by Phaen » Fri Aug 12, 2011 4:56 am Procne wrote:It's like Travian - from the beginning of the server there are some factions and at some point they are all that remains - all players either join some faction or are crushed. Then factions fight with each other until one is left. Around that point game becomes boring and most players (of those that are left) leave. Travian has its end game and end of the world is always fixed. Here end of the world happens when server goes down or some major development is done. But even without it world would have to be nuked from time to time.
Over the course of a couple of years, I played three different Travian servers til endgame. I will try to communicate the differences that seem relevant to the discussion. Keep in mind I played the 3.0 and 3.6 versions not this Travian 4.0 shit that is out these days.
1. A high incentive to raid
This is the biggest difference. In Travian, villages produce resources passively so the more inactive a player is, the less resources they are spending, leaving more for a raider to steal. Raiding is the primary source of income for competitive players. I'm talking about 50~90% of a top player's income is from steady, repetitious, hourly raids. Bullying well-developed players into giving up and becoming inactive is extremely profitable. Raid a H&H player into quitting and you get one payload. Raid a Travian player into quitting and you get an hourly payload until they auto-delete two weeks later.
2. A low incentive to trade
Travian has only four things to trade : wood clay iron and wheat. Although they can be exchanged with other players via the Marketplace, many players opt for the faster method of trading with the NPC merchant at a 1:1 ratio. Pretty much never do people consider eachother 'trade partners' and I've never heard of anyone hesitating to raid someone due to anything trade-related.
3. World domination as the goal
Haven & Hearth, as an open sandbox game, has a much wider spectrum of viable goals when compared to Travian. The endgame is centered around building & defending a tower as a team and racing to be the first team to complete it. From the very start of the world, the central goal of Travian (along with the high incentive to raid) encourages teams to either merge or annihilate eachother rather than co-exist separately. Even for someone like me who doesn't give a shit about the Travian endgame, there simply isn't much to do in that game if you're not building an army and capturing/defending/controlling land.
