These two ingredients are powerful motivating factors for players and admins because designing a world brings a sense of control (I am in charge of the group) and there are few limits to creativity. Therefore, designing a world in Eco is an exciting experience and it is easy to enter in a creative "frenzy" sort of vibe where you wish to design everything from rules, district and economy.
Once this perfect creation is achieved, people will come to the server, build and trade in perfect harmony, won't they ?
Is there a mod with unicorns and rainbows in Eco?
Another major component of Eco is the cooperative/collaborative requirement. So there is also this thing very unique in this game....that makes the links between players so important. Even if a minor change in a rule or something you said in a chat doesn't have an immediate impact, you can learn a few days later that it was the reason people began to think about leaving. Even if you copy/paste the same rules for the next cycle of your server, there is no guarantee that it will work with the new players.
One player may be interested in getting a big house, the other wants to build a realistic restaurant and the third is dreaming about a server-wide company. All these players, with different interest and motivation, can be found on the server you create. All three can be happy and have the best Eco game ever. But all of them are linked in a system made by interactions. These interactions can be things like discussions in the chat or in discord, contracts, trading, claiming lands, sharing equipment. Cutting wood alone seems like a simple individual action, but it becomes an interaction when the player leaves debris or take the wood that someone close needed. Even sitting alone in your corner, never trading or talking to others (absence of interactions)....is a common detrimental behavior on small population servers.
Basically, the little Eco societies exist through these interactions. Each society is different because these interactions differ with the number of players, collaborative skills, experience of the game, time available, culture, visions, etc. You can't control all of this, only inform, encourage or put limits.
You may claim your world design is the best, but only the players and their interactions will tell.
I know two approaches to design and creation. The first one relates to a caricature of artists. In short, the artist starts from his own vision and put his heart, mind, fury and passion into the creation. Therefore, we could say the result is something that comes from within the artist (his ego) and is a gift to the world. However, the control of the design lies in the hands of the artist and people outside have little choice, but to live with the result.
Many admins seem to have this design approach when they set a server. They literally own the world (pay for the server) and naturally feel entitled to it's fate. So they dream about a vision of the world and put in place rules (including forbid laws) so that players will fit in the mold of this vision. The novice law maker who draws districts everywhere and attempt to control who does what and where is also related to this approach.
I call this the Sim City approach in Eco and it's not necessarily bad: sometimes you just feel the need to set things because you want to try a scenario. Sometimes you are just impatient to see results or really enthusiast about creating something. But it's a slippery slope. First you add few basic rules. Now, it rarely go as planned in Eco, so you close the server and begin with a slightly less free scenario. And while you are at it, let's create laws and money from the start to save time because they are in the final vision. Also people are dumb when they settle, so let's place districts from the start to tell them where to go. Again, it's fine...until you turn your world into a big Sim City game where players are nothing but drones expected to go to specific places and somehow fulfill the dream. Eco players are not Sim City AI meant to fill your boxes !
You can buy land downtown where all the city has already been planned. If you don't have your shop in this district, there will be an extra tax on all your sales. You don't choose these two skills together. You cannot hunt unless you pick the skill. Teams are forbidden. If you want the new money, you sell me iron. The laws are made instantly because it's too long to wait for votes and I know what I am doing anyway.
The other approach is closer to the engineer design of items. When you choose this approach, you accept the idea that customers (in this case players) have important needs. Your job as the designer is to understand these needs, both individual and collective. In other words, the design exists to accommodate the players, not the designer's vision.
This approach is not as sweet to the ego since the process starts and evolves from the players. It is also a harder approach in the sense that it takes time, energy and empathy to design something in this way. Players may struggle to explain their needs, so you have to find an objective way to extract useful information from them. Lastly, players will have needs that conflict with other players and you will need clever designs to draw the line.
There are many design methods out there. One that I would like to share here is the functional cost analysis. It is used in many different domains (especially engineering) and contains many steps. I would like to keep 3 steps here for simplicity. Those who know about six sigma and LEAN will see resemblances as well.
I like this method mainly because a common mistake with creation is to go straight for the solution (let's make a law!). Now the steps 1 and 2 really force you to stop and think about the needs of others.
For instance, your farmer is having a hard time producing enough crops to feed the server. He asks the admin to provide him with land papers, so he can have more farmlands. The next thing you have is a debate about whether the farmer should buy them instead and if other players should be able to buy papers too. The new guy also plans to farm in a few days and sees this as a big injustice if he doesn't get papers too.
This is a very common situation in Eco : people argue about solutions and no one really questions if there is a problem in the first place or its exact nature. Moreover, the Sim City admin or elected player is so enthusiastic about creating something, so proud to be the hero, that he goes straight to the solution without asking questions. Next he faces drama...oh Eco's drama.
Get some popcorn my friends !
As an alternative to the Sim City approach, let's go with the 3 steps. First we can say the basic need is to have more crops to feed the server. Now let's define this need further.
Do players agree with this need? Maybe the chef will soon have enough money to buy upgrade modules and he won't need more crops. Which types of crops are missing ? What is their use ? Is there an alternative recipe ? For how long do we need these extra crops?
After some efforts, the initial problem could translate to this: There is a shortage of about 200 extra mushrooms per day for as long as chefs are making jungle campfire stew in big amounts. We estimate the problem to last 3 days since we switch to cooking menus after that. However, it can be longer.
From these needs we go to the second step: functions. Now this is again a delicate step where you must refrain from thinking about solutions. In Eco you can consider three functions. The first type is related to the use of the design. Here we specify things further using a short sentence that begins with a verb stating what the final solution will do:
Notice how after a quick analysis, this farming request is now focused on the chef profession and limited to mushrooms.
Next, there are things that limit the design. For items, you may have limits to the size, weight or power of a tool for safety reasons. In Eco, functions about limits are often related to efficiency and justice/balance concerns:
A third type of function exists: it is related to the attractivity of the design. Your computer may have lights inside to look cool. This is neither useful or a security feature: it's something to increase the chances you will choose this design. This type of function in Eco might be useful for things like setting up a downtown area, working on roads or encourage people to use the public library. A sign with the names of the contributors on them or a title is usually pretty efficient. Just keep in mind there is a difference between making something attractive and punish those who do not stick to a vision (ex.: taxes for not setting your store downtown).
The third step is to imagine solutions. This is where you can get creative, as long as you stick to the functions. Hint: make the problem known as well as the functions and allow players at least 24 hours to answer (ex.: Discord). Once this is done, you analyse solutions and make decisions. Note that in a complete process, designers prioritize functions and carefully take into account the cost of each solution.
You may see here that we are far from the "get me land papers" debate. Thinking about the needs this way is likely to make the problem known to more players. I bet someone will attempt to gather wild mushrooms for the first day. Or maybe the local carpenter will make a deal with chefs to provide them with upgrade modules 3 faster. Chefs might consider alternative recipes. The needs are also clearer in the sense that we determine this is only a temporary problem. This might be enough for some players to (ex.: chefs) to temporarily claim farmlands and make contracts for gatherers. I played mostly as a farmer and find the latter solution far more interesting than the common free land papers or farmer district.
I hope you noticed that once a community has a clear idea of the problem, the solution has a higher chance to come from the community rather than (again) the elected officials and admins. A more humble and player-centered approach may seems longer and difficult, but it usually pays off with more communication and adhesion to solutions. Like any collaboration structure, the first problem will be longer and harder to fix. You might conclude this is too much work. Next, some players will learn to work in this way (or not) and it will go a little faster.
I have seen a few times admin recruit players before the world is created. This was a chance to answer some polls and discuss community objectives on Discord. Getting data and opinions is a great way to begin the design of a world that will fit the needs of it's citizens. One admin even allowed people to log in a copy of the map and another posted pictures so that players could discuss their settling location and road layout (there you go, people agree on roads before the game). On other servers, admins made channels related to professions to get a general idea of the future population.
Before the game begins or at one or tow moments during the game, you can survey your community. Note this doesn't need to be an official survey. Sometimes you can get a lot of information by speaking to different players, especially if they identify the same problems. Just make sure these players have different characteristics in terms of profession, game time and location on the map.
Topics to discuss before and during the game:
About claim restrictions, please don't play sim city by drawing every districts. Also, when putting restrictions on a district, try to prevent things in this district rather than allowing only in the district. For example, you should identify non-polluting zones and prevent smog only here instead of drawing an industrial zone and allow smog only in the zone. The latter is a solution that affects the whole world and prevents creative or totally acceptable projects that you may not have thought about.
The server's description and settings really set the tone for the type of players you are likely to expect and address early needs. At day 1 for example, players usually want to know the general objective of the server as well as some boundaries to expect. They also want to know why this server is more interesting than the next one on their list.
On day 5, however, you can change the description because players have other needs. For instance, players may be concerned about the fact they will be a few days behind and how this will affect their chances to fit in.
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