Game Development: Breath of Air

[LadyGoo]

In contrary, the mechanics could make the community "care bear". As in make the noobs too valuable to kill, leaving the big boys to fight over the attention the said newbies.
Jorb has posted a while ago that they are aiming to make the game suitable for open cities where noobs could come and wander in safety. They have also expressed thoughts of making the hermits more valuable or not worth raiding as well.

@displaced, you're describing the game to your friends in a way that they will 100% loose their character. I am almost certain that you have not explained that this could be avoided, that they can and should grind multiple characters at the same time (with the new OP guild system it's easy to be able to see glimmers and flots 1-2 day of the gameplay). That the chance of their base getting sieged is quite slim as long as they maintain a friendly relationship with everyone + the chance of some faction coming to help is good (if you maintain trade relationships) and so on.

[Kaios]

1. I'm fairly certain Jorb or Loftar ever, and mean ever intended their games to be for casuals. They've never really outright said it, or from my several years making YouTube videos for Salem, ever made it seem that way. Hell when someone figures out a way to make life even slightly easier, they change it and make it harder...looking at you Jorb

Tl:Dr - Hafen isn't meant for the care bear community and never will be, you don't like it, don't play it. Jorb and Loftar are never going to make the game care bear, and that's not their idea for their creative world.

I'm fairly certain that's a great way to keep the player count we have now, boy I love playing a game with 200 players at peak time

[ekzarh]

I'm fairly certain that's a great way to keep the player count we have now, boy I love playing a game with 200 players at peak time

Permadeath+full loot == casuals dissatisfaction. Period.
You cannot do anything with that.
And you cannot make the game too friendly for casuals or it will become same "no risk no reward" like Archeage or WoW (boring adrenalineless cartoons).

Wanna have bigger playerbase? Attract more hardcore players!
Players who are ready to wake up, log in and see their base leveled and start over from scratch. They are the target audience of Haven. The would pay subscription and stay here for some years.

So target them properly, do some PR, SMM, game journals publications, game forums self-advertising some paid ads - everything what is called marketing. Some referral program may help if designed well.

What the game really needs:
1) Make and implement a good go-to-market strategy.
2) solve situation with bots (either make it bot-land by giving bots to everyone or fight it, there hundreds of games proving that its hard but possible)
3) Decrease the learning curve. Newbie quests are a good beginning but still has way to go. Overlay help screens, Some lore-like journals which describe complicated game routines.
4) Make daily mandatory chores shorter (at least) and replace them with some upper-tier partly automated game objects (mills, barns, etc).
5) Give more 'life' to the world (weeks like in Heroes 3, daily quests, maybe even well-thought map changes.

[Kaios]

Permadeath+full loot == casuals dissatisfaction. Period.
You cannot do anything with that.

Actually this is one of the main reasons this game has so much appeal and it is not the reason why we have a low playerbase.

Wanna have bigger playerbase? Attract more hardcore players!
Players who are ready to wake up, log in and see their base leveled and start over from scratch. They are the target audience of Haven. The would pay subscription and stay here for some years.

Sorry but there are players who can deal with this and players who can't, but I hardly think it's fun to log in and find all your stuff gone. The truly hardcore players press on, most just quit or join someone else.

So target them properly, do some PR, SMM, game journals publications, game forums self-advertising some paid ads - everything what is called marketing. Some referral program may help if designed well.

I think they need advertisement in general, but not before the game is at a place where players can come and play it casually without too much fear of losing everything they own or at the very least somehow having fun should that happen. Hardcore niche players are not the money makers they are looking for.

What the game really needs:
1) Make and implement a good go-to-market strategy.
2) solve situation with bots (either make it bot-land by giving bots to everyone or fight it, there hundreds of games proving that its hard but possible)
3) Decrease the learning curve. Newbie quests are a good beginning but still has way to go. Overlay help screens, Some lore-like journals which describe complicated game routines.
4) Make daily mandatory chores shorter (at least) and replace them with some upper-tier partly automated game objects (mills, barns, etc).
5) Give more 'life' to the world (weeks like in Heroes 3, daily quests, maybe even well-thought map changes.

can't say I disagree with any of those

[ekzarh]

I think they need advertisement in general, but not before the game is at a place where players can come and play it casually without too much fear of losing everything they own or at the very least somehow having fun should that happen. Hardcore niche players are not the money makers they are looking for.

I do partly agree on that.
I've been thinking about inviting users to do some PR flashmob at the beginning of the next world.
On the other hand - investing money into marketing should be postponed until the game is finalized at leas in terms of core features (stats, char development, combat, sieges).

About hardcore players noe generating money you are totally wrong.
I have some real data on one of billion-worth games (I don't think it would be right for me to provide the details). 3 top clans produce more than the half money for devs. And they are smth like 5-10% int terms of game population.
The same I have seen in at least 2 browser games in early 2000s, same in Archeage.
In many other MMOs it was the same but to a less degree - average top faction member pays few times more than average casual.

Here it is probably not the case because top factions have top bots =). This is the main reason why bots are evil - they steal money from developers. I can live with any other reasons because I'm botter too
But by providing goods with quality 2-3 times better than manually produced they stimulate casuals to buy subtokens. So even here hardcore players make money for dev team, although in indirectional way.

[Kaios]

I don't know if I'd go as far as to consider myself a hardcore player though death won't make me quit but I can tell you that their work these past few months has not motivated me in the least to purchase a sub and so I've been playing without one for some time. I doubt I'm the only one in that position.

[Zeler]

I think that new world (and maybe new combat ?) would generate a lot of money.

Ofc im still aware of the issue that currently, the worlds are getting boring quite fast.

[Kaios]

I really don't see how a new combat system changes anything about mid to late game, even with a shit combat system you still have (or had, maybe not so much now) players going out and raiding and indiscriminately killing and I doubt this would change regardless of any combat system. Then you have players who don't participate at all or only when they have to and at the bare minimum (such as using a bow to hunt instead of learning the combat) and for these players a combat change does absolutely zero to pique their interest.

There's gotta be more than that before a wipe.

LadyGoo why are you just reading instead of adding some opinion or something to any of my posts you were fucking crying all the time about IP.

[LadyGoo]

LadyGoo why are you just reading instead of adding some opinion or something to any of my posts

Which ones?

[Kaios]

Any of them, then again tho you are letting stuff like this happen without really doing anything it seems so I guess you are kind of useless. Do u need some brimstone?? I can hook u up.