Overworlds - Big Cubic Changes
SirKewberth
EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
in General Chat
Ok... So I want to discuss a little what I'm working on because it's a big change and I want to get the possible issues and problems with it on the table with the players before we release it. That is... you guys may bring up some issues I haven't considered. Now I don't expect everyone will love the changes. I think it'll be a thing where some people prefer it didn't change, and some people like it better and some people don't like it at all etc...
Making a big change to a game is always going to invite different opinions. And also, when rolling out a bigger change like this there will be bugs and issues we can't entirely predict, that will require a patch or two to smooth out. (At least I'm guessing this is the case... particularly in MMO style games since so many things interact and you also have to deal with server/game interaction, which makes everything harder)
OK So.... First a little brief history...
The first releases of cubic castles had a concept. You have a sort of continent or world, and that world has several spots and you can place a deed on those spots which is essentially a door to your realm. Other players can wander around these worlds and visit realms. This has a nice feel of exploration and community and cohesiveness to the world of realms. But it also had issues. One issue was that players would grab up all the available spots. This meant we had to add more worlds so people would have a place to plant their realms. But that lead to different problems where people's realms and the size of the world got so spread out that it started to get lonely and hard to find realms that had other players and randomly bump into people etc... There were also related issues to do with realms timing out and spots becoming available for access.
So in order to try and put people together more and given them some random realms to visit we added a lobby system and a search bumper. The lobbies took several forms and never entirely supplanted the overworlds but sort of sat side by side with them. These work in some ways but in some ways they also added a lot of confusion to the game. It's hard for instance.. for new players to understand overworlds vs lobbies and why they end up where when they jump from world to world. Sometimes you go in one door and out another and end up somewhere completely different. For a new player appearing near the ocean in Eden and not knowing how to get back to their realm could be pretty confusing/frustrating. And the game remains in that somewhat confusing state today, though some effort was made to help with the take me home button on the login menus.
Some time ago we asked players in a survey whether they wanted overworlds or lobbies and it did get a reaction from players but there was no clear winner.
So on to today....
Here's how we're planning to make game/world navigation work (A few things still being worked out)
1) A list of overworlds players can choose to visit (the features of this list tbd but one thing for certain is that official worlds will be pinned at the top of it)
2) The current overworld graphics/system would change to a new overworld made up of blocks like a regular realm, except zoomed out similar to the overworld zoom. Stamps and mines would still be there. That is your qbee would be smaller and youd see more blocks.
3) So what's an official world? Heres a couple of examples...
Example 1 - New Eden - Just official realms. Things like...
Cubic Town center (to be improved)
Farmer's coop
Cubic Market (rentals? This is a maybe one)
Learning Center (to be improved)
Event Center
My Home (access your realms)
Adventure entrance
So, basically something similar to the current lobby but in the new overworld format with a few more official realm options.
Example 2 - Questoria - All the quest realms in one world nicely designed.. easy for players to find access (maybe including some new realms/quests)
Example 3 - Wildlands - A world where players can create realms but temporarily for fun and random exploration (Not 100% sure we'll do this one yet)
4) Players would be able to buy and build their own overworlds and these overworlds would also show up in the list of worlds players could visit (subject to certain criteria/limitations for technical reasons)
So for instance lets say you're an older player who builds a lot and you have 10 realms. Lets say I had created 10 realms and wanted to showcase them. I could buy an overworld and create it in similar style to creating regular realms (using special overworld blocks) and then plant my realms on it and call it "Kewberth's world" and then other players could visit it to explore the realms I made.
Another example might be a clan that wants to create a clan overworld that has the realms of clan members.
My hope would be to start rolling this new stuff out by year end.
So... Feel free to voice any concerns/questions about this new system and I'll do my best to address them.
Making a big change to a game is always going to invite different opinions. And also, when rolling out a bigger change like this there will be bugs and issues we can't entirely predict, that will require a patch or two to smooth out. (At least I'm guessing this is the case... particularly in MMO style games since so many things interact and you also have to deal with server/game interaction, which makes everything harder)
OK So.... First a little brief history...
The first releases of cubic castles had a concept. You have a sort of continent or world, and that world has several spots and you can place a deed on those spots which is essentially a door to your realm. Other players can wander around these worlds and visit realms. This has a nice feel of exploration and community and cohesiveness to the world of realms. But it also had issues. One issue was that players would grab up all the available spots. This meant we had to add more worlds so people would have a place to plant their realms. But that lead to different problems where people's realms and the size of the world got so spread out that it started to get lonely and hard to find realms that had other players and randomly bump into people etc... There were also related issues to do with realms timing out and spots becoming available for access.
So in order to try and put people together more and given them some random realms to visit we added a lobby system and a search bumper. The lobbies took several forms and never entirely supplanted the overworlds but sort of sat side by side with them. These work in some ways but in some ways they also added a lot of confusion to the game. It's hard for instance.. for new players to understand overworlds vs lobbies and why they end up where when they jump from world to world. Sometimes you go in one door and out another and end up somewhere completely different. For a new player appearing near the ocean in Eden and not knowing how to get back to their realm could be pretty confusing/frustrating. And the game remains in that somewhat confusing state today, though some effort was made to help with the take me home button on the login menus.
Some time ago we asked players in a survey whether they wanted overworlds or lobbies and it did get a reaction from players but there was no clear winner.
So on to today....
Here's how we're planning to make game/world navigation work (A few things still being worked out)
1) A list of overworlds players can choose to visit (the features of this list tbd but one thing for certain is that official worlds will be pinned at the top of it)
2) The current overworld graphics/system would change to a new overworld made up of blocks like a regular realm, except zoomed out similar to the overworld zoom. Stamps and mines would still be there. That is your qbee would be smaller and youd see more blocks.
3) So what's an official world? Heres a couple of examples...
Example 1 - New Eden - Just official realms. Things like...
Cubic Town center (to be improved)
Farmer's coop
Cubic Market (rentals? This is a maybe one)
Learning Center (to be improved)
Event Center
My Home (access your realms)
Adventure entrance
So, basically something similar to the current lobby but in the new overworld format with a few more official realm options.
Example 2 - Questoria - All the quest realms in one world nicely designed.. easy for players to find access (maybe including some new realms/quests)
Example 3 - Wildlands - A world where players can create realms but temporarily for fun and random exploration (Not 100% sure we'll do this one yet)
4) Players would be able to buy and build their own overworlds and these overworlds would also show up in the list of worlds players could visit (subject to certain criteria/limitations for technical reasons)
So for instance lets say you're an older player who builds a lot and you have 10 realms. Lets say I had created 10 realms and wanted to showcase them. I could buy an overworld and create it in similar style to creating regular realms (using special overworld blocks) and then plant my realms on it and call it "Kewberth's world" and then other players could visit it to explore the realms I made.
Another example might be a clan that wants to create a clan overworld that has the realms of clan members.
My hope would be to start rolling this new stuff out by year end.
So... Feel free to voice any concerns/questions about this new system and I'll do my best to address them.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
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Cool changes. Can't wait to see them being a thing
-IF- this worked, it would be a major encouragement thing to get people out there to make their own builds (I hope). But I see what you mean ..
Can we get more info on WildLands? I kinda did not fully get what its point
about changes in general - what I personally think
in fact, changes are good.
I was concerned that there will be no changes in-game without changes can cubic castles never take a step further...
changes can improve cubic castles, and players can explore what's new that makes it fun.
these are good changes
keep it up!
galantis