P2P plan

[Grable]

But I am not unwilling to adjust. Quite the contrary.

However, those words say that. I think most people understand you want to earn money with the game, and it is certainly understandable to me. I would do the same. I just think that asking for a subscription for an incomplete product is a bit preposterous. Usually when you sub for a game you expect you will have quick fixes, stability, a good client, support, aka complete package. And that's for classic games, not niche games like this. What you're essentially asking for is a sub for promises, a kickstarter of sorts. And kickstarters are one time payments.

[Ants]

$10.

You are not going to pay $10.

And certainly not $6.

People have already explained why 10 dollars is not reasonable for a game like this. It's not that we don't want to pay for your game, but 10 dollars is what MMOs like World of Warcraft charge. It is not what this game is worth right now, I am sorry. It is buggy, laggy and in pre-alpha. It's like paying 50k for an old clunky car that keeps breaking down.

Give me some solutions, then. I am providing an ongoing service. Charging a one time fee for an unlimited commitment in time is not really tenable, though we have attempted something similar anyway in the account verification.

Please dig through the thread a bit more. Many, many people have offered solutions.

[jorb]

People have already explained why 10 dollars is not reasonable for a game like this..

Yes, people have shared their feelings with me at length. However, in this particular case I was simply correcting a factual error, not arguing the merits of any particular price point.

[mikkrish]

Jorb, isn't it better that you charge $15 for 720 hours of game time and it only counts when the players log in HnH? You know full well that your game is very time consuming, the most casual player would still use at least 3 hours per normal day to log on and do chores, not to mention more during weekend, holidays and sieges.

15$ for 720 its kinda super cheap so I would understand Dev's unwillingness to go so cheap. However for me it would be a nice thing to add that kind of monetization option, as I can't dedicate time for regular play so I would like to pay for what I play.

10$ for 90h and I would be ok with that. For myself it would be more optimized subscription plan, for others who play more than 3 hrs / day it would not be.

[Amanda44]

Yes, people have shared their feelings with me at length. However, in this particular case I was simply correcting a factual error, not arguing the merits of any particular price point.

[Russaria]

His concern isn't with the price, though.

But a lot of us have a problem with the price, please give a listen to us. You said in an earlier post that we wouldn't pay 10$ and we wouldn't pay 6 either, but you're wrong, I would pay 6$ but I will not pay 10. Why? Because 6 is a fair price for your game per month and 10 isn't. It's not that I can't pay 10$ a month, but I'd feel cheated doing that considering haven is not a perfect game, there are finished games out there with much more content that charge 10$ a month, and hell some even allow you to earn membership just by playing the game on top of the loads of content, and for you to ask 10$ for hafen really makes me feel like you're suckering us, I'd love to support your game and play it but I know deep down it's simply not worth 10$ a month and I can't bring myself to pay that. So to say I wouldn't pay 6$ is flat out wrong and I've explained why it's a fair price.

Amen, and their mouths have always been their undoing. The atmosphere of this game has always been a fine line between those who love it too much to leave while trying to traverse the toxic landscape LED mostly by the devs themselves and their "Circle of friends". There are few games, some still successful, mostly niche games that have made the subscription model work. I mentioned Pony Island before due to it's huge rise and success using that model. Complex genetics systems and coding, HEAVILY burdened servers with 100 thousand people online at any given time, and they do all the work themselves, just 2 people, brining in outside artists when needed. They do it all for 24$ a year or 14$ per 6 month subscriptions. Because they are THERE, and always have been, they don't abuse, trick, abandon their games for a year at time. They don't attack their own playerbase and they don't let their mods do it either. They don't come off as greedy or abusive. If J&L they had left Legacy alone and free (For as long as it lasts) as bait, while charging a REASONABLE price (for them and their history) for subscriptions to their "New alpha experiment" @ no more than 5 $ a month. You'd see next to NOTHING in the way of complaints, hard feelings, problems or attacks. But then again, that would be what you expect from a professional developer who gave any care at all to their player base or ethics.

Have I paid for a subscription service before, yeah, bout many games, outright, yeah, over 300 on Steam, not counting everything else. Ever paid microtransactions for mmo?..yep, Atlantica for over 7 years. I played Pony Island for years due to the complex genetic goals in that game, and though I knew I was being held hostage by said 6 month or 1 year subscription, it wasn't enough to feel "Cheated" as it was only 14$ for 6 months or 24 for a year (that's 2$ a month). Asking for 15$ for "gametime" that means nothing to the play of H&H and for access to your now hostage village is just what it appears to be. Bait and Switch. Their reaction and feigned surprise at the backlash is both expected and typical. Greeted with the usual F-U and the usual calling of the hellion shills to support them. Same old song and dance.

if other devs can do it for a fair price then so could they. Simple as that. There is nothing fair or balanced about this whole mess. And in the end, it wont fly. You may get enough people to play with 6$ a month, but I doubt it, more likely with 5 and proving a new attitude over time, But ya damn sure wont for 10 and the same old toxic attitude the devs and mods have had in this place for years.

[Valnar]

There are 2 really big reasons why a sub based model won't work and why there really hasn't been a new big game that sticks with the sub based model.

1. It excludes people who are unwilling to pay the sub.
This is obvious but big, multiplayer games need people playing their game. Free players in f2p games are extremely valuable because they give the players who spend money someone to play with. The f2p players are a product that the game is providing to the non-f2p players. Since the advent of F2P games people are just a lot less willing to go into the classic sub model of games that aren't already grandfathered in (like WoW or EVE).

2. It excludes people who are willing to pour money into the game.
Whales are a big part of f2p games. There are people willing to spend tons of money on a game, and the sub based model inherently limits them from spending money. The most you will from these whales now per year is the subscription price. There has to be ways to innovate the game to allow people to spend more money without compromising the game for f2p players.

Like look at Path of Exile.
They have the cosmetic shop of course, with things you can put on your character.
They also have supporter packs (right now they have $30,$60,$130,$260, and $1100 packs) that allow people to spend a lot more money to not only get value buying in bulk, but also unique rewards only avaliable for those who buy the supporter packs.

Probably the most innovative that PoE has done are in their highest costing packs. The highest costing packs have allowed people to actually help shape the game. One such pack let people design a legendary item that actually gets put in the game (this one they have actually put on hold because too many people were buying it and they have a big backlog), another pack allowed someone to design a character that gets put into the game as an enemy that can be seen at certain times. All of these game changing packs have been really popular for the game. They not only provided something for the person who bought it, but for everyone in the game too.


I just really don't think the game will be able to do as well as it can if it is using a sub-based model.

[Mashadar]

I haven't read all of the 80 pages in this thread, but I've not seen this suggestion yet, so here goes:

consider increasing the attractiveness of the tokens by reducing their price a little and possibly by removing subscription plans altogether. The fact that these tokens are not only valuable trading goods but can also be used for yourself or your friends encourages people to buy them optimistically in bulk. I know I can trade them for resources I need, but even if I never end up trading at all, I can still use them for myself, so you can feel safe when buying a lot of them.

If you're not going with this, consider making the subscriptions more user-friendly by not counting months where you haven't logged in at all. So basically, when you haven't logged in for 30 days, the subscription is paused and not resumed before you log in again. Alternatively, you could give people e.g. twelve one month tokens for the one year plan that can be activated whenever you want (to set them apart from the other tokens, they'd be for personal use only). This would cater to the more casual players.

[Okocim]

Haven was a great game for me, I had to get used to new graphics and systems in hafen and now i do think it's promising.
I wouldn't mind to pay 10$ per month for this game if I could be sure that it won't die or turn into ghost town soon.
10$ is pretty much for me and so for many other peoples and i don't feel like throwing money away.

I'm pretty much afraid about the snowball effect of players leaving. You know... My friend cannot afford to pay or don't want and I'm not going to play alone... I would try this game out, but wait it's p2p guess I'm gonna pass... My parents won't agree to pay a subscription... and so on... and so on..
and finally... there are almost no players playing this game it's ghost town, what's the point of playing mmo alone.

Current average amount of players online at the same time is like 750? I't gonna drop after a while, firstly when new players get bored and when rest of the players gonna notice the shoppe, than hype over new game go out some more leave, and on top of that players who died.
When W7 started average was over 1300 and dropped to 500 after few weeks, without having to pay. Based on it i guess average amount of player online gonna drop under 100 community died.

If it's going to be less than 350 during my play hours, I'm not going to pay any money for sure.

On top of that removing hearth spawning and long distance party is just bullshit to drive peoples away, it took me a while to meet with my friends, some gave up. "It's survival game or walking simulator?". You should rethink who are you addressing this game to.

[Altich]

The game currently isn't worth 10$ and that's it. Of course, for a 2 man job it's not bad, and I'm sure they didn't spent the whole 7 years full time to create the game. But it just isn't worth 10$. Personally, I don't think I would spent more than 5$/ month. And to people who suggest a year of subscription: I might get bored in the meantime. In a game with perma-death that's to be expected.

But as I mentioned in my previous post, the most serious flaw of the game is the tokens. They make the game pay to win. They must be removed or they will destroy the nature of the game.

I would suggest that you remove everything from the shop. Just the subscription is enough. Just give some free time to new accounts and after that they have to pay a subscription. Remove verification of account, and free time per month. It only gives room for exploits. It's not like anyone can be competitive with 24 hours per month.

I respect that the developers main concern must be how to make the most profit. But the way it is now, I believe they have the opposite results. They may get a short burst of money at the start, but I doubt may people will keep paying for long. And a reduced player base is unappealing, further reducing the players.