by MrBober » Sat Aug 29, 2015 12:13 am
As most players, I'm disappointed.
First of all, it would have been nice to let people know BEFORE today. I'm sure many wouldn't have spent their afternoon waiting for the game to come out.
Haven was a great free game, and I'm sure many players would have bought Hafen 2.0 for a fair price if it was a "early access" kind of thing. You buy the game, in alpha, and play without limitation other than the game itself not being completely finished.
Pay to play is one of the worst things you could have done, and here's why:
- The game rewards people who spend a lot of time playing, which now translates in people who pay more to have more "Play-Time".
- The game is not completed, so my money will not always be worth the same amount. As of today, I would pay for a buggy and unstable game experience. In 6 months, it would probably be a whole new story.
- Not everyone can afford it. While 10$ a month might to be a lot, not everyone has it, which leads to the "free option".
- The free option give so little time, it's not worth playing. 12 hours A MONTH is more or less 20 minutes a day. Now, if we were talking about a dumb "smartphone app kind of game", 20 minutes would probably be fine. But given my experience in Haven and Salem, this kind of game requires a lot more time to enjoy. Someone suggested a "12 hours a week", but I still think it wouldn't be enough, giving too much advantage to those who pay.
- 10$ a month can buy you "more", meaning you can subscribe to fully developed games (e.g. World of Warcraft) for close to the same amount. You might like or not those games, but you can't deny they are on a whole different level.
At this point, a "pay to win" kind of thing would have been less of a damage, I think.
I strongly hope you will rethink your shop system. Clearly your player base doesn't like the new system at all, and while we saw a lot of people online today, waiting for Hafen, I doubt we will see them still online next month.
I understand you wanted to gain some money for your work, but this is not the right way. It truly feels like you are just trying to squeeze money out of your players, which is another reason for them to leave. The great community we saw today, is not going to stick around for more if things don't change.
Please think about it.