by ricky » Fri Dec 16, 2016 5:35 am
Again, how well received the update is depends on the player, not the developer. I don't feel it's justified leaving the player base in the dark for (in haven's case, probably a week) any extended amount of time.
To use a time honored example, let's look at tarn Adams at dwarf fortress: game patches are often every 6-8 months, with monthly bug fixes in between content releases. He does, however, take time to hold a monthly future of the fortress and write 2-3 paragraphs updates on their main website every week or so. Of course, this 6 month update schedule is vastly different than haven's update every 1-2 weeks. However, you won't see people theorizing when the next update will be or praying for an update.
And, I'll venture to say that dwarf fortress and haven aren't that dissimilar. Yes, the games themselves are different, but key details remain the same for both: two person development team, free with donation/subscription model of monetization, steady alpha development for 5+ years, player made client mods, and both games have a high learning curve. You could attribute DF's success to its game type(single player vs mmo), and that certainly must be taken into consideration, and yet certainly something must be handled differently by the DF development team that factors into its success beyond gameplay.
This rant/opinion went on a little bit longer than I intended, but that's okay
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Haven and Hearth Wiki.jorb wrote:Ideally the game should play itself.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.