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Last Oasis Responds to Poor Reception from System Rework Announcement

Steven Weber Updated: Posted:
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Early Access Survival MMO Last Oasis is now in its 4th season, and with it the team at Donkey Crew has some plans to rework the Walker Building System. Walkers are large vehicles that can be used in combat, and the new rework of the system plans to remove free-placement of structures on Walkers going forward. Needless to say, the community was none too thrilled with the changes.

Last Oasis is a Nomadic Survival MMO that went into Early Access back in March of 2020. Originally slated as only intending to be in Early Access for a maximum of 24 months, the development has surpassed the 2-year mark, as the development team continues building and tweaking the game features. Last week, in a Steam announcement, Donkey Crew outlined some changes coming to the Walker Build System. Previously, players were able to place structures freely on Walkers, but according to the team, this had to change in favor of balance:

While this might sound controversial at first, with free placement having been a thing for so long, for us it quickly became a very logical step when we started working on rebalancing Walkers for the next season and looking at the options we had for a replacement - some of the options still allowed for more creative freedom for making crazy Walker builds, but they just didn’t solve the issues we identified when we began this overhaul of the game, for example, melee combat on Walkers.

-Neon, Donkey Crew, Last Oasis Steam Page

The change will bring forth a new Hardpoints System where players will be able to place pre-selected items on Walkers to specifically match their class. For example, small Walkers will have space for small items like ammo boxes and small chests, while large Walkers will have the space for crafting stations and large weaponry. As the quote from the development team suggests, the community was not entirely happy with these changes which led to Donkey Crew following up with a new post, promising more transparent communication, and outlining their intentions for the games’ systems.

It ultimately boiled down to the formation of a new player experience so that Donkey Crew could onboard new players more easily. Simply stated, the old plan wasn’t working, and they utilized the declining player base as an indication that something had to change. According to Chadz, the game went from 30k players, down to 1k players. It’s important to note that the 30K number was around the time the game went into Early Access 2 years ago, and currently sits around 900 peak players per day.

To answer this, I need to expand a bit on the vision for Season 5. S5 of Last Oasis is not S4 with changes sprinkled on top. It is practically an entirely new experience, guided by a new vision - because the old vision clearly didn't work. The most honest and direct proof of that is that player numbers dropped from originally 30k to below 1k. Big changes are needed.

-Chadz, Last Oasis Steam Page

By the end of the lengthy post related to their ongoing gameplan, the developers put a poll together to allow their community to vote on some of the features going forward. They also believe that ‘in the very least’ they could provide options for either free-building or hardpoint rigs as a setting on private realms. Last Oasis is the first MMO by Donkey Crew, which originated as a team of Mount and Blade modders that put together their new studio, headquartered in Wroclaw, Poland. Currently, the game is available on Xbox and Steam, and Donkey Crew plan to increase the price of the game when it finally launches, though at this time no exact date has been set.


StevenWeber

Steven Weber

Steven has been a writer at MMORPG.COM since 2017. A lover of many different genres, he finds he spends most of his game time in action RPGs, and talking about himself in 3rd person on his biography page.