Game Development: A Far Green Country

[jorb]

The server crashing is not the hardware, but the software, i.e. the game server we built ourselves. It's not something you can buy.

We have to fix the bugs that cause the crashes, quite simply.

Are you fixing those crash-bugs after each crash to collecting reports and then fixing?

Nope. Loftar just fixes and moves on, and I think that's a good regime for the most part. Most of the stuff that crashes isn't particularly interesting to an outsider anyway.

If it's relevant to know we'll most likely mention it in our game development posts.

[kBre]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but surely you can't be mad at me for not reading every post since the forums are getting spammed incredibly fast.
Is there a client download feature already or do I have to download the autohaven every time?
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but it has been a while since I played this game.

[LadyGoo]

Most of u waited all the time, and now u cry cuz u loose 1-2 mc donalds meals for a good game/month.

That is the thing. For most players it is not 1-2 McDonalds meals. People from Ukraine, Russia and neighboring countries cannot afford to pay so much because their currency has lost from 60% and higher of their initial value. So 1-2 McDonald meals for you might be 1 month worth of grocery shopping. What is 10 dollars for you might be 20+ dollars for them. Moreover, a lot of them are quite young and do not earn their own money yet. It will decrease the server population dramatically.

Yes, developers were not asking for money for 7 years and we do appreciate that. But the timing is extremely unfortunate due to the economical situation in the world.

[Headshot]

May I remind youy that we've not asked for money for seven years?

Just for notice. Game atmosphere made fully by players. What you suppose to do when you reach low online?
I want to remind you that without big ammount of active players game will be just copy of don't starve and happy farmer. Most of people play because of pvp/permadeath system. If online will be low - no reason to continue.
This is my opinion, but most of core players in our team totaly agree with me.

Inb4: idc, go away if you dont want to pay.

[pedorlee]

I would prefer Jorb to focus in fixing the crashes. I want to play...

[Felkin]

Jorb, I got a question to you, this one is extremely important to me and I think to the community itself too so please be honest and answer :

Do you think that Haven would be the same game with only 50 active users in comparison to 1000?

I play it very much the hermit way, so to me it kind of would be.

That being said, no, of course not.

I guess the answer is "that depends on how you define identity".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus ?

Alright, let me rephrase:

Would you consider the game with only 50 people to still hold the same level of appeal to the MAJORITY of the userbase?

[hauau]

Jorb, you don't owe me anything and I only owe you gratitude for your game. Thank you man, really, for all these years and perhaps all the years ahead(?). But there's something I'm confused about: why do you take community trust for granted? I'll try to explain my concerns.
While you can pay only 6$/mo. at this price it's only available as 1 year subscription. I can't imagine this to be popular option, since this is commitment that takes trust in your ability to provide game services. For ~6$ maybe you can argue reliability and client quality isn't required to be top notch, but everything else above (let's say 10$) is asking your playerbase to invest in future development of a game without any guarantees, while they have to play on subpar server and subpar client for indefinite amount of time. This is kickstarter without refund option. And you're kickstarting something even you're not sure about what it is. At least you could compile your 'official' vision and goals for a public. Maybe a roadmap?
How can I be sure that you (Seatribe) will deliver bi-weekly or even monthly updates? How can I be sure that you will actually invest your time and money into the game, and not hookers or drugs? Keep in mind that 'Seatribe' isn't an actual company and your ToS is kinda don't keep you responsible to provide anything for my money. I have to take a word from this forum thread. Word that's not even 'official' announcement, just throwing ideas and thoughts about future development, right?
But playerbase will shrink and this is something guaranteed, at least for early stage of a monetisation. Can I be sure this game still will be there a year in the future?
About other subscription options: competitors\other online games of inarguably better services (servers\client\support) quality offer it for matching prices. Today, right now, does your game cost 10$ a month? That question is important, since you have to belive it is, or that it will be. Personally I have no source of such belief.
Now that you can trade items for mandatory (for meaningful ingame impact) game time, how will it change game economy and why it won't open pay2win options?
Thank you!

[Teabot]

What about not asking for money until your software allows people to actually play the game?

May I remind youy that we've not asked for money for seven years?

Well. Hey, community! When are you gonna pay for all these already played times?

[jorb]

Yes, developers were not asking for money for 7 years and we do appreciate that. But the timing is extremely unfortunate due to the economical situation in the world.

I'm sorry, but we cannot take the state of the world economy into full consideration when we set prices for our computer game. There are people in third world countries who lack access to clean water ffs.

[earllohst]

I'm not wanting to see haven development suffer because of insufficient funding, that is the main reason I have been replying to so many messages and countering people's emotional (not logical) reasoning on current haven's pricing model. I love the game because no other mmo is like it. If haven turns into an ordinary mmo that sells cosmetics and goes stagnant I will hate myself a lot for it.

The old haven and the current haven is not the same, the future haven will also evolve I trust jorbtar on that.

I personally don't want the players to take charge and direct jorbtar how haven is supposed to be run, never ever that would be the end for haven.

Lots of people are comfortable with previous haven; the quality is stuck, the gameplay is stuck, content is stuck, but the positive side it's also stuck in free to play. There is only one way to improve that is to challenge the status quo. I don't want the current and future haven to be previous haven so p2p have to stay it will leverage everything from gameplay, content. It is really disappointing to see the lack of trust showed recently in this forum.

But you know negative stuff are yelled out loud when contentment is not noisy.