by Saival » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:02 pm
As seen by someone who didnt even played the game once.
Two days ago I bookmarked H&H website to check the game later.
Now, upon discovering the fact of going p2p and seeing how the community was treated I feel no incentive to play.
Keep In mind Im only basing my opinions on the first look - which is mostly misleading, but also mostly decisive on the fact if I (the customer) will buy the product.
I have a few things to point out, with one main thought I got from analyzing what is happening;
This game is in desperate need of Community Manager and Designer! It seems that the creators of the game are gamemaking geniuses, as they managed to construct H&H with rather small resources, but their genius comes with a price; they are antisocial morons that can't handle money. Making a business (and monetisation turns this game into one) should require tons of research, preparations, consultations with specialists and more. Meanwhile, It looks like there was no developing process. If there was one, we can't know, as it was mostly inbetween authors, with no information given to customers. Which brings me to the f1rst point:
Doing things like that is a PR disaster. A bullet taken to the Image of the game. Not only that controversial decision was "pulled out of ass", but there is nearly not enough communication between playerbase and the crew. When I entered the forums I saw no official posts, no discussion, no "sorry", no polls, no nothing. Only very old community members arguing. It does not make the game look good to potential customer. Its repulsing. You are making yourself a bad reputation. If immediate actions won't be taken it can sink the ship. People on few other sites about MMORPGS are already making a shitstorm. This negative marketing can bring some people to the game, but do you think that most of them will be here to play and pay? No, most of them will be enjoying the disaster, like me!
Before turning the game into a business most delicate actions should be made to improve the image. New graphic looks very appealing to the newcomers. But what about the page? It does not look "serious enough". It has bugs and lacks QoL improvements (case sensitive login and email restoration). Of course, one may say; but we don't have time to make this look better. To which I respond; this is your frontpage. It can be a decisive aspect of attracting customers. Take care about it, even if it requires postponing the game. Postponing to deliver a better product is good in most cases. If you want to make money, you need to play the economics rules. One of them is "The customer is the king". The customer at least has to think he is the king. Currently, I feel more like a unwanted peon.
The business model makes the thing worse. Turning a f2p game into p2p is strange and most people will feel attacked (as you take something from them). One hit to the marketing image. Making the game rather price'y, another hit. Making customers pay for a product which (as I was informed by reading some comments) might be plagued by bugs, disconnects and stuff, third hit. Any sensible person does not like paying for beta.
Why I consider the price a bit too high? Welp, its higher than goddamit World of Warcraft! Also, why the subscription works as a restriction lifter, instead of adding game time (based on ingame hours?). Its confusing. Meanwhile, 720 hours for 15$ dollars look really good. Even 720 hours for 30$ looks good. Its not even half a dollar for an hour. Marketing. We can assume that 720hours would last for 3-4 months, so it makes almost a ten dollar per month. It sounds much more player friendly (also it is much more player friendly).
The line "Game Time is provided in the form of an ingame token that is consumed to add Game Time to your account, and can thus be freely traded or gifted to your friends ingame!" is a RMT enabler! I dont know what form of curency of H&H uses, but be it gold, logs, items; they will be traded in ratio for tokens, therefore enabling USA players exploit players from countries with weak money. Everyone not using $, € or £ will be turned into slaves, as 30$ for them might be 110PLN (which is a price of AAA game at release and requires 2-3 days of work around the minimal wage), so for them it will be faster to grind ingame goodies. This might be a good thing, but depending on the Token-Ingame money ratios it can take so much of the player time it will be not fun to play. Smaller and cheaper tokens propably would be good for this purpose. But remember, that by RMT enabling you are connecting your game economics deeply with real world economics. It could even turn into RMT problems (If the game got really popular, which is my best wish).
What really shows the lack of thought, testing and economic stupidity is the fact, that 1month subscription is cheaper than 1month game time. Really clever. Fix it asap, baka. Additionally, I have to point out that the free game time looks REPULSING. Most players would like to test the game before playing. But, upon seeing such ridiculously small amount of time (and that goddam small regen) I felt "are those guys fucking kidding me?". And closed the browser to forget the game. Sadly (for you, dear reader, whom had to endure such a wall of text) Im a type of person who likes to vent out. But I bet, many players turned their heads and went away. It gives a feel of "so, this game is f2p with premium" and later shatters that positive opinion with unplayable time. Not good in the basic customer psychology.
I understand that making money is a fine goal, as it allows for improvements of the product (and therefore improves lives both of the creator and the consumer), but I think that the route taken is simply... wrong. MMORPG sites all around the world are spreading the "pay to play is dying out" vibe. Pay to play looks very restrictive. There are many ways of making money and they include;
1. Dont ever think about labor points. Never, ever. It ruined archeage, it will ruin any crafting game.
2. Vanity items. Not only occassional hats. This is ridiculous. Where are my sweet robes, pets, wings, flip-flops, pink-tinted windows, naked lady statues, decorations, auras, nickname colours, titles... There is so much to sell! Many games have more content in the item shop than in game. Because it brings profits. There are three ways to implement this; character bound items (bad idea, nobody will want to buy them as they will be too easily lost), account bound items (good idea) in two variations; pernament and time based. Hard to tell which is better, but economy says that by taking too much you might actually decrease your profit. (Laffer curve imho aplies to pricing in shops too). Maybe more stuff in "character creation" (I dont even know if this game has any!) also is a great idea? I know people who would pay to rock an afro.
3. Boosts - generally a bad idea, as it gives the pay2win notion to players.
4. Premium features; building big stuff, beying a mayor, using some more interesting functions could require a token or premium subscription. As long as it won't be too resrictive, most players won't lose much and the few people would have to pay a small fee, which propably could be "crowdfunded" (many games do this with guilds for example, even 100$ is not much for a 50 people guild, everyone threw in 2$ and its fine).
5. Premium lands (Ever heard of PACC content in tibia?). It might divide the community a bit (especially, if they will be bound to wealthy subscriptions), but time based tokens allowing exploration, why not?
6. Premium servers. A bit controversial matter, as it would cause all the f2p scum (Im not implying f2p players are scum, Im implying trolls are mostly f2p) gather on the f2p server making it unplayable.
Many MMORPGS make all their money from vanity and stuff and they live. You just need a playerbase big enough; which can be achieved by proper management, marketing and community care. Why this game isn't on kickstarter or steam?
Feel free to discuss, criticize (me!), think and write.
