Game Development: Seasons Greetings

[MagicManICT]

I've never understood this whole argument of "slowing the game down". Honestly, Salem is proof that an overly slow game only succeeds in boring everyone right out of it.

The continued success of World of Warcraft with the speeding up of level progression is another shining example of the shortening attention span. People I know that tried out EQ burned out from the slow XP grind if you only had a short amount of time to play (and it's not even the slowest MMO there ever was).

[DaniAngione]

I honestly don't think it's all about the game's speed.

It's about the lack of endgame content/activities.

There are some people that I know - our village included - that didn't 'achieve' many things yet. We just recently made our first Merchant's Robe and we're yet to craft a full set of steel armor. We have never seen gold or silver so far.

One could argue that we're slow, but we could argue that hardcore/big villages are too fast (we're just 3 casual/larpers ) and both arguments would be silly. Game should not be supposed to be a race. It's supposed to be a living, survival/social experience (?) at least for me. And so it should cather to both hardcore speedsters that had brickwalls up on the 2nd week and casuals that go along a more relaxed, slower path.

The fact that people hope for new worlds is because they achieve all they can achieve in so little time - while many others would hate a new world (like us) because we're still growing, creating, achieving things. How to balance the two?

I say again: game needs more stuff to do, more 'end game' achievements... more things to keep players busy... not changes to its pace/speed.

I've talked about it before, but I'm thinking about new ways that could provide this (mostly about seasons)... I'll probably write about this on C&I soon... but my point is: I think the game could use some sort of 'time gates' - something that changes the whole world and its players progression and it depends on natural time and not players' efficiency. So, with seasons (for example) you'd never really reach a point of stability because you'd have to be looking forward for the changes of the upcoming season (like no farming on winter) and this would bring a whole new level of maintenance/power struggles/etc...

Anyway, I hold on to my opinion: game speed is ok. People play it differently, have different speeds, we can't base ourselves in that much. It's about having nothing to do once you "finish" the natural progression estabilished thus far

[MagicManICT]

Pacing is an issue, but it is secondary to getting to the end-game content. If the end game content can be accomplished in 2-3 weeks, then you lose a lot of people from boredom.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Most major MMOs took 5-7 years in development before release. Haven is almost to year six with nearly four years out of active development because everyone has to eat. You also only have two people working on it versus a good half dozen to dozen on the core development team for any MMO (not to mention all the secondaries in art, coding, etc that get credits but aren't one of the core designers).

Not really sure why I'm posting that, but I say let's play around with some mechanics. There's no harm in trying something. If after a couple of iterations of tweaking (say a month or two) it's still not working as expected, then take it out. A day or so of a mechanic isn't really enough to get good feedback on it. (Though with you guys taking the next few weeks off for family and R&R, it was probably bad timing to introduce anything that major.)

[Asgaroth22]

Haven is almost to year six with nearly four years out of active development because everyone has to eat. You also only have two people working on it versus a good half dozen to dozen on the core development team for any MMO (not to mention all the secondaries in art, coding, etc that get credits but aren't one of the core designers).

That's what i've ben thinking lately. Maybe they should consider bringing in some fresh meat to help them out? It may be difficult at first, but it's certainly going to help in development.

[Shipright]

I think a start stop method might help. Achievements/Unlocks/Skill progression should be "easy" for the sprinters who then get the benefits of getting ahead, but there are speed breaks bulit in where these people will hit a brick wall for a while and the slower players/new players can sort of catch up just in time for the sprinters to leap ahead again. The content gets doled out a bit slower, people spend time exploring and exploiting all the game mechanics at all levels instead of skipping over them entirely in a head long rush to end game.

[rye130]

I didn't realize experience was actually an issue to anyone tbh. The only characters i've ever had to worry about it on are fresh chars that i build within the village without ever sending them out, and even then it's really simple to just go through a checklist of things to do for experience every day. I've never run out of experience, or even really come close.

so basically we have confirmation that the only people who are able to get the exp system to work are those who actively game it. I think this is very obvious sign that it's the EXP earning that needs a serious overhaul, because they might not be "bots" persay, but only those who are able to exploit the system are actually getting exp, where as players who are playing the game as some would say it "should be" on a single main doing all of the things you do all by yourself are potentially getting fucked hard by just getting a set of weird events and them never ever fucking triggering. While the curios taking the same exp with the final wear tick as they did with the first was an issue, I really hope that this will make them look into the far more serious longterm issue of some players having 30k exp while others can't hardly scrape together 8k, based only on a series of arcane bullshit challenges. The lore events don't feel like an exciting reward, they feel like an awful chore.

This is the most ass-backward logic ever. The experience system is in place to discourage low effort alts that you hardly play on. The fact that anyone is having trouble getting experience when only playing 1 character means there is something seriously wrong with the way they are playing when I can easily supply experience for around 15 characters that I'm actively studying on with very little effort. The only gaming of the system is actively trying to get experience as part of my playtime. Trying to get experience is now something that someone playing the as it "should be" must try to do. Whether or not its working as intended depends on what the developers want it to do.

[shubla]

Achievements would be nice.
Some simple stuff like.
"kill your first boar/bear/moose"
"Build stone tower"
Not quests. But achievements. That would maybe encourage some to play.

[xTrainx]

thanks a lot

[donatas]

So far there are 4 quests will there be anymore?

[Asgaroth22]

So far there are 4 quests will there be anymore?

When you start a new character you are given quests to help get you into the game. We've done a few to start with, and will add more continously!