Personally I have no problem paying to play HnH, I understand everything behind it and that the game can only grow and become better for it. The problem here is a couple of things, first being how this was sprung on the players without warning, second being the pricepoint, and third being what it is you're actually paying for.
If this had been an announcement a few months ago then as a community we could have gone through and discussed the situation and eased into the idea of paying to play. Sure some people would get angry and storm off but I'd have to believe that most of the current playerbase would have been fine with the idea as long as the pricing was fair for both sides. As far as potential new players go you wouldn't have this moshpit on the forums and other sites scaring them away and if the price was acceptable they wouldn't be afraid to open their wallets and try something new. Unfortunately in this case the hype train came storming into the station at top speed and the passengers weren't told they would have to pay a fee to continue on the trip, as for anyone who wanted to disembark at the station and keep their luggage they would have to pay just to access that as well. Looking back for a moment at people who would prefer to return to Legacy HnH they are now locked out of their characters and are forced to pay just to gain access to them. Individuals here may have put thousands of hours into their village and characters over the past year+ and without warning are unable to play them without paying to verify their accounts, that's a pretty ridiculously rude thing to do in my opinion (this is of course unless I completely missed something or the world was reset). Basically the issue here is not that we have to pay but rather the fact that there wasn't any communication prior to the system being introduced yesterday.
Pricing, what are we looking at on the store page right now? I'm seeing a range of $15 down to $6 for a single month of unlimited play. To be completely honest I find $15-10 to be overpriced and the $6 package requires you to drop down a notable $72 sum which gains you 12 months of playtime. I could see myself dropping $50 or $60 on a one time purchase pretty easily and I would have no issue subbing if the monthly fee was a solid $5 per month but as much as I enjoyed HnH I just don't know if I'm willing to put this amount of money into it at this time. Right now you're looking at prices that rival most major MMOs and are higher than some of the "totally didn't fail but we are going f2p anyway" MMOs on the market, can I really justify spending that much on Hafen? I had been trying to convince 5-6 friends of mine who had never played Haven and Hearth to jump in and give this new one a try with me, I was pretty excited to get in and start playing with them and show them the ropes. As of now zero of them have bothered playing and they were all scared off by the pricing, I find myself without any argument or reasoning to get them to pay to play.
Let's take a look at what it is we are paying for.
Cheating / BottingAs stated by yourselves, you are currently unable to mount a fight against those who wish to bot and cheat in the game. How can I justify paying to play a game where others are going to blatantly cheat and could have a completely unfair advantage in the world because of it? I love the permadeath and persistent world aspects of the game but I'm sure you can see why this would bother some of your players who want to play the game in a fair environment. The argument could be made here that every game has cheaters but that really ignores the fact that other games actively fight against cheating and in the vast majority of them legitimate players aren't at risk of losing their character or paid items to said cheaters, the stakes are much higher in Haven.
Server InstabilityWe are all used to the server acting up, especially during the launch of a new world, but paying to have the server go down randomly throughout the day isn't quite fun when as a player you really have no idea what is going on and if or when it will be fixed.
Continued SupportHaven updates were few and far between, going forward as a paying customer just how much confidence can you instill in me that Hafen will receive timely updates and content?
Content and MechanicsOne of the big downfalls of Haven was that there really wasn't that much to do in the long term, once you built your village and gained access to a few natural resources you had pretty much done everything there was to do in the game. What is going to be different about Hafen that sees us having more to do than endlessly grinding quality?
-This is a game developed by two (2) enthusiasts solely on the premise that it could be awesome.
-This game is fairly well polished, I would argue, but the server infrastructure and whatnot have not been seriously tested, as testing that would imply, well, launching.
To sum up this post that ended up way larger than I imagined I'd just like to point out that we understand both of these statements, what we ask is that you're honest with the players and perhaps take these into consideration when coming up with a pricing model. No one expected Hafen to be perfect at launch, we all just wanted to have fun, fun that we aren't against paying for if it comes at the right price. I may choose to pay for a single month subscription for $10 just so I can get a good read on what the game is about but as it stands now I don't see myself going beyond that and I can't recommend that my friends join in.
by earllohst » Sat Aug 29, 2015 1:14 pm 
Price is terrible, server is terrible, jorb is terrible, but but I wanna play the game bhwahahah muahah *cries like babies
) hard work for free and wonder if you as a dev would have done it that long. My opinion, great job guys, I will still be playing.