some people will say that about anything that sounds even remotely like its about being healthy to the world…
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The map game discourse is torn at the moment about the idea of the game…
Some believe it’s propaganda, while others believe it’s a Minecraft focused on teamwork
i still dont understand why people call it “propaganda”, in theory the game is supposed to teach kids, the next generation, that every IRL action they make can have an effect on our world, do people just not want our world to be a nice place or something?
why does everything always have to be a “minecraft clone” 
though this one is more minecraft then not, so i guess that comparison makes sense here.
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Oh, I said it’s like Minecraft, because I really like to play Minecraft. I rrrreeeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyyy love to play Minecraft. If there was a leveling system in Minecraft, I would be the highest level. If it would tell you how many hours you’ve played, it would be about over one thousand.
I love Minecraft
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well i get that, and i was guessing that’s why you were saying that.
but i have seen people call games minecraft clones, when the only thing thats same about it is the blocky look, and even then those games were voxel based and much more “round” then square. yes there are games that are a blatant copy of minecraft, but just because something has a block in it doesnt mean its a minecraft clone…
sorry bout that rant… sometimes i just…yeah…
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No, you have offended my god, Minecraft. You must burn heretic
That’s a big jump in your assumption (regarding ppl not wanting our world to be a nice place). I think it’s pretty hard to find someone who doesn’t want a nice environment to live in… ( minus the few that actually don’t care)
Right now my biggest concern is that it doesn’t seem like any adaptation was implemented into the project (as far as the environment itself, Plants/ Animals/ etc,.). Nope, It must equal death if you didn’t do it this way!
Nature has a funny way of smacking you in the face when you least expect it and it doesn’t always equate to death of the planet (which seems to be the underlining theme - the biggest turn off for me ).
I don’t understand why every survival game there is nowadays is compared to Minecraft. Voxels, or rather blocks, are just a very simple, very performant way of doing games. It has many advantages over “free” terrain, such as explicit collision (a block is either there or it isn’t, it’s not possible that one tiny bit of terrain prevents you from building something there - Train Fever comes to mind, which suffered from the “collision” by unsuspecting terrain quite a lot), easier rendering and lots of possible optimizations (such as the ones Stonehearth employs, which is also the reason that it has a “cliffy” look and not an as detailed on as Minecraft).
Minecraft wasn’t the first game to do blocks, it wasn’t the first one to do survival either. I remember some 2D version of Stranded ages before Minecraft was even developed. Minecraft nowadays isn’t much “survival” either. The biggest threats are probably lava, heights and forgetting to close your door. Yet everything that has threats and therefore could be counted as “survival” and happens to have blocks or simple graphics is a Minecraft “clone” or copy.
The thing is, you will have more things to balance than just that. On one hand, you should not overuse the environment because then you might deal with unforeseen consequences. However, it’s not quite dire as you might imagine it and they’ve said that in some blogs/videos (plus it makes sense from a point of view).
Let’s imagine a scenario, independent of the game (but with a similar ecology model). You have a healthy system where you start hunting elks.
This leads, obviously, to a drop in elk population. It also leads to a drop in predators, such as wolves, because there’s less food for them around. On the other hand, plants may now overgrow everything because there’s less people keeping it in check. This overgrowth might makes it difficult for smaller animals to thrive, for example rabbits. This leads to a reduction in the rabbit population, effectively killing the entire wolf population.
You now have a system that has lots of plants, but little if any meat (excluding fishes). It’s not a death and there isn’t a “health bar” of the environment nor is there necessarily any indication of “good” or “bad” (maybe you really hate wolves and this situation is a plus?). You can still continue your thing, but you won’t have as much nutrition as you had back then.
Of course, keeping the system healthy isn’t your only concern. External threats (meteors were named, others might come too) will be present at some point. It won’t help your cause if your defence from a meteor strike is a shovel and a scythe, you will need artillery. But in order to get there, you will need to mine, therefore pollute the place… which might bring your system to the brink of extinction.
If there are enough events and those are well done, I could imagine that it could become a very interesting experience, especially with other players. Imagine you know that you have a fatal event in a week’s time, and could probably manage to get the resources to prevent it in time. But this would lead to a near crash of the environment… So what would you do? Invest more in science to get a better reading, therefore might avoid this catastrophe (by not doing anything unnecessary) altogether? Immediately start your project to defend yourself from the problem? Or just wait it out because the consequences of action are worse than those of inaction?
All those questions will need to be discussed, researched, explored… It could make for very interesting things indeed.
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If we make a server, I call being the construction worker
I hope they can bring it altogether. Minus my skepticism it really is a intriguing concept no matter how they want to roll with it. I might even donate, just too see how far they can get. I have a feeling even if it fails (money wise) they will get enough trickling in to support it.
Nicely done on your thoughts btw 
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Well, the Kickstarter is already founded, so they’re just looking for the stretch goals now. It’s also important to note that unlike other Kickstarters, for example Stonehearth itself, they already have the base game and most of the modding stuff done (there’s a chapter on the KS about things they already have). That means they can jump right into production and refinements and can jump those early days of engine building. If Stonehearth had the same situation, they would be approximately twelve, maybe up to eighteen months ahead of the current schedule.
Honestly, I’m quite excited about it. There’s so many possible facettes about this game, from the social conflicts that will arise without doubt to the balance of things. Last but not least, I think this is a game where losing truly can be fun: If you do fail and wreck the environment irreversibly, you can always take a look at the stats and see where it went wrong. Try to improve it the next time. Conclusions like “Well, maybe opening a third mine at the same time as that deforestation project wasn’t a good idea” will prove valuable in future attempts.
I’ll try to get ahead of the modding game there too. Even with partial access to the source code and assets and maybe a little bit from the developers themselves, I think it’s possible to achieve great things there.
It will, very likely, include dancing sheep too. I’ll keep you up to date on that.
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I would appreciate it! I was (am) researching it more. I just might get the 65$ tier, but I’ll probably wait a couple more days. Pretty amazed they are over 130k lol. Talking it over with the Wife… she holds the pocket book :).
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Eco has just reached over $140,000 dollars
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Oh, it’s this topic. 
Well, I believe the main issue was the lack of actual scientific justification for most of the issues. Yes it’s a game, but it’s completely unrealistic even if the main premise “humans hurt the environment!” has basis in fact. Propaganda is not inherently bad or evil, but the fact you called this a learning tool goes a long way toward proving the point. Look up the definition of propaganda, then try to back up the in-game science with facts and logic. When you inevitable can’t, that proves it is, by definition, propaganda.
Yeah, we got into a pretty lengthy debate over the science (or lack thereof) in the game and it’s potential application in educational environments. I suppose I could always page @Teleros & Co. for Eco Debate Round 2.
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i’d appreciate if you didnt, i’d rather not have to shut down a thread, about a kickstarter project, due to out of hand debating, arguing, and such.
It’s been a while since I have been an active member here, but on the other forum we were plenty capable of having a civilized discussion. We had polls and everything.
Oh well.
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well if you believe that you can keep it civilized, then go right ahead.
I ended up getting the 60$ tier… Don’t think I needed the poster xD. Either way it looks fun (underlining implied tone not with standing). I’m pretty confidant I can re-Educate as needed for my kid’s sake. Diplomacy, Law making, I can turn that part into a good intro to politics when they are ready.
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He only needs to remove @Zilla’s post. We were fine until then…
Yeah, that is my main reason for interest in the game. Reminds me of Diplo…
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