Topic
Glitch, Unlaunched
We are taking Glitch back to beta. This is some big news. The story’s told in this blog post, which you ought to read before continuing to read this. :)
But I know that reading about the over-arching thoughts behind the decision will raise many questions from you all, the most fundamental being: “How will the game change for me, and what does ‘beta’ mean?”
Playing Glitch will be a very similar experience to what you’ve become accustomed to over the past couple of months, except punctuated with some big changes to the fundamentals (like XP, energy and housing) and the addition of functionality that puts more creative power in your hands and allows you to have more of an impact on of the world of Glitch. To that end:
- The world will continue to be open around the clock, though there may be occasional (and brief) down-times
- You’ll still be able to invite friends in limited quantities, but general sign-ups will go back to being queued
- The player support team will be devoting more time to ensuring these new additions are working the way they should, which could mean slower response times to help cases (though we’ll still aim for the fastest turnaround possible)
- We’ll encourage players to help us test all of this out, and hunt down bugs with us as new features are released
- Though you’ll still be able to buy credits and subscriptions, whoever feels they want a refund because of the change (or for any reason) can do so through December 31st.
- And finally, while we are not currently planning another reset — resetting again is very unlikely — that might change. And even without a complete reset, some of the transitions will be big and the old systems won’t map perfectly to the new ones. For example, the new housing system will be a big change (some details here).
It’s all a bit crazy, but this is an exciting time for us. We’re doing it to make sure that all of you have a game that is awesome to play from the first moment you step into the world to deep into your Glitch adulthood.
If you have any further questions, comments or concerns, I will be reading along and answering them as best I can. You can also take a look at the new FAQ section we wrote just for this (we’ll be editing and adding to it as questions arise).
Replies
- I have mixed feelings about this... I'm happy about the streets projects but the possible reset freaks me out. I appreciate your honesty, but I would have preferred to hear the beta news and new skills separately. I mean, I've been waiting for uses for herbs and new regions for a long time, but at the same time I feel kind of cheated that I bought a membership at a special beta price, and now we're back on beta. Too many future promises and nothing concrete, that's feel weird.
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I seriously just bought (yet another, lol) firebog home in anticipation of the customisable housing options. ^___^
Now bouncing up and down with eager anticipation. Come on hurry up! THINK FASTER GIANTS XD - I want a Senorita Funpickle.
- +10 to Gadzooks... XD
- I love "beta Beta" and "Mo Beta" to distinguish the phases.
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In response to,
"I support this un-launch 100% but only if we get to call it Mo' Beta." by @CYGNOIR
I say YESSS! -
So, are you done answering questions? I would still very much like some answers.
1. Will we have a LOT of notice about the housing changes? Or is it possible, we go on vacation for a week and when we come back find ourselves homeless and all of our "belongings" gone to the four winds?
2. When we "have to move" will we then have to compete with the now MUCH larger population of Glitch in order to get a house? As previously stated, I worked my butt off right after reset to get the house I wanted. It was a priority for me, whereas others had different priorities. Now, many will have sufficient currants to buy whatever they want (theoretically.)
3. Will these sweeping changes take place before December 21? Since that is the deadline for a refund, I would really like to know if this will continue to be the game that I chose to pay to play, or if it will be changed so much that it no longer appeals to me. -
I can't speak for TS, but my understanding based on this post is that there are some seriously cool features heading our way. I also have taken blog posts to mean that the entire nature of neighborhoods and housing will change in such a way that the supply and demand won't work at all like it does now, but rather will be player developed communities with much more creative leeway.
In other words, you might not have to worry about getting the house you want in the place you want, because you will have a lot more control over where you live and the house you can create. At least, this is my understanding of the posts and hints thus far, and why I am so excited to see what happens next.
You raise some excellent points and ask some very good questions, and I too hope TS will address them. -
I support TS in this decision, and look forward to helping test and craft your worlds to come.
Remember, glitchen, that the most important thing you have invested in Glitch is your time. When you log in to find a world that fills that time with much more enjoyment & possibility, you will see your fear of change, or losing material(lol) possession.. fall away like the illusion that it is.
Cosma exordiri,
Mordecai -
After reading all the previous pages, I want to say I've had so much fun getting to where I am, I love the ability to do it again, so I really don't care one way or another. But there again, I am also a long time KOL player (October 2004). So like I've been here before. LOL, many times! I dreaded, like many others, the big reset button. And you know what? It was fun! Each time. Entierely because the guys at KOL make sure to add new content frequently, so every ascension/reset is in fact, different (unless you're one of those power ascendent players), but that happens with Glitch anyway. People move at their own pace.
I would really like to make a suggestion, which happens to be one of the kickass team at KOL's idea. There, we have Hagnk's. All our stuff is stored there when we ascend. Perhaps you could implement something similar for any resets that *MIGHT* become necessary. It would resolve most of the main complaints, losing rare items and/or excess inventory that is too much to carry all at once. Or perhaps have the frogs hold it. Something with that type of function anyway, I'm pretty sure you people are savvy enough to figure that out. It would also help should you decide to add in ascensions.
My next suggestion is to perhaps give each player the sale price of their house when he or she bought it, *plus* a percentage for the inconvenience of moving (hey it happens in the real world too) rather than the usual 80 percent. Or something like it that ensures that we don't lose out on housing due to the change (plus the proposed added options are a way wicked awesome idea!). After all game doesn't have to imitate life that closely, lol.
And finally (I promise :D), I would like to suggest that perhaps each player would have some type of "as fast as you possibly can" long lasting learning accelerator, maybe given based on current level, so each player has something to compensate for all the time that they have put in playing. Or some such, eh?
Just my two cents but I think something that addresses the above issues would go a long way towards the most common complaints I've read.
~L -
What Laureth said. Also ponies. What's not to love about ponies? (I am in fact kidding, unless these are chocolate ponies).
I'd like to add one last point to that regarding leader boards. Some items were not reset since they are technically achievements by or from players who were in the original beta game, but unfortunately since that particular portion was not reset, there's literally NO way to catch up on some items on the leader boards - mainly locations and some achievements, and of course points to giants & XP.
Currently there's a level cap at 60, and 4.8million points, but there's some things that newer players will have absolutely no way to catch up to (mainly locations that no longer exist and some XP-based or Achievement rewards).
In all fairness, KOL did a nice thing when they approached a similar issue which was to create a pre-event leader board to appease people who had been playing for a long time. I am by no means a power-ascender in KOL, and this is glitch, but it would be nice, and I think fair to allow for this change, especially as you are re-engineering with a much larger player base and hopefully the plans to open the game once again.
Incentive is everything in social games, and I've been a KOL player since the beginning (but not with the same character, sadly) and even though I missed the glitch beta (I'm so sorry I didn't accept the invite darn it!) I hope this game continues on its brilliant, sparkly track. I look forward to your bright future, because I was also a pre-Yahoo flickr member, and I love you guys. - I would vote very enthusiastically for a feature allowing players to reset their own account at any time. I have made what I consider to be a number of grave skill learning mistakes and would jump at the chance to pull a 'reset' lever and start again from scratch. Alpha and early-Beta players who have gone through multiple resets have had this opportunity (the ability to start their skills tree over multiple times after a lot of experience playing) and I feel it is only fair that we all get multiple chances.
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I was very pleased to read the blog post about unlaunching, and I am really looking forward to the " radical changes to core game mechanics ". I really like Glitch and would like to continue to support it, but lately I have found my interest waning. However, I've hung in there because I knew there were changes coming, including customizable housing, which particularly appeals to me.
P.S. - I skimmed through this entire thread and kept wanting to headdesk at the amount of (unwarranted) bitching and whining (much of it caused by tl;dr syndrome). Geezus.
P.P.S. - Jick plays Glitch? Very cool indeed :-) -
I've not really been a Glitchling for too long so obviously wasn't here for the last reset.
I think that it's really admirable that you've got such high goals and expectations for this awesome game.
I've read the blog but unfortunately it's totally gone over my head.
I'd really appreciate it if there was a heads up as to potentially what could happen to existing players etc. Like what could be lost, a secret hint as to what's due to be expected etc (bullet points preferably... I'm feeling a bit simple this morning... sorry).
I mean they're already aware that they've got 113,000 players, so to those that are worried about their houses and skills etc the wonderful minds must be aware of all the effort and time we've all invested, I imagine they're doing all they can to endeavour to make sure that we just come back as ourselves to something mind bogglingly awesome.
If not... I'll be happy to be challenged again.
I can't wait! -
ohhhhhnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooo no more reset !!!!
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo :-((((((
changes are welcome reset again NOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -
Ooohh this is so very interesting! I'm in for the long hau (reset or no reset), and I trust TS to make Ur and Glitch the most amazing place with theese new initiatives.
Bring it - and if you need help in any way, let us know :) -
I played KoL (awesome) and wasn't crazy about the ascension system (didn't want to replay from square one just to ascend again), but that's just me. I have a low tolerance for repeating quests / actions I have already done. Other people have no problem with it (as we see in this thread), and KoL is great as it is. It's just a different gameplay style.
No one is suggesting it as a real possibility at this point (appreciating it and deciding to implement it are different things), but I wouldn't go for it and would, in fact, actively try to stop leveling or quit playing if I reached the point where I had to start over and redo everything to keep playing. Again, not a slam on KoL at ALL. It works for them. It's different and creative. Some people do like it. I just...didn't. I wanted to do all-new stuff instead.
No hard feelings if Glitch does swipe this idea and decides to implement it. Folks who dealt with (a) prior reset(s) and enjoyed the challenge of starting fresh without creating a brand new alt to do it would, no doubt, have no problem with it.
It's all speculation at this point, anyway. I appreciate being kept in the loop and hearing what others (and TS staff) have to say. - I'm a tragedy for doing the same thing over and over. I can (and have) played Civilization Revolution at the same level with the same ruler over and over and over and over.
- See also: playing Virtual City all the way through about 10 times now
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Darn you devs for making me so excited that there's no way I'm going to get to sleep. Customizable houses and land...? WHOOOOOOO! You all are so fricken awesome, I can barely stand it. ("My sap is rising"....oooooh!)
I'm fine with a reset, in the unlikely event that it's needed. Always nice to strip everything away occasionally and start with a clean slate...helps cultivate the art of detachment. At least I'll know to do all the BL skills FIRST the next time. ;)
What exciting changes...I'm gonna have less of a life than I do now. Bring it ON! -
I think the gift for the OMEGA testing period should be a Rube pull string doll. A little plushy Rube that, when you pull his string, says things like "wanna make a trade?" or "good deal, good deal" or a delighted cackle when he thinks he pulled one over on you. In random pulls, something happens to you, much like what happens with Senor FunPickle.
I have faith that TS won't send us into a reset. Even then, couldn't there be a way for them to track all the stuff we have now (in inventory and in homes) and restore it in the event of the dreaded - yet highly unlikely - reset? -
If for some remotely distant far away miniscule possibility there'll be a reset needed to support the awesome features you're working hard to bring in Ur, here's my proposed list of things that (in my opinion) do not need to go away:
- Player level
- Amount of currants
Seriously, there shouldn't realistically be any need to make all players level 1, or wipe their currants, no matter what other house customizations or other goodies will show up. Combining this with at least 1 - 2 RL weeks ahead notice will allow most active glitches to vendor their items and sell their house, as to minimize the losses.
If there's such a drastic change in how the skills work, on in the skill tree, why not reuse ideas from other games? You can keep track not on what particular skills someone learned, but on the number of learned skills. Say they learned 64 skills. Once you roll out the new skill tree, give them 64 "free" points they can spend to instantly unlock the same number of new skills.
Getting to keep the current level, currants amount, and number of skill points - and having 1 - 2 weeks ahead notice of a possible reset - I feel most glitches will be happy to keep playing. I would.
What's your take on this fellow glitchens? - While in no way at all is this meant as a critique, I would just like to quickly address something based on Lorelei's comment. Ascension in KOL is/was entirely voluntary on the part of the player. There are players who have never actually ascended. :) Just trying to clarify for the non KOL players here :)
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Late to the party but happy to the hear the awesome news!
stoot: "houses (and land) are something that you create: expanding the size, upgrading the frame, designing the interior, choosing resources for your property, and so on. So, while you might not be able to re-create your favorite of the current Meadow cottages down to the pixel level, you will be able to make something entirely your own."
This coming innovation alone deserves infinity+1. Can not wait to see what else gets brewed up in the new beta. - I'm with Heatseeker on this one! Good idea, makes the loss minimal as well as frustration for the time spent ;)
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Heatseeker, that's an awesome idea. I'm really not concerned about a reset though, since it's such a remote possibility, it seems.
I do hope that TS keeps in mind that many people are traveling over the holidays, and any housing changes / major changes give sufficient notice. Personally, I'll be out of town with no glitch-playing time for two weeks over the holidays, and I'm nervous that something will happen to my house in the meantime! -
I wouldn't mind losing my material possessions, but I think I'd miss my skills. Off the top of my head, maybe an item that speeds up skill learning time for um.. second-beta players. But yeah :) It seems a bit difficult to migrate from the old housing system to the new one without losing any items (ahem, roommates..). Just a thought. But no, I wouldn't mind a reset much if one is deemed necessary. :) Just thought I'd put it out there hahaha!
Love the housing ideas, I'm sure I'll love it even more when it's out. Good luck guys! - I would also like to second the vote for the label of "Mo' Beta".
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For all of the people quoting how this is like KoL, just to clear it up, this is not. This is also not a critique on KoL or Glitch/TS, just getting the facts straight.
There was NO massive reset in KoL when they rolled out the ascension mechanic (a mechanic where you can restart the game in the class of your choosing and keep a skill from the old class permanently - thus providing replayability and progress [e.g. keep a skill from the thief class and play again as a mage class with the thief skill added]).
The massive reset that happened in KoL was due to a huge problem caused by some very severe item duplication and money creation bugs that were abused over such a period of time that a server rollback was impractical. The imbalance to the game was so extreme that a partial massive systemwide reset of the game that was unavoidable. Since then, KoL has instituted backup procedures that mostly eliminate the possibility of such a reset ever having to happen again. - So...did I miss this, or did they mention whether we will get refunds back on our current houses or not once we have to move out? Because it would suck massively to be forced to move and not have any money to do so.
- They haven't mentioned that, but several people have asked. I would imagine they will, so I'm not too worried about it. Even if they don't, I'm not too worried about it. They might do something else like give us a plot of land (or even the plot of land we had before) as compensation for the cost of the house, though it seems more likely that they'd give us the 80% or 100% of what we spent on our current homes at the time of implementation.
- You have always got 80% of the value when you sell your house, perhaps it will work like that?
- the only problem with the 80% would be that we didn't choose to sell the houses, so that wouldn't exactly be kosher. I'm hoping they'll do like Giggles says and give us the plot or 100% of the money.
- Yea, it'd be nice to know what they plan on that end, but they may not be able to say just yet. I am sure they will compensate us fairly though. :)
- Wait wait, so, are forced evictions confirmed?? :o
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sorry i'm late to the thread. doubt anyone reads this any more, but just want to say good job. great idea. like everything so far. i had no doubts you guys would make the game better... launched or unlaunched. i'll be a player and a subber for as long as you guys are running the game.
but i'm not the guy you need to sell the game to. the rest of the world is, and i now know that you guys know that the game needs to be changed a bit. so i'm glad for that. i want the game to be great for my sake and for your sake.
keep it real. good job and good luck. - We love you too Mr. Dawwg
- No Miso George, ,nothing is confirmed except what's at the top of this thread. Everything else is people's imaginations run rampant.
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I feel a need to add my 2 currants to this topic...
From the blog post, "...make the early game reveal itself more easily to new players so they can get into the fun faster".
I have to say that the initial welcome to the game was really easy and taught me the basics.
From the same blog, ".... give those players who have gotten over that initial hump and fallen in love with the game — spending dozens or even hundreds of hours playing — the creative tools that they need to change the world in more tangible...".
Oh yes please. I want to open a glitchie restaurant in Ur. Line up suppliers, get customers, all sorts of fun stuff. - deleted double post.
- Please, can we have some answers to some of the questions that have been asked in the last couple of pages? Last staff answer was on page 5. There are some very valid concerns...
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(My hat's off to Xev and crashtestpilot for writing so well on this and related threads.)
I'm so excited about all these developments that I bought my sweetie a one year Molybdenum subscription. I'd upgrade my own Tin subscription too if that were implemented yet *nudge nudge*.
To all you worry warts: isn't the game fun enough as it is? What difference does it make if it changes dramatically in a few minutes, a few days, a few months, or never at all? Just enjoy what we have and trust that the team who made this awesome game are sure to take the course of action which is most likely to please us all. -
@Crag: To be placed in the same sentence as Xev is among the greatest honors, and I thank you for it.
She's funnier, tho. -
There's really two camps to this:
a) Don't take my (existing pretty darned good) candy.
b) I want super-amazing candy. And if I have to change things up to get it? I will freaking do that stuff.
Pick your camp. I'm in b). -
i think this is a good decision, especially if the goal is to make the game more fun.
there are enough games out there that put profits first and foremost; i think that's one of the reasons games these days seem to lack the same spark they had back in the 90s, before they became as much of an 'industry.' ars gratia artis! makes me want to subscribe.
also, i want to add that a) the forced evictions are pretty likely if the housing system changes that drastically? and b) i am super-excited about custom housing! i want both herb plots and some non-egg trees :D or maybe an uralia-themed house, that would be so cool! - Wow I'm away for a little while only to return to big news like this. But I just wanted to chip in and say that I am SO excited for these new changes! It's like you somehow read my mind (or I read yours?) about how the game should work. Keep it up Devs!
- I kinda like "re-beta" myself :P
- Just sharing the link to the interview of Tiny Speck's Stewart Butterfield conducted 2nd of December '11. He gave a little insight on the decision of the unlaunching. Both "reset" & "housing" issues were discussed. http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/mmobility-tiny-speck-explains-glitchs-big-unlaunching/
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Thanks Hellyeah! I'd missed this. And of all the changes (potential changes?) I've heard and read about, this one is not only new to me but, by far, the one that intrigues me the most...
"Another one is rethinking levels and experience. One thing we'd really like to see is, rather than giving you experience points so you level up, we instead let you earn something. Let's just call it imagination, and with that you can customize your character. You could choose to use that 'imagination' and make your character have a bigger energy tank or run faster or jump higher or expand the size of your property or one of a million other things."
Eeeee! So exciting! I love it. I've been super critical of the current xp & leveling system and this is definitely a reason to stop running around as an angry faced little glitch :)
(well maybe in time... I'm still a touch skittish of that evil xp ;)) - To me it is pretty simple, I look forward to the changes and will judge after they are made if I wish to keep playing or if I will spend any money on the game. Lucky for me I was just about to buy into a year at the copper level. This good timing saved me money.