Hey all, it seems that lots of people are taking bits and pieces of information from different places, so here is a breakdown of something with specifics, so there is not any hearsay involved. Please note, we will update this list as discussions advance a bit further as well.
- Strongly considering giving TUG away for free, but don't know what that looks like yet
- monetization for TUG is all about aesthetic, not gated content
- design and experience are not changing with this consideration
- game is playable offline and moddable, so not really something that allows for us to gate or control content, since you could just mod around it
- discussion is needed with community over next year to figure it out.
- focus on getting into as many hands as possible, both dev and player
- Mod monetization/support
- important to give modders a way to earn living from amazing work
- quality control is first priority, not everyone can just monetize (skyrim fiasco)
- empowering amazing modders = more amazing mods and support
- (thoughts) would need to be proven modder, and proven content
- (thoughts) near professional level quality to be considered
- how it works unclear, community dialog needed, a year till decision, at least
- doesn't mean people are paying for every mod
- NK interested in licensing mods that make TUG better as an experience
- monetized mods perhaps optional with some aesthetic reward
- No updates to DX11 TUG, but new engine getting done fast important because...
- DX11 is limiting who can play
- OpenGL will be able to reach a great deal more gens of hardware and paves the way for Mac and Linux in the future
- comes with better performance across the board
- comes with “new” art style and awesome graphics improvements
- comes with improvements to dev environment (faster content, better mods)
- powerful behavior and analytics tools available to all players and modders
- powerful distribution system to share and distribute work
- new modding platform with real time debugging
- new tooling platform with direct engine integration
We will share details of these things over the course of our development, and we are only a few months away from being able to show progress, which we will do as regularly as possible.