Yes. It’s very much misleading in my opinion. The website is a form of advertisement for the game, before people decide to purchase and play. Often the only point of information people will read before making a decision to buy or not.
It sets expectations, even though vague as they are, that people can do these things. Stamping it with “coming soon” also sets the expectation that it will be released with those features described.
Personally I think there should be some time given by the devs, prior to and as features are developed, to setting and managing player expectations, so we all know what to expect before an update hits test.
I obviously know plans change during development for any number of reasons, but I still think it worthwhile keeping players appraised of those plans, so nothing is open to the wild speculations we’ve seen so much of on the forums.
Basically all I want is for us to be able to discuss facts, not “what-ifs” and “why-nots”.
it doesn’t promise one type of private worlds that gives full control over everything
well, anyway we could argue here forever,
my point is: let’s wait and see as next types of rental worlds are implemented before thinking that devs don’t know what they are doing or that they will hurt the future of the game (not talking about anything you personally said; just remembered a few posts of players who seem to be experts at game developing and marketing who predict bleak future if the sovereign worlds don’t offer more )
And I’m sure people will be able to do these things - but the sovereign worlds update came after a lot of information about how the so-called private worlds will be divided into different types.
So, sovereign worlds don’t represent the entire rental worlds category (and sure don’t represent entirety of devs plans for rental worlds) and if they don’t offer full creative control it doesn’t make “personal worlds” description on the website inaccurate (although it could use re-writing as much as a few other sections there, to be more in line with changing shape of the game).
haha, that one made my day I think I think it’s too twisted for my current post-night work state of mind so it made me laugh at my flattening brain waves
Hmm I was just catching up on this, on my way to bed.
Then I saw this:
I’m surprised this wasn’t dug up for the plotting arguments discussions.
There are so many things that COULD be happening. I’m sure that there are systems and subsystems yet to be developed, and a lot of things that can likely evolve.
It’s good to see rental/private/sovereign worlds roll out. I’d have to agree that expectations are important, and one thing that has come clear is that there is an amazing spectrum of expectations here.
I suspect that among the developers’ intentions is a desire to keep things moving forward. When I came here things were very different in terms of communications, and I’d say I caught the very end of that, as I had several interactions with James during my first weeks on the forum and was completely shocked when it was pointed out to me that he was the CEO of the company.
I’ve literally never experienced that level of engagement with a development studio before, in truth the only time I’ve seen anything like it was from a publisher who wasn’t developing the game and thus could always “side with the users”.
Anyways there was a pretty clear point when things went sour, and I don’t resent the specific connections that James or other developers have retained with the community, though it sometimes seems like things would be a lot less contentious if they were just more open to begin with.
Despite all that the game continues to evolve and while we occasionally lose some players over new rules or features I feel like since release, it has mostly continued to get better.
I think it’s clear that this release can’t possibly suit everyone’s hopes for private planets by now. Still looking forward to seeing what they bring on though.
A beacon that protects the world for you. Not from you. So it saves it all for you to do with what you will without interference from other players but still has regen rules instead of having the entire thing plotted. They just took beacon perms and applied them to the world.
Also of note…if Aenea is right and we can PM the devs with an idea of what we want then mountain height and sunset color are both configurable via the biomes we choose and the lighting (if this can be set independently of profile…which like technically in world builder it can be.
Also I PMed Leah about folks sharing “well James said this to me” thing if that info should not be made public. She said to take all of it with a grain of salt. He shares general ideas with the original oortian backers and that things change daily there at HQ. She also admitted that they need to share more info on Sovereigns and that this info would be coming soon (like Aenea said).
Information allows people to make informed opinions. Currently the lack of information for my issues is turning me off from continuing to play and support the game. I get that Wonderstruck is a small studio, but the lack of information from the devs just continue the next point below.
Yes! This. This is SPECIFICALLY why I continue to ask about a roadmap. Devs, why so silent on this? I’m so tired of seeing threads constantly full of “what-ifs” and “why-nots” and other spreading of information that may or may not be factual because person X posts about subject C stating developer J mentioning this in a private message. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s backer perks for additional info, but for crying out loud, backers shouldn’t be getting ALL of it while we continue to bark up the wrong tree, figuratively speaking. And this doesn’t involve just Sovereign Worlds, but more importantly the direction the game itself as a whole is going. I feel so many of the existing systems (Crafting, Resource gathering, Mining, Cave-exploration/spelunking, Economical actions (Buying, selling, etc), Combat, Character customization, Skills, Farming, Goo & Pigment processing, Spray Painting, and so on) … are half-baked, half-finished, half-implemented systems with no rhyme or reason behind why certain things are currently certain ways. We don’t know why certain things are certain ways, and the developers seem super tight-lipped on answering any questions about this.
Crafting
What are the tiers supposed to be?
Why do the tiers seem to overlap?
Why are there 5 or 6 steps across 3 or 4 different machines for certain blocks compared to other blocks?
Combat
Titans?
Shields?
Hunting updates?
Colors
Why color rarity?
Why can only X and Y be spray painted, but A and B cannot?
The list can go on.
I wish they’d see that other parts of the game also need further explaining on both plans and why systems are like they are, not just Sovereign Worlds.
Fully right there with you. Feels like the period between 2016 and 2017 with weekly dev log updates was a golden age and none of us knew we were living the dream until it had already passed and now we’re in the informational dark ages
After a break, I open the forum to see if anything catches my eye, stumble on this thread, start reading…
I thought the ‘world stone’ or whatever it’s called would offer a ton of customization options, I trusted the devs to do good work, so I wasn’t reading a lot on the forum these days, but randomly jumping on this thread to read shows gives me some concerns.
OBVIOUSLY, the landscape on a Sovereign World would be really important. I’m never gonna rent a world if I can’t decide how every aspect of the world looks.
If I’m to establish a base/house on a new world, I will scout available worlds until I find one that has the kind of landscape that fits my desires. I can’t believe that the devs wouldn’t think of this.
Also, I wouldn’t want a world where it snows or rains all the time (but someone might want that!).
OBVIOUSLY I would want my world to be close enough to my base on Raxxa…
And with this, I still don’t know how much a sovereign world would cost…
This goes back to something I said a while ago, and one of the reasons I haven’t played the game in 20+ days without missing it : there is no roadmap > we don’t know what’s coming and when (but we know a few things because of some people like Xaldafax - which should be the work of a community managers) > the devs work on stuff while keeping us in the dark > they spring features on us in testing phase > it’s basically already too late to argue with them on a lot of things.
Then you can get started on the harder stuff. Make some prefabs (easy enough), assign constraint types to them and you’re ready to go! Time to make sure you get the density and threshold noises to within about .001 of the value you want. Repeat for each prefab (this is trees, rocks, etc.).
Once those are all nice and set for one biome you gotta get to the cave system by perfecting some 3D noise. Simple enough. But since this is for a sovereign world you gotta make sure you don’t make it too OP with 0 guidelines.
Then tackle some strata. This is about 1/80th of the work needed for a “good” strata if you really want to control every aspect.
After that you get into heightmaps. They look easy but if you’re trying to control every variation of noise within the practically countless variations of possible seeds so that you can control every aspect of your world then more power to you!
Repeat the above per biome.
I’m excited to see how it looks!
I will say I agree and always have agreed on roadmap and needing more details.
I do want to throw out one possible add-on suggestion on this, having been thinking on this a lot- might be better in another/separate thread so feel free to move mods if needed…
A “Regions” tab or option on Overview on the World Control. This would give a list of regions on the planet, with override options on the plotting permissions (not visiting, but on plotting this might be doable). So say I have a world where I have given ten people plotting permissions. I could go into the Regional control and disable certain regions from ANY plotting. I could also maybe enable public plotting for all on a few others. If someone visits, they can open the Regions tab on that world and just see No Plotting Permissions or Permissions to Plot on each region on the list (Edit: To make it even better, for these rentals, also add in ability to warp to the region center for 100c!). Also, it would give the owner the ability to reclaim all beacons in just that region.
This would be very valuable I think in keeping people within certain areas and protecting others, without having to tell every friend or especially if you want to allow public building but only in certain areas - “Ok, build here, don’t build here, ect.”
I really wish knowing the regions had a bigger role. Like the ability to warp to the discovered regions on the planet from a list. But that’s off topic and probably deserves it’s own post
I was sincere in saying I’m excited to see how it looks! After delving through the basics of world builder I determined I’m totally fine just using the pre-built biomes and sharing what little knowledge I have with those on the forums who don’t have access to the program. I have true respect for anyone who wants to get a mastery of the program! Hopefully you’ll be able to teach me some things some day!
Do it! There’s loads of scope to add to the mapping and region system currently in game. And it’d give everyone a break from discussing sovereign planets
)
I think it’s too twisted for my current post-night work state of mind so it made me laugh at my flattening brain waves
