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03 Aug

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by Decnav

There 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...

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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?

Thoughts on Microtransactions

Comment

Originally posted by Atron_mmozg

Why 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...

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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...

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02 Aug

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by dre9889

I'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 ...

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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.

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I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by Decnav

I 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?

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by dre9889

First, 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...

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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?

Thoughts on Microtransactions

Comment

Originally posted by Atron_mmozg

I think you are hiding behind words, avoiding responsibility for your decisions.

For example, the word "standard". There are no standards for monetization. There are specific developers who decide to take money from their clients in a certain way. Otherwise, all kinds of deals around games could be called a standard. Lootboxes are a "standard". Selling game currency for real money is a "standard". You can find all of these things in other games and pretend that they, not you, are responsible for choosing your business model.

Or the word "support". If you want people to support you, open a fundraiser. That would be support. You're not offering support, you're offering a specific deal. You sell something the player needs, the player gives you money for it.

If you offer to support your game, I will gladly give you money, because I respect what you have done up to this point, and I believe you deserve a hundred times more money than I have paid you. I've even bo...

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The term "industry standard" is well known to apply to anything that has received widespread adoption - I'd assign that term much more for nowadays common marketplaces compared to lootboxes, at least for the western market.

And the term "support" does very well fit the idea of the marketplace. It has been openly communicated that the income it generates is to be used for sustaining and expanding the development resources available to Eco. A purchase hence supports the development of the game - and other people that do vital things for the community, like server admins and modders.

Which is not any different to how Eco came to exist as what it is now to begin with - if people hadn't purchased different tiers (Wolf Whisperer for example including cosmetic items not available otherwise) in Kickstarter the game wouldn't exist today but development would have stopped after it's prototype for educational use was finished and the project done. I think those people are supp...

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I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by dre9889

The developers of Eco need to sit down and have a long think about the core mechanics of their game. Marketplace is a band aid on top of a deeper problem: the core gameplay loop is simply not fun. When a game is not fun, it is obviously going to have cashflow and player base problems. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with MTX or a marketplace in the context of Eco, I just hope that the developers use the extra boost from this wisely or else the same result will come about.

I was mesmerized by this game when I saw it on Steam, and myself and a few friends put a decent chunk of hours in on a couple servers. The simulation aspect is amazing. Feeling like a part of a player-built economy is amazing... Performing nearly every job within the confines of a menu f**king blows. Smelting, machining, refining, all have the complexity of playing Cookie Clicker. There needs to be SOMETHING that requires more mechanical complexity from the player, even if that just means ...

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Generally introducing more "meta" ways to play the game - for example with a trucker / trader / politician, etc. profession doubling down on what is already happening - is something we want to do. More immersiveness, which is what I understood in your feedback, in professions is something we have been debating (though not to a TerraFirmaCraft degree), but there is the question how big the interest in that would actually be, especially as some interactions are already widely considered tedious and tons of people seem to not be fans of such mechanics.

In general we also want to provide a bit diversity in professions between such that are more focused on manual labour and others that are much less and hence also have different time investment suitabilities for players.

I'd actually suggest you to make a suggestion for changes to immersiveness on ...

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I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by TheDarkOnee

Thank you for the boats! Having fun building our harbor town currently :)

Glad you are having fun, hope you will like the future of them as well, we're not yet done with them. :)

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by TheRedSpaceRobot

Fixed and added context. Apologies Dennis.

All good, it was just unfortunate as it would suggest I argued that others do it and so can we - but that wasn't what I intended at all, I just found that the statement as argument against couldn't stand uncorrected. Conan Exiles for example does not only have a store with coins, but a battle pass and DLC's on top.

I cannot change though that the Marketplace after lots of consideration turned out to be what we found to be the best option for the goals we had nor that it is a de facto industry standard nowadays. And I can very well understand that some players would rather not have that be the case, but in the end it is a business focused decision that comes with opportunities and risks - we hope the opportunites it provides allow us to expand and speed up what everyone wants, the development of the main game.

Thoughts on Microtransactions

Comment

Originally posted by Atron_mmozg

Hi. I am the creator of one of the longest-running Eco servers and editor-in-chief of mmozg.net. I've been writing about games and MMOs for many years, I really like Eco and we made the biggest text about Eco for Russian-speaking audience a few years ago: https://mmozg.net/longread/eco-unlearned/

This is my first post on reddit. There are reasons for that. Right now, it's frustrating for me to watch SLG destroy its reputation with a very controversial business model. Even though I've been saying for years that their previous business model is completely unsuitable for long term game development.

I decided to formalize my arguments in the form of an FAQ. Let's go.

Q: Does Eco need a constant flow of money to support the development of what has long been a game service?

A: Yes, absolutely. The fact that SLG didn't think about a healthy business model from the beginning is a long-term plan...

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As per your FAQ the only new option for us to increase our resources would hence be making the game pay-to-play, despite it is today industry standard to offer additional cosmetic purchases to enable long-term players to optionally support the development of a game that they have often spent multiple hundred hours in and had enough fun with it that they often are willing to support? I doubt that would have been popular, nor that there is a way to legally do that in all jurisdictions to begin with when not implemented from the beginning. It likely would be the instant death for the game. I doubt that would have worked as something to start out with either, as what we are making isn't an MMO. In any case for us it is out of question and was never up for consideration to do that.

So the remaining realistic options are to go with the industry standard and give it a unique Eco touch in the form of using it to also give back to the very community that supports us or just direct d...

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I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by DNedry

You just don't get it. Anything I say will not help you understand either. What a sad state this industry is headed. Imagine getting on here and defending a giant game company for charging their players for things that should have been in the base game after 6 years of early access.

I'm not sure what you consider to be a "giant" game company - the amount of programmers currently working on Eco is 9 (including CEO and CTO with administrative duties), not all of these are full time and some of these also care for production and the development infrastructure. (Backend services, Jenkins, Deploy, Automatic Testing, Builds and the likes)

None of the objects in the marketplace were planned to otherwise ever make it to Eco - the contents will most often focus around specific themed objects.

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by EgoExplicit

I think that they should sell their game to be reskinned into a game that people play. I understand that it started the way it did because it was sold to educational institutions as a learning tool. However, it is not appealing to the general mass gaming crowd in this present form.

Let a company put modern graphics on it, create a survival aspect where you can actually die to add a thrill to it and add some other elements like npcs and missions to spice it up and keep people engaged.

You can then use the licensing fee or whatever to keep your base game going. This game has more depth to it than any other game like it out there. No one else is going to create a game with this much depth to it. These other gaming companies are in it to put the minimum into a game to get the maximum payout. If you sell it as a game engine to be reskinned I think there are companies out there that would jump on it.

The game hasn't been actively catering to the educational market since it went on Steam, it was developed further into an entertainment game.

Features like NPC's and violent PvP are often requested by potential new players but not what the game is about or we envision it to be, both go directly against its idea - but they both would be things we could indeed do to attract large new player audiences - but the majority of current players that play the game for what it currently is probably wouldn't like it becoming a singleplayer game with NPC's nor a "I don't debate with you about a problem, I'm just going to shoot you" type of game. I noted multiple times that we'd prefer to keep the focus on what Eco is about instead of changing the focus towards things that are simply more popular and interesting for nowadays audiences - that is a key aspect in seeking an additional way for funding that current players can participate in.

As for tasks, we might have a feature in t...

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I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by MatingTime

Honestly... no. It would be one thing if this is a newer game with hyper active devs that's just struggling for some unknown reason. The Finals is a good example.

But this game... as much as I love the core idea behind it. It has one of the slowest, disconnected dev teams I have ever seen hit the early access market, and we need to let it die

TLDR: For as long as this game has been out... it still has early alpha level problems.

The game has some serious problems with its balancing that shatters the gameplay loop, and has for years. By this I mainly am talking about how certain professions run the show while the others play support. Server after server dies within 3 days of starting because one guy with no life got 3 stars ahead of everyone else and is choking the server with their monopoly. Some of their existing professions arnt even finished, and the 10.0 update that took them nearly a year to complete introduced... boats? Who asked for that? The lear...

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It was you, the players, that asked for boats. There was no day where not at least a single person asked in Discord about boats. Boats were on the old voting page second after trains - and the option that made more sense to implement in the sense of a cost and outcome calculation, as boats are much better to integrate into current Eco workings than trains that were specifically intended for large scale transportation that most players currently don't have any need for. Boats have always been one of the most requested features in the game through all our data surveys, I'm baffled about the question "Who wanted that?" - the answer is nearly everyone.

As for the UI, I agree. Though much of the information you noted can be figured out via the tooltip system, but that is too hard to use. We are working on multiple improvements for UI's.

I support the Marketplace decision, do you?

Comment

Originally posted by faulty_mainframe

All three of your 'explanations' are cognitive biases. The latter one is especially despicable.

No, they do not have to introduce microtransactions just because all cool kids are doing this. The next step would be gacha. Why nobody in the company has envisioned this situation back at the planning stage, we will never know. In the end, they will do as they please. But that does not mean we have to eat this brown substance of an explanation and ask for more.

No, cosmetics in the microtransaction shop are not okay. They should have been in the base game.

No, trying to shift the blame on the server owners is not okay either.

The summary isn't taking context right - my statement on Conan Exiles and Astroneer was made solely in response to a player that claimed that absolutely no game where you need to host your own servers would have a marketplace, which is obviously factually wrong.

We did envison a situation where not everyone is happy with it and still went with it, as we think it is the best way to do it. All that has been considered before making the decision.

No blame was put on server owners in any capacity.

On the matter of cosmetics in a microtransaction store we'll simply need to disagree, there is no way how I ever could convince someone of that being okay and I don't need to - this is an offer to those that do think alike and noone is forced to pay a single penny.


29 Jul

Impossible de créer un serveur solo

Comment
    SLG-Dennis on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
Server cannot connect to our backend services, make sure that no security software, firewalls, VPN's or any sort of networking issues affect the ability to connect.

28 Jul

Can we get a refund given after the bait and switch monetising?

Comment
    SLG-Dennis on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
Originally posted by Inspektor: Make it cost some more and plant a tree in Amazonas dudes, that would be also some positive publicity..make a sale or 2 like some ppl mentioned.

That is already happening. 50% of the value of credit purchases will be given back to community and charity. We start with the server owner and charity getting a share. In the next months that will be expanded with modders whose mods are used on a server and influencers playing there and finally with the settlements that the purchaser is in. This can be seen in the publicly available playtest version you can already try out and the streams of the last months that showed it. The release notes for Update 11 will detail the whole functionality of the Mar... Read more

Can we get a refund given after the bait and switch monetising?

Comment
    SLG-Dennis on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
Originally posted by Nightwalker: Like the backend and UI of an online marketplace? New systems to monitor servers and protect the paid assets?

It is already established that new game mechanics have been developed to accommodate the use of microtransactions.

Limited resources used up that didn't go into leaving Early Access.

Yes, of course. But those were done in conjunction with a full rewrite that was necessary anyway to provide better stability after the complaints around Update 10 in the future and to enable offline play (it's all the same services) - and they also save tons of running costs of the old inefficient systems as well. We can now handle server reports for any cases easily and were able to ma... Read more

Can we get a refund given after the bait and switch monetising?

Comment
    SLG-Dennis on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
Canning is one of multiple ideas we plan and work on, but not included in the goals for final release, but Updates thereafter. It hence neither requires art nor development resources at this time.

What I actually said is that the art team has higher capacity than the development one has and can work on each asset detached from related development processes that are naturally dependant on multiple work parts. The assets get plugged in once the development work finished. Programmers also regularly have to revisit finished work to fix issues, investigate complex individual problems (checking a performance dump from a player is done by a developer), offer technical answers for players and adjust implementations for new features, while the art team has no bigger continuous maintenance work to lift, but of course we sometimes do touchups on older textures and similar things. We hence have multiple assets for features coming later already made. I understand your reasoning for w... Read more

Clarification on Micro Transactions?

Comment

Trading cosmetic materials and objects from the marketplace in stores and contracts is by default disabled, same for being able to build with or place them when you don't own them. Admins can optionally enable it on their own servers at their discretion.

Game is eating my ram

Comment
    SLG-Dennis on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
As I mentioned in the parallel thread the only way for us to identify and fix such issues is by affected players providing the necessary data: https://steamcommunity.com/app/382310/discussions/0/4367998343679556088/

Same instructions as posted there apply, just reach out to that mail or join the discord an DM me there. You'll need to play on the playtest build and provide the data listed in that thread.



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