After a short hiatus, Community Questions is back! November's episode features traditions, 3D printing, and alcohol. A huge thanks go out to the Seed Discord community for their questions!





[AR]Dylan75015: Will it be possible to produce alcohol? Will we be able to produce our own wine?





Mundi: “Definitely! We'd want to have both alcohol and narcotics in at some point. That could make for some interesting player-driven stories! But, we haven't started working on this yet.”





[AF] ProblematicMan: Will we be able to direct our Seedlings to do illegal things, or will they only do things if their needs aren't being met?





M: “You'll be able to take full control of your Seedlings and tell them to do specific tasks. So if you choose one Seedling to randomly shoot another, innocent Seedling, then it would be up to your community to decide whether to prosecute the guilty Seedling...or even the player.





We also want to find a way for Seedlings to conduct illegal activities, like steal food if they're starving. But, there's still some time away for the AI to be able to handle that.”





Mojo Mathys: Assuming Seedlings live to a nice ripe old age for a Seedling, would they be grandparents or great or great-great grandparents?





M: “Theoretically, yes, that's roughly the approach we're going for. Although, we're still designing how the family tree will work.”





Mojo Mathys: Are community collaborations possible? Say if one community donates material resources, and another builds using those resources. Like a bridge linking the two communities?





M: “We want to see all kinds of things like that. As it's up to the players, they can pretty much do whatever they want. They can build bridges, share resources, share tasks, or do whatever!





Players will be able to share resources through the in-game economy and trade on favorable terms. Plus, we like the idea of a black market, where players can leave resources for one another outside of the legal economy. We want players to be able to put some laws around exporting and importing goods. For example, you wouldn't want members of your community selling weapons to an enemy settlement, so ideally you’d need to track that sort of stuff.”





[AF] Thedarkwind: How big can your settlement be? Is there a limit?





M: “There will probably be a limit to how big a settlement can grow for the time being, while the backend structure is being optimized. However, we see the government tool as a layer where settlements can join as part of a meta-system, and there won't be a limit to that.”





Roekies: Ideally you'd want to be able to get notifications of certain metrics while offline so you can jump in during a crisis. How will you address that? Will you get an update report when offline or when you log in again?





M: “Totally! We have started working on that already and have it in a primitive form. But with the mobile app, the aim is to give players an overview in real-time.”





Lionbreaker08: What happens if Seedlings become traumatized? Can they recover?





M: “We want to have different and varying degrees of trauma. And the more severe the trauma, the harder it will be to shake off, for say, something like shell shock.





For example, if you force a Seedling to kill another against its will, then that would profoundly affect them, which would turn into a permanently traumatized character trait. But that doesn't necessarily make them a completely unusable character, just one that’ll have to closely monitor. Plus, they can learn to cope over time.





By having multiple characters, we allow for levels of emotional drama to be introduced to the player narrative. That's important. If you only had one Seedling to control and they become permanently damaged, that wouldn't be enjoyable for gameplay.”





Mojo Mathys: Will there be some kind of planetary coordinate systems like latitude and longitude or some grid system? Something that could be used for exploration/cartographic records documentation, etc.?





M: “Yeah, there already is! There's a map with geographic coordinates.”





[AF] ProblematicMan: Will there be ways for us to rehabilitate Seedlings who would otherwise have to spend long periods in jail?





M: “That is something we want players to decide. The way we're looking at these types of institutions is to unify all the elements, so they share similar mechanics, then add complexity over time.”





Roekies: Will there be a sense of morality incorporated in SEED?





M: “I definitely think collaboration will bring forth prosperity, especially as the players that work together, collaborate, are organized, and have a good moral sense, will become the most powerful. There will always be griefers with self-interests that want to destroy everything, which players will have to deal with.”





Roekies: Will 3D printing form part of the mechanics?





M: “We already have 3D printers in the game. 3D printing machines are used to produce other machines and machine parts.”





FleshBread: Will we be able to create cultures, values and traditions for our colony, which the AI would adopt and affect the AI?





M: “That's something we would love...and it's super interesting! We want to see how much of this players start roleplaying and how integral it is in their society. We'll learn from this and try to support these mechanics. But, it's not something on the immediate roadmap.”





Mojo Mathys: Will community leaders be able to work together to accomplish tasks that are difficult or impossible for a single player or small group without having to join or leave their groups or communities?





M: “You could band together with other smaller communities to attack a larger community, so I think there will be alliances. Our government tool will be flexible enough to perform all sorts of softer relationships, not just something that's fully-governing.”





Mojo Mathys: How do you envision the content/player interaction to influence the content and the entry of new content to the game?





M: “The game is always pushing for certain things to be done. Seedlings will always require things that the player needs to build. Due to both time and resource restraints, players going off and creating something bizarre will take a lot of work and effort, and collaboration. I think what you're going to see is a lot of very thoughtfully placed buildings, with a focus on agriculture and everything needed for survival. But we'll see!”





[AF] ProblematicMan: Will there be places that our Seedlings know better than others? For example, if a Seedling grew up playing in a forest, will they be less likely to get lost in it than someone who has never been there?





M: “We have talked a lot about this already. I can't go into detail, but we definitely want stuff like this, like how Seedlings adapt to their environment. But these are all very complicated things to make and get right.”





Be sure to let us know in the comments below your thoughts, or join the Seed Discord server and post your questions there!



