- Sine, Line, and Circle coated m1Circlon Droid type pets are available for a limited time!
- A HUGE range of accessory items have been added to the game, giving massive customizability to all existing and future Droid types!
- THREE new classes of items tailor made for customizing Droid type pets have arrived at Krafties Kurios with a WIDE variety to choose from: Droid Paint, LED Arrays, and Expression Modules!
- Future Droid expansions will be explored if players are excited to support this new type of content! Sneak peeks are shared in the blog!
- Read about KraftieCoins and economic game design! If you want to!
System testing procedures activated…
m1Circlons Initialized!
Limited Edition Sine, Line, and Circle m1Circlons!
With the additional item types released today, Droids have become THE MOST visually customizable pets available in the world of Krafties! On top of that, these droids allow for a special gameplay style currently only available to Droid class pets, and all have Adaptive affinity bodies meaning that they adapt to ANY soul they are bonded with. And of course, each creature will have a +5 for each natural stat.
The vendor is near the landing point at Krafties Island and will only be available for two weeks, now through December 8th. They’re priced at L$2,499. When purchasing, choose between three different coat styles: Sine, Line, or Circle! There are no differences between the creatures available except for their coats. Grab one while you can!
Droid creatures possess an Auto Aggro setting, which can be activated via the HUD, completely changing the Krafties battling experience!
On Auto-Aggro
With a droid active and Auto Aggro enabled, when you’re standing near a group of wild creatures your pet should auto attack any creatures that are less than or equal to its overall level within a 5 meter range. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg here. We’ve also made it so EVERY spell that was formerly able to be set as an “active spell” can now be manually cast. This means that while actively battling, creatures can output more damage, and kill more wilds, if handled correctly now that the extra 2-3 low level spells the creatures had “leveled out of” are now in-play all at the same time. We’ve also added a spell that EVERY creature has, able to be cast every 10 seconds, called “Force Blast”. This is intended to give level 1 pets a more engaging battle experience with greater emphasis on manual spell casting. BUT, here’s a big catch: as a trade off with the auto aggression setting, the captcha times have been drastically shortened. They are currently ~10 minutes. This will be reviewed and revisited periodically.
Krafties Kurios Droid Accessories, And A Rationale For Droids
THREE new classes of items tailor made for customizing Droid type pets have arrived at Krafties Kurios with a WIDE variety to choose from: Droid Paint, LED Arrays, and Expression Modules! When designing Droids, they are specifically created in such a way that these three items can be applied to ANY and ALL of these robotic companions.
There’s a huge variety to collect to customize your new friends. If received well, this could become a full-fledged expansion that may add significantly to the secondary market. As things stand now, Krafties Kurios is the only way to obtain these accessory items. However, if players are excited to explore this direction then we’ll probably see things like:
- New droid type creatures becoming obtainable through a variety of gameplay means
- New ways for players to obtain the new droid accessory items, promoting trade on the secondary market (Paint, Expression Modules, and LED Arrays)
- Exploring new gameplay mechanics centered around Droids
- Discovering how this new pet class might fit into the lore of Krafties in small ways
Straight From The Dev: Ok! So… droids are back. Last year, I surprised a lot of our players when the very first set of Droid type creatures, m1Blockets, hatched from their Mystery Eggs. I had put a LOT of work and effort into this concept (from new battle mechanics, to a design philosophy that would allow for a myriad of new customization items targeting droids, to a slew of new modular designs, to an animation methodology that allows Droids to be aesthetically competitive in SL, to… so much more) and I was excited to finally get out the first round of our robo friends. However, when they hatched, the reaction in our group chats were less than I’d hoped for. It was quite discouraging, to say the least.
So, I put it on the backburner while I played with other things. However, what have I seen in that time? For all the hate they seemed to get at first, m1Blockets are one of the most popular and successful pet releases to date! Above almost any other pet we have released, they have held their value on the secondary market in a very strong way, and see consistent playtime.
Now, I try to listen. It’s not always easy, and I of course know that I can’t make everyone happy all of the time, but I never want to push for massive changes that will alienate anyone from the game in a huge way. With that said, I have all this work on Droids that I’ve already done (for the most part), I’m excited about these little guys, they have the potential to add SO MUCH to the secondary market, and from what I can tell, they hold their value exceedingly well. So, we’re going to try this one more time.
I sincerely hope that the majority of players enjoy them, and that they capture your imagination in the same way they’ve captured mine. Outside of Krafties, the world around us is changing and advancing in leaps and bounds, and these little friends were created initially with the intention to be my outlet to explore and maybe add some artistic commentary around my observations in this area. I hope I get to share that with you, but I have no intention of pushing anything that isn’t welcome.
Anyway, I’ll be watching the numbers closely!
The Noble KraftieCoin, And Its Place In The Market
As we journey through the ever-evolving world of Krafties, hard work has been put into streamlining gameplay centered around collecting items and the secondary market experience, while always trying to keep things exciting and rewarding. You may have noticed some recent changes in NPC trades that involve KraftieCoins, and unveiling more lavish types of items for purchase using these coins at Krafties Kurios.
So, why this shift towards moving toward larger transactions in a (more or less) unified in-game currency? At the risk of oversimplifying things, it’s all centered around simplicity and balance in the economy. Over the years, we’ve introduced various loot types with diverse mechanics that sometimes make navigating the secondary market feel like a complex puzzle. No doubt this is the case for newer players, who not only have a large cognitive hurdle to overcome when learning the game, but are at an economic disadvantage solely based on the amount of time they have had to stockpile loot. Some of our players are sitting on hundreds of THOUSANDS of Muffins that have been stockpiling over ten years! Gross! As a designer, how do you handle even attempting to allow newer players to feel like they’re not completely excluded from the market before they even begin, while trying to respect the time and commitment of your dedicated players that have been playing for years?
Well, the answer is: it depends!
While there are a few avenues available, I’ve opted for one that makes things MUCH easier for me as a developer and a designer.
First, controlled inflation. Essentially, this means that, on average, a player accumulates loot/currency at a greater rate now than they would have given the same amount of time ten years ago. In other words, we want players to see bigger numbers for active play NOW, allowing them to catch up to piles that have been laying around and collecting dust, in a reasonable amount of time. However, just as in the real world, this level of inflation must be monitored and controlled carefully. And we are!
As a side note, one interesting way to achieve this effect, while making gameplay more streamlined for lower level creatures, might be something like… removing the ability for creatures to “miss” attacks… Hmmm…
Next up, consolidation and sinks. Recent changes in NPC shops have made it a much better avenue to convert large numbers of collected loot piles into our universal currency. The noble KraftieCoin! At the same time, I have been working to create some (I hope) attractive incentives for players to spend LARGE numbers of coins with the new Krafties Kurios shop. The test runs of new item types seem to be going over well. This recent Droid release marks a large expansion of the shop, and I hope it’s received well enough to merit further movement in this direction! These are intended to be lavish, expensive, and most importantly meaningful purchases using KraftieCoins that all at once create value for Krafties WHILE creating reasons for commerce to happen on the secondary market.
Now, that’s not to say that this will be the ONLY technique for shifting/correcting item balances. But, that’s for another day!
By incorporating and pushing for more and more development around this single, universal currency system, I hope to be able to better manage our “sinks” in a more or less central location. This ideally makes creating fun incentives for players more approachable as an independent game designer, while making things much simpler to understand from a player perspective both when actively playing the game and when shopping on the secondary market. That’s a win-win-win!
Already, new ideas for game expansions embracing this new market direction are floating around in my mind. While only time can tell, if this is deemed a successful approach Krafties Kurios may soon need a LOT more room than just the few little wooden stalls we’ve set up for it.
Hope you enjoy!
