Recent events have demonstrated how charged an update can be for the community.
Personally my days past playing Ever Quest and several of the MMOs that followed seemed to have formed certain expectations of concepts like ‘Balance’ and ‘Transparency’. Or lack of.
The few Free 2 Play / Pay 2 Win mobile games I played also established some expectations regarding in game goals, achievements and such. As well as excitement for new content.
The bulk of my active gaming / play time was actually over 20 years a go.
After several life evolutions I found myself able to invest a lot of time and energy into crypto and ‘Web3’. Play 2 Earn caught my eye and I watched the rise and fall of several ‘projects’.
I dipped my toes into a few but Crypto Unicorns has received the biggest investment of my time and money. Adult pocket book combined with youths passion for immersive game worlds.
I read and listen to every word I can find about CU. I collect, catalog, compare, and contrast.
The CU MVP and associated community is an interesting thing to study. Many diverse groups interested in the project for a number of reasons.
After recent events and self reflection I have begun to identify the roots of my personal frustrations.
Current interactive program does not have the common qualities associated with typical games. There is a game world, but not the commonly understood game play elements.
As a collectable NFT platform things are vastly more complicated and require more grinding that other projects CU may be compared to.
Literature and pie chats that mention Play 2 Earn attract interest that is soured when it was, currently isn’t, but may be in the future.
So there is no ‘fun’ game play, it is hard to obtain a collectable NFT, and it is too early to Earn. So what is one to do with the current MVP program?
When looking at the available projects the vison for crypto unicorns is really what grabbed my attention. The games loops, generation IP, and more.
When something is advertised as a game and the people behind it a gaming studio it is rather scarry to see updates erode what little positive aspects players managed to find replaced with changes that seem to be very unbalanced and down right punishing.
I think it is fair to say it takes a lot of Faith and Trust for players to invest time and money into this project vs doing other things.
Take buildings as an example. If I focus my efforts, time, money, in game resources in to upgrading a building that later gets nerfed that doesn’t feel good and makes me regret doing so. And a fair amount of MMO PTST surfaces.
Then players are told the solution is to further upgrade buildings. Talk about a kick to the nuts. “You don’t like the Rouge nurf, just lvl up some more. And pray we don’t do it again”
I did not set out to write nearly as much as I did about myself. Just hoping some context helps.
So back to the Title of this post.
More communication about current state of the CU economy (I’m avoiding using the word ‘game’) and community activity inside and outside the MVP (MVP, On-Chain, Discord, Twitter, etc) paired with desired short, mid and long term goals can make a huge difference.
Track and publish more than just the project development road map.
Another example of something that is personally difficult for me.
I believe it has been stated in one way or another, typical during Town Halls or AMAs that the following is desired:
Players create liquidity for items to be added to the RMP
Players Upgrade buildings (upgrade stagnation)
Buy Unicorns and Lands from players on open market
Then updates:
Make it harder to farm berries
Reduce material / token emissions
Increase crafting difficulty
What would I like to see?
Consistency. A path forward for players.
One more specific example. After community feedback Aron released a message on discord. Here is where things went side ways for me. The intended changes where not detailed in the initial update notes. Aron comes in an states intention to walk back two specific changes and that he supports current UNIM changes. Tuning update follows and there is an additional change to UNIM. Community is already wound up and this is like gas on a fire.
When LG leaves it up to the community to discover changes don’t be surprised when we get it wrong, don’t understand the intent and get upset.