Today we launch Eco 9, after a year in development! It’s 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. We’ve 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.
[h2]Follow development through the Eco Tree[/h2]
Eco is our
forever game, something we plan to continue growing and expanding indefinitely. As such,
the vision of where we’re going is something we really want to share with the community, inviting them to participate in its creation. So with 9.0 we’re also launching the
Eco Tree, which is our new interactive hub for presenting the game and connecting the community and devs:
Check it out at https://play.eco
Here you can see the massive scope of the game, listing our current and future features, the devs working on them, and details on each update they make. We plan to have the whole dev team use this tree to post their updates, and Eco players will be able to join the discussion of features and where we’re going. We’ll also have updates going automatically to
our discord, so you can follow us there too.
As the game progresses over the coming months youll see new features become solidified and shaped by player feedback to individual devs. Eco is a game not just about community, but built by one, and like the game we’re all in it together.
[h2]Eco 9.0 Launch[/h2]
For 9.0 itself we have a huge addition of features and improvements.
The short list of what’s new:
- Performance – Much improved GPU and CPU performance.
- Government – Create constitutions, elections, laws, districts in-world.
- Work parties – Collaborate on projects and share rewards.
- Mining upgrade –Prospecting drills and new processing path for ore.
- New animals – predators with new behaviors.
- Crafting upgrade – Labor and flexible ingredients added.
- Ecopedia – In-game wiki.
- Cloud Worlds hosting service – SLG run hosting service.
- New biomes – Wetlands.
- New building system – Hammer and material types and shapes upgrade. Bulk actions.
- UI upgrade – Full pass on all UI.
And the long list:
[h3]Government[/h3]
- Law system moved to ingame with a variety of improvements to help ease of us
- Vastly expanded options for laws and government types
- Constitutions that decide the the foundation of how a government is set up
- New government buildings each with their own function
- Customizable election processes that can be used for different aspect of government
- Districts can now overlap and are viewable with new in-game district map
- Customizable government titles with optional wages
- Government bank accounts that are exempt from personal wealth calculations
- Citizens now have the option to overthrow a government
[h3]Ecosystem[/h3]
- New animal species and predator behaviour
- Updated Geology with new ways for ores to spawn in more compact deposits
- Prospecting drill for locating ore
- Unique log types for each type of tree
- Wetlands biome has been reintroduced
- Adjustments to pollution so avoiding climate change requires more effort from society
[h3]Crafting[/h3]
- New labor system for calorie powered crafting
- Expanded mineral processing system with additional depth and byproducts
- Work Parties that enable collaborative work and hiring skilled labor
- Upgrade modules for crafting efficiency
- Crafting costs reductions are more trade based
- Tagged ingredients for recipes that can accept a variety of inputs
- New crafting recipes, items, and world objects
- A variety of balance changes to expand on the depth of specialties and encourage more interaction
[h3]Building[/h3]
- New tier 4 building materials: Ashlar Stone and Composite Lumber
- Lots of new building forms for existing materials
- Different variations of Hewn Logs and Lumber based on the type of wood used
- Visual update to Asphalt Roads including the ability to have lane lines
- Improvements to the building system so multiple blocks can be placed at once.
[h3]Quality of Life[/h3]
- A detailed Ecopedia explaining most game concepts and mechanics
- Expanded lighting system and additional graphic improvements
- Revamped UI
- Audio improvements with new interactive music
- A new minimap that is visible at all times by default
- Map now has an optional 2D mode and additional filters for information
- More flexibility with claiming and dividing deeds
[h3]Optimization[/h3]
- Fix for performance degradation over time (“memory leak”)
- Decreased RAM usage
- A variety of server optimizations
- Massive improvements to FPS and overall stability
[h2]Final Notes[/h2]
Eco 9 represented a big refactoring of a lot of core tech of Eco, and we’re in a good place to have much more frequent updates. We’re planning to alternate with minor and major monthly updates, with minor updates containing bug fixes and polish and major updates containing new features and systems, and we have lots in store we’re starting on already. Can’t wait to get there with the community.
Important Info for the Update:
- Please make a backup of your old world, in case something goes wrong.
- When migrating old 8.3 worlds you will loose all government related features, e.g. laws, districts and demographics.Enjoy
- John K, Strange Loop Games Founder + Eco Designer
