Answering Questions Regarding the Everybody Edits Reboot

Xenonetix · 2018-05-18 22:46:18

Hi Everybody!

So Gosha recently posted something which I worry may cause quite a stir amongst the community:

Gosha wrote:

Oray wrote:
get their thousands of levels deleted
They won't be deleted.
Creating the reboot won't cause the collapse of the existing ee.

So, I decided to answer some of the community's questions over concerns about the reboot, considering this may be somewhat misleading.

Why are you rebooting Everybody Edits?

Flash is losing support in 2020, and most Flash games will become obsolete near the end of 2019. Regardless of how much we love the current version of Everybody Edits, it does have many flaws, and we want to produce a more highly-polished version of the game in HTML5 to allow the game to live on for many years to come!

When is the reboot happening?

Beta for the reboot is currently still planned for early 2019 - We're hoping January, but it's currently too early to make that promise

My guess is that the Alpha stage of the reboot will happen during November and December of this year. The Alpha stage will just include a very select few people, mostly staff, to test the game, before launching a Closed Beta, hopefully in January, if not at Christmas. The Closed Beta stage is likely to include any existing Beta players of the current version of Everybody Edits. Open Beta will follow when we're ready to open the game up to anyone to sign up, and then a full release is likely to come within a few months of that.

Is this an update of the current version of Everybody Edits?

Nope - It will be a completely new version of the game!

What will happen to the current version of Everybody Edits?

We plan on there being an overlap period where the current version and the reboot will be available to play simultaneously. The current projection for this is approximately 3 months between January and March 2019, although this may be extended depending on the production progress.

Will the reboot be made in Unity?

Even though previous staff teams have claimed the reboot would be remade in Unity, we have decided to take a different approach. The current plan is for the game to be made in a brand new engine called "frost2D", which our very own ByteArray is developing. It's basically a lightweight HTML5 game engine coded in Haxe, and if you'd like to hear more information about it, you can watch his video about it here.

Overall, this means we will have a lot more control and flexibility over how the game is run, and we can hopefully make sure it's a lot more consistent when it comes to things like the physics engine!

Will you be staying with Player.IO?

We are currently planning to move away from Player.IO as the host of the reboot, but we plan on staying with Player.IO until the current version of the game shuts down. We don't know yet exactly where the reboot will be hosted.

Will the game still be called "Everybody Edits"?

This is a hard question to answer, as we currently don't know. Right now, searching for "EE" or "EBE" on Google really doesn't bring up anything to do with Everybody Edits for many pages, so it would be nicer to find some form of title which is easier to search for, but at the same time, we don't want to stray too far from the current name of the game, as it will still be a similar game to the current one. Purely as a placeholder (and it's unlikely to be the actual name), the current name is simply "Everybody Edits Rebooted".

Will I keep my account?

We plan on making accounts work slightly differently in the reboot. For one thing, for account security purposes, we do plan on only allowing real emails to register new accounts, so you will need to provide an email for us to send a verification link to, rather than just sign up with any email. That said, we do recognise people will want to reserve certain usernames, so we will be working out a way to make that happen. This is unlikely to be an automatic process, so you will probably have to actively reserve your username ahead of the Closed Beta. We'll probably set that up during the Alpha, so you can keep your username in the new game.

What about my worlds?

If certain aspects of the current version need to be transferred to the reboot, this is likely to happen during the overlap period, although currently, we can't promise anything.

If we end up deciding not to transfer anything, we've discussed the possibility that someone like capasha may well produce a program (or just update EEditor), so that world saves from the current version of the game could be transferred (at least in part, or as close as possible) to the new version of the game.

As a player of the game for over 7 years, I know the value of the work and time players have put into the game, and I would like to make the transition a smooth one, but at the same time, there may be a lot of features which simply don't transition. As an example (and a tease) of this, the current plan is to no longer include different world sizes, and just be able to set the world size at the moment of creating a new world (and possibly even after that, but not entirely sure yet). There will most likely be a range for these (as we don't want infinite-size worlds), but this should give people a lot more flexibility in how they wish to use their world space.

Offensive Ray, Atikyne, LukeM, some woman, Yonanoke, Koto, mutantdevle, Jorc, MartenM, TaskManager, Gosha, xJeex, Phinarose, ByteArray, Emma333, Xfrogman43, mrjawapa, BuzzerBee, IanJanes, Music Man, 21Twelve, SirJosh3917, Taylor, Pingohits, lrussell, PTU, Jedpogi, soniiiety, Dencc, Teds, Schlog, Latif, BasicNet, dcomet, CommanderKitten, Prodigy, Krosis, Cyral, Minimania, Andymakeer, N1KF, Anch, kreacher, ILikeTofuuJoe, Nikodemzak, Br0k3n, imgood9, Loganyoshi, Nikko99, KirbyKareem

some woman · 2018-05-18 22:54:22

If the reboot is a serious overhaul of everything, will we finally get better physics? (ref)

Offensive Ray · 2018-05-18 22:57:55

Xenonetix wrote:

That text wall

Thanks you've actually answered all questions that were going on my mind about this game reboot.

Xenonetix

Xenonetix · 2018-05-18 23:25:10

some man wrote:

If the reboot is a serious overhaul of everything, will we finally get better physics? (ref)

Xenonetix wrote:

We can hopefully make sure it's a lot more consistent when it comes to things like the physics engine!

some woman, Yonanoke, ByteArray

Koto · 2018-05-18 23:48:23

I've actually been planning on starting from scratch woth the reboot, actually (save for a few of my best/favorite maps, some of which I plan on rebooting/improving)

Xenonetix

KingN24 · 2018-05-19 00:37:55

Two quesitons,

One, I know this is asked a BILLION times but will we get vision blockers? (Im not the guy who reads the news)

Two, will there be more effects in the new EE? Like some of the removed ones? .u.

Xenonetix · 2018-05-19 01:15:14

KingN24 wrote:

I know this is asked a BILLION times but will we get vision blockers? (Im not the guy who reads the news)

For the reboot, too early to say, as many things may work differently in the reboot, including things like camera controls, although I can't go into too much detail on that yet.

KingN24 wrote:

Two, will there be more effects in the new EE? Like some of the removed ones? .u.

Difficult to answer, but we haven't specifically decided on exactly which effects will and won't be transferred to the reboot yet.

Koto · 2018-05-19 01:20:28

I can understand why everything might not be included when the rEEboot launches. How bare do you think release might be? Are you trying to include as much as possible at launch, or will it be somewhat "bare" with several updates early on it's life?

den3107 · 2018-05-19 01:31:06

Will it be possible/planned to publish a (basic) API in the closed alpha/beta for bot creators?
This to shorten the wait time on the release of the community's "world transfer program" relative to the release of the public beta.

Or are you planning on only sharing the API with a select group (like Capasha) and basically leave the rest in the dark (although, with enough effort, the API can be reverse engineered, so a closed API would probably just be a delayed public API)?

Norwee · 2018-05-19 01:38:40

You didn’t really touch on the marketing aspect.
Ie, will it be likely that new players will find and join the game? Or will only old players here change to this new version? Will it be released on steam? Should we expect the game to regain it’s initial popularity or will this turn into the same veteran community slog we have currently?

Wizard2002

Bluecloud · 2018-05-19 02:11:12

A few questions for rEEboot

Is there some way i can join the alpha?
will we be able to keep items like items we paid money for?
will gems be transferred?
will energy max be transferred?
will new gems go into ad funding?

Xenonetix · 2018-05-19 04:10:30

Koto wrote:

I can understand why everything might not be included when the rEEboot launches. How bare do you think release might be? Are you trying to include as much as possible at launch, or will it be somewhat "bare" with several updates early on it's life?

I would say it's probably likely to be somewhere in the middle of those two extremes

den3107 wrote:

Will it be possible/planned to publish a (basic) API in the closed alpha/beta for bot creators?
This to shorten the wait time on the release of the community's "world transfer program" relative to the release of the public beta.
Or are you planning on only sharing the API with a select group (like Capasha) and basically leave the rest in the dark (although, with enough effort, the API can be reverse engineered, so a closed API would probably just be a delayed public API)?

We're very supportive of people creating bots for Everybody Edits, and when they can be used in creative ways, we encourage people to do so! We're not as keen on people using them to exploit the game, so it's hard to say our full plans on this yet, but I don't think we'll be "sharing the API with a select group". We'll find a solution to this closer to the time I'm sure.

NorwegianboyEE wrote:

You didn’t really touch on the marketing aspect.
Ie, will it be likely that new players will find and join the game? Or will only old players here change to this new version? Will it be released on steam? Should we expect the game to regain it’s initial popularity or will this turn into the same veteran community slog we have currently?

The marketing really depends on how much revenue the game makes, but I am very keen to try to advertise to a wider audience, and bring in new players to the game. There are currently no plans to the release on Steam, but we are planning on keeping the game on Kongregate, and possibly, later in 2019, creating a smartphone app! - All of this really depends on how much support we can get from the community though, and I'm hoping we'll get enough support from in-app purchases (such as Gems and Beta currently) to use on advertising, rather than having to do some sort of crowdfunding/fundraising. That's not to say we won't go down those routes if it comes to it.

Bluecloud wrote:

Is there some way i can join the alpha?

Relatively unlikely - The Alpha is a highly experimental developmental stage, so the number of people selected to test will be very slim. It may even just be the staff and no one else.

Bluecloud wrote:

Will we be able to keep items like items we paid money for? will gems be transferred?

Some items may not transition, so it's hard to answer this. We haven't fully planned out what to do yet, but my prediction is that I will be going through all the purchases people made from a certain point in Everybody Edits's history, and making sure that people receive an equivalent number of Gems (or whatever the Premium Currency will be) in the reboot. As such, people then have the freedom to spend their gems on whatever they want to in the new game.

Bluecloud wrote:

will energy max be transferred?

Another hard one to answer, as we don't even know if Energy will be used in the same way in the reboot at this point. Whether it is or not, we will need to make sure currencies in the reboot are handled in a more controlled manner than they are now, so there may be some sort of 'conversion' that needs to be made if Maximum Energy is taken into account.

Bluecloud wrote:

will new gems go into ad funding?

Partially! Supporting the game in any monetary fashion will go towards helping to make it a better game, whether that's through paying for servers and domains, advertising, paying staff, merchandising, competitions, or even live events! I have so many ambitions for Everybody Edits to come, but money is sadly a requirement in making those ambitions come to fruition.

Atikyne, Phinarose, ByteArray, PTU, mutantdevle, Bluecloud, xJeex, Jedpogi

Different55 · 2018-05-19 06:18:50

Xenonetix wrote:

some man wrote:
If the reboot is a serious overhaul of everything, will we finally get better physics? (ref)
Xenonetix wrote:
We can hopefully make sure it's a lot more consistent when it comes to things like the physics engine!

Does that mean portal cannons return?

Bimps, hummerz5, Schlog, kreacher

Xenonetix · 2018-05-19 06:22:25

Different55 wrote:

Xenonetix wrote:
some man wrote:
If the reboot is a serious overhaul of everything, will we finally get better physics? (ref)
Xenonetix wrote:
We can hopefully make sure it's a lot more consistent when it comes to things like the physics engine!
Does that mean portal cannons return?

Too early to tell

Gosha · 2018-05-19 06:53:26

Different55 wrote:

Xenonetix wrote:
some man wrote:
If the reboot is a serious overhaul of everything, will we finally get better physics? (ref)
Xenonetix wrote:
We can hopefully make sure it's a lot more consistent when it comes to things like the physics engine!
Does that mean portal cannons return?

You can make portal cannons return by increasing just 1 value in code

PTU · 2018-05-19 08:00:38

Interesting!

Xenonetix, Nikko99

Weirdoverse · 2018-05-19 08:06:30

Why even make a reboot if all it takes is to move to html5

Emma333 · 2018-05-19 08:26:29

I really hope this will work and the same will not happen again with this reboot as with unitee. But I have some trust in this staff. I think bytearray is an efficient worker without much bs, and I think Gosha has proven himself to be an efficient worker too. From what I gather Xenonetix is not someone to stir drama, and he has been transparent so that's good too.
You never know, but I will stay positive.

Xenonetix, MartenM, mutantdevle

MartenM · 2018-05-19 09:53:18

Weirdoverse wrote:

Why even make a reboot if all it takes is to move to html5

Because it is not as simple as 'all it takes is to move'.
Attempting to export the current game would be a stupid thing to do since so many stuff is inefficient and very aged.

Due to the fact that they start from scratch (and the fact that they now know what ee is) they can create far more effective code.
Also, if you may have noticed, they are moving away from playerIO for several good reasons. This means that all the backend code will be basically have to be rewritten. This means that carrying over data would be not a smart decisision since they would have to design around that instead of creating new effective code.

Mait, Xenonetix, LukeM, PTU, Weirdoverse, Jedpogi, SirJosh3917, Offensive Ray

Mait · 2018-05-19 09:59:59

What about the people who has wasted alot of money on EE: beta, diamonds and Big spenders?

peace

peace · 2018-05-19 10:16:24

will we be able to just play it wihtout downloading new stuff?

TundrumMax · 2018-05-19 10:26:17

Could we perhaps have the option to have multiple owners of a world?

Asking cuz of free edit worlds, can't always be online (for trolls)

Xenonetix · 2018-05-19 10:29:45

Mait wrote:

What about the people who has wasted alot of money on EE: beta, diamonds and Big spenders?

Xenonetix wrote:

Bluecloud wrote:
Will we be able to keep items like items we paid money for? will gems be transferred?
Some items may not transition, so it's hard to answer this. We haven't fully planned out what to do yet, but my prediction is that I will be going through all the purchases people made from a certain point in Everybody Edits's history, and making sure that people receive an equivalent number of Gems (or whatever the Premium Currency will be) in the reboot. As such, people then have the freedom to spend their gems on whatever they want to in the new game.
Bluecloud wrote:
will energy max be transferred?
Another hard one to answer, as we don't even know if Energy will be used in the same way in the reboot at this point. Whether it is or not, we will need to make sure currencies in the reboot are handled in a more controlled manner than they are now, so there may be some sort of 'conversion' that needs to be made if Maximum Energy is taken into account.

Don't consider it a waste!

Koto

den3107 · 2018-05-19 10:52:20

Memomemo wrote:

Could we perhaps have the option to have multiple owners of a world?
Asking cuz of free edit worlds, can't always be online (for trolls)

I assume co-own a world without a system like the current crew system?

TundrumMax

LukeM · 2018-05-19 10:59:31

peace wrote:

will we be able to just play it wihtout downloading new stuff?

That's the idea behind using HTML5

All modern browsers support it natively (without needing to install plugins), so unless you're one of the people still using Internet Explorer (not Edge), you should almost definaty be able to play it without any problems

Official Everybody Edits Forums

#1 2018-05-18 22:46:18, last edited by Xenonetix (2018-05-18 22:49:30)