Dev Diary #12

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders,

originally this was supposed to be a Sneak Peek telling you something about engines the upcoming update brings, but in a bit over a month we will be presenting Ylands at Gamescom, talking to media about the game’s future, and we felt you deserved to know what we’re going to tell them in advance - at least about one specific topic.

Let’s talk about our monetization plans.

When we arrive at Steam we will be adding some additional monetization to the game. Because this is often a very sensitive topic I would like to take this opportunity to explain in detail how is that going to work - but let’s make one thing clear right away. The question everyone is probably asking now is “If I buy the game and don’t spend a single dollar more, will I miss something? Will my experience suffer in any way?” The answer to this is a definite NO.

The monetization planned for the Steam release will have zero effect on gameplay mechanics, your skills or your progression through the games.

Those who have been with us for some time already know that pretty much every single of our regular updates bring cool new features and things (others can find information about 24 updates we've released so far at our roadmap). That won’t change. Our updates will still be bringing tons of new objects, building blocks, clothes, weapons etc. accessible to everyone for free. Actually, with most of the departments increasing in size 2-3 times you can expect things to get a lot more interesting. All that for what we believe is a reasonable purchase price (10 USD now, 15/20 USD in early access / for a finished game) for a game that will be updated for many years; a game with no paid updates and no hidden costs.

The system we’re proposing is, we believe, fair, has nothing to do with ugly “pay 2 win” schemes and, perhaps most importantly, motivates and rewards those who bring quality things into the game.

So how we think things might work in future?

* we plan to introduce a “hard” currency called coyns (fun fact: just like ylands is an archaic way of spelling “islands”, coyns are the same to “coins”)

 

Will we now start misspelling the word coin in our everyday life like it happened with island?

 

* players should be able to purchase coyns for real world currency and then use them to purchase “cosmetic” objects (that have no effect on gameplay) or things community made  

* players will be able to earn coyns - while we expect most of the Workshop creations to remain free for everyone, it would be up to every content creator to decide if they want to share their creations for free or sell them (we will get to this at some later Developer Diary as it requires some in-depth discussion). This is a win-win scenario for everyone, resulting in Workshop having more high-quality content.

* at some point we may let players exchange the coyns they earn back to real world currency. Yes, if you're skilled, if your creations are so good, or your games so enjoyable that others are willing to pay for them, it would be  only fair you get rewarded... and who knows, maybe in the future, when Ylands grows bigger, making amazing things for others may become your regular (dream) job

Alright, so you have bought some coyns (or earned them), what can you get that is otherwise inaccessible in Ylands Steam version?

* for some game items (weapons, armors...) players will be able to purchase visual upgrades that will make them look different. The important word here is visual - the object will retain all its original stats, so, again, there will be no “pay 2 win”. Not now, not ever.

* players will be able to purchase some decorations and place them in the world - things like paintings, statues and such. Once again, every single object will be evaluated to see if it doesn’t bring some kind of competitive advantage to those who buy it. 

* like written above you will be able to use coyns to get paid content from the Workshop

So these are our current plans, and as always, we’re listening to what you have to say. Nothing is set in stone - things that won’t work will change, you will always be more than welcome to tell us your worries or doubts and you will always get an honest (non-automated ) reply, and together we will try to find the proper solution. In the end, there is only one goal. To keep making a great game that as many players as possible can enjoy for years to come while making sure it stays a nice, friendly and honest place.  

Until we meet again, my fellow ylanders, stay classy and have a great time! 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

Hey Ales! Thanks for the update. I'm not 100% convinced yet this is something I'm happy with, and I've also got a load of questions:

What happens if I sell my boat for example, and someone decides to buy it, then resells or rebuilds it and resells that for less? Will we have some form of copyrights? I've spent some time in designing items in second life, only to have them copied/ripped off, which means all my hard work was pretty much gone.

Also, it's very important to have a realistic value. I've played black desert online for example, a €40 game, if you were to buy every single ingame item ONCE you would have to spend €9000 to get it. On top of a game which you already paid for. None of those items adds any skills, changes any mechanics or progression, yet the fact that you have to pay truckloads of money to get all content for a game you bought completely destroyed the fun for me. It's not fun looking like a poor bastard in a game for which you have spent €40.

How would monetization work for serverhosts like me? If you guys are charging coyns for additional content, can I do the same on my server? Like the creative people I feel I'm also contributing by hosting a dedicated 24/7 server where I will be spending time to give others a fun game experience.

For MMO's and MOBA's I can see where the advantages are, as a lot of people will see the visual items, there is a lot of progress etcetera. Would the items be purely clothing related or also building? As having fancier building blocks/items will give certain players the ability to stand out over the rest. Seeing as this is also a game aimed at younger players I feel quite sorry for them having to spend what is a lot of money for them to get access to those items, this definitely throws up a barrier in a game which has a nice casual vibe to me.

Also, talking about younger players, could there be some sort of protection to prevent them from getting scammed off their money? I've got a feeling that there will be people out there after those people's coyns seeing you can turn them back into real life money. The amount of scam attempts I have had on me over CSGO items are insane, over 50 last year.

Regarding the workshop: Most workshops in great games such as gary's mod, CSGO, scrap mechanic, GTA V, Arma 2, Arma 3 are monetized, yet they are absolutely full of awesome content. I understand that while Ylands may have less appeal in making mods for some people, on the other hand it's rather easy to make them because of the visual style.

Please don't think I'm being cheap here, I spend quite some money in hosting my Ylands server for nothing in return at the moment. I fully understand that the bills have to be paid at Bohemia and I'm willing to pay for more fun content, but please keep it simple and accessible for everyone. I honestly would much prefer DLC's like in the Arma series, including the option to play with people who own the DLC but miss features like the ability to sail, build or ride certain boats and car types, but still be able to have other players around you who will be using them. This way it will be very easy to get into the game and have fun, without missing out as much. It gives people the option to have access to everything in the game for a very fair price.

I've got a feeling that the impact of such a system is a little bit underestimated. Also thanks for reading this, It's nearly as long as your original post  

Adrie

Edited July 14, 2017 by WijkagentAdrie

[Myrik Greene 49]

Thank you, great feedback. I think we have quite some experience and realize pretty much all that you just have said. With servers: it is actually one of the main reasons and one idea is that you would be able to rent a server for coyns and charge also users coyns in one way or another when playing on it. Also, we really want to discussion and feedback about this subject as much as possible.

[chivas477 56]

Got to say i have the same concerns that @WijkagentAdrie has. Only thing i disagree with him and @Myrik Greene, on the point of server hosting, and the reply on people being able to rent servers for coyns and charge coyns for players to play on their servers.

I believe private server hosting, shouldn't be meddled by the Ylands Team, if the case of charging coyns, was on a official server ran by the Ylands Team, then i don't have a problem with that, but on private servers i can't agree on that.

My point is when the game gets a bigger audience, the number of private servers will rise, if you the Ylands Team want to allow the private hosts to be linked with the official coyn system, you should have to supervise every server that does that, to avoid scammers that exploit the system (for example a person pays 10 coyns to play on a server and then the server goes offline the day after and goes down for a long period of time or just doesn't come back, making it a loss for the person who paid to play on the server)

 I don't think that will be a possible task, to check every private server that does that. Private servers should adopt the same system Minecraft has, the servers are ran how the host likes, if he want people to help him pay for the server set up a patreon page or a donation system on a website, so people can help him out. What i completely do not feel it will be a good choice and hope you listen, is link the coyn systems to private server hosting, it will open a door for a disaster waiting to happen.

I give the example of minecraft because i play it since its alpha version, and it's concept can be seen inside Ylands, as well. Both Sandbox games, where you can create, whatever you imagine.

I sincerely hope you listen. My case is it is very hard to supervise servers, can you be responsible for server hosts that exploit the system and trick,specially younger players, out of their coyns? Can you be responsible of server hosts griefing their players? Because when you link your coyn system to that, you should be held responsible on all that.

The workshop coyn system supervision can be done. As it's difficulty is not compared with a server supervision, as there are not that much relative factors, as for example server uptime, a workshop work can be easily detected as scam or not, if you charge coyns on one block, and show a different picture on the preview, or you claim something. There isn't a that much gray area on workshop works, Specially with steam workshop, where there are comments, upvoting and downvoting, and reports.

I hope you take my points into consideration. Keep up the good work

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

37 minutes ago, Myrik Greene said:

Thank you, great feedback. I think we have quite some experience and realize pretty much all that you just have said. With servers: it is actually one of the main reasons and one idea is that you would be able to rent a server for coyns and charge also users coyns in one way or another when playing on it. Also, we really want to discussion and feedback about this subject as much as possible.

Would people who don't rent/host in Coyns also have the option of accepting coins, either as donations or in trade for certain privileges/items? There has been a lot going on for Arma 2/3 monetizing.

Regarding the whole Coyns plan: in my job we've got the acronym KISS, keep it simple stupid  I think the Coyns system (or at least to make it work properly) is very complicated and takes away the simplicity of Ylands. I think all the initial goals of monetizing, offering more content and filling the workshop can just as easily be done with DLC's.

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hi Adrie,

thanks for your feedback and questions! As I said in the post - we posted this early enough so that when the system will appear in the game you will have all your questions answered (and we might learn a thing or two from discussing these issues with you as well) so please ask every question you have...

Myrik has already addressed the servers, let me elaborate on other topics:

The first thing to say is that we fully understand that when we let players sell their creations we need to make sure they will be protected enough from people who would try to make money off something they didn't create. We have thought this through well enough and we will have means of making sure your rights will be respected - I won't go into details in here, it will be a topic of yet another Dev Diary post but know that we believe that some protection of the creator is an imperative prerequisite for this system to work (actually some features that will help with that, although not visible from the outside, have been already implemented in the game).

I'm not really familiar enough with Black Desert monetization system and at this moment I can't tell you any specific numbers but just from what you wrote, I believe our model will be different. Just as stated in the post, many objects will be simply visual upgrades to existing items. Sure, once this system is online and there are enough upgrades, you could count the price of every single upgrade being sold there and probably end up with quite a high number. The question here is, though, in order to enjoy the game do you really need access to every single visual upgrade of every item that has one? Unless you're using Cube to get your items you need to take into account that you can use/enjoy only upgrades for items that you found in the game. If you, for example, never acquire a certain sword there is no point for you to buy an upgrade for it or regret you don't have it... And as for decorations - those are planned to sell cheap so the question is, again, if, hypothetically, 12 months from now there are 50 different paintings sold as decorations (in addition to many "free" ones that we'll add over the time as well) do you have to buy all of them? 
What I am trying to say is that we feel player won't really have no need to have every single object that is being sold. The way I see it - if you're building a house and want to have one or two paintings there, you will be able to pick from many free ones available in the game (and you can bet that those will be pretty as well ). You will be able to pick some that other players may offer for free at the Workshop. And if you really won't like any of those only then you'll probably buy two paintings for some small fee. At no point, there will be any need for you to invest large sums of money into the game to enjoy it. Also, it should be said that Ylands is no ordinary game - eventually there will be MANY games created by us or by other players where having upgrades and decorations will make nt sense or won't even be allowed (if the creator decides so).

Younger players: Ylands is first and foremost a family-friendly game. We have already planned some sort of parental controls that will let parents limit what can their kids do in the game.

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

1 minute ago, chivas477 said:

Got to say i have the same concerns that @WijkagentAdrie has. Only thing i disagree with him and @Myrik Greene, on the point of server hosting, and the reply on people being able to rent servers for coyns and charge coyns for players to play on their servers.

I believe private server hosting, shouldn't be meddled by the Ylands Team, if the case of charging coyns, was on a official server ran by the Ylands Team, then i don't have a problem with that, but on private servers i can't agree on that.

My point is when the game gets a bigger audience, the number of private servers will rise, if you the Ylands Team want to allow the private hosts to be linked with the official coyn system, you should have to supervise every server that does that, to avoid scammers that exploit the system (for example a person pays 10 coyns to play on a server and then the server goes offline the day after and goes down for a long period of time or just doesn't come back, making it a loss for the person who paid to play on the server)

 I don't think that will be a possible task, to check every private server that does that. Private servers should adopt the same system Minecraft has, the servers are ran how the host likes, if he want people to help him pay for the server set up a patreon page or a donation system on a website, so people can help him out. What i completely do not feel it will be a good choice and hope you listen, is link the coyn systems to private server hosting, it will open a door for a disaster waiting to happen.

I give the example of minecraft because i play it since its alpha version, and it's concept can be seen inside Ylands, as well. Both Sandbox games, where you can create, whatever you imagine.

I sincerely hope you listen. My case is it is very hard to supervise servers, can you be responsible for server hosts that exploit the system and trick,specially younger players, out of their coyns? Can you be responsible of server hosts griefing their players? Because when you link your coyn system to that, you should be held responsible on all that.

The workshop coyn system supervision can be done. As it's difficulty is not compared with a server supervision, as there are not that much relative factors, as for example server uptime, a workshop work can be easily detected as scam or not, if you charge coyns on one block, and show a different picture on the preview, or you claim something. There isn't a that much gray area on workshop works, Specially with steam workshop, where there are comments, upvoting and downvoting, and reports.

I hope you take my points into consideration. Keep up the good work

I'm not so much after pay to play, more curious whether Bohemia allows people to play for certain rights like "premium players" only have access to build on certain Islands on the server or get free resources. I myself would only be accepting donations with no return, as I feel that players already paid for the game, but if servers will allow 100+ people and cost will go up massively I too will have to think about a way to pay the bills  

Regarding the workshop: There's still ways of copying someones work and selling it for less or even as your own work! It would take loads of people to keep checking this on the workshop.

Adrie

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

3 minutes ago, Aleš Ulm said:

Hi Adrie,

thanks for your feedback and questions! As I said in the post - we posted this early enough so that when the system will appear in the game you will have all your questions answered (and we might learn a thing or two from discussing these issues with you as well) so please ask every question you have...

Myrik has already addressed the servers, let me elaborate on other topics:

The first thing to say is that we fully understand that when we let players sell their creations we need to make sure they will be protected enough from people who would try to make money off something they didn't create. We have thought this through well enough and we will have means of making sure your rights will be respected - I won't go into details in here, it will be a topic of yet another Dev Diary post but know that we believe that some protection of the creator is an imperative prerequisite for this system to work (actually some features that will help with that, although not visible from the outside, have been already implemented in the game).

I'm not really familiar enough with Black Desert monetization system and at this moment I can't tell you any specific numbers but just from what you wrote, I believe our model will be different. Just as stated in the post, many objects will be simply visual upgrades to existing items. Sure, once this system is online and there are enough upgrades, you could count the price of every single upgrade being sold there and probably end up with quite a high number. The question here is, though, in order to enjoy the game do you really need access to every single visual upgrade of every item that has one? Unless you're using Cube to get your items you need to take into account that you can use/enjoy only upgrades for items that you found in the game. If you, for example, never acquire a certain sword there is no point for you to buy an upgrade for it or regret you don't have it... And as for decorations - those are planned to sell cheap so the question is, again, if, hypothetically, 12 months from now there are 50 different paintings sold as decorations (in addition to many "free" ones that we'll add over the time as well) do you have to buy all of them? 
What I am trying to say is that we feel player won't really have no need to have every single object that is being sold. The way I see it - if you're building a house and want to have one or two paintings there, you will be able to pick from many free ones available in the game (and you can bet that those will be pretty as well ). You will be able to pick some that other players may offer for free at the Workshop. And if you really won't like any of those only then you'll probably buy two paintings for some small fee. At no point, there will be any need for you to invest large sums of money into the game to enjoy it. Also, it should be said that Ylands is no ordinary game - eventually there will be MANY games created by us or by other players where having upgrades and decorations will make not sense or won't even be allowes (if the creator decides so).

Younger players: Ylands is first and foremost a family-friendly game. We have already planned some sort of parental controls that will let parents limit what can their kids do in the game.

Hey Ales, thanks for the reply! (Also to Myrik and chivas!)

For the copyrights I'm still not sure how you are going to implement this in a satisfying way: say for example someone builds my boat, you probably protect that build so that they can't resell it. What would happen if they were to buy it, place it in a world, then build a replica OR a copy in a different colour? How much do things have to be different in order for them to be considered different builds?

Also, can we have shared rights, if we build items together with a certain split? For example my friend gets 75% of the profits and I will get 25%?

Regarding needing upgrades for every items: Although I'm quite sure that the depth of the game will be a lot bigger soon already, I still have a feeling that on a server, within about 2-3 weeks playing you will have the possibility to craft nearly every sword, armor, block etc. Especially in freeplace mode certain blocks can be useful to create nice montages, so certain colors can impact what you can design and build a lot. In black desert everything is visual as well! 

I've been thinking of coming up with some sort of intermediate solution: Could we have the possibility of buying complete packs of items at a massive reduction, so they will function like a DLC? I would like to have the possibility to have all content for a fair price, but this would also give players the option to buy just what they want, and on the other hand keeps the possibility of buying seperate items. Or what about a season pass, which will give you all the items that will come out for a certain amount of time, say a half year. 

Adrie

[chivas477 56]

2 minutes ago, WijkagentAdrie said:

I'm not so much after pay to play, more curious whether Bohemia allows people to play for certain rights like "premium players" only have access to build on certain Islands on the server or get free resources. I myself would only be accepting donations with no return, as I feel that players already paid for the game, but if servers will allow 100+ people and cost will go up massively I too will have to think about a way to pay the bills  

Regarding the workshop: There's still ways of copying someones work and selling it for less or even as your own work! It would take loads of people to keep checking this on the workshop.

Adrie

@WijkagentAdrie I do agree on your points, i sincerely only see disaster if they go the route of players have to pay coyns on playing certain private servers. I sincerely believe if the server host wants help on keeping the server up or some extra cash for the time invested on monitoring griefers, cheaters and exploiters in the server, he should get his own private donation system, patreon or setting up a paypal where players can donate to him.

@Aleš Ulm I understand it's early like you said, i hope you hear the feedback, and be transparent as possible, and show the players  the iterations of the system, before it going live. As i'm confident in the Ylands Team abilities, i do think it will need the player support for it to work, if people feel like it's a way to suck their money out of their wallet, they will most likely won't adhere to the coyn system.

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Adrie,

you're welcome!

As for protecting your creations - I'm sorry but we'd really rather discuss this inside a separate thread in near future as we feel (and the quick reaction shows  ) that there's already enough to process and discuss. Let me just say the concerns you've raised we've taken into account and that we really understand that for the system to work properly protection of rights needs to work.

"Especially in freeplace mode certain blocks can be useful to create nice montages, so certain colors can impact what you can design and build a lot"
This may be a slight misunderstanding - we want players to be creative and create great things ... without having to pay anything extra  . At this very moment, we're working on a new system, that will let player recolor a great number of items so if for example, you were lacking blocks of certain colors, it would be super easy for you to get them. The same goes for additional shapes of building blocks that are in the works. We want to you to be able to customize things yourself - we'll be massively improving the painting workstation. We want the players to have every single mean to express their creativity and if we find that they are missing some objects or tools we will add them as soon as possible - for free, obviously, . The monetization system isn't in any way about asking money for "basic" things, things that make Ylands what it is. And you can trust me when I say that amount of "free" content that will come to the game in the next 12 months will be enormous.

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

@WijkagentAdrie It is indeed valid point but because this all is very new and we're coming to you with this early, many times (just like right now) we just won't be able just to say yes or no right away. Things like these we need to discuss first, but be assured that you will get your answer soon (but please bear in mind that it's Friday evening here ).  

[Myrik Greene 49]

With servers, there is one problem in general: server hosting costs money and it means server hosting is inevitably a commercial venture. We can see this in Arma or Dayz and we know there is not a perfect solution for this problem. However, we think there needs to be a mechanism in place that would provide an easy and fair mechanism for all involved. In general, there is one aspect that is important to understand: for players, to get access to an online system where they could spend hundreds or thousands hours playing,  we need to have something in place that would make it economically sustainable in one way or another. Usually, the solution is that games are very closed ecosystems or do not provide much online infrastructure at all or charge extra for it.

[chivas477 56]

@Myrik Greene I understand your point, well i can only hope, you and the team fine tune the system to the best it can be.

I hope you keep the conversation alive on this topic and other topics, sincerily love the game.

Keep up the Good Work, You Guys ROCK!

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

28 minutes ago, Myrik Greene said:

With servers, there is one problem in general: server hosting costs money and it means server hosting is inevitably a commercial venture. We can see this in Arma or Dayz and we know there is not a perfect solution for this problem. However, we think there needs to be a mechanism in place that would provide an easy and fair mechanism for all involved. In general, there is one aspect that is important to understand: for players, to get access to an online system where they could spend hundreds or thousands hours playing,  we need to have something in place that would make it economically sustainable in one way or another. Usually, the solution is that games are very closed ecosystems or do not provide much online infrastructure at all or charge extra for it.

Very valid point! I've played on loads of servers over the years and now I've got a job I feel like it's my time to give back to a community, that's why I'm paying for hosting now  There are quite a few people/groups just like me who will do the same, fully free of cost!

1 hour ago, Aleš Ulm said:

@WijkagentAdrie It is indeed valid point but because this all is very new and we're coming to you with this early, many times (just like right now) we just won't be able just to say yes or no right away. Things like these we need to discuss first, but be assured that you will get your answer soon (but please bear in mind that it's Friday evening here ).  

It's friday here as well, enjoy your weekends  And I'm looking forward to it!

1 hour ago, Aleš Ulm said:

Adrie,

you're welcome!

As for protecting your creations - I'm sorry but we'd really rather discuss this inside a separate thread in near future as we feel (and the quick reaction shows  ) that there's already enough to process and discuss. Let me just say the concerns you've raised we've taken into account and that we really understand that for the system to work properly protection of rights needs to work.

"Especially in freeplace mode certain blocks can be useful to create nice montages, so certain colors can impact what you can design and build a lot"
This may be a slight misunderstanding - we want players to be creative and create great things ... without having to pay anything extra  . At this very moment, we're working on a new system, that will let player recolor a great number of items so if for example, you were lacking blocks of certain colors, it would be super easy for you to get them. The same goes for additional shapes of building blocks that are in the works. We want to you to be able to customize things yourself - we'll be massively improving the painting workstation. We want the players to have every single mean to express their creativity and if we find that they are missing some objects or tools we will add them as soon as possible - for free, obviously, . The monetization system isn't in any way about asking money for "basic" things, things that make Ylands what it is. And you can trust me when I say that amount of "free" content that will come to the game in the next 12 months will be enormous.

Painting stuff is one of the things we need most, as well as those additional shapes  This is gonna make our builds so much better!

Adrie

[Myrik Greene 49]

Just to clarify one key aspect: we are not going to remove or limit anything that is possible already. Quite the opposite. We are planning to add so much to the game that would not be in any way related to the optional monetization. The idea is to address few problems and add extra layers to what we hope may be really unique game. Our team is growing, we have spent so many years on the game and we really value our little community so much. What I suggest is that we structure the discussion as it is really more than one area. I think we should talk about Servers, Cosmetic Items (we call them Collectibles, Decorations, Avatars, Pets), Custom Creations.

Our goal is not to remove the ability to freely create, share and host anything, or limit the game itself somehow in order to add or push an extra monetization. But we believe we could add something on top that further enhance the game experience. E.g. hosting your own game servers is totally fine with us but I think it is good if there is a way to rent a server easily from us and there have an integrated way how players could easily contribute to the hosting costs. We dream about larger more persistent online communities playing on servers one day and from our experience, that really needs some form of monetization. it is a long way ahead but we are ready and dedicated to it.

 

[chivas477 56]

I truly understand what you said, and i do hope the discussion stays alive. The only problem i find is really the server aspect, and private servers charging coyns for players to play on their servers, i really doubt that you could really control if the host abuses or not, as for example takes the coyns from players and then just takes the server offline. or if the host is a griefer, or if they are depicting 18+ creations without warning to the playerbase of the server, affecting a 5 year old playing in that server after he payed coyns( pixel art of penis as example people having sex).

My point is if you give the ability of a private server host of charging people coyns for playing in his server, and if the server host does anything mentioned above. It will link you to the abuser, make you partly responsible of facilitating his scam, or making parents angry because you let their child see 18+ content on a server that he's playing after paying "coyns" the official currency of the game.

I hope you don't feel like, i'm being over the top, i'm just giving fair warnings on the point of allowing private server hosts, charging official currency to play on their servers. It's not a case if it will happen or won't, because it will, people are people and that will never change, there will be cases of server hosts doing what i mentioned above.

The main point is can you really have a iron grip on all the private servers that are charging coyns to play on them? Will you be able check on all of them all the time? I really doubt it.... And that is why i'm stating my concern on that feature, i can only see a "shitstorm" (pardon my french :P) happening.

Keep up the good work

[Myrik Greene 49]

49 minutes ago, chivas477 said:

private servers charging coyns for players to play on their servers

We really did not plan this to be possible. Just to clarify: if server is hosted privately, it can not charge coyns. The only way would be a server or game that is hosted by us. But yes, you are making really valid points here. The idea is this: someone creates a really great and popular game mode, that requires also dedicated servers. We have a solution in place where you can simply have the infrastructure running by us. There you pay us in coyns (₡) for renting the server but you also can charge players coyns for playing. This way we can easily control any abuse. Primarily, the whole economy would work within the game and in coyns. But it could really allow under some very strict rules to let people make real money out of the game under a regulated mechanism. And to clarify it a bit more: there would be only two ways how someone could get coyns: directly from us or from other players via us (servers or workshop). This way, we would have control. We think trading between players should be possible, but coyns would not be part of this. There is one aspect I quite like about it as well: someone working for the community (e.g. content creator) may find a way to be rewarded by coins and could spend it in the game (buying some cool items - as despite the plan is for cosmetic items, we believe there may be many really really coold things made available). 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

6 minutes ago, Myrik Greene said:

We really did not plan this to be possible. Just to clarify: if server is hosted privately, it can not charge coyns. The only way would be a server or game that is hosted by us. But yes, you are making really valid points here. The idea is this: someone creates a really great and popular game mode, that requires also dedicated servers. We have a solution in place where you can simply have the infrastructure running by us. There you pay us in coyns (₡) for renting the server but you also can charge players coyns for playing. This way we can easily control any abuse. Primarily, the whole economy would work within the game and in coyns. But it could really allow under some very strict rules to let people make real money out of the game under a regulated mechanism. And to clarify it a bit more: there would be only two ways how someone could get coyns: directly from us or from other players via us (servers or workshop). This way, we would have control. We think trading between players should be possible, but coyns would not be part of this. There is one aspect I quite like about it as well: someone working for the community (e.g. content creator) may find a way to be rewarded by coins and could spend it in the game (buying some cool items - as despite the plan is for cosmetic items, we believe there may be many really really coold things made available). 

Could people still donate/give coyns to private hosted servers, not hosted through you?

[Myrik Greene 49]

Just now, WijkagentAdrie said:

Could people still donate/give coyns to private hosted servers, not hosted through you?

That was considered risky pretty much for reasons chiivas477 mentioned. There could be ways to solve this but it is pretty safe to say that in every case we will need to have a strict mechanism in place for any transfers of coyns between users as there we see the highest potential risk of malicious behaviours.

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

Just now, Myrik Greene said:

That was considered risky pretty much for reasons chiivas477 mentioned. There could be ways to solve this but it is pretty safe to say that in every case we will need to have a strict mechanism in place for any transfers of coyns between users as there we see the highest potential risk of malicious behaviours.

I see exactly where you are coming from  On the other hand, I'm planning on hosting a thriving community on my dedicated server. It would be pretty harsh to penalize me for not hosting through you guys. Unless you guys can offer same server specs for the same price (which I honestly doubt, since there is an extra layer in between the hosting party and the buying party which has to spend time and thus cost money).

What would happen if I would make some sort of " donator trophy" and put it in the workshop, so people can technically still donate but also get something in return? Although this system can be abused in the exact same way as direct donations, I don't see how this can be stopped when normal trades are there. And that's I think one of the major drawbacks of such economy: there will always be malicious behavior, people trying to gain from others in ways that aren't fair. By simply blocking it all you also prevent people willing to make something nice for the community from getting rewarded.

Adrie

[Myrik Greene 49]

Just now, WijkagentAdrie said:

I see exactly where you are coming from  On the other hand, I'm planning on hosting a thriving community on my dedicated server. It would be pretty harsh to penalize me for not hosting through you guys. Unless you guys can offer same server specs for the same price (which I honestly doubt, since there is an extra layer in between the hosting party and the buying party which has to spend time and thus cost money).

What would happen if I would make some sort of " donator trophy" and put it in the workshop, so people can technically still donate but also get something in return? Although this system can be abused in the exact same way as direct donations, I don't see how this can be stopped when normal trades are there. And that's I think one of the major drawbacks of such economy: there will always be malicious behavior, people trying to gain from others in ways that aren't fair. By simply blocking it all you also prevent people willing to make something nice for the community from getting rewarded.

Adrie

I understand what you mean. We definitely will need to think about this aspect more. Generally speaking, this part of our monetization strategy is also the hardest (selling cosmetic items is relatively straightforward). I think one answer may be to go with the same structure as Arma 3 goes currently for such cases https://www.bistudio.com/monetization unless we can come up with something better for Ylands.

[chivas477 56]

Oh okay, well that rest my fears then. Well thank you for clearing that up  keep up the good work, and thanks for the answer

[Hurricane43 36]

I wouldnt in my opinion use gamescon for such a topic this early in the process and not for at least a year or so, and/or even mention it. 

I think this will definitely harm the game an it's marketing if this is something in the early stages being considered before Steam EA. 

Go with what got you here to this point, a great world, with tons of content, a family friendly atmosphere, amazing soundtrack and community. The utilization of the items in the world to craft what you want is the best and most amazing part of the game, even if the coyns or micro items are different skins, paintings, weapons and armors the vultures (gaming commuinity) will destroy this idea and feel its a pay2win game..... And i can only imagine the negative reviews on steam if this is something that is implemented too soon. 

Edit: If you are only able to find coyns in the world exploring during the early months of EA on steam, and me being an explorer can buy with coyns the aforementioned items then that would be a better idea in my opinion, as this would include sort of an economy to the game. Then after a while the second phase can be implemented, but not at first with what is being floated about.  

I am definitely put off by this topic at this stage in the games existence... 

I am a single player, explorer and even though I wouldn't purchase microtransactions i believe you have to be very delicate with mentioning it and or implementing it. Maybe after the release in a couple years. If funding is an issue maybe setting up a donation button or have a twitch stream weekly where you can have subscribers, patron etc... Even if funding isn't an issue, is tread lightly on the micro and utilize games on to showcase the exploring, building and beautiful things that can be accomplished with the editor... 

My two cents in gaming for 35 years.... 

Edited July 15, 2017 by Hurricane43

[Achilles77 20]

Guys i am sorry i understand where you guys are coming from, I really do, but i don't think going this route is the best for the game, i mean part of the charm of the game is creating your items from materials found in the world. It takes away that feeling of hard work and fun factor of finding stuff if you can just actually buy items. 

The game is amazing, it has such charm.. and this is coming from a guy thats played everything from Quake, Dota, Starcraft, Diablo, gaming for 28 years, and i can tell you now this game is special! 

Just hope buying items doesn't become apart of what this game is meant to be. 

 

Edited July 15, 2017 by Achilles77

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Guys, once again I'd like to thank you for your feedback.

The mature, nice and constructive tone of this discussion about such a "delicate" matter makes it obvious that a great community is forming around Ylands and how much it cares about the game. Since we want Ylands to become something really special and big that will keep growing for many years to come, we understand more than well enough that having such a community is our greatest asset - so you don't really have to ask for this topic to be kept alive  - it won't get suddenly locked or abandoned. We will keep discussing this (and anything else) as long as there are questions to be answered. We will be discussing it continuously after the system gets implemented to see if it's set up properly or needs changing. These discussions are not empty gestures - for over a year now every single day the designers meet at 10 am to discuss everything you suggested or asked for (and many of you know that there have already been many features and adjustments brought into the game based solely on your direct feedback) so please keep asking and suggesting.

Also, no matter what the system we implement in the end looks like, it won't be set in stone. If it doesn't work, if it's flawed in a major way, if the community is unhappy about it. we'll do something to fix it. We won't suddenly stop answering on forums and stick our head in the sand, we will keep talking to you about what the situation is and what we're going to do about it. The important thing to know is that even though we're not a very small company, we're still an indie dev who has the final say about everything in the game, so we can be pretty fast when it comes to fixing or changing anything.

As a side note: since many of us here started our gaming journey with 8-bit computers (or even earlier) looong time ago it's nice to see there are also players like us present in our community!  

We probably won't be able to respond that much during the weekend but don't let it stop you from posting here - we'll get to answer everything at the beginning of the next week. Have a great weekend!