The claimstakes idea is taking on a more tangible shape because of forum and Discord feedback. What started as an exercise of the imagination left a lot of unanswered questions which were voiced here. That's a good thing. In game development, the team will often toss out ideas to each other to get a reaction. Because our team is very small, and because I believe community reaction is a great untapped resource for the sounding of ideas, it's important to get this sort of passionate feedback.
What we are talking about (and not currently developing, I want to make that clear) is making the first housing in MMOs that doesn't suck, and exploring how to do that. MMO housing has sucked because it served no real purpose to the gameplay, or there was not enough of it to go around (FFXIV). Em8ER being proposed as a huge, procedurally generated world, has ample room to solve the housing shortages of FFXIV without being an eyesore like the early MMO days of Ultima Online (houses carpeting the landscape, packed end to end).
But the problem still remains about how to make housing an important endeavor that is not just pure cosmetics. The initial idea of giving housing to everyone from day one solves the problem of the haves and the have-nots and would allow us to put some interesting gameplay in these areas. The more optional or walled off it is, the more towards pure cosmetics it would have to lean. It may be that just allowing for creativity and self expression in building you own home is interesting enough in it's own right. I am leaning towards believing this is not a spectrum, but a binary. Either housing is important to gameplay, or it is not.
Regardless, the idea would have been much better received if the THMPR encounter was already finished. There is a perception out there that the playable mockup is short on features and that now is not the time to be implementing or even talking about claimstakes.
While I agree the THMPR encounter is not finished, as a reminder the promise made at Indiegogo of the playable mockup was "A single player THMPR encounter where you can call down a thumper, shoot enemies, and gather resources." While we have successfully created many more features than ever promised (100 person multiplayer, resource scanning, persistent resources, dropships, pilots, global chat, 24/7 servers), the THMPR encounter still needs final art, AI and gameplay. Until the gray boxes are gone people are just not going to be happy with the idea of entertaining any additional features if it implies time is taking away from that core goal. I believe that once the THMPR encounter is finished, people will be much more open to the idea of claimstakes in general.
What we are talking about (and not currently developing, I want to make that clear) is making the first housing in MMOs that doesn't suck, and exploring how to do that. MMO housing has sucked because it served no real purpose to the gameplay, or there was not enough of it to go around (FFXIV). Em8ER being proposed as a huge, procedurally generated world, has ample room to solve the housing shortages of FFXIV without being an eyesore like the early MMO days of Ultima Online (houses carpeting the landscape, packed end to end).
But the problem still remains about how to make housing an important endeavor that is not just pure cosmetics. The initial idea of giving housing to everyone from day one solves the problem of the haves and the have-nots and would allow us to put some interesting gameplay in these areas. The more optional or walled off it is, the more towards pure cosmetics it would have to lean. It may be that just allowing for creativity and self expression in building you own home is interesting enough in it's own right. I am leaning towards believing this is not a spectrum, but a binary. Either housing is important to gameplay, or it is not.
Regardless, the idea would have been much better received if the THMPR encounter was already finished. There is a perception out there that the playable mockup is short on features and that now is not the time to be implementing or even talking about claimstakes.
While I agree the THMPR encounter is not finished, as a reminder the promise made at Indiegogo of the playable mockup was "A single player THMPR encounter where you can call down a thumper, shoot enemies, and gather resources." While we have successfully created many more features than ever promised (100 person multiplayer, resource scanning, persistent resources, dropships, pilots, global chat, 24/7 servers), the THMPR encounter still needs final art, AI and gameplay. Until the gray boxes are gone people are just not going to be happy with the idea of entertaining any additional features if it implies time is taking away from that core goal. I believe that once the THMPR encounter is finished, people will be much more open to the idea of claimstakes in general.
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Here is the VOD for the latest CC.
https://www.twitch.tv/grummz_em8er/video/1553216301
NEW build for backers to try out, you can get out of your frames and walk around as either the male or female pilots!
A new idea for how claimstakes can work is explained within
Simply put-What if if all required crafting machines are already findable in the world in player bases, so any player who wants to just get into the action quickly absolutely can.
In which case, claimstakes become fully options. Only use them if you want to, to build optional stuff in your own area. In this version Claimstakes would be part of a subscription model.
Let us know your thoughts below!
https://www.twitch.tv/grummz_em8er/video/1553216301
NEW build for backers to try out, you can get out of your frames and walk around as either the male or female pilots!
A new idea for how claimstakes can work is explained within
Simply put-What if if all required crafting machines are already findable in the world in player bases, so any player who wants to just get into the action quickly absolutely can.
In which case, claimstakes become fully options. Only use them if you want to, to build optional stuff in your own area. In this version Claimstakes would be part of a subscription model.
Let us know your thoughts below!
I think that's right:
- Balance crafters vs action
- Keep action focus (people seem to think its a buliding game now in isolation. Not the intent)
- Hook a wider audience.
The key problems to solve with Firefall:
- No closed loop. Thumping and then what? Coasting between 3 dynamic events?
- Wow/Destiny content treadmill not the answer. FF post launch tried this and could not make enough content.
- Not enough reason to mine for resources. Anemic progression.
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