When I first heard about SEED at Summer Game Fest, I was on a high, chasing anyone who would listen to me. I raved about this crazy idea about a constantly online MMO, where you could chat with your character while away via a chat app, full societies needed to work together, and nothing, I mean nothing, could exist without a Seedling’s doing. It was the most ambitious thing I had ever seen.
Well, now it’s live in early access, and I am happy to see I was not wrong. However, there is way more to SEED than I could have comprehended in a short 30-minute appointment. Depending on who you are, this could be a good thing or a very bad thing. In my case, it has been both.
Let’s first start with what SEED is. It’s an MMO where you need to build a society from the ground up, literally; however, nothing in the game can exist without someone creating it. This isn’t like The Sims where you can purchase what you need. You need to farm, scavenge, learn, and develop to get anywhere. Do you want a chair? Better hope someone becomes a carpenter. Drink some questionable water? Someone better be training in medicine. What about eating something other than foraged mushrooms? Get training on that campfire for cooking!
For me, I love the nitty-gritty of a game. Let me grind. Let me explore and hoard materials—and trust me, I did. But SEED really ensures that you can’t do it all alone. For instance, the game released on July 21st, and as of today, no one in my world has a proper bed yet. We have buildings, but no beds, so everyone is still sleeping in a tent. That seems a bit ridiculous, but when you learn about how SEED requires working together, it all starts to make sense. And for some, this might be where the game no longer interests them.
Carpentry, tailoring, and masonry are all subsets of crafting. Processing includes wood, food, stone, metalworking, textiles, chemistry and glass. Harvesting includes wood, water, stone, botanical and ore. Each one of these is an individual skill, and it is impossible to master all of them. The way SEED is broken up into various skillsets forces people to plan as a society and work together.
To make that bed I mentioned earlier, you need to be able to make wood parts, iron parts, a mattress and a pillow. I got as far as making the advanced carpentry table, thinking I was on the right track for being our town’s furniture maker, only to realize that I was nowhere near close enough to being able ot make the pillows, etc. At that point, I was nine crafting tables deep.
“SEED is designed to ensure that every process is so incredibly complicated that no one can do it all alone.”
I found out I needed a loom and fabric. You need the tailoring table to make the thread, to then use the loom to make the retted flaxa to make the fabric and then eventually the pillow. And that doesn’t even touch on everything needed to make the other parts of the bed. I thought I needed the metalworking bench to make the brackets, but you need the anvil, which needs the advanced workbench….I could keep going.
It’s like every time you think you have a plan, you are actually nowhere close. And the game is designed that way. SEED is designed to ensure that every process is so incredibly complicated that no one can do it all alone. You absolutely have to rely on the people in your town, or even trading with other worlds, to be able to get ahead. Someone needs to be making all the metal brackets, nails, plates and more while another is making wood pegs, planks, sanded wood and more. And dear GOD, someone make the pillows! Because when my back starts to hurt, then I need a doctor, too!
And this is where the need for community comes in. Sure, if you jump into SEED with a group of friends—and let me emphasize, you need a large group—you can all work together and create a plan, and with it, a little society. But the world isn’t that perfect, and you will be playing with people you don’t know. If you have players who don’t communicate, your world will suffer. If you have players who are stubborn, your world will suffer. If you have control freaks, you will suffer.
Without going too far into the politics of it all, which are definitely important, SEED can become really complicated if everyone isn’t doing their part, or if people aren’t willing to do things for the greater good of the community, or even if people aren’t playing as much as other players. Our Mayor couldn’t get online for days, so we couldn’t progress in the game. We needed to vote him out.
Our world had someone who was very eager to take things seriously, planning and mapping out plots for roads, businesses, and homes. Sounds great, but I logged in to find one of my properties taken away from me and all the land around me mapped out for something else, which I had no say in. I wanted to work on farming, but we needed someone who could do woodwork, so I was forced into a hobby I didn’t really want…for the greater good.
“I think SEED is meant for people looking for their one game to put all of their time into.”
For the wrong kind of player, SEED could put a very sour taste in their mouth. For the right kind of player, this game could take over their life, and I mean that in the best way possible. However, I can remember my raiding days in WoW when you had to play a specific class or spec for the greater good, or choose professions that your guild needed, for the greater good, and for some people, that just isn’t for them.
I think SEED is meant for people looking for their one game to put all of their time into. Their one game to build a community with and treat as a single hobby in its own right. It’s a completely new take on an MMO, one that can’t survive without the right kind of players, especially in its early days. Casual players need not apply at this time, since they take up limited plots of land and slow down progress.
Further down the road, when societies are established, businesses are booming, and each community is already thriving, casual players will have a much easier time jumping in and doing their chores for the day. They will even have an easier time learning what kinds of paths to take, instead of the trial and error happening now. But the OG players will always remember the early days of SEED early access, and they will have a better understanding of just how deep this MMO goes. It’s just up to you to decide which kind of player you want to be.
SEED is available in early access now. You can learn more at the official website.
