At gamescom 2024, senior editor of wccftech.com spoke with Derek Qiu, head of overseas operations for survival MMO Once Human. Basically, they talked about the successful start, the problems that arose and the immediate plans for the development and support of the game. We chose the most interesting from this interview.
About current successes and problems:
- Within a month and a half since launch, the game’s revenue reached $110 million. The project constantly shows high places among the most popular and profitable games on Steam. These indicators significantly exceed all the expectations and forecasts of the developers.
- In total, more than 300 people are currently working on the game. There are plans to increase this number to 400.
- The developers have zero tolerance for players who use game bugs to make a profit. First of all, it is unfair to other players. The fight against cheaters does not stop, and identified violators are regularly blocked. This process is assigned high priority.
- Optimization of the game’s PC client is still underway. After completing this complex work, the team will work on the mobile and console versions of the game. There will be an official announcement regarding these versions soon, but it is already known that there will be full support for cross-play.
- Starry Studio is developing Once Human in its own internal engine. Therefore, implementing new technologies such as DLSS requires a lot of time and collaboration with technology companies.
- Prime Wars mode has been plagued by technical issues, but thanks to player feedback, the team has found the cause of the issue and is working to fix it. The new version of Prime Wars is sure to please players.
About the future of the game:
- The need to expand customer support is being discussed. Currently, customer support is only in English, but in the future there will be at least support for French and Spanish.
- The game only has English voice acting, and adding new ones was not previously planned, as this is an expensive process. However, strong player interest has influenced plans to add additional options. Discussions are already underway about what kind of voice translation will appear in the future.
- A dedicated website will be launched in September to collect player feedback and suggestions.
- Until now, opening new servers occurs manually. Therefore, a special system is being developed that will monitor the population of players and respond to changes. This will affect both the functionality of opening new servers and merging empty ones, as well as adjusting channels on the server.
- As for new content, a new PvP scenario will be added in September, and in October we can expect another PvE scenario, which is currently being developed. In addition, new monsters, bosses, weapon and armor designs will be added.
- In October, the world map will be expanded to include a new region.
- Opportunities for obtaining Starchrom currency will be expanded. This will be related to current seasonal rewards or in-game events.
- The transmog system is being discussed and is planned to be available in the future. There are no dates or details.
- It is not possible to transfer a character between servers during a season, as this will affect the server ecosystem and the game experience of other users. The team believes that players should play the entire six-week season, and after that transfer the character between servers and scenarios.
- The authors do not intend to refuse to reset player progress at the end of the season in order to give everyone equal conditions at the start of new seasons. However, this system is not perfect, so improved rewards for older players are being discussed. Changes will also affect the player achievement system.
