Prelude: Happy New World!

[GenghisKhan44]

Some suggestions for tackling the alt-botting problem:

1) Each player account is required to designate a "main" character. All other characters on the account receive no paid-for bonuses-- no convenience, no extra inventory space. Server-side, a flag is activated for main characters, and only an account's main characters may sit at a table and feast. This would prevent both alts and bots from developing stats at any sort of reasonable pace and reduce their labour efficiency.

Objection 1: Someone can create another account to bypass this.

Yes, they can, but are still penalized by the free account's lack of convenience and inventory space. If they want to pay to verify another account, then they're perfectly welcome to-- the people desperate to min-max and run multiple characters will be supporting the developers.

Objection 2: My main character is too pretty/important/awesome to risk in combat or exploring the world if I have no alt to forage/fight/mine for me!

Awww, muffin. You want a permadeath survival-crafting game, but don't want to assume the burden of risk which that entails?

Objection 3: Farming is hard work, and takes up so much time!

Yes, yes it is. And yes, yes it does. That's the way farming is supposed to be.

Objection 4: This will stifle PvP as no one will want to risk the investment they've made on their main character.

See Objection 2. In real wars, people die. People who were smart, or strong, or clever, or had lots of skills. They still died. Why should it be any different in a permadeath game?

I like this post. Do jorb and loftar also do?

It'd also be a bug filled mess thatd ruin the reputation

Oh, are you verified, then, and know what classic Haven is like?

[Paradoxs]

Yes I am. Iv been playing since world 3. When lag was almost unplayable at times and people had tree bots for the lp

[Onep]

Thanks for the megapost explaining things jorb

Could you please reconsider the 4x4 inventory thing? 5x5 is already just barely enough. Either a different way to monetize that (e.g. 5x5 default w/ bonus +1 row/col with sub/verify) or give us more and better options for backpacks (e.g. a traveller's ruck that could give +2 col +1 row at a cost to speed). Inventory management is already at a good level, I think. Making it smaller risks turning off new players who might already be overwhelmed trying to manage everything else in the game.

Other than that, super stoked for all the new stuff coming in W10. I heard something about dogmen? lol

QQ. The inventory will be fine. What do you want? A fucking 9x9 base? It's easy enough to alt vault everything you could ever want on a handful of alts. Maybe you should just verify and deal with the fact that the developers need to make money some how?

[MagicManICT]

The problem with java is the big ones, its just a glorified .rar, you can use winrar to get access to the class files, and a simple decompiler can get you a rough version of the source. Minecraft modding is (or was) done by decompiling it and figuring out how they connected even through renaming everything to be pretty random

Well, if you're inclined to, you can learn to read the object code. It's like reading a combination of Hex and Assembly.

[MagicManICT]

From what I gather from the OP new world will bring the long overdue singular quality and one less inventory row...
I get the business reasoning for the world reset due to payment model changes. Buttt... is that it? Is there gonna be anything else new?

If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the changes will be server side to implement some of the things they plan to do or couldn't do with a simple patch in the existing architecture. Quality changes only being the one players are going to see directly.

Changing subject back to the "mapgen," if the ultimate goal is to have a single world that lasts indefinitely, why go with so much randomness? Maybe talk to the Bay 12 devs and see about working with them a bit on map/world generation. I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it looks like a real world.

[GoodName]

it's happening!

[Beezer12Washingbeard]

QQ. The inventory will be fine. What do you want? A fucking 9x9 base?

I thought I was pretty clear that 5x5 base is fine. Nice strawman though.

It's easy enough to alt vault everything you could ever want on a handful of alts.

I only play one character at a time. I don't have the ... whatever-it-is to run alts to try and get around character limits.

Maybe you should just verify and deal with the fact that the developers need to make money some how?

I already said I was going to sub/verify soon as I got my first paycheck from this upcoming job. I fucking love this game, I support Jorbtar gettin paid any way they can, which is why I phrased it as a request, while also offering some alternative ideas.

So to sum up, your response was a question I already answered + ridiculous strawman, a suggestion to use a specific metagaming playstyle that doesn't actually address the issue, and to tell me to do something I'm already going to do.

Thanks for your input! I'll give it serious consideration.

[MagicManICT]

QQ. The inventory will be fine. What do you want? A fucking 9x9 base?

I thought I was pretty clear that 5x5 base is fine. Nice strawman though.

Strictly speaking, it's not a strawman. It's an exaggeration of the argument. Still a logical fallacy.

It's easy enough to alt vault everything you could ever want on a handful of alts.

I only play one character at a time. I don't have the ... whatever-it-is to run alts to try and get around character limits.

Mostly just a bit of planning. I've found if I'm playing on a regular basis, I can produce and collect more curios than my main character can use, anyway. (I'll be honest and can't say I've put the study desk to enough use yet to see if I can continue this.) Food, of course, wasn't an issue to keep gobbled up by just one character that wanted stats until they added this fullness level, so now I produce more than I can eat sensibly on one character.

I look at it more as a division of labor so that I don't risk losing my farming to a cave in or a troll when I'm mining or happen to run across random ganker 666 out foraging. Don't get me wrong, it's still going to seriously hurt if I lose any of those characters, but it mitigates what I do lose. I like to think of it more as playing a one man village rather than 3 or 4 copies of me.

[Beezer12Washingbeard]

And that's fine. I'm not knocking the playstyle, it's a valid one. But it's not one you can expect all (or even most) players to use. For instance, I'm a MY IMMERSION kind of player, who likes to focus on a single character and build their story. And when that one dies, the next one's story can begin. I don't want to play alts, despite seeing how managing at least 1 or 2 other alts could greatly increase my efficiency or be useful as mules, because that's not why I play.

edit: Also, "exaggeration of the argument" doesn't really work, because my argument was "the status quo, a 5x5, works." He characterized it as "I want a WAY BIGGER base inventory," which doesn't even come close to anything I said.

edit^2: I take your point on it not being a strawman though, you're technically right (the best kind of right)

[wolf1000wolf]

My two cents:

1)
Not to be rude, but perhaps the lack of cosmetic sales stem from the fact that the default look is just plain ugly?

I mean, if your playerbase has already "settled" for a game where their character looks like a retarded Neanderthal then they're probably unlikely to spend money on cosmetics anyways, aye?

2)

Endgame and player-retention issues:
HnH is an awesome game but it feels like it has some parts that are at odds with each other.

The fun survival/early game and sense of exploration.
The extensive crafting.
The sense of character progression and base-building.
The civilization/social aspects of trade and networking.
The risk/reward thrill of permadeath.
The hardcore PvP folks who get a kick out of murdering other folks.

I'd bet that you could double your playerbase just be making two islands and having one island be completely PvP-free. All the casuals and peaceful folks would be playing there, slowly progressing. For "end-game" content, just add dragons or Balrogs.