sort of thing.

► Question: Will we be able to buy a signed copy of the lore book once it’s written?
Grummz: You mean the novel? Yes we’re going to have a separate small Indiegogo so we can get a physical books thing, and yes I think autographed copies is a good way to encourage people to get the book.

► Question: Can we tame the knee biters and raise a knee biting army?
Grummz: No. You can’t tame the knee biters. [laughing] The Tsi-Hu can. They tame the knee-biters first you can’t tame them back from them.

► Question: if the Tsi-Hu win an invasion will there be a bubble collapse where the terraforming fails and the whole zone becomes an out of bounds soft kill area?
Grummz: I haven't thought about it, I think we’d collapse the bubble and we said in the vision book that Tsi-Hu actually build their own bases so they have their own building types.

► Question: Does this imply that we will launch invasions of our own if they have bases?
Grummz: Yes you will launch invasions of your own, because the intent is that you go invade them. That was always from the beginning.



==== FUN STUFF! ====
► FAI’s thanks raffle winner! ♦ Flat Dealer ♦

► Awww, Grummz’s Avatar Likes Harry!
Harry: "Why is your avatar winking at me?"
Grummz: "Because I’m looking down at chat and when I look down my avatar does that, but it also means my avatar likes you Harry."
Harry: "Oh right oh- uh go away."

► Multiple Deepstrykes is called a WHAT?
Grummz: "Hey this is a question for you Ronyn. What do you call it when you do multiple simultaneous and devastating Deepstrykes?"
Ronyn: "Uh, that’s usually referred to as the honeymoon."
Grummz: [laughs] "Well I guess its time for another raffle!"
Harry: "Disallowed."
[later in chat]
Ronyn: "When multiple people Deepstryke at the same time in one location… we can call that POLY-SLAMMEROUS."

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Twitch VOD Link!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1080574909