Dev Diary #12

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

Although I do agree that Arlie's post comes over a bit aggressive, I do see exactly where he is coming from and feel quite the same. I feel kinda sad and disappointed (I guess that's where Arlie's response comes from as well) when I read/hear about the Coyns system and it's implications, stuff like this has gone wrong for me before. Buying stuff that isn't worth my money, people reselling things I've spent countless hours on for less money, scammers everywhere. In a more serious/diehard MMO game I think it's inevitable, but Ylands looks so innocent and fun to me that I think those implications are unwanted for this game. I'm very happy you are trying to open this to discussion, and answer as much as you can and release a FAQ, yet the answers aren't taking away my fears for this concept failing. Every "solution" gives 2 new ways for abusing the system, or simply doesn't solve the concern/problem for me. If you need to monetize visual content I think just selling the items for Coyns and not give us the option to trade Coyns and pay for player made content would be better, it's the free market and what people do for just a few cents that bothers me.

Regarding the free market: How is this gonna be regulated? What if people promote stuff in certain ways and their products are not as good as they claim they are? What if they indeed break? What if they resell my stuff for less money/copy it? I know nothing is cast in stone yet but I see no possible easy way of facilitating the Coyns system in a way it won't destroy the fun/community. It will become a place where everyone is after other players money. I get  on average 2/3 friend invites/scam attempts per day on Steam for people after my counter strike skins. I know they are there to scam me but will kids know as well?

Also, on my earlier question: By disabling/enabling certain boats/armors I only meant the updated visual content. Players having the premium armor would see their premium armors, players without wouldn't. This way visual content can be sold in DLC's.

Thanks for reading and doing it this way, I'm sure it can't be much fun getting this much harsh feedback. Please don't take anything personal, I believe every person posting in this topic, including me, only wishes the best for Ylands.

Adrie

[Shadow72 187]

Bethesda's paid mods failed for more reasons than just the mods costing money.

1. Anyone could charge for their mod. In theory it sounds good but in practice people just flooded the market with reuploads and lackluster mods to try and make a quick buck.
2. Using steam as the platform was a terrible choice. They couldn't regulate anything because it wasn't their platform.
3. Creators only got 25% of the money(In my opinion creators should get at least 75% of the money).

 

To make paid mods work for ylands only verified creators should be able to charge for their mods. To become verified there should be a application process where someone looks at your workshop history and checks the quality of your mods and how often the are updated. There should also be strict guidelines on what you can and cannot charge for.

[Lukeocyte 2]

As Adrie has also said I think Arlie needs to be a bit more diplomatic, but I do think he does make a fair number of good arguments. I will say this though, the fact that we are all writing such passionate and long replies says something about the potential we all think Ylands has.

This of course is under the assumption that Bohemia doesn't have any new ideas tucked away on how to do this that others have not thought of. Unfortunately I don't think free-market economics and a rating system will sort this out, simply because that is exactly what has been tried before and failed over and over.

Another example that I think is more relevant, but for some reason has not been mentioned is Minecraft. Clearly Ylands is a competitor. I remember in the golden age of that game we had almost complete control on how we could play the game AND the modding scene was one of the best I've ever experienced. The freedom that Mojang gave to modders and the passion that the community had was amazing and was the sole reason it became so popular. Thaumcraft, WorldEdit, CustomNPCs, etc. etc. (all free with donations)

Now it is entirely something different with the Bedrock/Pocket version. You have the option to pay $2 for 4 skins that are far worse than anything people have made for free. You have maps for $5 that have a couple of trees in them. We have an improved engine and a "marketplace", but it is an extraordinarily stale and boring scene now. Sadly some of the best modders are now leaving as well... RIP Thaumcraft. I and my other friends simply don't play anymore.

So let's be honest about this. You're a company and you make Ylands for a living so profitability is part of the equation (yes I'm sure you enjoy and have passion for your creation as well). You can A) Attempt monetization of mods which has not been successful in a game so far (Unity Engine is a different beast entirely) which will likely stunt growing your playerbase as their are many other competitors who already have an audience. Or you can B) Keep mods free and continue to grow a passionate community and do what Arma has successfully done: release official DLC and curated DLC from the community. It seems like if you don't find a way to grow the community first then regardless of how good your monetization scheme is, nobody will use it.

Seems like what all of us are worried about in one way or another is restriction over the freedom in the game. Just sharing my thoughts and hope you'll consider.

 

 

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

I do see where you all are coming from - I understand that if you didn't care about the game at all we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. And no, reading a harsh feedback isn't really one of the greatest activities I can think of but we do care about the game as well (surprise! :) ) and we feel this a necessary part of the process. This discussion isn't here so that we just tell you how things are going to be, throw in some answers here and there, then tick off "gather some feedback" and go on as if nothing has happened.

Bethesda was mentioned several times so once again - saying that we're going to do the very same thing isn't fair especially given the minimum information we've provided you with so far. I think I mentioned somewhere that we already implemented some things in the game to make our plans possible, there are some important things we're planning for content creators (like that not exactly everyone will be able to charge money for their creations etc.), we can do things with our Workshop that would be impossible to do with Steam Workshop - there are still things you should know before you pass the judgement.

When I said that Bohemia had a lot of experience with modding (yes, not the paid mods) I kind of meant - "so please, give us the benefit of the doubt". Let us get the current update out of the door and finish that detailed FAQ (and yes - we probably should have waited with the monetization plans announcement about two weeks longer in the first place).

Even right now I don't have that much time to give as detailed and precisely-worded answers as I would like to because of the time restraints which can, unfortunatelly, lead to some unwanted simplifications - just like me using "free market" wasn't really ideal since many now probably see it as some Wild West zone with no regulations and rules whatsoever. So to correct that - we believe that "free market mechanisms" should play the most important role in the system - with us setting the initial rules, stepping in where it fails, ideally creating an environment where those failings would be rather marginal issues. 

It may sound overly ambitious (especially in the light of what happened with Bethesda) but ( I think) unlike Bethesda we're asking the community months in advance about their thoughts (and rest assured that most of our devs are reading this and we discuss it). Once again - nothing is set in stone. We genuinely believe we can create a system that would actually encourage quality content creation. We will tell you how we want to achieve it in detail and together we will see if it makes sense. 

[Achilles77 20]

I am just waiting for some info on the next patch  

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

There's a quite detailed Sneak Peek coming out tomorrow with a lot of info on both the upcoming update features and some we're planning to add in the future.

[Hurricane43 36]

DEV DIARY UPDATE TOMMOROW, Love You @Aleš Ulm an @Ane and team.... Give me higher stacks.... 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Hurricane43