Changes for 2024 -- What are we up to? -- What would you do?
SirKewberth
EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
in General Chat
We've been discussing what things we need to work on this year. Many of these are technical things that players don't see directly, but are important for various reasons like how much visibility the game gets in the app stores for new players to see it.
Part of the discussion we're having is that over the years we've TRIED many things and this has led to bloating the game somewhat. Some of the changes we made we think were successful and some were not really helpful or successful. Our feeling is that we need to streamline cubic by removing some of the stuff that didn't have a big effect on the game so we can focus more on the stuff that players really do love and enjoy. So for instance, it's our intention to remove the single player adventure mode, as few people ever play or finish it and it didn't really help the game much, but it's a lot of work for us to maintain.
But in a way you all know our game better than we do. So our question is... What do you NOT use in cubic castles? Are there features or things you wouldn't miss if we removed them from the game to, in a sense, make room for improvements and love in other areas? And likewise, what areas do you want us to focus on? If you had to streamline cubic castles what would YOU do? In other words where would you put more time and less time feature wise. Of course this list will be different for new players and older established players.
There's a limit to what we can do with a small team but we're trying to find those most important elements to focus on going forward.
Part of the discussion we're having is that over the years we've TRIED many things and this has led to bloating the game somewhat. Some of the changes we made we think were successful and some were not really helpful or successful. Our feeling is that we need to streamline cubic by removing some of the stuff that didn't have a big effect on the game so we can focus more on the stuff that players really do love and enjoy. So for instance, it's our intention to remove the single player adventure mode, as few people ever play or finish it and it didn't really help the game much, but it's a lot of work for us to maintain.
But in a way you all know our game better than we do. So our question is... What do you NOT use in cubic castles? Are there features or things you wouldn't miss if we removed them from the game to, in a sense, make room for improvements and love in other areas? And likewise, what areas do you want us to focus on? If you had to streamline cubic castles what would YOU do? In other words where would you put more time and less time feature wise. Of course this list will be different for new players and older established players.
There's a limit to what we can do with a small team but we're trying to find those most important elements to focus on going forward.
Comments
*Recube bins ( we have farming now)
*Rating Blocks (people dont really have a reason to ever look atthe rateing in the overworld and also everyone looks over them and never rates the realm.
*Necromancer wands (They have been useless for several years now ever since slyme in a box came out.
*Ticket pack in store akathe Citations (i never see them used in game and has no function.)
I will update this message with more stuff at a later time. Currently at work.
What I would like to see improvements in are in new items, I'd would love if the new items were special and not just be a normal wearable/decos, for example there are the valentine letters that gives the player a love message when consumed, same for heart chocolate thing, I think diversity of new items can be good, like the new mob from the bad egg pack that changes from usual, it can be mobs, cars, stamps anything other than deco/wearable
I would also like some improvements in some interesting features in game that can't be used properly such as NPCs, and switch pack, these usually bug out or can't function properly due to lags or other features, for example the npc items can be traded which can be used to cheat. A Spudbug turning a switch on/off too many times makes both of them bugged, and some other things that are a bit less important.
Edit :also more use to recubes could motivate more the players to go into farming, they can't be used a lot and farming usually is left behind.
Thanks for reading and happy new year <3
Talking about information, for players muted can be added a message to displays the mute time remaining when them access realms/rooms/overworlds.
To banned players, should be implemented on ban message the reason why got banned and a button to redirect to support for more details.
Warning message for plots time remaining when the players access realms/rooms/overworlds, and a button to click to go directly to plot for re-rent.
There are many bugs to be fixed. Some are really annoy, and just make the game crash.
Improvement on mobile versions, fix the keyboard issue and add a way to customize controls.
-Remove the Friend Code thing, not used anymore or not work.
-Remove the rating Block, becomes useless since Overworld update.
-Remove the citations/Ticket pack from cc store.
-Remove the old textures/.molds files unused anymore.
-Remove realm tags, becomes useless since Overworld update.
-Remove recycle bin.(Make it a decoration block)
-Remove the perks details from player profile, just keep a button to disable, if them can be disabled.
-A way to delete unused realm/rooms /doorway portals.
-Support to add images on report button.
-Directly link to contact support on report issue button in game menu.
-Make the realm spots at New Eden for free and increase the time duration.
-Make the clan system better.
-Limit the use of Nametags, like 1x per month. OR just one per account.(Most of the time, players just use the Nametags to hide the old username to get more time when they are involved on scam stuffs).
-Implement the player/farm perks tree. Like the example, just a perk for each farm animals(10x per realm). Then, openings the way to 6 new perks.
-More variety of kind of blocks to sculpty/pixel/stairs/columns.
-Better interactions between updates (as Will mentioned).
-Rework on the quests/tutorial, also add seasonal perks.
-Special sales for cubit store things.
I think a lot of the cubit store packs are unecessary and could be removed, for instance the citation pack.
Things like fishing and farming are cool “side quests”. They are a cool thing for people to do but are not a “main aspect” of the game. I don’t think you should get rid of them but i wouldn’t put all my time towards them either.
Events give the game a boost too, and are fun things to do. I would keep running those.
Quality of life improvements and bug fixes would be great too. There are a ton of bugs I could name off the top of my head that are not game breaking but annoying, or give players a small advantage or way to cheat adventures, parkours, etc. Plus, small things like being able to customise controls on mobile (on a lot of phones, the move button is slightly blocked by the edge of the phone) and the ability to hide realms or use the scroll wheel to scroll down your selection of realms, because many old players have a ton of realms they have to scroll down every time they want to get to pens.
I know you asked about features, but communication could be better, especially with the Christmas event where people who don’t use the forums didn’t get given much if any info about it.
It could be worth advertising the forum in new Eden or something
Edit: just realised this is a bit of a side rant not about features of the game but about the fact that you should focus on promotion too
And the game is getting smaller and smaller and I think this game is cooler when you can share your creations with more people, and more people are in the economy. Plus it will make you more money lol. A while ago I made a post about how you could make the game more popular, so I will leave the relevant parts of it here. (just some of my thoughts, you probably know more than me when it comes to promoting games)
At the beginning, cubic castles peaked at over 1300 players online at once on steam. I’m guessing this is because of SirKewberth and the team’s marketing and promoting the game during 2014. Throughout the past 8 years, old players have become bored of the game, got scammed or just decided it was time to quit the game, and there haven’t been enough new players to replace them because of a lack of promotion. CC is not like a normal game where you advertise at the beginning and make money from selling the game, before most devs move onto their next project. It relies on active players rather than sales. The player count has just trickled down without any more advertising of the game, and the devs have focused so much on updates that they turned a blind eye to advertising and promoting.
I do not know the game’s situation. I do not know how much advertising the team has been doing since 2014. But I do have some ideas to help promote the game.
Social Media
Social media has like, an insane reach to people. The CC pages aren’t very active and they don’t even have accounts on some social media’s like Instagram and TikTok, which I would think the majority of CC’s playerbase (kids) would be on. The devs could make promotional short form content, comment on relevant Twitter threads, upload more YouTube videos (like the dev diaries they previously made, which would also help with communication), post on Reddit, etc.
YouTubers and Streamers playing the game could also give it a boost. Imagine the devs emailed loads of relevant youtubers and streamers (Minecraft, Roblox, growtopia, pixelworlds) and offered, say, 100k cubits to mess around with in a video/stream, as well as some cubit codes for the viewers’ audience to give them a reason to play. Even if some of them played, their audiences could give lots of traction to the game.
Could even reach out to bloggers, gaming press and other decently popular social media users.
Collabs
Remember the traction cc got when it collabed with shell shockers? And that game wasn’t even very relevant to CC. Maybe kewb can pull some strings for another BWD game, especially since there was a whole cc badegg pack.
I think at its core Cubic Castles is an MMO mining, building, crafting and trading sandbox. Obviously fishing and farming has been added over the years but it doesn't add to the game per say, quality over quantity.
Assuming I chose to put development time into farming and fishing this is what I'd consider:
My view on core features is to allow people with different preferences to enjoy the game in the way they want to, if I was going to handle farming and fishing I would make them as simple as the other features. There's perks to use particular tools when crafting and to be able to mine ores. Why not perks to grow certain crops in your realm or craft a fishing rod?
The introduction of an entire new perk skill tree and currency just adds complexity where its not needed, I would expand upon the current skill tree and add more levels to compensate. Likewise, to compensate for the expansion of levels, I would add more quests and ways to get xp. Let farming and fishing give the player xp, maybe even more xp depending on fish and crop rarity to give more incentive and purpose to the feature. Alongside this, why not add quests related to farming and fishing? Could even just add them as daily ones. Giving players goals and objectives can motivate but also give guidance as to what to pursue next.
it's a lot of effort for a lot of uncertainty. Is it worth sacrificing time in these new areas versus improving the pre-existing? I would say no.
Where should time be focussed and how can you know?
Monthly surveys in game or forum posts as you're doing now, some way of keeping up to date with the player base to understand what's working and what isn't. Otherwise it's like patching up a wound with a blindfold on and hoping for the best. I think this is especially important with the release of new features. This way early on I could improve upon what aspects don't work and if people don't like it at all I could scrap it and try something else. It gives an order for work to be done rather than being all over the place.
Through these surveys/posts I would learn what events people enjoyed most and didn't enjoy, what they like about each feature and what they don't, I would take the most common answers for things they didn't like and work on improving those. It might be slow but working on one feature at a time will make the workload easier to digest and ensure each core aspect is to a high standard. If an event didn't work well but other events did I would consider why and using the information from the survey learn from it and improve it for next time. I think experimentation is fine but its acknowledging when things don't work that's important. Negative feedback is the most important.
Not all the questions need to be open-ended either, multi-choice ones are fine and can be just as useful, 'how much did you enjoy this feature?' 'Not at all, a bit, neutral, I liked it, I loved it' something of that nature. Then if you want, follow up with an open-ended question, 'If you could improve this feature, what would you change?'
Personally, I think events, building and crafting are the main aspects that need most priority right now;
Building should be improved as that's what can drastically help keep an active player base while there's not events and generally encourage people to create more and even host their own events. It could be made easier through new perks in particular, increased block place/break range and perks making pixel and sculpty blocks easier to work with and craft.
Crafting should be improved to be more convenient and integrated into the crafting table itself rather than being external and needing to look through a learning centre or the wiki to learn about recipes.
Other aspects that I think need change or improvements are:
Clans and Co-op - Clans have been there since launch almost and have had very little change, I think that as a feature co-op and clans are more important than farming and fishing. Adding more variety for events people can create and encouraging co-operation I feel is important for the games longevity. It's an MMO not a single player game so I feel its arguably up there in importance with the core aspects.
Holiday Packs - From this Christmas alone I can tell the packs need some change, people have been complaining about the amount of deco and throw tons of it away. I think feedback could be key, while packs are being developed do a poll or survey to work out which deco from previous packs should return and are loved and which are not. Then add a few new ones to experiment. This would also provide more purpose and usage for the social medias getting the game greater exposure.
The balls - basketball, beachball etc
Ticket/Entry packs - Warp food replaces that and is more cost efficient
Trick Dice - Not regenerating afterwards removes some minigame potential
Overworlds - I think reintroducing the lobby would be a more effective approach. Overworlds don't provide much at all really, I think a general hub for new players would be more effective and let them get into the game at a better pace as well as get some familiarity. Realms can just be searched and don't need a physical form, if clans get a revamp and become more relevant sure but as the game currently stands Overworlds are not needed.
Store Packs - The resource packs such as "Stone Pack" and "Plaster Pack" I feel don't serve much purpose as people usually buy from each other. They should stay in the store but either give more for their price, have a price reduction or give weekly discounts for them.
Pets - Hunting for the various art blocks in mines is fine but I feel they could do more. Help find chosen resources or pick up mined blocks. Aesthetically, they're perfect, but having an option to mute them exclusively would be nice.
Appreciate the work you do! Hope you had a great Christmas/New years!
(It would also fit a bit with a "10th Anniversary" theme to add back old overworlds, even for a simple trial run to see how newer players like them and to compare to the new ones)
Anyways... if we aren't taking into account adding back old overworlds, here are some things that could be changed.
-Remove My Precious, deprecated without the use of Lobbies
-Remove Necromancer Wand, useless with new slyme mechanics
-Remove Rating Block, useless without old overworld search
-Remove Realm Style Tags, instead replace them with a single "Enable PvP" toggle in the main Setup menu
-If Adventure Mode will be removed, which I do agree with, The Chosen Pack should be removed as well, since no one really uses it
-Remove Citations and the Ticket Pack, as, just like the above, no one really uses them
-Remove Recube Bin, with Farming it is unnecessary and unused
-Remove Rentable Realm Spots, they are almost never used them
Things to focus on:
-Clans are an important aspect of the game and haven't been updated since they were released. They need an update.
-Fix Profile Pictures here in the forums. This is a four-year old bug...
-Holiday Events, as Ultra mentioned above, are a great motivator for people to log on during the year. I would love to see move of them be team events, and them being actual team events, like the Relic event, and not like Ghost Bombing. I have also enjoyed the more singleplayer and UI events like the Plasm's Revenge and the Fall Fishing events, as opposed to competitive events, though I think there would be value in combining the two, for example having both a competitive "top 100" prize and more singleplayer "do X task" prize.
I'll add more when I think of them.
- Add new button to rename npc mannequin without breaking them
- Allow to turn fish into junk , 1k + useless fish I have , they do literally nothing except being a cause of lag in my realm . Letting us turn them into junk would be great because junk can craft blocks and 4 junk for 1 block still hard to craft plenty to build
Add another trade system for fisherman npc at cubic farmer co-op that can let us trade any fish for any junk we pick
- Make piano deco have an actual use , music definitely be one of cool feature
- Allow firework stand launch firecracker by putting firecracker in it and set timing and duration
- Allow to switch flag once you bought it
- Add a randomnize button that randomnize a name with 2 words for new player instead giving them long random untidy name example: kewbon squrefoot_123734
- Make conveyor move dropped items and when linked with chest it drops them in (Possibly have a funnel showing which chest is linked to)
- Add more amount of each block you get from Ocean block pack A and Ocean block pack B , 89 blocks charging you 2k ..... Compare it with sci-fi block pack and you will know how ridiculous the pricing of Ocean block pack
- Add info what different rod and fish bait do
- Remove ' Weather pack ' and seperate to sell the stamp in the pack and omni-wind machine in environments section just like other
- Fix on beehive : You get beewax from public mines beehive and you get honey from crafted beehive (just like bush , you wait for a time and it grows honey)
- Fix on cubit explosion of mining : When you get a cubit explosion , it explodes on the block you mined not around , some cubits just disappear straight if theres block around
- Overworld : Give the entrance portal the old cool blue starry skin from old overworld when you buy the personal overworld or just let people buy the skin stamp at portal stamps section
- Increase daily's reward to 100c , 50c very low for new player to buy stuff
- Fairy : It's a very old cool feature , don't make fairy disappear after 20 min , please fix this
- Seasonal pack become very chunky : https://forums2.cubiccastles.com/index.php?p=/discussion/34094/seasonal-pack-become-very-chunky#latest
- More permanent stuff adding to CC store seasonally : https://forums2.cubiccastles.com/index.php?p=/discussion/34095/more-permanent-stuff-adding-to-cc-store-seasonally#latest
- Magic whistle : Have it in your inventory when you type /whistle , the pet teleports to you . Add it as an item to pets section
- Montly raffle : You remember when ur fb was active ? This could encourage player login daily . Just continue this , it also helps you enforce the 5 per year policy easily , some of the halloween / fall rares didn't come back last year . Make a new raffle token and set limit to 1 token per ip so people can't cheat using old ones and alts . For example : You're giving out 5 scythe this month , 5 players will get it from raffle .
- Remove the 'if nearby' restriction for distiller/extractor/forge perks
- Add pumpkin seed + carrot seed to farming section
- Add easter egg seeker In seeker pack
- Well consider moving pet/car from themes pack to pet/car section ? I dont see why it's served as 'build'
Robo pet from sci-fi and (also move robo-treatz) moonbuggy from sci-fi
May look better if items go to specific section as specific item
- Stage reward for level-up : when you level up , you get to claim some reward so people feel encouraged to achieve something , other games have this too . Maybe like this :
1 - 9 level : You can claim a 100c for each level as a reward
Each 10 level you get a fancy wearable (Create new wear) for different body .
10 lvl - pants + (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
20 lvl - shirt + (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
30 lvl - hat + (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
40 lvl - glasses + Umb + (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
50 lvl - A new pet (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
60 lvl - A fancy font for reaching max level of CC ! (Currently) +Maybe unlock a specialty shop to buy some cool stuff (Maybe a flag or car that is not in the specific section) + (Possibly some free firecracker maybe 50 to celebrate)
- Reduce quantity of room for hunting realm from 100 to 50 or lesser . You add 100 rooms for a realm only useful when theres event but not general mines which I think kinda not good
Also add more rooms for each mines or add private mine for personal overworld (You can setup up if you want to give other perm)
- Add Type name to Ban / Trust (in the realm of yours)
- Swimmer perk 1-3 : Move 5-20% faster in water (Including ocean stamp)
First of all, if you really want to keep the Cubic alive and become popular, you must be in active communication with your players/customers (players are considered your customers because they make you money from this game). You should listen to the requests and complaints of your players/customers. You should respond to your players/customers' questions as quickly as you can.
Before moving on to in-game updates/changes, you should reconsider your game developer, game support team/customer representative and social media team. because you do not actively use social media, which is one of the factors that will contribute the most to the growth of the game. I remember that a few players previously suggested to you how to increase the popularity of your game by sharing ads, and you said that you needed to spend a lot of budget on it. If you cannot advertise for money, if you actively use your social media accounts, you will already be advertising for free, thus increasing interest in the game. As for the support team, as far as I know, only Mabz checks the support e-mails, but apparently he cannot reach all the e-mails,it is not possible to expect him to reply all of them anyway, but it would be better if at least a few more people deal with the support side and help Mabz, because it can really take a long time to respond to e-mails (see other games, when you send a support ticket, they get back to you within hours, but sometimes in Cubic it can take weeks, yes cubic is a small game but there is no reason to be big). I also recommend a community manager with the admin tag in-game who plays the game with us. So what is a community manager and what does he do? He plays the game like a normal player, answers the players' questions, listens to their requests and complaints, and forwards them directly to you, the developers. Provides information about events as they are published. Organizes/presents in-game events. (You can say that mod players already have these features, but they don't, because mod players are not notified when any official event is published, or they cannot easily contact you directly. They can just submit a ticket and wait until they receive a response like a normal player.) Social media They can manage their accounts and share on their social media accounts. They can inform you about instant developments regarding the game (such as restarting the game servers).
in-Game Updates/Changes
There doesn't seem to be much reason to play the game right now because there are very few events in the game and most of the published events require a lot of effort or take a lot of time. Do you remember a few old players came back recently? (mgn, mehawk, da legend, etc) but are they still playing now? No. So why? The main reason is that there are not many new in-game features in the game other than new cosmetic items. There are really many cosmetic items in the game, I am not complaining about it because it contributes well to the economy of the game. But every time we get an update, there is no update other than new cosmetic items. Everyone is aware that it is easier to design new cosmetic items instead of develop new game features (the design of t-shirts and trousers looks like copy-paste because their icons are always the same, or many hats have the same icon, only their colors have been changed). Developing new in-game features is difficult and may take a long time, but I do not think it will take as long as 1-2 years unless the number of developer teams is small. Yes, Cubic's developer team is small. More developers are needed, so what should you do for this? Why don't you consider adding a monthly pass system to the game or special offers that include different cosmetic items that can only be purchased with real money. It seems that designing cosmetic items is not difficult for you anyway. After all, you design autumn items in about 3 weeks. There are many collector players in the game, they will have to buy these items (items sold with real money can be permanently added to hat packs or clothing packs after 1 year, or these items can be given in limited quantities through in-game events after 1 month. In this way, there is no pay-to-win) so you can hire new developers by earning more income. Also you should also design more animated cosmetic items. There are currently very few animated cosmetic items in-game. I bet that many players who play the game do not know that this game has a forum, or I do not think they read the messages announced on the broadcast. You should put something like a billboard in the game at eden about this, any discussion published by the developer should appear there or you should add it to the news section on the game home screen (this button can blink with each new post and attract the attention of the players). You can host a forum event to invite people to the forum. Players who log in to the forum can earn a cosmetic item. You can post polls in the forum to vote on the next in-game feature. In fact, you said a while ago that you wanted to renew old wearable items. You can share images of new and old versions of these items by making a poll in the forum, thus reducing the possibility of players being dissatisfied with the renewed items.
It really took me a long time to share these with you (I hope I was able to express my ideas correctly since English is not my native language). I will share more ideas with examples tomorrow...
- Less Cosmetic Packs. As fun as they are, they really only need to be on holidays. Some of the packs like chess, slymecorp, ocean, and sci fi were cool but added a lot of wearables that no one really wears. Non-holiday times could be used for hotfixes or quality of life updates instead.
Add/Improve:
- Tools for players to create their own games, blocks, and mini features. NPCs, and Custom Textures were a huge step in the right direction and are both still heavily used right now. That being said I also don't want any of the existing minigame features to leave (switch pack, sports balls, qbee/pulse bombs, racing, etc. Those are all great).
- Revamped tutorial. If one of the developer team's goals is to reach more people, I think the tutorial should be more welcoming with some more information.
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my suggestions:
I do suggest that overworlds get reverted and the people that bought an overworld get their money back, because many people did not like the update - adventure mode is also pretty outdated (by that i mean like 7 years), and a good remake of the tutorial because that's old and needs a refresher.
The original buildings like the learning center, farm co-op, should also be changed back or either get a better design (someone can either rebuild and people vote for which person built it best (as in most helpful/tip worthy)). And, please, and I (if not we) mean puh-lease bring back the older lobby as that was a large fragment of the game itself and the joy it brought being able to talk to other people and some to host certain mini-events (like blowing up pows, more).
More mascots (like BunnyZilla), there shouldn't be one mascot for one holiday and there should be more for the sake of people actually enjoying the game | finding a way to convince people to buy cubits to help out the main game, maybe a decent boost for the game itself.
Game Promotion. That's a big one. Using social media at an extent can definitely help out the game, and even more, (video) ADVERTISEMENTS, as there are multiple types of ads featuring certain games, CC should use this type of method too so they can further expand the game.
Trading receipts, these are, were suggested, and will be a very good way to prevent scamming, and will be an overall benefit to the economy.
Farming expansions; more crops, fruit trees/bushes, crops found in certain mines (potatoes - winter, most crops - tropical, deserts have cactuses because too dry, etc.), could help out the farming part of the game.
Stable designs; I think most of us have noticed that the designs of this game are getting either too out-of-style for this game (such as the fish for the recent fall event, the recent pet kennels, all natural crops, others).
Updating the websites, they're hardly noticed anymore and don't give out the latest information...
More unique events that isn't the same three things 65% of the time... other people mentioned returning team events, some event suggested some unique ones, I forgot the reason that racing events were cancelled but something I suggest if they're ever brought back (basically never) is to lend a player a set of random car keys for the time they're in the realm, and for them to be taken from their inventory once they leave that realm.
As long as tags are being kept in the game, there should be some basic necessities provided from the realm/player, such as music boxes, PVP wands, cars (unless the realm/player does not have that item in their realm/inventory, it will be automatically provided for as long as the tag is on)
I feel like that's all I need to say for this discussion, and if I have anymore thoughts then I'll edit this from the last idea I got. Thank you for giving us a chance to speak for the game!
The community doing games is a huge advantage for cc, it's no work on Devs or mods. But this is a problem because many people can't afford the hollas, blocks, or even prizes. Ask for ideas on how they could be better advertised for players, and what might help them develop games better.
Make the dorkmobile super cheap. That way players can participate in races. In turn they might want a better looking car.
I agree with a previous comment on adding event notifications on a board in eden or the news section. It's hard to figure out how to participate without forums, and well most don't want to go to a website or discord to find out. That causes a lack of participation from newbies.
Make some cheap c packs (nothing new, just commons) aimed at newbies, so they participate in trying to get c, and get more involved in the game play. Getting c is the first hardest thing to do in the game, having some cheap packs could help encourage newbies.
I personally think the new over worlds took alot away from players. I won't go into details because that's been talked about in the past.
The option for players to delete realms and rooms (with a double verification) would save on server space. (Maybe give the cost back, to help in courage it.)
A good portion of players are on some sort of mobile device. The bugs with mobile could be fixed, it can be a turn off for some. Add features to mobile that steam has. Ex. Hiding others name tags.
This one is a little out there, but I thought it was worth mentioning. What about donation tables in a mod/admin owned realm. With prize machines. All donated items can be put into the machines. That way newbies have prizes for their games if they want to use them for that. Qbees have an over abundance of some blocks and wearables and probably wouldn't mind donating (Christmas items for example). Maybe once a month a mod or whoever can reset the prize machines. This would get more participation/events and a place for qbees to send newbies who constantly ask for donations. (qbee goodwill)
1. Definitely remove the Recycling Box feature, BUT please turn it into a deco or variation of Trash Can as it is a visually cool item. The feature of throwing away your clothes for Recubes (1-2) is useless and half of the time it doesnt even work with one item.
2. Like previously mentioned, there needs to be a way to get rid of un-deletable items. (eg. Portals, Realms, Overworlds, etc..) As for when a Realm/Overworld is deleted it should require the players password and a click verification (something down that road) and should refund the owner of the Realm/Overworld 25%-35% of the cubit store cost.
3. To reduce stress on building event realms and finding people to build them (Was Space_Fetus now is Will), people can submit their parkours, adventures, raceways, and other competitive event-style things. Once a month, the devs or mods will choose one realm under the category of the month. This realm will be featured in the Official Event Realm, along with the first realm on the list. The person who gets chosen to have their realm featured will receive a small but decent cubit prize (maybe 50k). This event could run for ONLY one week to keep it short and sweet and the winners/top times get 25k. I started playing Cubic Castles during the last few racetrack events and I loved participating. Although I didn't win, it was a great experience and it added fresh new things into the game aswell as bringing the community together, there was always so many people in the realms.
(Remove Realm, Rooms, and Overworlds Button to decrease the amount of it and to get our own money back)
For the realms and overworlds, there will now be 2 option, 1 to enter the realm, and 1 to remove/delete.
How to get our own money back?
If you click the option to remove the realm, you may see your realm cost..Like example 33x33 realm = 1069 cubits. But you will only get 50-75% of cubits (Thanks to **bubbles** and WhimsicalFireFly)!
For the room, there will be a removal item in Realm Basics in Cubit Store for the ROOM ONLY. After purchasing a removal item for the room, you then click the room that you don't use anymore (there will be like a red outline of the room) then same process as the realm..(By the way to avoid accidents, there should be 2 option that will pop up to our screen 1. "Do you want this to be remove? Yes or No" 2. "Are you sure about this? Yes or No").
For the overworld, same process for the realm.. (I have a example images that I have editted it on my editing app but it won't let me upload hereT^T).
You can change your flags without lose them.
Also there should be something like this to delete the rooms too.
The prices of some packages in the build section of the cubit store are really expensive, their prices should be reduced. Example marble pack, luxury pack, iron pack etc
- Remove the reporting page and instead make a direct link to support. The reporting page on the mod side has issues as you know.
- Remove the friend code button OR rework it. It’s a good way to get new players if it was set up correctly. But it needs removed at a minimal.
- Remove quests entirely or rework them. Quests are 10 years outdated. Rather than having them be outdated parkour they should be thing that involve more core game features. Yes, there should be some parkour and puzzle quests.. but they should be ones that are accurate with todays state of the game.
- Change recube bin to be a deco block
- change rating block to deco block
- Remove realm tags
My biggest suggestion is to work on finding a way to make everything work together. There has been 10 years of updates but they don’t necessarily interact. If you could find a way to make fishing, farming, building, trading, mining, rehydrating, etc. all important at the same time it would make the longevity of a player way higher. I saw a suggestion on this thread about changing fish into compost to make your crops grow faster and that is a good idea on how to make two game features interact which makes them both more useful… maybe you could then remove fishing bait from the store and only make it obtainable through farming? So fishing would be necessary for farming and farming would be necessary for fishing. Then you could make a tweak so that seeds are only obtainable through mining. That would then make it so you have to mine to farm rather then just farm to farm.. incorporating another two game features together. I could make a lot of examples of ways to incorporate game features together but Id rather leave it open ended. For old players it wouldn’t have a huge impact but for new players it would make the game make more sense. Why am I fishing? Oh to grow my crops faster. Why am I farming? Oh to get these cool items from the store, or get bait so I can fish faster and then grow my crops faster! Why am I mining? Well, to get seeds to farm so I can fish so I can grow my crops faster so I can fish faster.. or to get building blocks to build! That may not be the best way to make some incorporation of game features, but I think it’s a good example to use as a basis.
You can make the seasonal events you add to the game a little more guaranteed. In the last candy cane hill event, it was really difficult to get event blocks, and it was ridiculous that different event blocks had different drop rates and gave the same reward. Although most players mine hundreds of thousands of blocks, they did not receive any event blocks. This seems a bit strange to me. Why shouldn't there be events that are both based on chance and guaranteed? For example, you can get an event block guaranteed every 20k blocks, or if you are lucky, you can get the event block earlier. so that no one gives up hope on the event and can continue playing the event. This suggestion is also valid for the fishing event because it was difficult to get the turkey fish in the last fall event. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get a guaranteed event fish for your 200 successful catches instead, or if you were lucky, earlier? Different types of events should be added to the game. Players are bored of cyclically fishing, mining and collecting eggs in mines. Such as cooking events, player vs player events, or events you can do together with your friends. Personally, I loved this year's Halloween event. It is really fun to fight against mobs and exchange special or limited items with the items obtained.
Pvp Events
Why don't we have any events consisting of several teams? Because there is nothing in the game that allows players to team up, so how can this be done? Add simple color team jerseys to identify the teams in the game (red team for red shirt, red pants and red hat blue team for blue shirt, blue pants and blue hat etc). Also, when players wearing the same team jerseys shoot at each other, they cannot deal damage or push, but can heal teammates. If something like this is done, we can see more active PVP events in the game. It is also necessary to add more new wands.
Clan Events
There were clan races years ago, but I don't even remember what they were now. There isn't much to give players a reason to join or stay in the clan. There should be special clan events, for example, on weekends or once a month, everyone should fill the clan chest with clan xp by completing clan tasks. Wouldn't it be nice if, when all tasks were completed or the event was over, the clan chest was opened based on the accumulated points and everyone could win something according to their contribution? Additionally, in-clan messages should be corrected. Players who are in a different clan or not should not see their in-clan messages.
Monthly Raffles
Bring back monthly raffles. Because you said that 5 of each old rare item would return every year, but last year most of the old rare items did not return with Halloween or autumn events. Even if it returned, it was only given at events organized by Will and there were only 1 of each in his events.
Account Security
For account security, a two-step verification linked to your email should be added. Thus, when someone who hijacks your account wants to change your password, you will receive an e-mail with a confirmation code and will not be able to change your password without entering this code.
Also i will share my old ideas discussion
link: https://forums2.cubiccastles.com/index.php?p=/discussion/33133/coojoos-huge-great-ideas
This feature badly needs a rework, if not entirely removed. I would suggest adding an incentive to make old players come back to the game via this method, though alternate accounts and exploits would have to be accounted for.
- Remove restrictions on rare items in packs
While I'm glad to see some form of rarity being added in the Christmas pack, it would be nice to have an incentive to spend packs again like the old times. It would also help with cubit removal and regulation of the in-game economy.
- Remove ratings/rating block
This serves absolutely no purpose in the game. I think it would be great if this was to be revamped into a world leaderboard type of thing with a small reward per day.
- Removal of realm search restrictions containing certain keywords
Currently, realms with the word "realm" in it cannot be searched up, along with certain words
As for revamps, I feel like most of the game's aspects can be revamped in a way.
The dehydrated cubes could offer more rewards, maybe even a 0.01% of a rare or super rare along the way.
Farming needs to be expanded on as well, more crops and decorations.
Trading needs to be less automated and more peer-to-peer efficient to maintain socialization in trade worlds.
Honestly, the block designs in this game are pretty great. I think there needs to be more of an incentive to build realms rather than trading/fishing.
Interplay between game mechanics would also be pretty cool to see.
Phasing older blocks into a permanent pack in the store would greatly help out with building as well.
As for adventure mode, I would love it if it was made into its own separate sidegame with new mechanics and a plotline, kinda like a cubic universe with lore, though it may take a lot of work to do.
Please remove the new Overworlds and Overworld blocks and go back to old overworlds/lobbies, and so people don’t loose out on stuff then give them 25k - 50k refund for each overworld they own and change any placed or dropped overworld blocks to their normal counterparts Overworld grass -> Grass, Overworld sand -> Sand, etc.
Delete Robo Slymegood and Robozilla and bring back Bunnyzilla (and maybe more zillas)
Please try to bring back the Betamax art style, and maybe redesign some old items to fit that style better
Also instead of deleting adventure mode, can you give players the option to download it and then play it offline whenever they want?
Rather, I would love to see some official overworlds where everyone spawns into automatically, where anyone can place their realms and people can roam through
Will had some good ideas for it in his post
https://forums2.cubiccastles.com/discussion/comment/330336#Comment_330336
-the live event going on at the moment of the pick the colour is an amazing event and i think some more live events like it would be cool --> (dropper block games, pvp, parkour races, etc). It got everyone online and does not require a lot of time to run.
-Get rid of the ''5 super rares a year'' rule to bring down prices of super rares. I think the game doesn't give away enough super rares and it is underestimated how much an event brings people back.
Apart from events i don't have any suggestions i think your game is very good. I dont think a clan update is necessary as it would not bring a lot of people back to the game. But a clan race like the old times would be amazing, maybe in a different format with not just races but games to compete in as well.
edit: also more clarity would be crucial within the game. I think the green writing announcement thing at the top of the chat could be kept more up to date (eg not displaying information about events that ended a week ago), and the ''event realms'' tab from the overworld could be kept more up to date.
thats my only suggestions I like your game a lot
(apart from creative mode that would be cool)
Even so, the overworlds could simply be converted into realms.
Will's ideas have some merit with them, however, there's no need for them because the version that has already existed is simply better. Will's suggestion removes the ability to search for old realms, which can not be solved by warp food and doorways. One of my personal favorite things to do is to go through all the Best Realms of past years. Essentially, he is suggesting a practical deletion of every realm that owner isn't on. Read the post, and well, no more Pen's. No more of any realm that has an inactive owner.
In my opinion, Will's suggestion seems like more of a way to "go back without going back." He tries to implement all old abilities without actually implementing the entire thing. With the full return of the old overworlds keeping all current overworld 2.0 features would be unnecessary. It would also prevent the deprecation of things such as My Precious, Rating Block, and Realm Tags. The overworld could be infinitely large, and with normal realm decay would represent the active playerbase, every placed realm, shop, parkour an active one, without removing all the old realms we love.
This thread is about features that the developers tried but were not that successful, and I believe Overworld 2.0 is one of them.
(Also, for the cubic blocky style objection you mention, well, the name of the game is Cubic Castles, not Cubic Everything. The name even fits better with the old overworlds, if you think about it.)
How I Would Streamline Cubic Castles
I don't know the game perfectly and I'm no expert but here are my thoughts on the changes that I would like to see in the game, and my opinion on what the developers should focus on. I'm open to corrections but keep in mind these are only from my perspective. There's a lot of ways to look at something, and I make mistakes every now and then.
The Big Picture
Cubic Castles has somehow ended up becoming a muddled mess because of the new items and features that disorderly piled up. Its situation is comparable to a rickety building with accumulating objects and attached rooms hoarded on top of it. Its weak foundation is struggling to hold up against the force of gravity because of the new attachments its keeper is adding. What's worse is that many of the objects and rooms don't connect with the building's true purpose. There's barely any harmony to see there. In a case like this, what advice would you give the keeper? That building is bound to collapse under all the pressure. Shouldn't they fix the foundation first?
What I'm basically trying to say here is that I think the key aspects of the game are (apparently) not prioritized enough. A lot of items, wearables, decorations, and new events have been implemented instead recently. People are constantly making suggestions about new items and features to add to the game, which normally seems good to apply but you have bigger fish to fry here. Are those additions really making CC better? In my opinion, its main problems should be addressed first. Fix the present issues to make way for better improvements. Asking the community about their feedback on the game's problems, particularly on unnecessary features, is a good start. Cleaning up insignificant features will help bring out what is truly essential in the game.
The Game Design
As a developer, it's important to have a firm understanding of what the game you're making is at its core, as well as its connection to its players. I feel like one of the reasons CC has lost its direction and ended up with a poorly defined style is because the game's concept and design weren't fleshed out and executed well enough. Maybe going back to the beginning and reanalyzing CC will bring light to these issues?
What is Cubic Castles as a game? Based on how it works, CC is an online, massively multiplayer, 3D, open world, sandbox game developed by a small indie developer team. One of its inspirations is Minecraft hence the similarities in their features. Still, there are several things that set it apart from other games. CC has a wide range of features as a simulation but they're not effectively implemented. I'll talk more about these specific features soon after I finish compiling my list but right now, I plan to focus on the broader points.
There are multiple aspects to consider about improving CC. A game's design has several key elements that need to work together including but not limited to:
- Gameplay
- Mechanics
- Art Design and Graphics
- User Interface
- Story
Before everything else though, I would want to fix the game's technical foundation--anything major about the system and the servers that must be solved first. I'm not well informed about those but the gist is just to patch up any crucial issues with hosting and running the game online in order to prepare for other changes. This includes cutting down insignificant features that hold back the game's performance. I would also consider the account system (emails, passwords, log ins) and the security.The first two aspects I would want to focus on next are CC's gameplay and mechanics.
The Gameplay
Quality gameplay is very important for a game to be considered great. It's definitely one of the things I will want to focus on for CC. In simple terms, it's the way players interact with the game. Gameplay encompasses players' experience and can be evaluated through playability. Here's my take on visualizing its attributes:
(Attributes are in gold.)
Cubic Castles need heavy work here especially in its efficiency. Challenges ought to be designed well along with motivation to keep the players in the game. I'll want my players to feel satisfied after completing a challenge, but it has to be something they worked for. Events might be the first thing you think about when giving challenges, but it should be primarily implemented in the game's core features--mining, building, crafting, farming, fishing, and trading. Players choose which goal they will pursue. The features should be fleshed out and balanced to make the various activities catchy but especially worth doing. There's rarely any attention given to farming for one, and most players only fish when there are tournaments. This is where efficiency needs to be seen. Additionally, these opportunities shouldn't be demanding to pursue without well-deserved rewards. Why would players want to do them when they can barely earn anything there and make use of the recubes? I suggest to expand them and give them more motivation.
Another attribute that needs more attention here is the players' learning. Players need to be guided and to learn to do more and do better. They ought to understand how the game works and utilize that knowledge for their benefit. For one thing, there has been many talks and suggestions about making better official guides and information resources for the game. Sure, there are present resources out there but at least make them easier to find for players or, better yet, integrate them in the game. Another issue that connects with the game's (online) media standing.
Improving the (players' potential of) learning and understanding of a game is also rooted on the developers' concept and design of its world because its where all the information is based on. "Manage the top line, and the bottom line will follow."
To be continued...
It's kinda annoying if we enter a portal that leads to the same realm and the pet lvl goes down to lvl 49, the goes with dying in CC. I hope this will be changed.
Change suggestion: Make the pet lvl goes down only if we pick up the kennel.
Develop more time rather than on updates, develop more time towards the community. I personally believe we need to have a Community Manager hired for Cubic Castles (or if one wanted to volunteer), as we had Horus back in the day. I understand some moderators have stepped in the place to host these official events for the game. They are fun, yes. But that is not their top priority. We need someone who is specifically focused on the community and the community only. Their job would be to host if not weekly, then monthly events. They don't have to be huge things. Something like a "Player Appreciation Week", something where every single day there is maybe a giveaway, or a race or something that is developed to appreciate the players and give out free things (because who doesn't like free things sometimes?). Or maybe smaller giveaways, or PDCs. Something that will boost the player count and raise interest in the game to create more reoccuring players.
This person would also be focused more on the holiday events, such as Bunnyzilla. I'll be honest, this past year I was on during Easter and people were complaining that Bunnyzilla had shown up less than normal. Bunnyzilla brings in a lot of traffic during that time. People would recall over 100 players, if not more, in Eden waiting for Bunnyzilla to spawn. Same with this Candy Cane Event, I'll be honest. The lack of clarity during this event was pretty unfortunate. With people being unaware if we had completed the hill, to how to get the items, to how the event even worked. We had to find that out through moderators.
A biggest thing we need would be a Community Manager. Maybe that community manager could create a board of community members who really would like to value their time towards the game, and a board of members will sit there to help run future events ran by the Community Manager, if the CM is busy they would run it.
Yes, there are many events that are held all the time. This is how it should be, if not more. Back in 2022, there was maybe an event a month. Once people do the events, they get bored and move on. I feel like events should be weekly or bi-weekly to properly maintain the communities interest. The community loved races, building competitions, and just random giveaways. Bring those back.
The Community Manager could also run the Youtube and maybe create an instagram for the game (if there is not one already). Social media is a huge way to bring in traction. A huge way to build interest for an update would be future preview videos, such as those made by Gdog, maybe just a livestream event. It would be interesting to see this.
I could go on, and on, about having a Community Manager but I believe we all understand the point.