Dev update 2020-03-08: new account resources
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We've been brainstorming a lot lately. We brainstormed the architecture of a Persistent/Seasonal server separation in our Kubernetes cluster. We brainstormed how decorations system should be themed and organized. We brainstormed the financial aspect of Screeps as a business. We brainstormed what would be the mechanic or our first season on the Seasonal World. We also brainstormed a math model for the player rating in Arena, but it's a whole another story... What is really important here is that eventually, when all the coffee was drunk, we came up with a new streamlined concept of in-game account resources that we want to announce in this post.
The most important announcement to begin with: recurrent subscriptions will be discontinued, and 60-day tokens will be replaced with 24-hour tokens.
Yes, there will be no subscriptions in the game anymore. If you have an active subscription, it will remain active indefinitely, but you will not be able to activate a new one. The only method to unlock full CPU in your account will be using a CPU token. This will unlock your CPU for 24 hours. All current 60-day tokens will be converted to 60x 24-hours tokens automatically.
Moreover, we will introduce a game API method to activate a CPU token, and a way to check whether your CPU is unlocked or not currently. This way, you can program an auto-renew mechanism on your own based on your preference, using CPU tokens stored in your account.
The CPU unlocking system is needed to compensate for the server resources spent on running your script, but the recurrent subscription system turned out to be a suboptimal way to achieve this. Many people are unhappy with recurrent payments nowadays. Using CPU tokens, you can buy bundles of 10, 30, or 90 tokens, and control how your CPU is used according to your in-game circumstances.
Along with this, we will introduce two new account resources: Pixels and Access Keys.
Pixels are needed to pixelate (create) decorations for your rooms and your creeps. Also, you can convert any decoration back to pixels.
Access Keys are used to join a season in the Seasonal World, or a special event in the Persistent World. One season may require, say, 5 Access Keys to enter. And season rewards will also yield Access Keys, Pixels and CPU tokens to those who made it to the top of the season.
All these account resources can be obtained in two ways:
- Purchased at our official store, which is currently under development.
- Traded on the in-game market or Steam Community Market.
We're going to provide a fixed amount of all account resources on the in-game market by NPC orders as well. It will not be huge, but the one who's willing to participate in these mechanics using only in-game credits will always be able to do so.
We believe that this system has very appealing qualities in its design.
First, it is reasonable:
- We sell CPU Tokens because we allow you to rent real server CPU time in our cluster.
- We sell Pixels because our designer worked hard on the graphics that enable this "hat economy."
- We sell Access Keys because they unlock more game content that we regularly develop, add, and maintain for your fun and benefit.
Second, it is fair: although we sell it at our official store, but we also provide a legitimate way to be involved using in-game mechanics only.
And third, it is simple: it's just resources! No subscriptions, no recurrent payments, no pay walls. The only three things that we're going to sell are these three resources. And they are tradable in-game entities, not some licenses or privileges.
We will release all these 3 resources in the next major Decorations update. Access Keys will be discounted for 50% until the first season starts.
We are deeply convinced that this system will streamline our business model and secure further development of the game so that Screeps will continue its story.
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Interesting.
One thing that's "not fair" is the grandfathering in of existing subs. People with lifetime subs will simply not need to deal with the 24 hour token system at all. Of course, good luck touching any of that! The lifetime sub people will howl bloody murder. At the same time, you can't just cancel the subs and go full on "F2P" model, which is clearly what you "want" to do.
Suggestion: Don't make the 24 hour subs be "full CPU." All that does is encourage people to be wasteful, trying to spend ALL their CPU each cycle lest some "Go to waste." The go-to method of that is of course remote mining... one of the most CPU inefficient mechanics in the game, but it's easily switchable to "Use your free CPU." Instead, have the 24 hour tokens only unlock 10 CPU above the 20 CPU baseline. the same you get when you add a GCL up the the limit.
So... first 20 CPU is free across the board. Each 10 CPU above that requires a GCL to unlock and a 24 hour token to maintain.
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@smokeman said in Dev update 2020-03-08: new account resources:
People with lifetime subs will simply not need to deal with the 24 hour token system at all.
We're totally fine with that. Even more, we consider continue selling Lifetime CPU after this update as well, as a separate package on Steam.
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Hmm I wouldn't mind if the if the lifetime sub would simply "refill" the accs 24h tokens to the necessary amount to run the whole month with full CPU.
They shouldn't stack for obvious reasons.This will probably deflate the in game market price somewhat so it may even be accessible for newcomers.
Oh and I fully endorse this strategy, I really think this is the way to move forward ^^
(But you knew that already, don't ya?)
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The update seems so Great!!! When would it release? Weeks later? Months later?
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I think this will only add more friction for potential token buyers. A 24 hour period makes no sense for players, either you chain them continuous or you don't buy at all. Billing server cost over a 2 month period vs 24 hours is still the same money.
Drop it to say a month and it doesn't force peeps to write very boring API based checks. Chunks of 24 hour CPU aren't useful. Perhaps being able to buy a selectable max CPU augmentation for a selectable time frame is, making it more of a 'bucket' that you buy allowing you to throttle it in as fast as a player desires and/or is able to effectively use.
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@hwy We don't have any release ETA yet.
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@tun9an0 said in Dev update 2020-03-08: new account resources:
Chunks of 24 hour CPU aren't useful.
We believe they are. New players will be able to test out the full unlocked CPU before committing for longer periods. Seasoned players will be able to control how their CPU is unlocked on a day-to-day basis. Market operations will become much more liquid when tokens are less in size which gives more granularity.
Perhaps being able to buy a selectable max CPU augmentation for a selectable time frame is, making it more of a 'bucket' that you buy allowing you to throttle it in as fast as a player desires and/or is able to effectively use.
This is a classic pay-to-win scenario which we had in the very beginning, it was a mistake and we moved away from it luckily.
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@mrfaul I have a lifetime sub. I very much like that the lifetime sub doesn't translate to an in game resource. I am personally not comfortable with a recurring cost. I find it puts me into a grindy mindset where I try to "get my money's worth". With a lifetime sub I can walk away when I get bored and play factorio for a month or two. Or in my case I run my empire at 100-200 cpu because it's easier/more fun.
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@tun9an0 Two quick solutions to the boring api problem:
- Add an auto renew option in the UI, so players can just check a box and forget about cpu management.
- Let the cpu tokens queue up. Then buy 90 and activate them all at once.
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Let the cpu tokens queue up. Then buy 90 and activate them all at once.
This is how subscription tokens work already.
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As noted above, keep the lifetime sub. Anybody that buys the game and turns out to love it will want to upgrade to a lifetime sub. Fans with lifetime subs still will buy the extra stuff too, but they won't be dividing up their spending between CPU time and the extras, they will just be spending money on the extras.
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@artch It's still very much pay to win, changing the token duration doesn't fix that. As long as they are a tradable commodity I can sell tokens to gain an resource advantage through market purchases. While competing for GCL it's quite easy to spot when some players have had their pay day.
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@tun9an0 Pay-to-win is when you pay to the game administration to gain benefits. But in this case you pay to another player to transfer his benefits to yourself. He loses his credits (which he legitimately obtained in game, not just created by real life investment), you gain his credits. Zero world balance, no administration actions involved, it's just player-to-player relationship. If there were no tradable commodities, there still would be other options to achieve exactly that: "I transfer $10 to your Steam Wallet, you transfer XXX credits to me".
But in your suggestion of different max CPU, the more money you pay, the bigger benefit from the administration you have, which is clearly pay-to-win.
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@tun9an0 just look at EVE Online, the PLEX system is similar and everybody gets to profit from it.
As soon as big event starts people buy PLEX like crazy and liquidate them in order to prepare for the event.
This boosts the entire economy every time and sly people use this to buy PLEX at good prices allowing them to play for a long time worry free before they need to "grind" again.
The entire CPU System is there to ensure that people keep interest and keep the lights on, your actions are completely different if a sum x of legal tender is involved.
Don't believe me? Play a two rounds of Poker with your friends, one without money and one with money at stake you will see a immediate change in their behavior.@deft-code I have one for the same reason, even if I actually don't really play on the official server much and more on privately hosted ones. But I like the option.
It was more of an idea, not really to be taken seriously.
@artch I dunno, LtSubs are pretty powerful thinking carefully about it let's me believe that LtSubs shouldn't be allowed to trade CPU Tokens.
Seems somewhat fairer to me, if you win some they should be converted into pixels instead.
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@artch Sorry perhaps my use of the word max CPU is confusing. I do not mean people should be able to go outside 300 CPU or whatever their GCL allows. I was only suggesting you could pick something in the middle between 20 and and your max potential. Say someone has a potential 120 CPU (from GCL) based on a long running 20 CPU colony, if they buy a token they can't suddenly use this extra 100 CPU effectively especially if it's short term. If you'd sell volumes of CPU he could choose to use it for say an extra 10 cpu for 240 hours instead of 24 hours. Otherwise you'd sell him 100 where he'd only be able to squeeze out 10.
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@mrfaul Sorry I am not sure what you are trying to say here except that EVE is also pay to win? I surely would not lose interest in Screeps if there were no tokens. I have enjoyed playing poker in the past just fine with fake money, by just keeping score.
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@deft-code I like the lifetime sub for similar reasons. I just don't want to have CPU time be to a factor in my gaming decisions other than the current GCL limits.
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@tun9an0 said in Dev update 2020-03-08: new account resources:
@mrfaul Sorry I am not sure what you are trying to say here except that EVE is also pay to win? I surely would not lose interest in Screeps if there were no tokens. I have enjoyed playing poker in the past just fine with fake money, by just keeping score.
Ask any EVE veteran and he will say to you that it is very far from pay to win, even if you have a tons of ISK that doesn't help you much if you have no clue what you are doing.
The PLEX system allows them to provide a way to play the game without the need to spend a single rl dime, instead by investing meaningful work inside the game.
EVEs economy is almost completely player driven without players it would collapse and PLEX are something in its backbone.
Screeps current market model doesn't have that and I believe this change will give the market a whole new value.To reiterate what artch said "pay to win" is when you can buy an advantage from the games provider that is impossible to achieve otherwise.
This model doesn't do that, it just gives you tokens that you can sell. If nobody wants to buy from you, you won't see a single credit.
Sure you can sell it at dumping prices but once the demand is satisfied its over.
This is a bigger loss for you, because everybody else just gained a very valuable resource.You also completely missed the point of the poker example, playing poker with a monetary value even if its something silly like a buck to participate changes how you play the game.
It gives the game a new value, one that is more serious as before.
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I like to keep real money out of my gaming experience, I am just of a different opinion. Fact remains that, independent of their granularity, the selling of tokens for credits allows you to do some significant padding to your resource income on top of what you could otherwise produce yourself. While I do not think this is currently a big issue, it is there. My suggestion doesn't change anything here, I don't really understand Arch's response.
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Sorry perhaps my use of the word max CPU is confusing. I do not mean people should be able to go outside 300 CPU or whatever their GCL allows. I was only suggesting you could pick something in the middle between 20 and and your max potential. Say someone has a potential 120 CPU (from GCL) based on a long running 20 CPU colony, if they buy a token they can't suddenly use this extra 100 CPU effectively especially if it's short term. If you'd sell volumes of CPU he could choose to use it for say an extra 10 cpu for 240 hours instead of 24 hours. Otherwise you'd sell him 100 where he'd only be able to squeeze out 10.
Yes, I understood you correctly. You suggest to allow people to increase their CPU gradually (within their GCL limit), paying less when they want to have less CPU, and paying more when they want more. It's pay-to-have-more-benefit, or, in other words, pay-to-win.
Currently we have only two tiers, paid and unpaid players, but your suggestion is to create a wide variety of paid-less and paid-more players. Someone with GCL 28 will be able to pay for full limit and thus will gain more benefit than another player with GCL 28 who paid less.
Fact remains that, independent of their granularity, the selling of tokens for credits allows you to do some significant padding to your resource income on top of what you could otherwise produce yourself.
Totally. But the game administration is not involved here, it's player-to-player interaction. Benefits (credits) are not created from thin air, they're legitimately obtained in game.
