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Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.10 with the following changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.9 with the following changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.8 with the following changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.7 with the following changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.6 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.5 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.4 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.3 with the following changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.2 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.1 to address the following issues:
Hello Eco Citizens, we're happy to announce the immediate availability of Update 11.1, let's take a look at what's new:
Hello Eco Citizens, we're excited to announce that Update 11.1 will launch on October 24th! Take a peek at some of the changes:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.6 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.5 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.4 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.3 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.2 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.1 to address the following issues:
Hello Citizens, Today we are launching Eco 11! Features include: [olist]
Hello Eco Citizens, our next release date has been set: Eco 11 will launch August 15th! Weve been hard at work on the road to Eco 1.0 and exiting Early Access, and this is a big step there. Feature list will be:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.4 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.3 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 10.2.2 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.1 to address the following issues:
Hello Eco Citizens, Update 10.2 is now available! The main changes in this update are a new Blacksmith profession, tons of improvements for the Exhaustion system, legal 'Injunctions', settlement polish, civics polish, lots of audio polish, and a multitude of bug fixes and balance changes.
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.5 to restore functionality of the server list and additionally address the following issues:
Good day Eco Citizens! With our biggest update ever - Eco 10 - out the door, its time to set our eyes on the next big milestone: Eco V1, exiting Early Access! Early Access has been an amazing way to develop this experimental new genre of a living government/economy/ecosystem mashed together and run by real people, weve got so much great feedback from the community, as well as funding to let us build out the extent of our vision. Now, with the bulk of features added (minus a couple big ones coming this year), we plan to spend the year building and then Early Access at the end of the year/beginning of next year. To achieve this, we have a ton of work to do over the course of the year, and we have set a roadmap based heavily on player feedback. Our goal with V1 is to produce a highly polished, performant, accessible, and long-lasting gameplay experience. This means that we are putting the focus on improving and polishing existing systems rather than introducing new ones. Weve based this decision on player surveys and stats from reviews, and the results were a clear mandate: make what we have more polished, and smooth it all out. From that weve compiled a roadmap of what we hope to achieve, which can be divided into several main categories:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.4 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.3 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.2 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.1 to address the following issues:
Dear Eco Citizens, Update 10.1 is now available! We've been taking a lot of feedback from citizens on the settlement system that was newly introduced in 10.0 and applied it. It's a big system with unique mechanics that only truly play out when you have groups interacting together in their own worlds, and after 10.0 we've learned a lot from our citizens and made the following upgrades:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.4 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.3 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.2 to adress the following issues:
Hey Citizens, we have just deployed Hotfix 10.0.1 to address the following issues:
Hello Citizens, today is the day - we are finally launching Eco 10 for you to play! Our team has put together a massive upgrade for the game, making this the biggest Update we ever made. And due to the introduction of settlements, it's also the one with the most changes to and impact on gameplay - making Eco even more interesting and collaboration focused! What you really want to hear about, though, is probably boats - so after a quick summary for all those of you that prefer to play it right away, let's get directly into what is new. Release Summary: [olist]
Good day Eco Citizens,
we have a big announcement today: after over a year in the making, Eco 10 will be released on December 12th 2023!
This is our biggest update ever, and will be a huge addition to the game. Well have some more blog posts giving details about whats in it, but today Im going to give you a look at our new Towns/Countries/Federations system.
Overview of past and coming up blogs:
- Boats and Trade
- Coastal construction
- Face tracking avatars
- Photography/painting
- New graphical improvements
- Expanded tech tree
- Twitch plugin
- Towns, Countries and Federations (This blog)
- Culture
Greetings Citizens! Coming soon to Eco 10: ports! With the introduction of Boats, coastal infrastructure will be crucial to opening up trade and travel between continents. Weve added lots of new block types you can place directly on water like docks, and other decorative elements to give you that nautical appeal. Port towns will be very important to the overall economy, and become hubs of trade as resources pass through them between land and sea, connecting far-flung towns with the resources they need from the other side of the world. Overview of past and coming up blogs: - Boats and Trade - Coastal construction (This blog) - New avatars - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture
Hey Eco Citizens, Art Director Milenko here, in this blog we will be talking about new avatars, the avatar creation system we are trying to implement, looking back at multiple increments of the avatar development during the game production so far and reminiscing a bit about the game and thoughts we had while making it. Overview of past and coming up blogs: - Boats and Trade - Coastal construction - New avatars (This blog) - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture Let's get right into it.
Hello Eco Citizens, big news: the long-awaited Eco 10 update is finally in playtests! We've added a ton of features (over a full year's worth of work), and we're introducing a lot of brand new systems as well as lots of polish. Release date is currently 'when it's ready', but goal is well-before the end of the year. With all the new additions, we want to adequately test it with large groups to make sure they're balanced. So over the coming weeks we're going to be doing blog posts on all the new things to expect. Here's the agenda: - Boats and Trade (This blog) - Coastal construction - New avatars - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture Well kick it off with the first blog on Boats!
Hey Citizens, we've just released Update 9.7.13 to address the following issues:
Hey Citizens, Update 9.7.12 is now available to address the interaction and physics problems that started to appear after our last update. As an immediate response, this night we already had replaced Update 9.7.11 with a newer build to prevent the issue from appearing on yet unaffected worlds. Unfortunately that also had the drawback of causing a bit of confusion, as servers had to be updated to the new build without it having a new main version. This update should fix the issue on already affected worlds and restore version continuity. The root cause for the issue in Update 9.7.11 was a bug that allowed certain objects (rubble, logs, trunks, vehicles, etc.) to drop into invalid, largely negative positions. Only once that actually occured the physics engine malfunctioned, leading to the issues you were experiencing, which is why not everyone was affected and the reports on the problems appeared unusually late. This update removes any objects with such positions. Additionally the following issues have been addressed:
Hey Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.7.11 to address some issues that appeared in our last update.
Dear Eco Citizens,
we're happy to announce that Update 9.7.10, the last part of our 9.7 Performance Update series, is now available.
In the coming days after the easter holidays we plan to make an early development version of Update 10 available for public testing on the playtest branch. Please note that the official playtest on official server White Tiger will start independently from that a bit later and that this branch may be updated very frequently, up to several times a day. The branch will not guarantee migration yet, neither from prior versions nor between playtest versions. All further information about the playtest will be available on our official discord: https://discord.gg/eco.
We're sorry for the slight delay. Good luck on your egg hunts and please find the changelog below:
Hey Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.7.9 to mainly address a memory issue with servers:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.8, addressing several issues with mod support:
Hello Eco Citizens, with 9.7 performance updates almost complete (one more big update for this version to come), the majority of the team is working on the long awaited ECO 10! Were going to be doing little quality of life updates along the way, but have a deadline set of April 3rd for the start of public playtest for Update 10. Were going to be demoing the features as we build up to this launch with live streams, heres the schedule, with each livestream from various Eco devs typically happening on Fridays at 21:00 CET / noon Pacific Time. You can watch the demos on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook or directly here on our Steam store page. Weve put together a calendar you can sync with if youd like to keep track of these, click here.
Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.7, please find the changelog below:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.6 addressing a few issues that were reported with our last release:
Dear Eco Citizens,
we are happy to announce that Update 9.7.5, the second part of our 9.7 Performance Update series is now available. Thanks to our wonderful community, especially all players helping us with performance diagnostics and testing this release on official server White Tiger, we are confident that we were able to address most causes for FPS drops over time in Eco.
Starting with this update you should no longer need to restart the game after longer play sessions to restore your FPS. Naturally, our playtests cannot test every single possible hardware and settings configuration, so your feedback will be key going forward to fix any potentially remaining issues.
There will be a third update in the series expanding on the improvements already made in the new year and we'll soon be ready for more news on Update 10 as well. For now, all that is left for us to say is a big thank you from the whole Strange Loop Games team for your support during this year - we wish you and your families happy holidays and a healthy new year 2023!
Hey Eco Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.4 addressing a bunch of issues while we continue the work on the second major part of the 9.7 performance update series:
Hey Citizens,
we're happy to announce that the Meteor Shard, our very first plushie made in cooperation with our friends at Makeship is now available for ordering at: https://www.makeship.com/products/meteor-plush
The Meteor Shard is inspired by the well-known in-game item that all Alpha Backers received for supporting us early (thank you so much!), comes with the iconic chain for hanging and is only available as limited edition via this Makeship campaign until December 23. The campaign basically works like a crowdfunding: We need to reach 200 orders until the end of the campaign for the plushie to be produced starting at the end of December and shipped in March 2023 - which Makeship does worldwide! If we don't reach that amount, you get your full money back, there are no risks involved.
Additionally, everyone that orders a plushie and once it arrived sends us a photo of where the plushie found its new home to support (at) strangeloopgames.com together with their SLG ID will get a unique user icon for their Eco accounts to show off ingame.
Eco players are experts in collaboration and saving the day, so we'll manage that easily, right? Let's make it happen together!
Hey Eco Citizens, we just released Update 9.7.3 to address some more issues that were reported to us - thank you!
Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.7.2 to address some more issues:
Hey Eco Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 9.7.1 to address the issue with players without SLG account link being unable to start their local games. Sorry for the inconvenience! Fixed: Creating new or loading existing local saves in the client was not possible for players that had no SLG account linked.
Hey Citizens, we're releasing our first of at least two main releases for our 9.7.x Performance Update series. Please note that this update is only the start, laying groundwork for future updates that will contain a lot more optimization than this one. Next to a bunch of optimizations for both client and server we also have a bunch of gameplay changes and bug fixes. Let's jump right into it:
Hello Eco Citizens,
today we'd like to give you an update on where were taking Eco after our 9.6 release. As an Early Access title, were always looking to balance adding features with polishing existing ones, and weve decided to have a final Eco 9 update that is focused solely on performance - Update 9.7.
A major part of our team will be focused on both client and server performance, fixing some long standing issues that should make the game a much smoother experience, especially on lower end machines. Our CTO Alex will tell you a bit of the details on how we plan to make it work:
Our strategy is to compare profiling snapshots we collect from QA and players on public test servers after hours of gaming. There are no obvious reasons we can easily fix, but one thing we noticed is greatly increased transform update time (every game object in game has a Transform with its position, rotation and scale) while the amount of game objects is not so different. These updates happen inside of the Unity Engine and we dont have direct control over it, but fortunately we found a way how we can inject a tracking for all transform changes and identify places which cause most of the updates and potentially fix them.
And you can help us with that by playing on our public playtest server for the first part of Update 9.7 that will start tomorrow at 18:00 CET / 9am PT on our official server Giant Panda - all details and how it works will be published on our discord: https://discord.gg/eco
In an average Eco world you have a lot of trees especially with user tree farms. FPS may drop significantly in such areas. There is also time and resources which need to be spent to create a new tree and destroy a tree which impacts the speed of loading objects received from the server.
We are working in two main directions:
Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.6.6 to fix a major issue with civics. We expect this to be the last update before 9.7.
Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing 9.6.5 to address the issue with holding the interaction key to pick up materials, thanks for reporting!
Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.6.4 with a collection of fixes for issues you've been reporting. At the same time we're working on Update 9.7, for which we'll have news soon as well. Enjoy:
Hey Citizens, we just released Update 9.6.3 to address the teleporting issue that was introduced in Update 9.6.2 as a consequence of other teleportation fixes and have added some additional fixes, including for Big Shovel mod and the crane:
Hey Eco Citizens, we're happy to announce that Update 9.6.2 has just released. It contains several fixes for issues that were reported, more polish and we have also slightly adjusted the shelf life for seeds and crops based on your feedback. Please find the full changelog below:
Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.6.1 that includes some key fixes and polish to new features, as well as a built-in sign for the shop cart to display text to potential customers. It has been great hearing feedback from the community on all the new changes, and we are committed to frequent updates as we work towards our next major release! Note: As part of a migration fix for this update, servers that have been created since the release of Update 9.6 with laws that reference the abandoned demographic will need to revise these laws to make sure the demographic is correctly set to "abandoned" - it is possible that laws that were intended to target abandoned citizens will affect active players otherwise!
Hey fellow Eco Citizens, after a month of successful playtesting with you, our community, and Eco modders, we're ready to release Update 9.6. This Update focuses majorly on improving the immersion within Eco, adding 3D models to every food in the game as well as a whole new First Person View with countless new animations. We're rounding that off by adding Shop Carts for your mobile business needs and a major new system changing up the economy: Food Spoilage! [previewyoutube=qzxg_Jwana0;full][/previewyoutube]
Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.5.4 addressing a regression in the last update in regards to filters, thanks for reporting! Fixed: It was not possible to select multiple entries in civic and work party filters.
Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.5.3 addressing the following issues reported by players: Fixed: Contract escrow could end up not having the expected amount of currency to pay out contracts due to work parties having refunded their payments. Fixed: Tooltips didn't show the information line under the item name on where it can be crafted anymore. Fixed: The jump tutorial did not progress in worlds where the meteor was disabled. Fixed: Tooltips could show an exception instead of the expected information after being moved through categories in the store. Fixed: It was not possible to remove the content of a filter in civics once any entry was chosen due to the submit button disappearing when all items were unselected. Fixed: Scrolling in a list menu could lead to a different item than the actually selected one being chosen. Fixed: Glass was displaying 'milky' at night. Fixed: Trying to place a starter camp in an area where that is not possible could lead to empty deeds being created that got linked in chat. Fixed: Clicking the highlighted term "Currency Created" in the description of a law would crash the client. Fixed: The law trigger for completed work parties would trigger for every slot of the work party, no matter if that slot was actually filled by a player. Fixed: The ui for displaying server details in the server list didn't display correctly in all cases. Fixed: On some maps, specific areas could lead to the client crashing when entering. Fixed: Entering invalid values as custom stat for wages at registrar titles could lead to the server crashing and not booting anymore. Fixed: Hidden chat would become visible again when opening the construction menu. Fixed: Changing the resolution caused some border lines in the "Set Play Times UI" to disappear. Changed: Unowned objects are no longer automatically linked as storage. Added: User Marked Up names are now moddable. Added: The law trigger for completed work parties does now offer the amount of work added to the work party in calories.
Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.5.2 to address some more of the problems you have been reporting: Fixed: The client would sometimes crash with error message related to concurrent updates Fixed: Setting the Weight Multiplier could cause incorrect weight calculations in inventories Fixed: Increasing the Stack Size multiplier allowed more than one upgrade to be placed in a work station Fixed: For some workstations, like the Machinist Table, placing a module in the same room would not be recognized until after the next room update. Fixed: Laws that used a Citizen Timer trigger were not allowing Citizen to be used as a variable in a Condition check. Fixed: Deleting a vehicle deed could cause empty deeds to be linked in chat. Fixed: Civics would get invalidated after revising and passing them, reverting them to the prior version
Hey Eco Citizens, today we're releasing Update 9.5.1, adding some polish for and fixing some of the notable bugs with some of the new additions in Update 9.5. This update should bring improved stability and includes several fixes for crashes and failed migrations. We also have included some changes to the chat channel system and animal hit notifications based on your feedback. Thanks so much for that, we really appreciate it.
Dear Eco Citizens,
it's been a while but after two months of extensive playtesting with our community - thank you so much, everyone - Update 9.5 is ready to be released. Next to countless bugfixes and balance changes we have several content additions to the game for builders and decorators and lots of improvements for the focus of this update, the user experience. Let's get into the major changes right away.
Update 9.4.6 has been released and includes the following changes:
Update 9.4.5 has been released and next to removing the holiday skins includes the following changes:
The Holidays are approaching and we want to take this moment to thank our wonderful community for the incredible support this year, we appreciate it so much! In the past months we've been working hard on upcoming Update 9.5 and are excited to share more about it in the coming year.
Until then, we've covered Eco in festive decorations again, for you to enjoy the holidays in your games. Elk got back their sweet reindeer appearance, spruce trees light up as christmas trees and the distribution station has been decorated and is ready for you gifting storage crates wrapped as presents to your fellow players in your communities.
We wish you and your families happy holidays and a healthy new year. May your wishes come true!
With love,
The Eco Team
Update 9.4.3 has been released and includes the following bug fixes:
With this update comes a variety of bug fixes, improvements, and balance changes. Please note: Large servers may experience a longer than normal loading period when initializing properties due to a bug fix that clears out empty deeds from the database.
With our first follow up patch to Update 9.4, we have added an option to enable the legacy cart control scheme, improved mod compatibility for popular mods from 9.3, and implemented multiple bug fixes to address some of the key issues that have been impacting gameplay.
Hello Citizens! We hope that you all had a chance to take a look on our newest Update 9.4 and are very thankful for all the feedback and bug reports we have received from you so far, this helps us a lot to improve Eco for you. During the weekend, we've been closely monitoring all our channels and recognized that one of the most often mentioned feedbacks was about the new control mechanics, especially in regard to carts. We debated the issues brought up and have decided that we will make available an option to choose between the current control mechanics and the ones that you are used to from version 9.3; it is planned to be introduced as soon as it has been developed and tested, likely with one of the first hotfixes - stay tuned for further news about this. We are also aware of several issues with carts and ramps and that some of you are experiencing issues with plants dying and having a wrong skill gain curve after a world migration to the new Update - we're also investigating these and all other reported issues and will provide you with more information and fixes as soon as they are available. The first hotfix is already being worked on and will include the awaited fix needed for some mods to be able to update to 9.4. The modding community is very important to us and we want to make sure that you can play with the mods you love as soon as possible! Thanks a lot for reading and please continue to send us your constructive feedback :)
We are happy to announce the release of Eco Update 9.4! With this update comes a load of new content, gameplay mechanics, and performance improvements. One major focus of this update was to provide more ways to express yourself via the avatar, including new animated emotes and avatar customization choices, We expanded the game with thirty new food items representing well known dishes from around the world. In addition, producing green energy is more realistic, requiring placement with proper access to the elements. We have also been hard at work at optimization, both for the Eco client and for server calculations. You should notice significantly smoother gameplay, though optimization will continue to be a primary focus for us in future updates. Last but not least, we had a heavy focus on bug fixes and other general improvements with a full list of changes included below.
Update 9.3.6 has been released and addresses the following issues:
Update 9.3.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Hey all, were starting our weekly updates again and have tons of work to show on Eco. Over the past year weve had the good fortune to double the size of the team, which means lots more in the works. Were working on a lot of features in parallel, so youll see progress on a lot of these then suddenly theyre all the in game at once. As discussed in our last update, were focusing on a couple things with current dev:
Update 9.3.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.3.3 has been released and fixes the critical issue that was observed in 9.3.2, it contains all fixes of 9.3.2.
ATTENTION: This update contained a critical issue and has been retracted. A build that has the issue fixed is currently being created and will be released as soon as possible, containing these fixes. Update 9.3.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.3.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:
We are happy to announce the release of Eco 9.3. With this update we are introducing some significant optimization improvements, an expansion of the tailoring specialty, and the experimental rent feature will be fully enabled with some additions to the residency system based on feedback from the community. In addition to these changes, we have a variety of quality life improvements, balance adjustments, and bug fixes listed in detail in the complete patch notes.
With the new rent feature, we had a few goals in mind. Renting a property will be a nice way for new players who are joining an established community to get a nice boost to their initial house bonus to help them catch up. Vehicles can also be rented to help with early transportation needs and to provide new players affordable transport options when joining later in the game. For those who especially enjoy building, they can put their talents to work making nice homes for others while earning a steady income. In addition, rent will play a role in our upcoming Towns & Nations where proximity to your residence will have a much larger impact.
As part of the tailoring update, tailors will be able to select from different materials to produce their fabric, from the new cotton plant to the cheap but high polluting nylon. There are a variety of new ingredients and crafting stations, as well a new tier 4 carpet building material. We are also adding new clothing outfits, each with a different theme. For now these clothing sets are cosmetic only, but we have more new clothes in the works and we plan to expand on these by adding skill bonuses. Upgrading the avatars to have more customization and new animations will be a big focus for us going forward.
As mentioned, a key focus for us this update was optimization. We have been hard at work to address Ecos performance issues, specifically the problem with performance degradation over time. We also have optimizations to a variety of our systems, including chunk rendering and database calculations. There should be noticeable improvements, but optimization will continue to be a priority for us with each update.
Without further ado, lets get to the full list of changes in Update 9.3:
Hey Eco citizens, in this post I wanted to talk about some of the changes in the pipe with a new additional direction to the game were calling Eco Infinite.
Eco Infinite will be adding gameplay and things to do Post Meteor, building up support for long term servers with goals and challenges to solve, and in the process aiming to create very tight-knit meaningful communities of players. Seeing the worlds that streamers and players are creating and the depth of the societies there has inspired us to extend the game to support long-lasting communities that dont break up after the meteor is destroyed. We want these worlds and the relationships that get built in them to continue post-meteor, with lots of rich challenges still in store.
So whats there going to be post-meteor? Plenty, with the underlying theme of building a utopia. This means continuing to improve the lives of citizens through housing and food systems, but also brand new systems that will come over the next several releases like settlements (a blog on this here), education, culture, and tourism, all while living in harmony with the ecosystem. Well also be adding special support for events for players to take part in, like trials, debates, town meetings, and lectures. The more opportunities for collaboration the better, and progress will be unbounded. Achievements will track your progress, both personal and world achievements, and these may unlock aesthetics.
More detailed designs will be announced for these as they start to get prototyped out, and our existing priorities will run in tandem with these which the team continues to work on (quality of life issues like making stores easier to use, performance, boats, tailoring, avatars, garbage, much more). These Eco Infinite items are big ticket items and will take some time to implement, most we will be adding as experimental features in an earlier release which players can enable to try out and give us feedback.
Update 9.2.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.2.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.2.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.2.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:
We are pleased to announce the release of Eco 9.2. A large focus of this update was bug fixing and quality of life improvements, but we have added some new fun features to Eco as we prepare for Update 10. This update introduces the residency feature which we announced in detail in our housing blog. Housing bonuses can now be shared with others by inviting them to become a resident of your property. This is a great way for friends to collaborate together on on a home, and it also sets the foundation for the rent and residency based demographics features that we are currently working on for 9.3.
The new Industrial Elevator is capable of transporting multiple large vehicles at once. As societies in Eco grow, there is a growing need to consume more natural resources and mining for ore is a large part of this. With tools like the Excavator and the Skid Steer, miners are able to output significantly more resources, but have an increased need to transport materials out of the mine. The Industrial Elevator will allow significantly fewer trips to the surface.
With this update we are also adding the Storage Silo for farmers to store their crops, seeds and fertilizer. This is the first of our new specialty storage containers that can store larger stacks of items than a traditional container, but can only accept certain types of items. This should greatly increase the quality of life for farmers as they can neatly organize their inventory in one container. In a future update, silos will be used to help prevent spoilage.
Happy Holidays! We are so thankful to our wonderful community. We are excited for all the new content that will be introduced in the upcoming 9.2 update, but in the meantime we wanted to bring some holiday cheer to Eco.
Were bringing the festivities to Eco!
The world of Eco is getting some festive decorations, just in time for the Holidays! Elk have a new reindeer skin, complete with candy cane antlers. Spruce trees have been decorated with glowing Christmas lights. The distribution station has been adorned with lights and stockings, and storage crates will now appear as wrapped presents.
New Year, New Hopes
2020 has been a tough year for everyone, and we hope gaming can serve as a way for us to continue to connect and lift our spirits. We humbly thank the Eco community and are eager to keep building a place for everyone to meet, build, and grow together. Thank you for playing, and we wish you all a safe, warm
Happy Holidays!
With love,
The Eco Team
With the Eco 9.2 and 9.3 Updates, were adding new features of residency and rental properties, connecting individual skill gain deeper to the economy.
Update 9.1.8 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.1.7 has been released: Reverted recent physics changes that probably cause issues with teleporting to zero coordinates
Update 9.1.6 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.1.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.1.4 has been released and fixes the following issue: Fixed bug with inability to remove fuel from vehicles
Update 9.1.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.1.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.1.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:
We're happy to announce the release of Update 9.1 containing lots of improvements and bugfixes. We've been monitoring your feedback on Update 9.0 closely since release and have already begun work on Update 9.2, introducing a few cool new additions to the game and expected to be released in December. Stay tuned for hints in the coming weeks. You can find all changes in this version in the following changelog. We wish you lots of fun with this release, stay safe!
Weve got a launch date for Eco 9.1, coming November 3rd!
With Eco 9 a year in development, it came with a long list of new features. With 9.1, were iterating on that giant update and moving to a monthly-ish release cycle. Heres whats new:
Update 9.0.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Update 9.0.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Version 9.0.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Version 9.0.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Version 9.0.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:
Today we launch Eco 9, after a year in development! Its been a great big upgrade to the game and underlying tech with a core underlying goal: to set the stage to build this game to the stars. Weve spent a ton of work strengthening the technical foundations of the game, tuning and balancing the design, and adding the foundations for new features that will continue to grow the game.
After a year in the pipes were pleased to announce Eco 9 will be launched on September 9th.
The short list of whats new:
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In this blog post Ill be sharing information about the new animal species being added to Eco in the 9.0 Update! Several new large animals and many smaller species have been added, putting us much closer to our goal of having the building blocks of an interesting ecosystem present in each biome. As always, let's start with the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]
Hey all, as we work down the home stretch of big-fixing and optimizations for 9.0, I wanted to talk more about the law system in the game and how its expanded and will support much of the future progress of Eco.
As always, let's start with the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]
In a previous Eco Peaks update I showed some of the big updates to world generation for geology and mining coming in update 9.0 for Eco. In this post Ill present the very closely related updates to mineral processing and pollution in 9.0. Mining and mineral processing is an essential part of the global economy, since it provides the raw materials for many industries. It also raises many questions about land management, pollution, and waste storage. Tailings ponds and stacks are places where products and byproducts of mineral processing are stored long term, and they are some of the biggest structures humans build in the real world. We are excited to continue updating Eco until we have a satisfying representation of this kind of mass extraction and management of earth resources, and the consequences of their byproducts.
Underground Mining.
A tailings pond.
Before we go on, he is the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs so far:[olist]
Hey all, John K here to talk about one of the most core systems in eco, the Law system, and how were evolving it for Eco 9. Before we dive into that deeper, here is the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]
Hello, I'm Leonard and I'm the audio director for Eco. I started working with Strange Loop Games in 2011 on Vessel and am happy to be back with the team again. For version 0.9 we've been hard at work the past half year to improve and expand the audio content while also upgrading the existing audio system. The initial audio system for Eco was built using Unity and this has been entirely replaced by the Audiokinetic Wwise audio system. This new audio system allows us to move a lot faster when adding new content and includes many features not available in the regular Unity audio system. Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]
Hi everyone, my name is Milenko and I am the Art Director of ECO. Since I speak here rarely, before I start talking about UI, I would like to let you know where the art production is at and share a bit of an artist experience from our work so far.
Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]
Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this weeks development blog focusing on our new Labor system for crafting. Labor introduces an exciting new layer to the economy which allows for a variety of new interactions between players.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]
Hello everyone! Im Keegan, an artist, designer, and developer on Eco. My best wishes go out to everyone right now and I hope you are staying safe as best you can. Our team is keeping busy with giving Eco 9.0 the polish it needs and are eager to get it out into the world for all of you to experience! 9.0 has some big updates to building which Im excited to share with you here.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]
Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this week's development blog on Eco 9, focusing on the new upgrade module system which will significantly boost your production.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]
Hello Eco citizens, today Im going to talk about the super-fun world of Demographics. I bet you didnt know that demographics are fun. It sounds like a really boring word, probably. One of my favorite things about Eco though is that it connects things you think are boring to a wider system youre engaged in, and suddenly they become fun. Taxes, for example, probably one of the least fun things there is, is one of our most interesting features. I once saw a server even implement parking tickets, which to me sounds incredibly fun. Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]
The russian website mmozg.net released an (extremely) long article where it shows off our game in much detail, trying to answer the following five major questions: [olist]
Greetings all Eco citizens! This weeks blog will be presented by Eco dev Todd Glenn who works on game balance and helps with some of the design aspects of Eco. We will be focusing on updates to the technology tree, which is the progression of items in the game that players get through research and technology. Weve added a ton of content with 9.0 with a few goals in mind: encourage more interaction between the professions, make advances in technological advancement feel more impactful, and expand on our end game content. Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]
Hi folks, this week's Eco update will be presented by Eco artist and dev Keegan O'Rourke. We're going to get a close look at all the changes to mining and drilling, which is a way to let you prospect and find new places to mine.
Here's the Eco 9.0 hype-train of blogs so far:[olist]
Hello all, hope youre enjoying your quarantining around the world and getting lots of gaming time in, stay safe and get your socializing in virtually. Our update today is on the new Districts system weve added for Eco 9. Heres the current lineup:[olist]
Hey Citizens, hope everyone is staying safe with the global pandemic going around, here at Strange Loop were a remote team already so theres no interruption in our development (if anything an acceleration as we all become shut-ins). Stay safe and take care of yourselves and those you care for. Our small contribution is providing a game world where you can socialize remotely and slow down the spread.
Today I want to debut our latest update on whats coming for 9.0, with one of the new features Im most excited about: Work Parties.
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This week were going to take a break from Civics to talk about another feature coming up in Eco 9, the Ecopedia.
Jumping around in our schedule a bit, heres the series so far:
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Hi citizens, our Eco 9 series continues with a look at Elections and Elected Titles:
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Hey Eco citizens, weve been heads-down working on getting Eco 9.0 ready and its getting close, REAL close, date to be announced soon! Don't miss todays stream at 2pm PST / 23:00 CEST (in about two hours from the time of publishing this blog). One of the main focuses of this update is the government system.
So to start the hype train up for 9.0 (choo-choo) were starting a series of blogs and streams, launched each week on Friday. We have a LOT to share, heres the tentative blog and demo schedule:[olist]
As we are approaching release, the first of a series of livestreams about the upcoming Update 9.0 will start this Friday, 2pm Pacific Time (23:00 Central European Time). We'll be showing everything you need to know about the new Constitutions feature and answering all questions about this feature you may have.
The stream will be broadcasted mainly on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/strangeloopgames), but will also be available on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Additionally we try to stream it directly here on steam.
For those that are not able to watch the stream live, we'll be uploading an edited version to our YouTube channel on the weekend.
We have released Patch 0.8.3.3 with the following small hotfixes: Bugfixes
We have released patch 0.8.3.1 with the following fixes: Fixes:
Today we are releasing Update 8.3.0, an update that was entirely focused on internal changes in order to improve performance short and long term. Performance Improvements: Our developers have been working hard on countless internal changes for this update in order to increase the performance of Eco on a wide range of different hardware configurations. We have noticeably reduced memory consumption on clients, optimized network code, reduced the frequency of FPS spikes (micro lags) during movement and you should now have a smoother experience playing Eco. Please note that there is still more to come in the 9.X updates, as we do have other optimisations prepared and in mind that require more work and / or breaking changes that are better to be introduced in a major update. Relay Servers: For this update we added relay server support for cases where connections between client and server cannot be established in a normal way. This should fix most of the connection issues some players have experienced. The Network.eco config file for servers has the new option RelayAdress where a custom relay server can be configured (available for download as docker image from strangeloopgames/relay-server:latest). If no "RelayAddress" and no "RemoteAddress" is specified for a server then it will auto-discovery the relay server with best ping from a list of official relay servers and use it as fallback for clients who fail to connect the regular way. Other Improvements: Added auto-run function. It is disabled by default, but you can go to Key Bindings and assign a button. It works both for the character and for vehicles. Bugs fixed:
Hey everyone, for the first time ever, Eco is on sale in Steam. Get your 10% discount while the sale lasts and support charitable organisations with your purchase.
Hey folks, this week I wanted to show you the fancy new mining system were creating in Eco:
There are now three steps in processing ore from mines. Each step produces different products and byproducts, requiring different skills and equipment, and each creates various levels of pollution that must be dealt with. The new steps are crushing, which generates crushed rock and crushed ore, and concentration. Concentration produces ore concentrate, and either wet or dry tailings depending on the machine and ore. The step weve always had, smelting, will now produce slag as a byproduct instead of tailings.
With the addition of wet tailings, we have one of the most dangerous pollutants yet, which will be especially catastrophic if it leaks into the water supply. Concentrating iron ore without water will be an option, but gold and copper concentration will always produce wet tailings. The amounts generated here will be enough that a waste management plan will be needed to keep the surrounding areas safe. Since these facilities might be located in different places, transportation becomes in issue. In general this change will increase the depth and fidelity of processing mined ore, and set the stage for connections to other aspects of the game (skills, buildings, transport, pollution, treatment, and so on).
What's Next
Were continuing on 8.2 which we plan to release ASAP, and will contain tons of performance updates as well as in-game voice! And after that were full speed ahead on Eco 9.0, which you can read more about the government update here
Thanks and as always let us know feedback on Discord, Github Suggestions, and email (john@strangeloopgames), great to have your support.
This week Id like to dive into the core of Ecos design a bit, and talk about the principles that guide the design and development of the game. These are things that go way back to the beginning ideas of what Eco would be, and are used to this day to determine what we choose to bring next in the game.
We have released patch 0.8.1.4 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes
Eco is a game that has a huge scope, covering a massive section of human development and history, and through that time humanitys powers have increased exponentially. Thats what we want the arc of Eco to be: the progression from powerless to massively powerful, and the increasing need for management of those powers to prevent them from becoming self-destructive.
The driver of this progression is technology, and as an Eco world advances in technology their ability to impact the world increases massively, for better or for worse. With each advance in technology, you gain the ability to do everything you already do in greater quantities. And with each step in technology, the challenges become greater, making those powers very necessary to continue advancing. This manifests in gameplay in the following ways.
Hey all, for this Fridays Eco Peak I wanted to talk about the new government system Im working on for Eco 9.0.
The high-level idea is that in the current version of Eco you run a government. In 9.0, you will build a government.
First thing youll need to do to create a government is form a constitution, which will be an object placed in the world. The value of the building its placed in will determine how much influence the government has, and whichever government has the most influence will dictate the rules for the world.
Its been over one year since we launched Eco on Steam Early-Access, celebration! But in the long-game, its just the beginning.
We have released patch 0.8.1.1 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes
We have released update 0.8.1.0 with the following fixes and improvements: Additions:
We have released patch 0.8.0.7 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes: * Fixes memory leak that was crashing servers * Fixes Sweeping hands talent * Water pumps now migrate to mechanical pumps * Fixed skill level update in skill level UI on level up * Fix repair cost display for repair table * Fix crash with transfers
We have released patch 0.8.0.6 with the following fixes and improvements: Features * Added new GI quality setting levels. Localization * Revised existing localized strings * Added localization to species Yield and Capacity * Fixed registrar localization category filter failure Gameplay * Compost now has a tooltip in the water filter UI. * Trashed compostables will now turn into compost. * Pickaxes now work on a damage system rather than a strict tier system. Repeatedly hitting harder rocks will eventually destroy them. * The water pump was split into a mechanical and electrical version. * Waste Filters that shut down due to full inventories will now restart themselves if there is more inventory space available. * Added specialties display in foodstatus hud * Made water filter accept 20x more throughput (from .1 sewage block per second to 20 sewage blocks per second) * Made water filter output 10x less compost (from 1 compost per 10 sewage blocks processed to 1 compost per 100 sewage blocks processed) * Fixed sewage continuing to output after a recipe finished * Tree trunks now give some wood pulp when destroyed. * Most non-progress blocking recipes have had their skill level requirements returned. This includes objects like beds, chairs, some light sources, etc. Skills * Made Character XP tooltip more clear. * Fixed talent sync, when skill window is open * Added Food UI hide skills button until skills tutorial * Fixed xp icon huge lag when no specialty * Fixed xp icon no specialty "x" sign position * Fixed skill window opening when you do not have completed tutorial ("z" key, xp bar, specialty bar, chat links, xp icon) * Fixed skill star flashing and proper number display * Fixed display for specialty level users * Fixed skill research and skills ui sync (on server restart, on missing resources, etc) * Now you can see the hotkey "Z" for open skill browser during mouseover it Vehicles * Fixed rare issue with crossing borders after a vehicle was destroyed while the player was driving * Fixed various issues with mounting other players on vehicles * Fixed vehicle speed multiplier on ramps Economy * Removed Users from Tax/Allocate menu * Added Bank accounts to Tax/Allocate menu * Added proper messages on Tax * Optimized tax/allocate to use with old system (users list, ex for laws) * Added tooltips to bank accounts in allocate/tax menu * Fixed bank account dropdown update on leader changes * Added law tax from all accounts * Fixed zero tax display * Fixed world leader removal from treasury bank account * "Your currency" law clause now counts all funds on all accounts! * Fixed transfer dialog ui fields reset on tied ones changed * Divided direct transfer taxes (self & public) * Fixed currency limiter in economy viewer * Fixed wrong currency indexing in dropdowns * Fixed durability display in store offers * Fixed store headers (now sticky) * Added ability to set negative prices in trade offers * Fixed world leader sync in government tab * Fixed world leader removal from Treasury bank account * Fixed "Your Currency" counting in laws and law taxing account pickup. Now it accepts only managed/created by you accounts except special ones, like treasury, etc. Server Webpage * Web map now animates voxel change history * Started storing full-resolution terrain history * Web map now starts paused at the current server time, switching layers while in this state is much more responsive. * Added a layer comparison page with synchronized maps Other Fixes * Updated Aura to address memory leak issue * Optimized rubble even more. * Specialization tutorial now appears after food tutorial * Replaced the "ExperiencePerAction" option on the server with a "PlayerExperiencePerSpecialtyExperience" option which grants experience for overall levels when players gain specialty experience. As with the previous option, this is not intended for normal use. * Updated sprites on pies (foodstatusUI) * Fixed server crash when loading after demographic was repealed by law This update includes parts of the planned performance fixed for Update 8.1. There is a known issue with a memory leak on servers, which will be fixed later this day with patch 0.8.0.7.
We have released patch 0.8.0.4 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes:
After many long months of work, Eco 8.0 is released! Weve got a ton of new stuff in this update, resulting in a very different feel to the game overall.
We have released patch 0.8.0.3 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes:
We have released patch 0.8.0.2 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes:
We have released patch 0.8.0.1 with the following fixes and improvements: Fixes:
Fellow Eco-Players, the Big Eco Game community event with Jeff Grubb and friends started this night. They're playing through Eco 8.0 all month long with 70+ players and three major factions! Multiple people are streaming this event, so here are some of them you can follow to get a look on Eco 8.0 in action on a highly populated server: - GamesBeat on Twitch http://twitch.tv/gamesbeat/ - Jeff Grubb on Twitch http://twitch.tv/jeffgrubb - DrJonez on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/drjonez - Rinderblock on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/rinderblock - Cristian_arg_ on Twitch (Spanish) https://www.twitch.tv/cristian_arg_ - Matt Chandronait on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/mattchandronait - Jesterpc on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/jesterpc - Skrattybones on Twitch http://www.twitch.tv/skrattybones - GoodWorkVideoGames https://www.twitch.tv/goodworkvideogames
We're blown away, it's so great to see people 'get' what we're going for with the game, and this is just the beginning, still in Early Access, so much more to come. https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/27/jeff-grubb-game-of-the-year-2018/ "Eco made me realize that games are actually crucial for understanding our relationship to all kinds of natural and man-made systems. The thing that gives me chills is that I think it is only in games that we can play with economic systems. And I walked away from my experience in Eco feeling like I learned so much even though we had no instructor. No one was connecting the dots for us. We simply learned through play."
We have released patch 7.8.9 with the following changelog: Fixes
Hello everyone, hope you had a good start into the new year! Eco 8.0 - the BIOMES Update - will be released on our 1 year steam anniversary on February 6th! The update will introduce new biomes and species, notably: Trees: Palm trees, Redwoods Animals: Mule Deer, Mountain Goat, Bighorn Sheep Grasslands Plants: Big Bluestem, Switchgrass, Sunflower Desert Plants: Agave, Creosote Art Update Forest Plants: Ocean Spray, Trillium Taiga and Tundra Plants: Lupine, Saxifrage, Peat Moss, Deer Lichen, Dwarf Willow, Arctic Willow Rainforest Plants!: Papaya, Taro, Orchid, Heliconia, Pineapple, Lattice Mushroom, Bolete Mushroom, Cookeina Mushroom, Filmy Fern, King Fern Wetland Plants: Pumpkin On top of that we'll have A New Skill System! - Earn levelups by doing work, then choose specialty talents. A New Animal AI system! - Animals have new behaviors and are much smarter. Pipes! - Create plumbing networks to supply your villages and remove pollution. Banks! - Create new bank accounts and designate who has access. Registrars! - Create titles and use them to determine who can access what. and many more (performance) improvements and bugfixes! We'll be showing off these features and answer player questions in our livestream this Friday at 2pm PST / 23:00h CET, come in and say hi! https://www.twitch.tv/strangeloopgames https://www.youtube.com/user/StrangeLoopGame https://www.facebook.com/EcoVideoGame
We have released patch 7.8.8 with urgent hot-fix which reverts recent changes for pending writes. It should help with "Entering world..." hanging issue while connection introduced in 7.8.7.
We have released patch 7.8.7 with the following changelog: Minor improvements: - It is now possible to connect to the server directly using server id instead of IP address Server Optimizations: - World Layer Tick optimization (~33% faster) - Reduced server lags during backups Server Admins: - WebServerUrl and RemoteAddress on Network tab which allow to have a better control how your server will be available externally - New option EnablePendingWritesOnBackup for StatDatabase which allows to make stat database backup without stat read/write locks
We have released patch 7.8.6 with the following changelog: Server Features:
We have pushed 7.7 to live and with it come a host of changes. Some of the highlights include: Loans and Bonds Updated ramps that are now 1 wide blocks An Intro Story Sequence as part of the tutorial Changes to Tailings An Updated Minimap The full patch notes are availaible here. https://ecoauth.strangeloopgames.com/changelog
Changelog
Changelog:
Hotfix 7.5.1 released
Hey all, at Strange Loop we've been working on something big for a major update: scaling up late-game human impact with technology. The arc of the Eco game is one that starts with humans having a small impact on the environment, and ends with them having a massive impact. During the course of that, citizens will need to create a government that can cope with all that power, and an economy that functions seamlessly within it. If they don't, it's very easy to lead to ecological disaster. So for this update we're adding a bunch of new late game tech, including some new ways of building and moving things in the world. Check it out below.
This is just one of the many highlights we came across on our tour of the Ecostasia server. This modern home really caught our eye and we just had to share it with you all! We will be sharing more of this amazing community's world with you soon! https://youtu.be/S0Y_57VBWE4
Here's a sneak peek at the new Electric Machinist Table. The modules shown are large, industrial electrical upgrades to the mechanical tools. This object will replace what's currently known as the machine shop. https://youtu.be/gWdzdDYQ9Bc
We're spotlighting one of Eco's active modders, Jagganot. He's created a nice batch of mods for Eco that we hope you have fun with! https://youtu.be/Ew2HhLLcfAY To see more & download the mods shown in the video, go to buff.ly/2IDbR6h For mod support & model requests, his Discord is buff.ly/2GFW9BH
The Eco server, Garden Under the Sea is hosting a bi-weekly build contest. https://youtu.be/RVrb4ik9Ba8 May's winner will receive an Eco game key! For more details, visit their Discord server here: https://discord.gg/mupXR8x
Check out the Steam Tractor and its modules which will be available in the upcoming 8.0 vehicle release! https://youtu.be/IwUUBZs3f0Y
Here's a look at the upcoming elevator. In this case, it's being used to build a taller structure. Elevators will also be useful in mining and transporting materials from deep below to the surface. Video footage courtesy of our Discord member, GDragon. https://youtu.be/8gflsIeyXAY
Eco 7.4 is released on Steam, featuring the first set of new vehicles we’re adding! Check out this video for a look at them in action! https://youtu.be/5rUHk6VnfzI
Highlighted comments from our 4/17/18 update: Certain plants not populating upon world creation; usually crimini mushrooms but can also be more than one type of plant completely missing “that is one of the most annoying things, having to create a new world over and over and over again because it is missing either some animals or some plants EDIT: want to say I have only 1 useable out of 2 worlds at absolute best!” UPDATE: We have fixed this in 7.4. Plants that have not spawned during world generation will now spawn in automatically. Would like to see more information about Laws: How to’s; Examples. “Seven votes for "How To Laws" from my small server, would love to have that explained a bit more clearly. I've got a programming background so I think I have a leg up, but for most new players it's gibberish.” If you’re interested in contributing to our Wiki, we would appreciate your help! https://eco.gamepedia.com/Eco_Wiki “Thanks for this initiative! I'm glad to see you quickly took into account the critics about the lack of communication since Steam release. As a server admin and modder, this is a good way of getting updates and ideas other than following the constant flow of messages in the Discord server.”
7.4 has passed QA and has been promoted to the Staging branch on Steam. While there still may be a few bugs to work out, if you want to try out the new vehicles a bit early, feel free to do so. To clarify how our development process works:
There's more than meets the eye to the game, Eco, as most of you already know. Strange Loop Games', John Krajewski, really gets into the depth of what this game is all about in his latest blog article. http://www.doyouthinkthisisagame.com/2018/04/08/economy-as-gameplay/
We’re 7 weeks out from Early Access launch and the game has been growing fast, especially out of our native United States, which is cool to see considering we haven’t finished localizing yet!
Having our game out there in the wild with people playing and streaming regularly has been a pretty amazing experience. We’re seeing a pretty interesting graph of players, which seems to indicate organic growth: All in all a great launch, not without it’s bumps, but wouldn’t want to make it boring would we? And so, what’s next…
Hey all, so it’s been a crazy week for us, where not only did we have the Steam Release, but a giant grant proposal to submit (which is 112 pages of FUN!) for a future project. It all combined into a really epic time, with exciting developments like our login servers crashing shortly after we open the Steam floodgates (fixed now, but that was a wild ride).
Now that it’s out there and the dust has cleared a bit and people are discovering it at a much higher rate, it’s a good time to take stock and think about the future of Eco and where we want to take it in Early Access. And before looking to the future, it’s always fun to look to the past:
It looks like a completely different game over these three years, and basically it is (aside from the fact that you still have an axe and can chop down trees, so much else is totally different). That we were able to communicate our idea with our rough visuals in our Kickstarter and build a dedicated community over the years has been one of the best experiences I’ve had, and we’re super grateful to all our backers. It's rewarding to hear they’re satisfied with what they invested in.
The 7.1.1 hotfix release has been published. Changelog:
7.1.0 will be released tomorrow assuming all goes well in continued testing of the staging build. If your server is experiencing crippling lag, I would encourage you to try out the staging build in the meantime, as thus far there is only minor issues with it and it fixes the crippling lag. 7.1.0 has to disable the stat collection system as it is causing the lag. This is a temporary fix, which will make some stats display incorrectly (such as the species populations shown when joining a server). Some laws which rely on knowing action counts (such as limiting actions to a certain # per day) will also temporarily be non functional. Estimate would be around noon PST for official release.
7.0.6 hotfixes have been released! Find the Changelog below:
Second-day hotfixes released. Find the details below:
Login servers went off for awhile, overloaded by our new launch path with Steam. They are fixed and functioning now. Our apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience with our launch hiccups. Account linking: We're disabling this for the time being, but will be re-enabling it asap. -John K
Pushing an update for some launch-day hotfixes. Details below:
After three years of development, today we launched Eco on to Steam Early Access! https://youtu.be/ud_refZuQoA For those that bought or Kickstarted the game already, you can now link it with your steam account at the Strange Loop site by logging in and clicking the "Link to Steam" button. Account login here. We’re super proud of this release, and want to give a huge thanks to everyone whos supported us from Kickstarter through Alpha. This is just the beginning, we have big plans going forward and we’ll be inviting the community to be closely involved in supporting it. Stay tuned for more details as we launch our new community site. From all of us on the team at Strange Loop a big thanks and see you in Eco. -John K john@strangeloopgames.com
Our final alpha build before our Steam Early Access launch is now out! That makes this the last opportunity to pick up Alpha build and get the early rewards.
Alpha rewards: Meteor chunk, top-hat and goggles, and Alpha backer chat icon.
Alpha is available here: strangeloopgames.com/eco. (Note: Multi-packs come with game keys that *will* gift alpha rewards, even if gifted after Beta)
Next up: Beta. At long last after 3 years, our next release is STEAM, February 6th.
This build marks our feature-lockoff, and from here on out its polish and bug fixes. Here’s what’s in the final alpha build, 6.4:
Until then, all purchasers past-and-present will get these alpha rewards, a Meteor Shard and a Top Hat and Goggles, as a way to say thanks for your support all these years! We couldn’t have made it this far without you.
Once we release on Steam these rewards will no longer be available to new players, and we will be dropping the price to $30 (Any accounts or invites purchased before then will retain the rewards).
Also just released 6.3! Check out the feature list here:
http://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco-on-steam-feb-6th-alpha-rewards-6-3-released/
Video preview here:
https://youtu.be/CRDSk7P3PKU
We’re moving to a new two-week release schedule, into beta and beyond.
We’ll be announcing a beta date soon, sometime in Q1 2018, coming up quick! We’ll be launching to Steam then too.
Check out what’s new in this release:
We released Eco Alpha 6.1, with over 375 bug fixes since the last release, and the introduction of Player Housing.
You can get the alpha on our website at strangeloopgames.com/eco
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