When was this written? Just want to know if it is still hot on devs’ plate or it has no discussion value for a long forgotten one
It is an idea with some basic design made by Jens and me, it's been around internally for a while, but only lately got concrete.
How could you initially plan a forever game without having an appropriate business model for it from the beginning?
On the other hand, for six years you told your clients that a single payment of thirty dollars was enough for your forever game. Now you are saying it’s not enough. Tomorrow you will introduce new microtransaction options, even more predatory than the ones currently proposed, because it still won't be enough.
I already understand that the official position of SLG is "The idea of games (be it Eco or any other) being an equal opportunity space is very commendable, but a dream that doesn't exist." After this statement, you can introduce anything into the game.
That is a business related question I cannot answer, as I am not involved in that. But it is not far-fetched to assume that selling additional copies did work out as planned just fine for a long while until it did no longer. It is not uncommon for games to introduce additional ways for funding later in the development cycle when things change. Audiences for games are now different from ten years ago, they prefer different games and have different focuses on what they want to see in games. As such it is logical that when a specific timeframe passed to keep up with sales, the game needs to adjust to those new audiences if that is the only funding option or introduce new ones.
We have no intentions to introduce any predatory practices to the Marketplace now or later.
Your quote there is a personal statement I made in a discussion with you and that you take it out of the context it was posted in, that was clearly referring to how higher playtime is always an advantage i...
Read moreRead moreEh, for the benefit of others reading, I'd take everything SLG-Dennis says with a HUGE pinch of salt. He acts like he doesn't know what's going on with the current development when it's convenient for him to do so, either here or on the Steam forums I've noticed.
Case in point, Jens had said on the developer stream months ago they were working on animal husbandry. Fast forward to the most recent official Eco questionnaire players were asked to fill out, one question was "what feature would you like to see?" with Animal Husbandry being an option. I mentioned to Dennis that it's kinda cheating as we know its already in development. Dennis' response was to play dumb and basically say "I am unaware its coming" which was just flat out wrong as it was then officially announced in a steam blog thingy mere weeks later.
Eco would benefit greatly from a proper community manager ala Satisfactory for example - with proper curated information, rather than Dennis saying one thing...
That is a misconception on how things work in detail. The official Animal Husbandry Kickoff meeting was on June 18 2024 - that is when development on it started for actual implementation into an update, as it is now coming.
That some art or design parts of that were already worked on before (as for many other features that will come much later, be moved around in planning or even dropped completely) isn't a contradiction, especially as you quote me with "it's coming". When Jens says he's working on something that does _not_ mean it will be making it into the game anytime soon. Boats were "worked on" as early as 2019. I also stated in other post that art has things done that you may not see in the next two years.
One example of that would be the "Education" feature that is basically nearly done for a year but as you know isn't there, even the option to enable it was removed. Might it still come? Yes. Is there any plans currently? No.
Also note that the feedba...
Read moreRead moreLet me quote the member of your community:
Subscription model is more fair IMHO - you pay for a game you spend time with to be in active development and as a subscriber you can expect some level of support from the developers - bugs fixed, content added in regular intervals etc. Just like you pay for your netflix, cable, whatever.
A game that reached a fair version 1.0 can be left there and TBH developers have no obligation to work on it forever - there are exceptions on the market but not that many.
Financing prolonged game development from micro-transactions is not transparent at all - we (players) benefit nothing from the cosmetics if we don't buy them but we lose the studio effort that could be put in elsewhere - for example new content. Time is not elastic - if they dint hire anyone to make the stuff it means the effort was taken from the game development.
There is also the danger of the game being ...
You are presenting the opinion of a single different user, while we have data available to help us evaluating things on a broad scope over all our users and additional measures that we use to evaluate decisions with players that haven't played Eco ever before. If one of hundred players would be willing to pay-to-play for Eco that is not a reasonable option, not even from a business standpoint. Just a far reached question: Would it be possible, given "MMO" is part of your name, that you have a bias towards the acceptance of monthy payments given that is very common in MMOs?
And I'm not sure why you read in a threat or intimidation into the words of our CEO - he was stating the simple fact that funding is necessary for the game and that without a marketplace that solely comes from new sales - which means that our development needs to be focused on that. I have already explained this multiple times though and the quote of our CEO just confirms that we rather want to have stron...
Read moreFor your information, CCP had 25 employees at the time of EVE Online's launch. They took out a $2.6 million loan from a local bank on standard terms. This dramatically differs from your company's history only in that they initially operated under a pay-to-play business model. And now you look at their position as something to you "can only dream of".
I appreciate that information, but the past cannot be changed and as such has little relevancy to a constructive discussion about the present, which is the only thing I can provide you with - I've not even been working here for the whole duration of the studio's existance.
That's not even funny. Where will a customer (player on the server) go, to the shop with 1 bed or store with several different beds with different skins so they can choose one they like the most? That's a direct advantage.
Trading marketplace items is not possible by default, you would need to join a specific server that intentionally does that, which is shown to you. No official server will use that setting, but it is a setting that is useful for servers that do not have any competetive economy as they focus on roleplaying or different concepts on how to play Eco. Nontheless that option is still being debated and might not even make it to release.
Read moreIt doesn't matter what you, as a specific player, feel or don't feel. The fact that you are accustomed to abuses in games and have dealt with them since childhood has no relevance to our discussion. We are talking about the essence of processes, not your subjective perception of them.
I see a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. You believe that any game is unfair if it has progress because two different players have different amounts of time to play or started the game at different times.
In reality, the game offers these two players absolutely equal opportunities for each unit of time spent in the game. This is the basis of asynchronous gameplay, which your company offers to players.
It also doesn't matter whether in-game purchases affect mechanical bonuses or not. Not everything in the game is measured by concepts such as direct mechanical bonuses. If a person wants to spend real money on any item that materializes in the game after payment, it means that ...
There is no equal opportunities if you don't have the same prerequisites from which point you can use them and are also realistically unable to create them. That is a scientifically proven fact coming up regularly in real life politics. Your refusal of that is interesting, as that very point is one of the biggest problems in Eco and what creates the actual problems in a server that lead to player drop offs.
All data sources we have show that the single biggest reason for players leaving a server is the unfairness in prerequisites that makes them unable to enjoy the game, as others have vastly more progression or the edge in any and all competition. Resolving that via equalizing the opportunities is not realistically possible, as such holistic solutions will focus around making it impossible for people with better prerequisites to take over the control over a server and incentivize them to help those that don't have the same prerequisites, while improving th...
Read moreSome things are objectively bad and are not about debates or emotions. Not comparing, just illustrating the point:
A lot of people in North Korea don't feel violated, however the fact they don't feel that doesn't change the fact their regime is very bad.The same thing (but much less dramatic and not life threatening) is here. While you don't feel violated, selling advantages in the game is bad. And trying to normalize it is also bad.
No advantages are being sold, all contents in the store are cosmetic and identical to their base objects in how they function.
Read moreI know what I'm talking about because I play your game, have been writing about it for six years, and have organized long-term servers with significant achievements.
I apologize if my words seem rude. I get a bit annoyed because it feels like you manipulate arguments, evade uncomfortable questions, and speak in axioms where proof is needed. However, I'll try not to annoy you in return.
Let me give you a simple example. I paid you money six years ago. I've already gotten much more value than what I spent. But there are systemic problems that, as a player, I am unhappy with. From a financial standpoint, it doesn't matter if I'm happy or not. I've already paid you. I don't see any financial incentive for you to change anything for me.
You say you don't want to make an MMO. But I didn't ask you to make an MMO. I never once used the term MMO in my arguments. I wrote that you have spent three years developing very interesting systems that don't work without consol...
And I've not only being working on the game for six years, but also an active player and server administrator for seven of them, well aware of the shortcomings of the game from both perspectives. I did literally agree with you about many of them.
I'm sorry if you got the impression I would avoid any questions, but I haven't noticed that, feel free to let me know when you notice that again.
It isn't correct that there is no financial incentive to change the systemic issues you talk about, as those are problems that affect any player - no matter if existing or new. But you are correct that for development of changes and features especially desired in the existing community there is no such incentive. And that means both of us have literally been saying the same thing, as that is what we have communicated since the first stream. Let me quote our CEO:
Read moreReason we wanted to do microtranscations is to allow people playing 1000s of hours a way to continu...
Read moreI'm not talking about your intentions, I'm talking about the ecosystem that has emerged in reality. Shifting the technical tasks of maintaining server hosting to the players was a logical decision for a small company on start. But it led to the fact that along with hosting you naturally gave away control of the entire gameplay.
Along the way, you've unintentionally created a very toxic ecosystem of competition for users that kills most of those mechanics that make your game interesting. The game becomes a speedrun through the progress tree and destroying a meteor up to five players as fast as possible. You can kill boss (meteor) in any game that doesn't have the mechanics of currency creation, laws, countries, federations, and cultural influence.
You have the right to present your work as a framework, but I believe your systems lack the flexibility and level of abstraction that a framework is supposed to have. Players either use your systems or they don't because t...
You are again assuming we wouldn't be working on changes to game systems addressing problems you have identified, despite I have outlined that isn't true just a few posts before. At the same time you compare us to a company that was sold for 425 million dollars and has capabilities we can only dream of.
We are a small, independant, private development studio founded by former industry employees. I am not involved in business decisions, and neither would we publish internal details of such, but have you ever considered that what seemingly was obvious to you all along might have not been for us, for example because no data suggested that until it did? It is always easy to talk about things of the past when you know the present - but it is never of any constructive use aside of learning for the future.
You are also directly ignoring the majority of things I have said, tendentiously constructing a not actually existing threat of the game otherwise dying we would use to ...
Read moreSelling game entities or changing a particular player's abilities for real money is abuse. It's a violation of the essence of the game as an equal opportunity space.
If you disagree with this, please state your arguments.
I don't think it is up to me to make an argument on why something is not abuse, given you are the one postulating a thesis here - an alienating one to me, as it would make nearly every multiplayer game I played since Battlefield 2 twenty years ago having abused me, despite me never having felt that. In that game with Special Forces you got new weapons to unlock that could be used on the base game maps against people that didn't have the addon - as it was still called back then long before any marketplaces -, and as such also not the weapons.
I personally agree that additional purchasable items should not have inherent mechanical bonuses over base game items in competetive multiplayer games and that indirect bonuses should best be avoided to provide the game with the necessary fairness for the competition it is about. Eco neither offers items that have inherent mechanical bonuses, nor does it make indirect benefits unavoidable, nor is it competetive when it comes to the game...
Read moreYou said exactly what I originally said: SLG is not responsible for gameplay and its quality. You call it a framework. Okay, but that doesn't change the point. You think that gameplay is the responsibility of the server administrators. This is the same model you chose for activating the ability to trade items made from blueprints obtained for real money. It’s not you who will be responsible for that, but the administrators of specific servers.
I'm glad this is not a final decision yet. But now we are discussing the business model as you have presented it.
What's unfortunate about a game that is based around the creativity and problem-solution ability of the players and administrators then, which was my original question? You made it sound we made the game like this so we can't blamed for something, while we made it because that is what it's supposed to be. That is what was intriguing me and why I initiated conversation.
Also I've never said that we wouldn't be responsible for gameplay and quality, we very well are for the base game mechanics and their ability to be used constructively as well as to guide and support player's in using them - which I already admitted is currently not sufficient and being worked on. Just not every problem in Eco is one that is based on mechanics, there is problems that solely arise due to specific communities finding together and fully intended to be resolved by them.
Read moreIt turns out, we found out that the word "standart" is simply the current common practice of taking money from players, so you can get away from taking responsibility for your own decision through the conformism of an audience accustomed to the abuses of other companies.
The word "support" is more complicated. You don't agree that there is no support at the heart of the deal you are proposing. There is your intention to spend the money you receive on game development, and I believe in it, but the business model itself involves a specific exchange of specific goods for money.
However, you go on to say that few people actually want to engage in donations to for-profit companies. And rightly so. Commercial companies are in business and cannot call for charity. They have to offer something for money. You have decided to offer for money a unique look for virtually every category of goods in the game, including building blocks, and allow them to be traded. This is the d...
There is obviously no getting away from taking responsibility nor any intention to (otherwise we wouldn't currently talk in one of many feedback threads about it) and we have never argued that introducing a marketplace was done because others do so. The Marketplace was the outcome of a considered decision - it did play a role that as an industry standard there is data available for it compared to potential custom solutions (and I was comparing with pay-to-play, which is not an industry standard for games like Eco), but that wasn't what sparked the idea to have one at all, but financial necessity. You also have a clear personal opinion revolving around them that I personally don't share - Marketplaces similar to ours being abuse.
I in opposite do actively use them in such games where I have a high amount of play hours and would have been willing to pay more for the game to begin with if that had been possible (and I do so on kickstarter projects for successor games). Marketp...
Read moreI think that the previous poster's idea sounds interesting, and aligns with what I pictured Eco when I backed it. Adding in interesting complexity to the crafting, turning them into something that is fun to do, would make the game more engaging. The current system of press go on a craft bench and walk away is what has lead to all the servers I have played with my friends ending around bricks/pottery level of tech. I as the logger/carpenter on the first server we played found the logistics of collecting wood and getting it back engaging (building logging roads and the like) but the workbenches just a bit of a 'click what friend has asked for'.
Neither me nor my friends have played a huge number of hours of eco, but we all want to - Minecraft with environment and economy is a great sell to us, but having proper crafting to go with the more complex building already in the game would be a way of keeping us playing longer.
Thanks for the feedback, I really hope someone creates a suggestion for it on https://feedback.play.eco - otherwise we may do ourselves - so we can see if that would be interesting to a wider audience. So far there is no similar suggestion that I can find.
Read moreThis part of the conversation started when I applied the word "unfortunate" in the context that for years SLG has been shifting responsibility for their decisions to server administrators.
This also applies to the fact that you intentionally implemented the ability to use items made from blueprints that are purchased with real money in the in-game economy. These items will always be better than standard items, otherwise blueprints will not be bought in your marketplace.
But then you pretend that you are against such actions, forcing the administrators to enable this feature. This is how a particular admin becomes responsible for this decision. Although you are the one who implemented this feature, and are commercially directly interested in its activation, because it will dramatically increase the number of purchases in your store.
Based on my experience as a server administrator, I tried to explain that the server economy, in which the goods made from the ...
You are effectively insinuating that the introduction of options would serve the purpose of being able to point with fingers onto others, despite it is always made for the purpose of players being able to adjust their personal experience to their liking and allowing a variety of ways to play - not rarely based on very feedback in the community to introduce such options - including from server admins that would like to customize the experience.
I have already noted that Eco is developed with it being a framework in mind and not as a sole linear game supposed to be played any specific way. Imagine you play a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons and your Dungeon Master makes use of some of the variant options, creates their own campaign with a custom world and own storytelling, prohibits players from using the newly introduced class in the latest book they got as it doesn't fit their world but allows them use a custom created class that they feel is a great addition to their world...
Read moreRead moreThere is no easy solution if your looking for a continuing revenue stream from other than sales.
Like you said an expansion would split the game between with and without expansion, but players on each version would be equal
DLC allows no server version split, but you have people who can never get the cool thing unless the pay a few bux for this and that.
I love looking at other peoples builds to see how someone creatively use that thing in a different way to make it look better. Now the look better part might be they paid money for the better building materials and im still rolling with normal ashlar.
Not a fan of towns and all that either, but that was easily avoidable. This wont be. Ill be puttering in my steam car as the guy that bought the Lambo I cant make drives to his well adorned estate that I will never be able to match the materials of myself.
Sure sound like real life, but im looking to play a game.
The cost of the ite...
I understand that - it is why I think having the option to optionally allow trading of these is a desirable option, as it allows to get to use them without any real money payments. Maybe there will be a server that does, with nice pricing restrictions and maybe the server admin even using parts of the credits they gain through purchases to support that themselves - I could very well imagine the Eco community to set something like that up. (Or might even help it myself)
Also, may I ask an additional question out of personal interest? Do you think the same about cosmetic items that were granted as part of the kickstarter campaign and / or for Alpha Backers respectively Twitch Drops?
Read moreWhy do I use the word "unfortunate" when describing the server ecosystem you've created? You create the mechanics, but you're not responsible for how they work. And that's a huge problem at the foundation of your project.
For example, you write a nice devblog about countries and federations, but in reality, players don't create them, and creating cities often leads to hostility.
If this were happening within the service you're responsible for, you'd wonder why this is happening and why the gameplay isn't progressing as you envisioned. You'd be losing money due to player churn, and you'd be trying to fix it. But that's not your problem right now.
If it were your paid service's problem, you'd be discussing why people hit a meteorite in a week and scatter, and what you can do to prevent that from happening. You'd want people to play your game for a long time because that's the only way they can get to know each other. Only then would they need to create complex...
The very point of a framework is that it provides tools that others use according to their needs and liking - not every tool we make needs to be used and not every tool is used in one of the ways we thought of when creating it. The creation of a federation for example currently isn't necessary in a vanilla server, but can serve good purposes on concept servers. The creation of countries we do regularly observe - though obviously not in the amount of towns.
It is not true however, that we wouldn't monitor vanilla servers and how the game plays on those. I think the much better criticism here is that we aren't fast enough in addressing problems and expanding systems. Changes to settlements are planned, but the current focus is on animal husbandry and talent rework. It is precisely one one of the things we hope to be able to improve with additional resources through a marketplace.
Settlements for example currently have not enough direct gameplay benefits beyond claim p...
Read moreRead moreI'll start my reply with a clarification: by no means am I suggesting that a large percentage of Eco players inherently wish to disconnect from the broader simulation. As you say, the game is ultimately about global collaboration.
The game is also a procedural voxel sandbox with survival, crafting, and building elements. Interacting with this layer of the game is more of what I meant when I say "worker bee". This is the physical layer of the game: our visual, audio, and kinesthetic window into the simulation. Without it, the simulation would be more akin to a web browser-based forum roleplaying game. It would stretch my imagination to believe that more players would prefer that type of game to one where we interact with the simulation in a voxel based world.
It does not stretch my imagination to consider that many players find the present physical layer of the game tedious. It is the essence of my feedback. Perhaps when people say that they don't like the physical ...
Thanks for taking the time to go into that in-depth, that is much appreciated. It would be especially interesting for me what other people reading your post think about it.
We had internal debates about such mechanics (that I personally refer to "immersion") for quite some time, given data suggested that such could be appealing towards newer audiences. We also have concrete plans to introduce some - for example when it comes to storage, replacing the UI elevators with machinery and doing large scale logistics via shelves, forklifts and containers. (Some may already have seen the container truck "hidden" in the game)
The thing is that the perceived response from existing community towards such immersion mechanics (not necessarily this one) often looked very negative all around the surface, being considered as additional tedious hoops to go through to get to the actual goal. Would be interesting how that looks on here, as it is pretty difficult to get a clearer view.
... Read moreI like building stuff. If my stuff wont be as nice because I didn't pay for the new virtual dress to put on my hewn build, it makes me a second teir builder.
I get why they want the transactions, I just dont want to have to shell out more cash here and there to keep up with having access to all the build materials and decoration items. I would gladly buy an expansion that gave everyone the same access to build / decorate items. I don't want access to items everyone doesn't have.
At 6700 hours on my main account, I got my money out of the game. If it pivots into a direction where I'm a second class builder, then ill move onto another game.
May I ask how you imagined a cosmetic expansion to help with your concerns?
People that didn't buy the expansion would still not have access to the contents and I guess that you didn't mean to separate people into different servers solely due to them owning a cosmetic DLC, given that would split the community?
Read moreFirst, I appreciate the reply. It is encouraging to see developer interaction. Thank you.
I have concerns with a focus on expanding the areas of the game that you are describing as "meta" - presumably due to their overarching influence on the simulation aspects of the game - for a few reasons. It's hard to articulate exactly how I'm feeling, but I will do my best.
My perception is that Eco the finished product will shine the most on high population servers. High population means more economy, more pollution, more politics. The meat of the game! The more people, the richer the simulation. Or so my assumptions go.
The simulation can be heady though. Not everyone wants to be the person proposing laws, or arbitraging different goods, or corralling people into alliances. Some people want to just go along for the ride. But how can they be expected to go along for the ride when the ride is so boring unless you are the one driving?
There is a reason that po...
Your opinion is insofar very interesting that you put the point of "being a worker bee" and how to make that fun up for debate - while the general results of all our data survey is that nearly noone wants to actually be such worker bee. (And why would you, isn't that what most of us are already in real life?) Something that plays into the problem of competetiveness and the inability to do that compared to others in a game that ultimately is about global collaboration. I'm honestly not sure that new player audiences would be more willing to take that part.
Is there any specific things that you would imagine to make that more fun? Like, just any quickshot example that can make clear in which direction you are imagining exactly?
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