The new animal is softlocked behind a paywall...

[Viktor]

AKA buying the new comic. Am I the only one insanely disappointed by this?

I have nothing but love for the game and the shelter series in general, but hyping everyone up for a new animal in the Upcoming Content section only to reveal a very short time before the update that it'll be unavailable to those who don't purchase the comic.

I thought the update animals were supposed to be free, as there are already animals that you have to purchase via the other games...

And let's face it, there really hasn't been a lot in terms of actual, substantial updates in the past year. Compared to the first year, where we got updates such as:

New animals (Fox, Pheasant, Hedgehog)
New actions (Sit, Wave, Drink)
New commands and emotes for all animals
New skins (5 Frog, 5 Rabbit, 4 Goat, 1 Fox, 4 Pheasant)
New area
New QoL features (Set Home, voice fading, head tracking, flower collection gallery, new voices, rp grove, combo emotes, mud puddles, new eagle emotes, food, eye tracking)



This year, we got:

New animal: Mystery comic animal
Skins (2 Hedgehog, the Blossom skins, the Art of Shelter skins)
New action (Play, Yawn [baby animals only])
New QoL features (Mushrooms, 1 new voice for 2 animals)
1 new secret island


That's a severe decrease in content. From the time the Hedgehog was released to now, no new animals, few skins that you don't have to buy extra content for, etc. There's been the teaser for a new area in the snow biome since the fall area was added, too.

I'm well aware that M&D is a small indie dev team and they really have put out some fantastic content, but... Honestly, putting the only new animal this year (arguably the most substantial part of the new update) behind a paywall is pretty disheartening compared to the 2016-2017 content flow. It wouldn't be as bad if they had announced this in the upcoming content thread to begin with, or decided to do this on any occasion that wasn't the anniversary update. Considering an anniversary is a celebration of the game, locking players out of a big part of its content is kind of lame.


Just my two cents.

[Latté]

To be fair though they have stated that they plan to continue having unlockable animals as well, which seems to mean there will be free ones still, just at a later date. The problem with a lot of the people complaining here it seems is to do with the timing rather than the actual paywall to which I do agree with and they have apologised.

It's a mess up, it happens and there's a lot worse companies have done and don't ever rectify their mistakes. It costs money to maintain Meadow, so I totally understand their business side of things should a popular animal be behind a paywall. (I'm for this if it keeps the servers up as I'm sure anyone who likes this game would.)

People are annoyed cus they feel cheated out of an animal, but it honestly wasn't promised fully as free from the start either, as it goes. c:

[Kaija]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Latté:

To be fair though they have stated that they plan to continue having unlockable animals as well, which seems to mean there will be free ones still, just at a later date. The problem with a lot of the people complaining here it seems is to do with the timing rather than the actual paywall to which I do agree with and they have apologised.

It's a mess up, it happens and there's a lot worse companies have done and don't ever rectify their mistakes. It costs money to maintain Meadow, so I totally understand their business side of things should a popular animal be behind a paywall. (I'm for this if it keeps the servers up as I'm sure anyone who likes this game would.)

People are annoyed cus they feel cheated out of an animal, but it honestly wasn't promised fully as free from the start either, as it goes. c:

That's very true :)
Also, I suppose that if it is a very popular animal (whatever that might be), since some people are concerned about one animal "ruling over" all other animals and destroying the diversity of Meadow's animals - lynx and rabbit exploring side by side - having to pay for an overly popular animal might control that and stop peoples' worries. Of course we don't know if it'll be an overly popular animal, but if it is... there's always that positive thought about the need to pay for it! :)

[duskyflower]

I was just excited to unlock another animal with obelisks because that’s a really fun experience. Besides breaking promises, it feels like it messes with the game was a whole and what it has been up until today. No, we’re not obligated to receive anything, but we can’t be blamed for being disappointed after being misled. We still give our patronage and time and money to this game and surely that has to count for something? On the flip side, M&D is in a financial crisis, though, I do hope that the new comic funds pull them out, at least in part. I guess I’m not angry, though I can’t help but be disappointed.

[Screen Lady]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Latté:

To be fair though they have stated that they plan to continue having unlockable animals as well, which seems to mean there will be free ones still, just at a later date. The problem with a lot of the people complaining here it seems is to do with the timing rather than the actual paywall to which I do agree with and they have apologised.

It's a mess up, it happens and there's a lot worse companies have done and don't ever rectify their mistakes. It costs money to maintain Meadow, so I totally understand their business side of things should a popular animal be behind a paywall. (I'm for this if it keeps the servers up as I'm sure anyone who likes this game would.)

People are annoyed cus they feel cheated out of an animal, but it honestly wasn't promised fully as free from the start either, as it goes. c:

Exactly. People aren't considering the chance that they may be going bankrupt in the game, needing some funds to keep servers going and such.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

Thank you - Melon, Kaija and Especially K Just wanted to add my 2 cents regarding Especially K's post, it was very well written and explained! Also, thank you all for expressing yourself, as we all aware - transparency is the key and I love to see and read honest opinions. I appreciate it! And for keeping it the peaceful way!

Peridot, I can understand your feelings (regarding your post on the majority of the playerbase) and I have been through this myself, so I agree with you on this. But let me derail the topic a bit and share my thoughts about the matter.

Coming out of beta (and that was a very divine and calm experience), after some time I begin to notice more and more of such activities: collecting shards, obelisk hunting, leaderboards obsession, rushing goats, just to name a few. Even more - I was involved in many of them while trying to keep the place at the top 10, but one day something changed. I realized that I was being stressed myself out with the most calming and chillaxing game ever, for no reason and that numbers won't make me happy. I was upset till the moment I've stumbled upon revelation - everything that people do in Meadow, however they choose to spend their time to - neither good nor bad, not right, not wrong - it is an experience, universally speaking as long as you're having genuine fun, having a good time! As Ethan has mentioned - you cannot control how someone would play. But that's the beauty - you don't have to follow everybody's rules, you can create your own and see who will stick with you in peace and harmony, in alignment with your preferred style.

I did that, to make the walking game - I decided to walk around, without a rush, without a need to hunt for every single obelisk nearby and I've found a good bunch of people joining me and doing the same. Sure, we have met many others who refused and was a bit angry, but to each their own. At the end of the day, I was happy to play by the rules I made!

Thing is - it is all about attitude. You can call it magic, science, quantum physics or just the general vibe, but how you choose to approach the game and what belief system you use, will affect your experience. Just be mindful before you start your session and believe you will find people to play with, the way you like - what you focus on, grow. You see, things might have changed since the release and the population of Meadow has changed, however, there are always new and old players who would love to try new ways of playing, rather than rush and collect. I have this quote engraved on my iPad - Your vibe attracts your tribe. And it works every time, as I said, it is all about your attitude.

Besides, you can always play with your friends or join a friendly community and ask someone to play with you - there's a specific section on the forum and we have an unofficial official discord as well with many amazing people. Recently I have been playing Meadow alone, and used it as my meditation practice. You can try many different ways really and I believe, the lack of action is rather a blessing in disguise. At least that's how I see it.

Again, I feel you and I know exactly what you're talking about as I have experienced this by myself, on both ends. And I understand the frustration towards the upcoming update. I still believe, however, M&D will support Meadow and new and (old) people would join the game and as long as the most loving, caring and supportive community would exist, the game will live and thrive! Hopefully, for many years

[Kaija]

@ Bo / Toni
That's very true - I have been trying to get to the top 100 lately but when I took a short break (how appalling! :D) from Meadow my rank (which wasn't too amazing) started to drop. I tried getting back my rank, but it just seemed to drop further. I've actually been considering letting go of the whole white eagle quest; it was indeed stressful and during my playing, I've worried about my essence numbers when I'm roleplaying and thinking "Oh no! I need to get on a normal grove because I'm not after obelisks right now!" or I get anxious when I realize that I haven't found much essence when I'm in a wonderful team - I forget that Meadow was made for relaxation and making people happy. The constant search for essence, while it can be fun, doesn't always make me happy. I've been leaning towards leaving the white eagle quest for a bit, and what you say makes sense. :)
Also, after all the treasure-collecting and the "need" to get higher up on the leaderboard, Meadow stopped feeling like a game, almost - it almost felt like a task, and that's certainly not the goal the developers have in mind for Meadow. :)

[Loach]

A lot of my huge essence jumps was when taking time exploring with other players. I went from 87k to over 100k in just a few sessions of slow meandering and picking up goodies. I enjoy the game a lot more when I can find people to pick a place clean with C:

I feel like the leaderboard is part of a friendly-handshake competition for players, but has not aged quite well. The game calls itself a forum in game's clothing, so to me, the white eagle on the leaderboard is a "member of the month" kind of perk. Problem is it doesn't exactly work in a way that lets different players get a chance of it every month. As essence totals rise it becomes a worthless effort (I feel it still has lots of potential though, just not in how it works right now).

On the topic at hand tho: I'm not bothered by the animal being behind a paywall at all. Meadow as a game is horrendously cheap for the experience it provides, and while it was stated future animals not tied to games would be free, it wasn't set in stone or put down in a blood oath.

My only gripe about it is not knowing it was a paid animal sooner. I want the full experience for the anniversary content, so I'm buying it either way, but my budget would have appreciated the heads up sooner.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I'll be buying the comic aswell to unlock the animal if it's wolf it, I'm sure in the futuer the devs will make sure the community knows what's going to be free and what's going to be a dlc or paid content.

[DragonButts]

Interesting read on everyone's thoughts and speculation.

I wasn't even aware what the update entailed until I looked today, so I was not as surprised about the paywall. It's good to know in advance, as well as that it is a large update.

The games does seem complete and does play a bit like an MMO. Most MMOs do have some sort of side funding for support of servers/development/expenses, so I can understand supporting the game through side content. The comics and soundtracks are wonderful, plus there are bonuses for Meadow.

They also released Shelter for the Switch. I'm not sure if that might have required some code update, but it seems M&D have been busy.

For a game that I have played 120 hours on record... I would say it's worth it.

I think my main complaint would be that I do have a hard time finding a "relaxing group" when I am looking for it. :)

[Kestrel]

Well, I think if they wanted for it to be free eventually it would be available in some sort of 'event' that happens every year or so but if you buy the comic you'll still get the animal with it and maybe a special skin for people who bought the comic. I think that would be a good way to go about it. What I'm suggesting is that at first the animal can only be gotten from the comic, so it's kinda like an early access thing. But then, after some time maybe it could be unlockable in a kind of event. Like, collect this many flowers and help break this many obelisks to unlock this animal before it goes away. However, if you rather not go through the event to unlock it, you can always buy the comic even when the event goes away. Perhaps your progress on the event can be seen on the 'collections' tab, and then after the normal collections it goes "Special Animal Progress". Then it says x/x common/rare/fabled flowers or x/x common/rare/fabled mushrooms and/or x/x obelisks broken. Possibly even x/x essence earned since event start. So it'd be unlocked a different way than normal animals, since it wouldn't be there to stay as an unlockable animal 24/7. Or maybe the devs would just want it to be unlocked the normal way. I dunno.
That's just my suggestion though.


Either way, I don't think it'd be terribly bad. Since it's a comic it'll likely cost far less than a game. And you still get a comic to enjoy.. even if it's not the same as a game. And if it is a wolf, well, we already have a fox. And wolves are INCREDIBLY popular animals.. I would put them #1 on my top 10 loved /wild/ animals list. This is probably a good move if M&D are looking to make money. Since, well, anyone who REALLY likes wolves will get it. And since they ARE really popular animals... yeah.

[Kaija]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Frost Bear:

Well, I think if they wanted for it to be free eventually it would be available in some sort of 'event' that happens every year or so but if you buy the comic you'll still get the animal with it and maybe a special skin for people who bought the comic. I think that would be a good way to go about it. What I'm suggesting is that at first the animal can only be gotten from the comic, so it's kinda like an early access thing. But then, after some time maybe it could be unlockable in a kind of event. Like, collect this many flowers and help break this many obelisks to unlock this animal before it goes away. However, if you rather not go through the event to unlock it, you can always buy the comic even when the event goes away. Perhaps your progress on the event can be seen on the 'collections' tab, and then after the normal collections it goes "Special Animal Progress". Then it says x/x common/rare/fabled flowers or x/x common/rare/fabled mushrooms and/or x/x obelisks broken. Possibly even x/x essence earned since event start. So it'd be unlocked a different way than normal animals, since it wouldn't be there to stay as an unlockable animal 24/7. Or maybe the devs would just want it to be unlocked the normal way. I dunno.
That's just my suggestion though.


Either way, I don't think it'd be terribly bad. Since it's a comic it'll likely cost far less than a game. And you still get a comic to enjoy.. even if it's not the same as a game. And if it is a wolf, well, we already have a fox. And wolves are INCREDIBLY popular animals.. I would put them #1 on my top 10 loved /wild/ animals list. This is probably a good move if M&D are looking to make money. Since, well, anyone who REALLY likes wolves will get it. And since they ARE really popular animals... yeah.

Good suggestion! :) Maybe there could be a few Specialty Animals like that. :)
It would be a smart decision that would be good for our enjoyment as players and the developers' ability to add new content. There would be a new animal and more players in the groves for us (if they put wolves - if they add them - in the trailer, people would swarm the game XD) and the developers could add much more content because of the amount of people who buy it. I've always liked lynx and that's what originally brought me to Shelter 2, for instance :)