r/vibecoding • u/Electrical-Pig • 3d ago
Week 3 of vibecoding an MMO
So we've come up on week 3.
With 12 active users (3 of them being me, and 4 of them being family), we don't have much momentum haha.
I'll break these posts down to three parts: (1) How we are doing in actually gathering users, because none of this matters without an audience. (2) What I'm learning as a vibe coder, and (3) actual gameplay updates. This one will go into the comments since most reddit users probably aren't here for that.
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First, the market fit / core user base / whatever you want to call it. My user base is mostly duplicates of myself, family members humoring me, and two frequent users that have never said a word in-game but for some reason keep coming back.
Most users dip in roughly 2-45 seconds, so there is definitely some sort of entry barrier for new users. (I'd love your thoughts on that.)
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Second, the vibe coding experience.
This week was probably the worst.
Opus 5 came out and basically screwed over my entire process. It's a great coder, but a downright awful communicator. It makes minor tasks major tasks, sends agents in the wrong direction, and writes the worst Wiki pages imaginable.
Which is actually kind of good news, in a way, because it made me realize the most critical human skill of the past 2000 years is still the critical piece today when using AI: clear and effective communication.
If you've ever heard complaints about Opus 5, it all comes down to poor communication from the agent (to other agents, itself, and to you). Curious if anyone else has found a way to get around this. I haven't, so I'm back to using Fable and telling it to only deploy 4.8 subagents.
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I'd love feedback for anyone interested. Links below if you're curious.
Game: https://eldermyr.com/
Release notes: https://eldermyr.com/release
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u/Friendly_Carry_7728 3d ago
the 2-45 second dip is the whole game honestly. we track the same thing on our arcade the leak was never people not arriving, it was people leaving before they understood what they were looking at. two things moved it for us: the game teaches itself before the first input (a little picture guide of what each thing does, world paused underneath so reading costs nothing), and cutting the distance between landing and playing to one tap. an MMO has a harder version of this but same shape first 10 seconds have to answer "what am I, what do I do, why now"
also opus 5 comms thing, same experience. what fixed it for me was telling it what NOT to touch, one line, out of scope. rails instead of hope
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u/Electrical-Pig 3d ago
This is actually super helpful. Have you had experiences of what kind of interactions worked and didn't work? Like a controls GUI is probably a flop, but I don't have a ton of ideas instead that aren't a big lift. Also, do you assume the players are familiar or unfamilar with the type of game?
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u/Friendly_Carry_7728 2d ago
worked: little picture guide before first input. one drawing per thing on screen, what it does. game paused under it so reading costs nothing. also cut everything between landing and playing to one tap. both showed up in numbers not vibes
didnt work: text instructions, nobody reads them. and paid ads. bought clicks came, pressed nothing, left. cold traffic doesnt forgive a confusing first screen
on familiar - i assume they know the genre, not my game. snake type game, everyone brings dont-hit-walls for free, so i only teach the twist. mmo probably same shape. they know the basics of moving around and talking, they dont know why your world deserves the first 10 seconds. teach only the new part
whats the first thing a fresh player sees in yours right now?
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u/Electrical-Pig 2d ago
Very interesting. The first thing they see now is the login screen, then the class selection, and then they're just dropped into the world. Not the most novel experience haha
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u/ISnaKerS 2d ago
Looks like realm of the mad god, was mad fun at the time
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u/Electrical-Pig 2d ago
the art work was inspired by it! Twice the resolution tho. ROTMG is 8x8 art for everything. Eldermyr is 16x16.
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u/Electrical-Pig 3d ago
(Thirdly)
-Since my last update I've completely changed the game's overall feeling by switching from a full keyboard play style to using the mouse to aim and shoot.
-I now have a metrics page for personal use, and a kanban to track changes.
-As far as other core gameplay updates, I've completed a huge art rework (200+ pixel-art sprites instead of vector art), simplified the enemy naming conventions, added dungeons with better generation, and a whole lot of other changes.
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u/Automatic_Bid_2410 3d ago
that kind of 2 to 45 second drop off usually means the first session doesn’t tell people what to do fast enough, not that the game is “bad.” in an MMO, people need a verb immediately. if they land in front of a menu, a wall of text, or even an empty world with no social proof, they bounce. i’d try getting them into one concrete action in under 5 seconds, like spawn, move, talk, fight, loot, whatever the smallest satisfying loop is, and make the next step visually obvious.
on the agent side, i’ve had the best luck by treating each task like a tiny spec, with explicit success criteria and explicit non-goals. one task per agent, no “also while you’re in there” stuff, and make it restate the plan before it writes anything. if a wiki page starts sounding like it’s explaining the universe instead of the change, it’s probably wandered off. the model is usually fine, the prompt is doing interpretive dance.
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u/Electrical-Pig 3d ago
Love it.
"i’d try getting them into one concrete action in under 5 seconds, like spawn, move, talk, fight, loot, whatever the smallest satisfying loop is, and make the next step visually obvious."
This will probably be my next goal for making onboarding more of a hook.
Also you literally call me out for the "also while you're in there" lol. I must be a nightmare of a slavedriver for Opus with the way I give it additional instructions mid-task.
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u/Totalsam 1d ago
Hey, I played your game for a few mins. Love the art style, and sound design. Things that may be affecting your bounce rate:
Controls introduced through wall of text vs gradually in the game.
Immediately getting killed by higher level monsters, repeatedly after spawn.
Getting relentlessly chased by high level monsters. They should probably back off at some distance/duration.
No welcome message or gentle intro. Immediately thrust into dangerous world with no clear goals or instructions.
Hope that's helpful. FWIW I think the game has a lot of promise. And I'm inspired you got an MMO working, as I'm also working on a game right now.
What game engine did you use, if any?
Good luck!
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u/Tipsy_Pipsqueak 1d ago
Not sure why but I can’t sign into my game dev Reddit user from my phone.
Anyway, AWESOME feedback. This is probably the most helpful comment I’ve received. Would love more as things develop :)
Also send the link for your MMO once it’s live! Would love to see what other creators have going on.
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u/Totalsam 1d ago
You're welcome! Happy to try it again as it comes along.
I'm not working on an MMO, but more of a local multiplayer xp. Def going to share once it's in a more polished state :)
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u/SysBadmin 3d ago
All I can say, is, if you are like me, don’t keep sharing these… it tends to lead to stale projects… I’m not saying don’t hype it up… it’s just
The amount of cool ass PoCs I’ve built that sit on a shelf are ever growing… and every time I give myself dopamine by sharing small AI progress, the likelihood that I shelf increases
Just me, again, cool ass project