Tbf you played a beta. A lot can change between now and full release
wakko@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I’ve played in the Seed closed beta. It’s awful. It’s not a game that anyone should invest any time in. I would describe it as the kind of thing self-absorbed developers build because they enjoy the process of building it, not because anyone but them will enjoy using it.
It’s a lightly-interactive Sims knock-off with all of the soul stripped out, zero story or narrative creation, and instead we’ve got Baby’s First Toy Economy Systems that are so trivially exploitable that it’s ruined every play session I’ve participated in because the entire world’s resources become dominated by 3 players within the first two weeks. There’s a barely-funcional civics system where players can elect somebody national leader, and there’s a toy government of the president’s cronies who can pass policies to alter some national economy settings (tax rate, import/export priorites, etc.).
There’s almost nothing stringing any of the game’s systems together. The developers appear to have a lot of faith that the player will somehow care about the goings on of their bots. But there’s not really all that much going on. Bot-to-bot interactions are shallow and purposeless. There’s just nothing going on in the game to latch onto.
As the saying goes - Imitation is the strongest form of flattery that mediocrity can give to greatness.
Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 4 days ago
TheV2@programming.dev 3 days ago
It’s the curse of niche MMOs, the dream games of some people, that get shredded into disaster, because they don’t have enough players or they will mostly attract players who are clearly not the target audience.
wakko@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m aware. I played Ultima Online.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 4 days ago
“[…] the entire world’s resources become dominated by 3 players within the first two weeks. There’s a barely-funcional civics system where players can elect somebody national leader, and there’s a toy government of the president’s cronies […]”
I mean, that doesn’t sound fun, but actually sounds pretty realistic :(
MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Exploitability sounds pretty terrible as a possibility, but I will say that the devs seem aware of it and the possibility of exploitation doesn’t necessarily sink a game like this. Eve often was such an amazing experience early on precisely because the game had so many openly exploitable systems.
They mention they’re looking to attract the caregiver archetype, which I assume means they’re trying not to bring the purely competitive Eve player, so maybe a healthy starting mix will help with the exploitative feeling early on?
paraphrand@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’ll take a lot of effort to keep the systems from being exploitable like that, I expect. And maybe so much structure will be needed that it’ll become rather un-fun.
I use to be excited about such systems and ideas in games. But I’ve come to realize that players will break and ruin anything you put in front of them.
dil@piefed.zip 4 days ago
Didn’t it work in archeage kinda, and that one star wars mmo (or so I’ve heard)
paraphrand@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Oh, that’s probally true. But those were a long time ago. And the users were still self selecting and in the right headspace.
We have crossed a threshold with the internet and awareness of possible places to be a shithead at these days. If you know what I mean.
It’s like the early days of VR. The social spaces were great until VR got cheaper and more common. Now you need to hunt out the the good groups and social circles and they are hard to find.
whiskerleaf@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s sad to hear! I will definitely have to wait until their systems start clicking then.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sounds like a pretty accurate simulation to me