The Long Term View For Atlas (Patreon)

Following the plaintive cries of pirates who were "literally" just about to launch a major campaign of villainy, I thought it might be worthwhile to lay out the long term plans I have for Atlas. Why a long term plan? Why not just let it evolve on its own? Why not unlock all the levels right now and grab as many new regions as possible?

The answer to all these is the same: much as the development team will add features to continue developing interest in the game, I'll also have to work to evolve our world so that there's a fresh reason to return. With the survival games we've played previously the first game has seen exceptionally high levels of activity that drop a little as players become more advanced. Eventually we've then restarted the world seeing very high levels of interest again, but this time dropping off dramatically. 

To that end I'm trying to hold back native content in the game while simultaneously encouraging user-specific adventures to keep things as interesting for as many people as possible for as long as possible.

Here's the timeline I've been working toward:

1. Launch event - find a home.

Attract as many players as possible to establish a base from which to expand player population.

2. Establish piracy rules

Simple enough. This would lead to the majority of players building up in one area with the pirates offering a regular threat that they would try to fight against.

3. Add a second region.

When activity levels eased off a little, add a new region to bring them back in.

4. Run a competitive event.

This was the Gold Rush. It gave a fresh look at the game, potentially attracting new recruits.

Unplanned after this event was the expansion to more regions. This is faster than I would have chosen and is perhaps too much, too quickly. After all, had we expanded by one region again there would have been a week or more where players would have investigated it and it felt "new". Instead I've thrown 4 week's of expanded interest into the mix in one go. 

5. Split up the original players.

By this point the original group may have lost its identity. Instead of being a bold group of pioneers they become settled, with houses and facilities of their own and less of the world to fight against. This is a "clock reset" for the second month of the game. The ideal is that each new port has a unique identity to it, however this will at least allow more players to the the "only shipwright in town" (obviously this goes for every trade), which will give individual players a greater sense of purpose.

All being well this will be an evolutionary change over a couple of weeks rather than a revolution that acts as an organisational earthquake. The target is to split from 1 group into somewhere between 4 and 6. The distribution of players won't be even initially, but will be later.

Each port company will build an embassy in a designated area of every other port. This will include whatever resources they want, but most importantly a bed for respawn and fast travel purposes.

As a byproduct of the real world interfering with the effectiveness of the pirates, I made the decision to suspend piracy at this point. First because their current role is nerfed to hell and back, second because, well, they weren't actually performing the role envisaged. Turns out they had a plan, which is pretty typical, but historical performance of the pirates had lead me to believe they were a rare annoyance at most. Piracy and governed PVP is an important facet of the world we're setting up, but as it stands right now, it's ineffective as it barely exists.

As part of splitting players up we'll bolster the number of pirates to give them a more interesting role when not against the overwhelming odds of one target.

6. Encourage competition between new ports.

This includes rules regarding hostility between port fleets. This will still be very much limited, semi-consensual PVP, but it should make the high seas a more exciting place. When adding into this environment the freebooting pirates, being aboard ship even with large distances of open water should be constantly exciting.

7. Live competitive event number 2.

The difference in this event is that now, every team is competing on behalf of their port. If not already established by now, we'll add specific fleet colouring schemes for each port company. This first event will then act as the start point in a series of contests between ports. If we can figure out a means of having displayable "trophies" so much the better.

8. Further world expansion.

Providing player levels remain high, at this point we'll expand the world again to keep things interesting for those who've been in-game for 2 months by this point. If this adds new ports into the mix, so much the better.

9. Enourage focus of ports into specialisation.

The further out from where we are now, the more speculative the goals become. The initial splitting of the Big Group followed by occasional fractiousness between the new groups is a good place to start. By later more clearly defining purpose behind individual groups creates a greater opportunity for conflict... maybe. We could try defining the purpose behind each group from the get-go, but that might limit the success each has in recruiting. Time will tell.

10. More competitive events, organised conflict.

By this point it will be special events that pull players back into the server. Survival games are tough in which to maintain a high level of interest precisely because players tend to over-invest to begin with. The evolution from "we'll play this for a while" into "we'll play this long term" will mean that a need for bigger, more involved events, conflicts and storylines is required. Resorting to a restart of some kind to drum up interest tends to be the beginning of the end, so the aim is to evolve the existing world, rather than reboot it periodically.

-CF