Last week, we've asked you to participate in our survey. Over 400 people did so. Thanks a lot to all of you! The data is very useful, and lots of you left kind words and/or insightful comments at the end :) Lets jump right into the results.
94.8% of the voters can see the benefits of our current course, so thats good news. Only a very small minority was vehemently opposed to our plans.
Its a tight race between satisfaction with the current art style, and a desire for a bit more realism. The opposite of the last option is a relatively popular third: some players would instead appreciate a more abstract look. Only a handful of players want a radical change from the current style, but this group is split between those who want a lot more realism and those who want to go in the opposite direction. Weve also asked a complex question about potential methods of monetization. You had the option to agree with multiple options, so you could simultaneously vote for example very positive and contribute, or awful, cringy and would not contribute. It was a bit hard to understand, but the results are very interesting - and polarizing!
We proposed two methods of voluntary donations: we could set up a Patreon account, or share a PayPal/Bitcoin donation link. Patreon was considered to be way more cringy and awful than PayPal/Bitcoin - yet the amount of people that voted they would contribute to Patreon was a lot higher than the amount of PayPal/Bitcoin-donators. The price raise had polarized results as well. Out of 4, its #2 in the categories awful, very positive and would contribute. It also has the lowest score in would not contribute - which is positive. Merchandise had more positive results than we had expected, scoring #1 in would contribute and very positive (and #2 cringy). Were going to think about it and see if we can come up with something that would be fun.
The last three options are a lot less likely than the first four, certainly at the current stage of development. They all scored high in the awful category.
In general, a majority of players tend to agree with us, so thats good news. An exception is the third question about the length of Early Access. We got a lot of detailed responses about that specific question. Some players argued that the Early Access label has a negative connotation for a lot of gamers. Because weve already got a decent amount of content and relatively few bugs, they thought that it would be better to lose that label as soon as possible. Others argued that taking your time in Early Access is fine, and that the definitive release would lead to a lot of new players, and that it would be wise to provide them with the best, most polished, most impressive experience possible. We understand both viewpoints, but we tend to lean towards the latter. The last question led to quite the discussion. It would have been better phrased as A moderate price with rare discounts is better than a high price with frequent discounts. Apart from a discussion about the phrasing, there were also interesting responses about this dilemma. Those who left feedback about this question often shared that moderate prices are more consumer friendly, but that the frequent discount strategy does tend to lead towards more visibility and more revenue. We havent had a sale since July 2018, and I think were going to take a more balanced approach after the UI updates. When we raise the price to $24.95, theres room for more frequent 10%/20%/25% off discounts. The last question allowed voters to input a long written answer. Hundreds took the effort to write useful, kind and often long feedback. Ive read it all and I really appreciate it! I hope you all know that I read every single comment on every single blog, so if theres anything specific you want to share, thats a good place to do so. Of course, were also very active on Discord and try to follow Reddit/Twitter/Facebook, but its a bit easier for things to fall through the cracks there.

This week's progress

A couple of weeks ago, Zun started working on floodfill lighting for torches/lanterns. He got it to work pretty quickly nd decently. This week, he tried to apply floodfill lighting to the sun/moon. It has been highly problematic. Torches only need to keep track of what's happening in ~16 blocks of range. That range is a lot bigger for the sun/moon. If you build a large roof 300 blocks above the ground, that should have an effect on how those blocks on the ground are lit. So every spot in the map has to check countless spots in a long range around it. We're not going to be able to make that work performance-wise in a reasonable timescale. Zun did think of a feasible alternative. He's working on a system that checks the air blocks in the vicinity of the player. To what degree are they lit by the sun? Do they have a straight connection to the open sky? More air blocks with higher scores translate into a higher ambient light value - this is the value that determines how dark shadows are. So when you're in the middle of the open desert, the ambient lighting will be pretty strong, meaning that shadows on the side of blocks won't appear as harsh. When you walk into a building, shadows will appear darker. And when you descent into a deep mine, shielded from the outside world by lots and lots of blocks, ambient lighting will be (nearly) nonexistent, making those mines truly dark. That should solve two of the biggest problems that currently exist with the lighting system! Here's our rough roadmap for the next month:

• We hope to be able to share some great pictures/videos of the new flexible ambient lighting in the next blog
• We hope to release 0.7.2 1-3 weeks later, which should include torch/lantern floodfill, improved ambient lighting and some minor improvements to the UI (like new sounds in the main menu)
• Afterwards, we want to start working on bigger changes to the UI

Bedankt voor het lezen :) Reddit // Twitter // YouTube // Website // Discord

[ 2020-01-17 13:51:50 CET ] [ Original post ]