Answers from the Developers
April 2022
The Bitcraft developers are active on the official BitCraft Discord server and often answer community questions. To join the conversation and to read new answers first, join https://discord.gg/bitcraft
I had a question on how customizable avatars are going to be. Will we be restricted to a few bog standard sliders and presets or can I make a lanky abyssal nightmare?
We are still discussing the finer details of character customization but our current direction is to offer players limited options during character creation and allow players to unlock additional options during gameplay. Not sure if the level of nightmarish abyssal you want can be reached, but you will be able to look unpleasant if you so desire, just not right from the start.
How useful will soloing in Bitcraft be? Would a solo player be able to succeed or last long in a world filled with kingdoms and groups heavily getting resources and trading, or would that one solo player soon have to be forced to join a group?
BitCraft is in essence a multiplayer game and many game features are based around that. Two of the major aspects forcing players into cooperating in other MMORPGs will however be less relevant in BitCraft. There are no hard limitations on skills and there is no risk of being physically attacked by other players. In addition, some playstyles lend themselves more toward solo gameplay.
An explorer will have little need for support from other players, a hunter will probably only once in a while visit a city for trade, but a stonemason on the other hand will want to be around as many players as possible, to offer construction services.
In regards to the upcoming open alpha, how open is Clockwork to player feedback not just on bugs or tweaks but on major changes to the game? How much of the development is finished and final as opposed to changeable in response to community feedback? When it comes down to it, how strong is Clockwork’s vision for the game compared to their desire for community involvement and participation in development?
We have a very strong vision for what the game should ultimately be, but we are of course open-minded to doing whatever makes the game better and more successful. Based on Pre-Alpha tester feedback we are already overhauling some game systems affecting the individual character and we are prepared to keep applying changes based on feedback during Alpha testing. Please keep also in mind that tester feedback is often not unanimous and can even be conflicting depending on individual preferences and preferred playstyles.
What direction are you taking with the building system? are you leaning towards template-style prebuilds supplied with materials, valheim-style component parts, or an adaptation of Minecraft’s system? or maybe something entirely different?
The number of players sharing the same world will be extraordinary higher compared to traditional survival games and we had to take this into account when deciding how granular we can go with building houses.
In BitCraft most buildings will be “template-style”. However, some structures will be components and modular like walls, roads, and decorations.
Is the BitCraft world generation will be realistic? like if I go north a lot will I find a colder climate?
Currently, we don’t have a latitudinal climate in our Pre-Alpha test worlds, but it remains an option in the future, once we have a solid game. There are, however, parallels to our Earth. You can for example expect a colder climate and snow in mountain regions.
As we’ve seen before, there are different biomes/climates in this game and I think it’s safe to say that every biome has distinct materials/items that you can forage. My question is: How would that affect the building of a civilization? Let’s say I need wood, which is a very important part in building. When being in a desert, it is presumably pretty difficult to get wood. Do civilizations in different biomes need different materials for building, or do we need to trade with other civilizations to get those items?
When you start playing BitCraft, you will find the materials required for a basic camp, primitive tools, and simple clothing in close proximity. With each crafting tier, it will get harder to find and harvest all needed materials yourself. At that point, specialization and trade become increasingly important. To use your example of a city built in the desert and in need of resources found predominantly in woodland: The city can either send expeditions into far lands to harvest specific wood themselves or buy it from a merchant in exchange for local resources.
Are working land (and maybe air) vehicles part of the plan? (Carriages, Trailers, Farming vehicles, Hot air balloons?…)
We plan to have player-operated land and water vehicles in the release version of BitCraft. You might have seen the boat in the trailer as an example. The development in this regard is in an early stage and not yet part of recent BitCraft test versions.
What accessibility features are you planning to have at first? Things like colorblind filters, flexible keybinds, dyslexia font options, etc.
We aim to make the release version BitCraft accessible to as many people as possible. We have this already in mind during the game development but implementation can in many cases only start once all base functionalities are finalized.
It is, for example, only effective to enable flexible keybindings once we have ironed out how many, and in what capacity keys are used in general gameplay. Otherwise, changes to the underlying game mechanics could break the functionalities on top. This, unfortunately, results in few customization options being available during early playtests.
You guys mentioned weather system, erosion and etc. I was wondering, could you also make mechanics for natural disasters? Like, floods because of too much rain, earthquakes in some areas randomly, tsunamis because of earthquakes, etc..? The occurrence algorithm could be made for randomness, but also its maybe possible to make with in-game nature logical cause and effect?
The biomes planned for the initial game release of BitCraft will provide stable environments with no risk of natural disasters.
Once we move forward to add additional content, it could be an idea to develop new biomes with an inherent risk of cataclysmic events. It sounds like an interesting concept but it is nothing we can tackle in the near future.
How versatile will the world be in terms of editing and landscaping? Will settlers have to work around different landscapes or can we permanently change the world itself to fit our needs?
We want to enable terraforming in Bitcraft within reasonable boundaries.
There is a risk of grief-play attached and we need to consider this in our game design. We don’t want your neighbor to just overnight drastically change the landscape so you find yourself waking up in an unescapable canyon.
Things like flattening an area or changing a hill slope into terraces to build a city on it will likely be possible.
How would trading work? would you have to drop the items and hope the other person won’t scam or will there be an actual system in place?
Trading is a central aspect of BitCraft. A simple trade window is already implemented in the Pre-Alpha client and with game release, we want a robust system in place, which allows trade between players in comfortable and secure ways, in line with our game design philosophy.
In the Learning from history post/concept art on Twitter, there are some air vehicles! Will it be possible to have airships? Not modern, but more towards hot air balloons and airships would be neat. Was thinking of the ideas with the hexite ore that might have some abilities to be used as a flight ingredient if mixed with other powerful ores. Like having something powered by hexite or hexite engines would be neat as well! Or maybe like there’s a lift mechanism that we can attach to boats that are powered by Hexite that enables floating boats and powered by the wind!
The ancient inhabitants had found ways to fly — If the newly forming civilization will progress in the same direction remains to be seen. (We are not opposed to the idea in general but such a feature will not come with the initial game release and many design and engineering questions need to be answered before we can think about committing to its development)
Will there be ruins left over from what the pre-alpha players created? Let’s say a group creates this giant city in a deep dark forest in the pre-alpha, would be cool to see the decayed version. Will there be a decay system like rust or something similar?
We create a new, temporal BitCraft game world for every Pre-Alpha test wave and these will unfortunately not persist and have to be wiped after the end of each test.
In the release version of BitCraft player-built towns will likely eventually become ruins that can be scavenged if they become abandoned.
Will the systems involved in player groups (Empires/Guilds/Nations/etc.) work like how some of the community envisions it? If not, how will they work?
All player group systems are still in early development and require intensive testing before we can call it a day. Later Pre-Alpha playtest will be more focused on group features and community feedback will have a considerable impact on the final systems. In its current design vision, at least some player group systems, are close to what we believe the community envisions. However, proximity will play a bigger role compared to what some might think. There are no central located cities, run by NPCs, where people can go see a Guildmaster to register a group of friends as a guild. So in BitCraft a group of friends will likely travel in search of a nice place in the world to start their own town.
Is the world map going to have an end and if so how will it be implemented?
The final determination on this has not been made. It may be infinitely expanding, or we may intentionally limit the size of the world for the purpose of gameplay (particularly as it relates to maintaining appropriate player density). We may also limit the size to be able to use more advanced terrain generation techniques with weather simulation and erosion simulation.
