Hello, I'm Leonard[videogameaudio.com] and I'm the audio director for Eco. I started working with Strange Loop Games in 2011 on Vessel and am happy to be back with the team again.For version 0.9 we've been hard at work the past half year to improve and expand the audio content while also upgrading the existing audio system. The initial audio system for Eco was built using Unity and this has been entirely replaced by the Audiokinetic Wwise audio system. This new audio system allows us to move a lot faster when adding new content and includes many features not available in the regular Unity audio system.Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Gove...

Read more

Hi everyone, my name is Milenko and I am the Art Director of ECO. Since I speak here rarely, before I start talking about UI, I would like to let you know where the art production is at and share a bit of an artist experience from our work so far.Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecopedia Syst...

Read more

Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this week’s development blog focusing on our new Labor system for crafting. Labor introduces an exciting new layer to the economy which allows for a variety of new interactions between players. Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System (This blog)
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecop...

Read more

Hello everyone! I’m Keegan, an artist, designer, and developer on Eco. My best wishes go out to everyone right now and I hope you are staying safe as best you can. Our team is keeping busy with giving Eco 9.0 the polish it needs and are eager to get it out into the world for all of you to experience! 9.0 has some big updates to building which I’m excited to share with you here.Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles (This blog)
    
13. New Mining Sy...

Read more

Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this week's development blog on Eco 9, focusing on the new upgrade module system which will significantly boost your production.Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign (This blog)
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecopedia System
    
17. New UI
    
18. New Audio
    
19. New Hosted Worlds System

When designing u... Read more

Hello Eco citizens, today I’m going to talk about the super-fun world of Demographics.I bet you didn’t know that demographics are fun. It sounds like a really boring word, probably. One of my favorite things about Eco though is that it connects things you think are boring to a wider system you’re engaged in, and suddenly they become fun. Taxes, for example, probably one of the least fun things there is, is one of our most interesting features. I once saw a server even implement parking tickets, which to me sounds incredibly fun.Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages (This blog)
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Craf...

Read more

The russian website mmozg.net released an (extremely) long article where it shows off our game in much detail, trying to answer the following five major questions:

1. What is Eco?
   
2. What was done good?
   
3. What was done bad?
   
4. What will be improved?
   
5. What won't be changed?

The authors did not only investigate and describe the game very in-depth, they also collected a lot of questions from the community and provided answers for them while also gathering and publishing opinions from several of our Eco developers.In result they created an article that is a very recommendable read for new players, returning players and players actively playing right now that took lots of efforts to delve deep into our game.Unfortunately we do not have a english translation at the moment, so the article is available in russian only for now.https://mmozg.net/longread/eco-unlearned/(If you speak both languages and would like to help us with a translation, feel free to reach out to us, we'd love to make this article availa... Read more

Greetings all Eco citizens! This week’s blog will be presented by Eco dev Todd Glenn who works on game balance and helps with some of the design aspects of Eco. We will be focusing on updates to the technology tree, which is the progression of items in the game that players get through research and technology. We’ve added a ton of content with 9.0 with a few goals in mind: encourage more interaction between the professions, make advances in technological advancement feel more impactful, and expand on our end game content.Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System...

Read more

Hi folks, this week's Eco update will be presented by Eco artist and dev Keegan O'Rourke. We're going to get a close look at all the changes to mining and drilling, which is a way to let you prospect and find new places to mine.Here's the Eco 9.0 hype-train of blogs so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage (This blog)
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecopedia System
    
17. N...

Read more

Всем привет. Надеюсь, вы наслаждаетесь карантином, если он у вас есть, и находите много времени для игр. Берегите себя и социализируйтесь в виртуале. Сегодня мы расскажем вам о новой системе районов, которую добавили в Eco 9. Расписание на сегодня:

1. Новая система правительства (Government): Конституция (Constitution).
   
2. Новая система правительства (Government): выборы (Elections) и выборные должности (Elected Titles).
   
3. Новая система правительства (Government): демографики (Demographics) и зарплата (Wages).
   
4. Новая система правительства (Government): законы (Laws) Часть 1: знакомство с использованием системы.
   
5. Новая система правительства (Government): законы (Laws) Часть 2: налоги (Taxes), право собственности (Ownership), собственность (Property) и благосостояние (Wealth).
   
6. Новая система правительства (Government): погружаемся в действия (Actions) и исполнительные действия (Executive Actions).
   
7. Новая система правительства (Government): районы (Districts). ←этот блог
   
8. Новое производство (Crafting)...

Read more

Hey Citizens, hope everyone is staying safe with the global pandemic going around, here at Strange Loop we’re a remote team already so there’s no interruption in our development (if anything an acceleration as we all become shut-ins).  Stay safe and take care of yourselves and those you care for. Our small contribution is providing a game world where you can socialize remotely and slow down the spread.Today I want to debut our latest update on what’s coming for 9.0, with one of the new features I’m most excited about: Work Parties.

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties (This blog)
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and ...

Read more

This week we’re going to take a break from Civics to talk about another feature coming up in Eco 9, the Ecopedia.Jumping around in our schedule a bit, here’s the series so far:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecopedia System (This blog)
    
17. New UI
    
18. New Audio
    
19. New Hosted Worlds System

Ecopedia The game has grown in complexity over the years, a... Read more

Hi citizens, our Eco 9 series continues with a look at Elections and Elected Titles:

1. New Government system: Constitution
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles (This blog)
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. New Crafting: New Tech Tree
    
12. New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
    
13. New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
    
14. New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
    
15. New Animal System: Attacking Animals
    
16. New Ecopedia System
    
17. New UI
    
18. New Audio
    
19. New Hosted Worlds System

Elections Elections are one of the most fundamental parts of a democracy, and with 9.0 we're adding a lot of flexibility for how they can be used (or n... Read more

Hey Eco citizens, we’ve been heads-down working on getting Eco 9.0 ready and it’s getting close, REAL close, date to be announced soon! Don't miss todays stream at 2pm PST / 23:00 CEST (in about two hours from the time of publishing this blog). One of the main focuses of this update is the government system.So to start the hype train up for 9.0 (choo-choo) we’re starting a series of blogs and streams, launched each week on Friday. We have a LOT to share, here’s the tentative blog and demo schedule:

1. New Government system: Constitution (This blog)
   
2. New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
   
3. New Government system: Demographics and Wages
   
4. New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
   
5. New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
   
6. New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
   
7. New Government system: Districts
   
8. New Crafting: Work Parties
   
9. New Crafting: Labor System
   
10. New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
    
11. Ne...

Read more

As we are approaching release, the first of a series of livestreams about the upcoming Update 9.0 will start this Friday, 2pm Pacific Time (23:00 Central European Time). We'll be showing everything you need to know about the new Constitutions feature and answering all questions about this feature you may have.The stream will be broadcasted mainly on Twitch[www.twitch.tv], but will also be available on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Additionally we try to stream it directly here on steam.For those that are not able to watch the stream live, we'll be uploading an edited version to our YouTube channel on the weekend. Read more

We have released Patch 0.8.3.3 with the following small hotfixes:Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue with money transfers not working if some accounts in the list have special symbols in their names.
  
• Temporarily removed "Exclusive Full Screen" mode from the game due to it crashing on some user configurations. (Will be reintroduced after Unity has released a fix)

We have released patch 0.8.3.1 with the following fixes:Fixes:

• Using specific markup on signs and vehicle license plates can no longer crash clients around the object, not allowing them to reenter the game.
  
• Giving reputation to a player with a unicode name (shown ingame as "?????") will no longer crash the client of the reputation giver.
  
• We added a potential fix for leaves and vegetation on Mac and Linux not being displayed, please give us a heads up if it works.

State of Update 9.0:
As you know Update 9.0 has been in development for quite some time now and while we planned to have it released this year, we feel like the Update needs some more time to be what we want it to be. We already started weekend community tests for invited members of the community some weeks ago and want to take time to implement their feedback and fix as many reported bugs as possible before release.Update 9.0 next to a lot of new features will now also include major balance changes and lots of background change... Read more

Today we are releasing Update 8.3.0, an update that was entirely focused on internal changes in order to improve performance short and long term.Performance Improvements:
Our developers have been working hard on countless internal changes for this update in order to increase the performance of Eco on a wide range of different hardware configurations. We have noticeably reduced memory consumption on clients, optimized network code, reduced the frequency of FPS spikes (micro lags) during movement and you should now have a smoother experience playing Eco. Please note that there is still more to come in the 9.X updates, as we do have other optimisations prepared and in mind that require more work and / or breaking changes that are better to be introduced in a major update.Relay Servers:
For this update we added relay server support for cases where connections between client and server cannot be established in a normal way. This should fix most of the connection issues some players have exper... Read more

Vivox Proximity voice chat We added Vivox proximity voice chat to the game. Now you can talk with your fellow citizens about the latest news, in town debates or just barter with them directly. The chat is based on proximity, so you’ll only hear people that are near to you. Of course, you can also disable the voice chat completely or mute specific players. With that, we also introduced a new face animation for people talking. Reworked controls for vehicles
On popular request we have improved and redesigned the controls for the excavators and skid steers and made sure they are explained understandably. The excavator got a new UI toolbar, you can look around freely in both skidsteer and excavator now, the skidsteer tool is now activated by default when you mount it and we changed how the general controls work. They also should work much better than before for mining purposes, though they still need some further polish. Performance Demo video https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EhzRYzZvCyR5... Read more

Hey everyone,
for the first time ever, Eco is on sale in Steam. Get your 10% discount while the sale lasts and support charitable organisations with your purchase.