My long thoughts about improving the game
LittleDuneBuggy
Member
Well, this is going to be really long, since it says a lot. It’ll also be boring for lots of you and I don’t think many people will read the whole thing. Im writing it anyways :D Here it goes.
Okay, so, I think Cubic Castles is great. I’ll just say that right off the bat. It’s my favorite video game in fact. But, like all games, it also has some parts of it that aren’t the best. So, I’ll divide my thing into three parts, corresponding with what I see as the three main umbrellas gameplay falls under in CC.
#1: The Economy.
I don’t really have stuff to say about the economy so I’ll just skip it.
#2: Building
#3: The Community
That was quite long, and I didn’t check over it or edit it since it’s late at night. If you have any opinions on what I’ve said, let me know!
I hope the spoiler sections all work right *fingers crossed*
I’m not saying the game is bad or anything, I like it a lot, I just have suggestions.
I can’t fit a summary because it makes it too long, so I put one in the comments.
Okay, so, I think Cubic Castles is great. I’ll just say that right off the bat. It’s my favorite video game in fact. But, like all games, it also has some parts of it that aren’t the best. So, I’ll divide my thing into three parts, corresponding with what I see as the three main umbrellas gameplay falls under in CC.
#1: The Economy.
I don’t really have stuff to say about the economy so I’ll just skip it.
#2: Building
The way I see it there’s two main parts of building in CC. The building itself, and sharing your builds with others or finding other people’s builds to explore. I have some things to say about both of these.
#2(a): Building builds
#2(b): Sharing and discovering builds
#2(a): Building builds
Building in cc is great. There’s tons of blocks and things to use, 100x100 realms are big enough to spend months working on for big builds, and things like fadey foam open up lots of ways you can creatively do things. However, some decos are just way too expensive. Some I think cost way too much for good reason, and I don’t think that’s much of a problem. However, others I just cannot stand. On a positive note, decos in the recent Thanksgiving and Halloween packs have been spectacular. Looking at the rates in the packs, I thought they would cost quite a lot. However, I soon found myself being able to buy most of the decorations in the packs for less than 30c each. Some items, like the food carts, generally cost more, but it’s just because of the high demand for them in particular, and that makes sense to me, and I see no need to change it. However, decos from other packs sometimes cost way too much and I think it needs to be changed. Take the new Adventure pack, for example. It’s a wonderful pack, and the decos look amazing. The blocks in it are wonderful and I love all of them. However, buying a single deco from the pack would cost me a few hundred cubits most of the time. That is way too much, especially for a pack available in the cubit store 24/7. I would love to build with them, but since they cost so much I cannot afford it, and I haven’t seen really any other players building with them either, because even rich people usually don’t want to spend so much on things like decos. Simply increasing the amounts of decos in packs like that would fix that problem, or dropping the cost of the packs. For pre-established packs like the aforementioned Adventure pack though, doing either of those would likely frustrate those that bought it at the original price, or with the original deco amounts, so I do not see that as a good option. However, other things could be done. ‘Builder Packs,’ which would consist entirely of blocks and decos, omitting clothing items, would do the job pretty well. Making them cost less, or cost the same amount but with much more things to build with, would both be helpful to builders. An option for future packs, if lower prices would damage the profitability of CC, could be pricing things in a new manner. When a new pack is launched, there could be a pre-announced date in the future when the price will drop to a set amount. This could cause the initial rush for packs to be combined with a later rush of people buying the pack they have grown to love for a lower price, providing two times when sales would likely be high, while also providing a way for prices to be lowered for builders advantage and the advantage of others. Some decorations have not increased in price because of expensive packs or things along those lines, but simply because of the passage of time. The items from the summer pack can be quite expensive now, making them unavailable for the use of many builders, but re-releasing them would upset many older members of the community, and their support in CC’s past years should be rewarded. However, something like the cupid wings could work quite well. The originals had rose quite high in price, but a new version of them was released. This allowed for the original to retain its value while also providing a way for people to obtain one without the high price tag. Re-releasing old decorations could do the same thing. If tents were added into packs once again, for example, but a new version of them, they would become once again available to builders without thousands of cubits to spend on a single decoration, while allowing those who have the original to still have a more exclusive item.
#2(b): Sharing and discovering builds
The other main part of building is sharing your creations, and also discovering the creations of others. However, this is quite hard to do for the average player. You can make a hollawarp about your build, but that can be expensive for some players, while also only giving people online at that moment knowledge of it. Things like the realm museum are fun to explore, with all of the beautiful builds in one place. However, to my knowledge, nothing like that exists for more modern builds. When I earlier asked for a way to share my builds, and discover builds of others, I was suggested to look at the old trading center for large trades. There were linked doors on the edges, and you could drop a warp to your own build to have it considered to be placed among them. However, while I think the system worked well, allowing people to visit truly wonderful builds, it was not fulfilling the need I was seeing. I submitted a build, specifically a parkour of mine, and while it was good and people would enjoy visiting it (lots of people have liked it a lot when I talked to them about what they thought of it), it wasn’t good enough for the trading realm. I understand that. But people need a place to share their builds, and find the creations of others, even when they’re not the best out there. It’s fun looking around at simpler builds and complex gorgeous ones, builds both big and small, and everything in between. I feel like there needs to be a good place to share those. It might be a lot of work to manage, but the first thing that comes to mind is an official realm that exists solely to show other’s builds. Like the old realm museum. You could have a good amount of linked doors to people’s submitted builds, but switch them out at set intervals. There could be a section full of prize dispensers, but put something stating that you’re only supposed to put builds there, to show them to the community. I think this would be a great way to both share realms and find new ones to explore.
#3: The Community
The last thing I think is a main part of CC is the community. Making friends, meeting people, going to minigames, and so many more player interactions that make CC what it is. This would be one of the hardest things to change as an admin, because it’s people, not pieces of the game. However, there are some things that I think could be done that would help bring the community together, and to help us all have fun with each other and meet new people. Most of the events have been single person events. Go mining to get items to participate. Search for eggs, more productive alone than with others. Go collect tons of bird poop. While I do think the events have been well put together, they would be a lot more fun, and would help build CC as a community, if they were things or do together. With the hunting bushes, strategies were found to catch the turkeys and pumpkins yourself, but for a little while, people would go out in groups to catch one together. Plasm hunting was designed as a two player sport, with one person sensing and one person pushing. I think both of these were great events, and the multiplayer approach was great. We need more events like these. One that I thought of would be for Easter. Every set amount of time, maybe every two hours, people could come together into an official Easter realm. They could get (somehow) split into two teams, and compete to find the most eggs in that realm in five or ten minutes. Then, the winning team’s members could get a prize, perhaps the Easter eggs themselves, and the losing team would get a lesser prize, or the same prize but leas of it. One thing that I was delighted to see is the new realm in New Eden. An official venue for mini games and the like, a great hangout spots, and some doors to where people can just go have fun. One idea I had to utilize the space even further would be to try to regularly host games, and possibly even making a new wearable for the winners, like a dice block head, or even just something like purple swirls around their name, just for fun. If they could be in some way organized and coordinated, something like having weekly Saturday community game events would probably bring more people into the game routinely, and help people make friends and have fun together! If some wearable was added just for the games, it could help cubic castles’ cubit sales, because if there are not so many people might buy a lot of cubits to try and buy one from someone.
That was quite long, and I didn’t check over it or edit it since it’s late at night. If you have any opinions on what I’ve said, let me know!
I hope the spoiler sections all work right *fingers crossed*
I’m not saying the game is bad or anything, I like it a lot, I just have suggestions.
I can’t fit a summary because it makes it too long, so I put one in the comments.
Comments
I just woke up and realized how long that is, I’m gonna try to make a lil’ summary thing. BTW the economy part is just saying I don’t have things to say about the economy. I don’t really know why I put it there.
- Building:
For building builds:
Make packs just for builders with just blocks and deco, make packs that lower in cost at a pre-announced date, make packs cost less, make packs have more deco. This does not apply to all packs though, as I stated up there, I think the deco and block amounts have been good in some of the recent ones.
For sharing builds:
An official place for sharing builds, be it prize dispensers for warps just for builds, linked doors, both, or something else.
The Community: