What should Civcraft be like tomorrow? The answer to that question can be determined from a combination of the github bugs list and modmail probably, a ban here, a bug fix there, a variable tweak or a new mechanic, the immediate future is easy to see and easy enough to understand.

But what should Civcraft be like in a year? What is the ideal vision? What do we need to be doing, thinking, working on today to make that vision possible, how do we achieve goals that might seem like nothing more than an ethereal dream. What needs to be changed, adjusted, or left the same?

During 1.0 I spent a lot of time on minor tweaks, Civcraft was too unstable to be left unattended, tweaks to how problems where thought about and addressed where required almost constantly, the long term plan was simply to try and have somthing other than a wasteland left in a year, but as 1.0 drew near its close things started to become more stable, we had learned needed lessons and made the required tweaks, with 2.0 we introduced new ideas, they themselves needed adjustment and modification for some time as well, but the trend to stability continued.

By early-mid 2.0 the experiment could run almost unattended, sure many things could be improved, but the mechanics had been balanced enough and stood a long enough test of time that I could sit back and watch even somthing like an invasion occur without much concern about having to modify the way the game was designed or played on a fundamental level, a tweak here, a new plugin there, a modification to existing administration precedent perhaps, but in general the die was cast.

Insomuch that my goal was to prove that a social videogame like Civcraft was possible I had succeeded

So I let it run.

It wasn't until several months ago that it occurred to me that Civcraft had reached its initial goal, as usual the significance of a moment was only to be found long after that moment had passed, it was clear that in its current state if I asked where Civcraft would be in a year I could say "much the same as it is now".

That meant it was time to think again about what our long term goals should be.

Here we stand, with a working version of a game that no one was sure was possible when we started. We produced clever and elegant solutions to complex problems, then we improved them until they where well tested from every angle and balanced to achieve our goals.

A very common argument back in the day was that any plugin for enforcing will on other players, prisonpearl, prisonbed, could never be properly balanced, the argument was that administrators would always be needed to really enforce any consistent sort of order, not just in rare instances, but all the time. Its easy to forget how vehemently people argued that no clever mechanic that could achieve what we now take for granted could possibly exist.

But for all we have managed to do a lot of problems got shoved to the side, ignored as too hard or dropped in confusion when no clever solution came. Some of these problems are monolithic, others are ingrained into a thousand little places an assumption made everywhere. Anything that was difficult but not essential to that first goal got left out.

So what then, should we just sit down and twiddle our thumbs while we wait for Praixs? Is there no improvement that can be made? Nothing more that can be learned?

That's not the case, there is always more we can improve on, usually its incremental, but to really make Civcraft better we have to tackle the bigger problems, the ones previously dismissed as too hard, just like the problems that came before them we can invent solutions and eventually make them stable enough to really stand the test of time.

Imagine for a minute Civcraft with an unlimited population cap, once we run out of room on the current map (1k ish players I think) we can add new shards onto the existing map arbitrarily and have new players spawn there.

That's one of the major problem solutions that's already well in motion.

You see my goal is not to ban botting or alting, my goal is to solve botting and alting, to solve the problems that make them a necessity for a fun game. To solve the problems that they solve for Civcraft in game, with less lag, more fairness, and better flexibility.

Then after that has been done, then ban bots and alts, because by that point the only reason for bots will be to cheat and the only reason for alts will be to circumvent prisonpearl, hopefully that can be done using a script that will work better than ever because it is also on the slate for improvements.

The day this happens is a lot further off than sharding, its a goal on the scale of years and the economy and limitations that make them so harshly defended may no longer exist by the time these plans come to fruition, but for that sort of change to be made into a reality a very long term plan is required.

Its not entirely clear how we are going to solve these problems, many of them will require the same willingness to think around and beyond problems that the initial creation of Civcraft required, it may take a very long time before they are ready and when they are ready it may take a long time after that for them to be truly stable and tested by time and gameplay events.

A couple of things are clear through, one is that for the time being 3.0 is another problem, not a solution, each and every one of these major problems to be tackled, population cap, economy, botting, alting, all of these where abandoned or done poorly during the 1.0 to 2.0 transition due to the lack of time to really work out solutions and polish them, there may come a day when the stage is set for 3.0, but I don't see it anywhere even on my long term horizon, fixes must be made for our current revision first, where we can think them out properly.

Another point that is clear is that we can't shy away from working to a better future for Civcraft, yes these problems are going to be hard, yes it might be difficult to imagine how we will really fix somthing so ingrained into the economy and gameplay as alts, but its somthing we can solve.

There is no such thing as a problem that can't be solved, there are only solutions not yet found.

I hope you understand where I am trying to go now, what I am trying to do. Many of my plans involve parts of larger changes, pieces to be integrated into a larger dream, we can get there, maybe not soon, but someday.

Thank you for your time.