Game Development: A Far Green Country

[SynthAura]

Would you guys ever consider a price reduction on monthly subscription? I really don't mind paying but I really honestly feel it's overpriced at 10$ a month.

[Teabot]

Reduction will give nothing. Those who received that kind of a bad experience in these days doesnt come back. Told you so.

[venatorvenator]

You guys should consider just letting people stress-test the server for free until you figure out what the payment method and prices are going to be. It'll calm everyone down and it's not like you're going to lose any potential money (if anything, you may even gain some by keeping some of the people that would've otherwise rage-left)

This is one of the most reasonable suggestions I've heard so far. Please consider it.

It is clear that you won't be able to handle all the work that arises from turning this into a business without having a proper team first. And if you won't form one, it might be best to at least slow things down so that you're able to give everything proper consideration.

[burgingham]

Jorb's and Loftar have a communication problem.

While I do blame some of it on the sometimes less-than-friendly nature of the forum community, I admit this is true, and I'd just like to publicly thank our moderators and other helpful forumers for keeping up more than I'm able to. It was stated elsewhere that we would need a community manager, and I agree in principle. If the game by any fortuitous chance might net us enough money for that, I have already long considered hiring one.

Trust me, a community manager is not what you need to spend any money you make from this on...REHAB...keep repeating that word, I'm sure even your country has them? And make sure they put you both in SEPERATE rooms...'cause you two are TOXIC for each other obviously if these are the ideas you two come up with on a quiet night in a cow field while search for your daily after dinner mints .

Man I used to picture you sitting there with steam coming out of your ears while you type up any of your forum posts. Guess I can still do that

What exactly is your problem? Them making a living off something they spent developing full time without any other job the last 2 years?

[burgingham]

ADMIN! I HAVE PAID 15$ PER MONTH, BUT SOMEONE STOLE MY CARROTS, HELP!

I really going to write a complain to paypal, it just a fraud!

Ok a little heads up. I see more and more posts like this popping up even teaching others how to get their money back.

It is not the devs committing fraud here. You can test the game for 48 hours and then you can decide wether it is worth the money they are charging for it. You don't think so? Fine, then do not pay. But don't pay and then try to get your money back just to piss the devs off. You knew what you were getting into.

Then it is you comitting fraud and I won't leave up tutorials on how to do that on the forums.

[Ralek]

Man I used to picture you sitting there with steam coming out of your ears while you type up any of your forum posts. Guess I can still do that

What exactly is your problem? Them making a living off something they spent developing full time without any other job the last 2 years?

I find it amazing how you can still defend them after everything that has been posted.

[Gotohellcadz]

Man I used to picture you sitting there with steam coming out of your ears while you type up any of your forum posts. Guess I can still do that

What exactly is your problem? Them making a living off something they spent developing full time without any other job the last 2 years?

Obviously a large sum of players are mad that a free game is going paid so instantaneously and with no (properly showcased) warning leading to it. But if you just want to talk about the pricing itself, then that is also very flawed too. I'll admit I have a bias against sub fees, always hated them and they always made me conscious about how much time i have left to play instead of just permanently having the thing to just explore and enjoy. but this game is a small, extremely early in development project by 2 swedes, for 15$ (or 10$ but w/e) when there are bigger, more developed and stable games like WoW or EVE that have similar prices in their subs and also have a full team behind the game for server tuning, quick patching and just general support. That and the new free model is a complete nutbuster to returning players just wanting to jump in for free again as 12 hours a month is not enough to do virtually anything significant ingame (let alone anything in general under the context of this system actually just being a trial/demo for hafen)

Also this game just isn't sustainable as it is if you really are in the mood to make money off it. As over half the returning fans just pissed off and left because of this obtrusive and alienating new p2p system, meaning you're only getting your money off of at the most 700 players and when the game starts to stagnate back to its usual player population after a couple weeks/months: under 200 players. Had they just made this a one time purchase they could've retained a lot more of the returning fans instead of just flat out pissing them off and wasting their time waiting for the new update to come out.

And lastly there's the "fish effect" (in reference to phil fish) where the developer's aren't proper businessmen and answer the community as people instead of developers. AKA a lot of hate towards the devs not budging to compromise on anything related to costs or just act like greed incarnate (from an anonymous player glance at best), causing a lot of players just to bail out of pure spite for the developers.

TL;DR: devs made a bad move suddenly introducing a p2p system when if they really wanted money they could've milked players with just a b2p one time purchase and retain much more of the returning fanbase while still making money, haven is by no means a sustainable; significant source of income assuming you'll just be sticking as a 2 man team and will continue similar development like legacy haven with no real promise that this thing will ever hit 1.0 in a realistic timespan.

[Ragnar214]

LOL all you guys are missing out.

[jewboi]

Man I used to picture you sitting there with steam coming out of your ears while you type up any of your forum posts. Guess I can still do that

What exactly is your problem? Them making a living off something they spent developing full time without any other job the last 2 years?

Nobody is saying they deserve to starve in a gas chamber. Maybe the community cares more about them making more money and expanding than they do. I'm sure they never did research any working payment models and instead went with some deformed hybrid troglodyte thought of plan. We care too much, and that's the problem they find with the backlash.

[burgingham]

Man I used to picture you sitting there with steam coming out of your ears while you type up any of your forum posts. Guess I can still do that

What exactly is your problem? Them making a living off something they spent developing full time without any other job the last 2 years?

I find it amazing how you can still defend them after everything that has been posted.

I see nothing majorly wrong with what they did. So why wouldn't I? And it seems most people I am talking to outside of all the forum rage have the exact same opinion.

We can talk about the pricing being a little too high maybe. The devs themselves have stated they are open to change there and will keep an eye on it to assess what their course of action is going to be. So be patient there and stop the rage.

We can also talk about them not being the most communicative about it. Yes, that needs to get better. Though it has been stated through official channels before that the game was going to be p2p it might have not been good enough. I also understand people being offended by Jorbs snide remarks, just as well as I understand Jorb being a little pissed off at the wave of hate. As a representative of his company he should probably keep that to himself though (though I personally find it refreshing that he isn't giving you the Yes-Man here to satisfy the customer acting like a little kid that hasn't gotten what it wants for christmas)

We can certainly talk about the cash shop being confusing. I think so too.

We can talk about long ass server crashes being a big no-no when you expect money from your customers. I am with you there. The devs want to change that but have to see over the next weeks how to approach it. They can certainly afford a night watch for now.

We can discuss all of that in a civil manner, but nontheless the general direction they have taken is very reasonable and also necessary since this is their full time job now. It might not work out with a niche game like HnH and then you can all laugh your asses off, but it is what they went for. They developed 2 years full time, no other jobs, no payment. The donations for old HnH have been laughable from what they said (maybe they are lying about that, but I honestly doubt that) so there had to be a change in monetization.

To me personally the new version of the game is simply amazing and the old one was already the most influential game I ever played. So to me that equals it being worth a lot. I am willing to pay that then.