After shutting down in 2021, the rocky road of subscription-turned-free-turned-subscription survival MMO Life is Feudal began working on its comeback story. Now returning to Steam, the game’s new publisher Long Tale Games is eager to show the progress the team has made, and the course of the game going forward.
Life is Feudal is an ambitious MMO sandbox allowing players to build entire communities, establishing trade routes between factions of players, among other rich gameplay systems. That said, its original run was also “plagued” by bugs, according to the new team at Long Tale Games. Players reported issues including a glitch that gave GM status to all accounts, resulting in massive server rollbacks. Game Rant spoke to Mikhail Goshkadera, a general producer at Long Tale, about the process of relaunching Life is Feudal and the game’s future ahead of its recent return to Steam, and fixing those problems was a critical part of that process. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Life is Feudal: MMO Lowering Subscription Price with Steam Release
A $20 subscription fee is something Life is Feudal: MMO ‘got wrong,’ says the producer, and that’s one thing changing with the Steam re-release.
Relaunching Life is Feudal: MMO
Q: How is the new version of Life is Feudal: MMO different from the one that shut down in 2021?
Goshkadera: We started to work on the game in 2022, and since then we’ve been hyper-focused on refining the gaming experience. This has seen us release 30 patches so far, where we’ve addressed numerous bugs and exploits, and we’ve fine-tuned the game’s mechanics and balancing. All of this has been aimed at enhancing the player’s immersion and enjoyment. As the patches rolled in and the game’s stability improved, we began introducing fresh content to the game as well. This included additional buildings, alongside highly requested features such as an in-game voice chat, and an anti-cheat system.
When it came to the revisions that we made to the game’s mechanics and balance, the changes came from two sources. First, the game’s community with whom we’ve been closely collaborating since we first announced the game’s revival, and secondly, out of necessity due to our transition to a subscription model. That said, all of the changes that we made and will make in the future have a simple objective, to make the game more intuitive, rewarding, and fairer.
Finally, we come to the team that is working on the game. The team comprises of a healthy mix of people with experience in the previous version of Life is Feudal: MMO (before it shut down), and also entirely new faces who are highly experienced in their field, and who come with fresh ideas that help us to avoid a tunneled vision with it comes to planning for-and-working on the game. To top it all off, we are making it a point to involve the game’s community, from the players to the guild leaders, and the modders, when it comes to the work that we do for the game.
Q: What has relaunching the game been like?
Goshkadera: Relaunching a game is a unique experience that presents us with a distinct set of challenges that are markedly different from developing and launching a new title.
From the onset, we’ve made it a point to engage with the community, who, from the very first announcement of the game’s revival, showed us just how deeply passionate about the game they were (and still are). Because this understanding came so early on, we were able to integrate their expectations for the game’s revival into our goals and vision, thus we were able to carve out a roadmap that was a true collaborative effort.
When the original revival announcement was made, we were met with, understandably, a lot of skepticism. However, we noticed that the early work we did to include the community in our plans, and our subsequent actions, have started to prove our intentions to the community and so we’ve noticed the mood has improved and, the quality of the feedback that we’re getting has grown. We like to see that as an indication that the players see us as worth their time, and we will keep on doing our best to not betray that trust.
When it comes to the actual development work, understanding and working with pre-existing code, especially in large projects like Life is Feudal: MMO is always going to be a challenge. Thankfully, I’m happy to write that we have managed to unravel its complexities and are confident in our ability to enhance the game, hand in hand with our players.
Q: What do you think is important to do differently this time around?
Goshkadera: I’d say that our approach isn’t merely about doing things ‘differently’ this time; rather, it’s about building on it. The fact that the community for Life is Feudal: MMO remained alive even two years after the game shut down, and is still this passionate, shows that the previous team did a lot right, so it would be foolish for us to disregard it. As such, we’ve made it a point to study the game’s legacy and use that to build our vision for the game.
Furthermore, we have placed great importance on ensuring that players feel heard and valued. We constantly analyze the community’s opinions and feedback, and based on that draw conclusions and adjust our plans. All of this is reflected in the roadmaps that we share with the community, and ultimately, in the patches and updates that we release.
Q: How has Life is Feudal simplified its tutorial compared to the original?
Goshkadera: We have not introduced any major changes to the “Newbie Island” tutorial yet.
That said, the minor improvements that we have made should make the player’s first hours in the game easier. For example, we have rewritten the tutorial quest texts to make them clearer, and we’ve added some starting rewards to help the player as they progress through the initial stages of the game in the main world.
In the future, we do plan on improving the tutorial, from the quests to the UI/UX, and these will help the players to settle in on the game. However, we’ve still got a lot of work to do on this front.
Q: Why return to Stream after a relaunch on LTG Multiverse?
Goshkadera: Put simply, it was always our plan to do so. The game launched on Steam, and so it already had a dedicated community. However, we did not want to simply relaunch the game in the same state that it shut down as there were a lot of bugs and exploits that plagued the game.
We also needed to take the time to develop features that allowed people to try out the game. New players will get 7 days free to test the game, and if you have the game in your Steam library, you’ll get an additional 30 days, so 37 days, of subscription.
On top of that, we’re working on a system for the original owners of the game, and we’re calling it the Balance Restoration Program. This program grants the original owners of the game LiF Coins based on how much they put into the game before it shut down.
The Future of Life is Feudal: MMO
Q: Can you share anything about the other “versions and variants” of Life is Feudal: MMO?
Goshkadera: With pleasure, but please know that this is all “for the future.” Right now, our focus is on Life is Feudal: MMO.
Our goal is to offer multiple versions of the game. All of them would be inspired by the original while offering distinct experiences that cater to different player preferences.
For example, we are working on versions that are focused on certain aspects of the game, such as fighting other players (PvP) or playing against the environment (PvE). While we’re working on that, we’re also redesigning the rest of the mechanics and game design to really highlight these features.
For example, this is what we are working on. However, please don’t take this as a definitive answer to what will come. There is a lot of work to be done here!
- As everyone knows, a subscription-based version devoid of premium shops and pay-to-win elements, where all players are equal.
- A free-2-play variant of the game as well.
Q: What sets Life is Feudal: MMO apart from other online survival games?
Goshkadera: We feel that the game stands out from the ever-popular MMO-Survival scene thanks to its rare combination of features, particularly the terraforming mechanics.
Why this feature? Because unlike many of our competitors, our game lets you directly shape the game’s world through and through. It’s not just simple digging or placement of construction items and materials, we’ve seen players build everything from carefully designed homesteads to humble villages, castles, and even grand fortresses.
Naturally, our ongoing development efforts are heavily focused on expanding these features, and we aim to give them as much creative freedom as possible.
Q: Can you explain how trade routes work in Life is Feudal: MMO?
Goshkadera: The trading posts logic on the big map, Godenland, will continue to work much in the same way as it always has.
That said, we have worked to improve it from a game mechanics point of view. What we’re really excited about is the change to the formula for selling items to the crown. Now, it takes into account the time and difficulty of resource extraction, giving the players a much fairer price for the effort that they have to put into getting the resource in the first place.
And of course, we have worked on general optimizations, improving the speed and the interfaces, which we hope will make the trade routes much easier to understand and work with.
Now for the best part, we have just announced a new map that, among many other improvements, will also feature updated trading and economic logic.
Q: What factored into the decision to return to a subscription model and its $20 per month price point?
Goshkadera: We know that on the face of it, the decision to use a subscription model seems strange. However, it was made as we wanted to build the game in a way that is fair and balanced, without the pay-to-win mechanics and other monetization tactics that can be found in free-2-play games.
The truth is, with an F2P model, we would likely attract more players, especially in the short term. However, to be sustainable, F2P games often have to turn to monetization strategies that compromise the integrity of the game, either by overpowering the paying players or by underhanded sales tactics that prey on players’ vulnerabilities.
The flip side is the subscription model. By adopting this model, we can ensure that everyone knows exactly what they are paying (as an alternative, in the F2P model, players rarely know just how much they spend, as it’s always “just a bit”) and what they are getting out of it. This way, how good a player is in our game is not reliant on how much they’ve spent.
As for subscription pricing, this is something where we have to hold our hands up and admit that we got wrong. 20 USD was too much, so we’ve reduced the cost by a minimum of 25%, with further reductions if the player buys multiple months and also based on country-specific pricing. This means that the new maximum cost for the game will be 15 USD per month.
Of course, we have not forgotten about the current players and so we’re also preparing some special bonuses for them as well.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Goshkadera: Thank you for the interesting questions. Quite a few of them really required a lot of thought, and we really enjoyed discussing the questions, and making use of a deeper understanding of the game to arrive at our answers! Now, we’re looking forward to the game’s release on Steam and what people will think of it!