Guy with who jumps to conclusions wrote:The game is $15/mo? No way, I'm outta here!
Sensible reaction: Get rid of the "game time" bullshit all together. What's the point of it? So your rich friend can buy you an even more expensive subscription? Just let people gift subscriptions.
Guy with low attention span wrote:So if I verify my account and subscribe for game time I uh... uh... what?
Sensible reaction: Get rid of account "verification". It's completely worthless. Having 24 hours instead of 12 hours a month to play the game is still nowhere near enough to accomplish anything in such a slow paced game. It's just confusing people.
Guy who is bad at math wrote:I would pay $5/mo for this game. That would be a fair price, but no way I'm paying $15/mo! (or $10/mo if the outraged user is more intelligent)
If you subscribe for a full year, it works out to $6/mo, which is pretty close to what people claim they are willing to pay.
Sensible reaction: If you're dead set on the stupid subscription idea, reduce the normal subscription fee to $5/mo or $6/mo, make the discounted rate work out to $4/mo or something.
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The first big problem is that H&H doesn't have a ton of players. I don't know the exact numbers, but there have been indications that half (or more) of the players online are merely bots and alts. So, to make a living wage, we can assume Loftorb decided to base their decisions on the current number of users x a certain monthly fee. An okay idea in theory, but deeply flawed.
Critical flaw #1:
The hardcore playerbase (people who play for more than 6 months in a row) is fairly small. Incidentally, this is where the money comes from since casual players won't care enough to buy a subscription.
Critical flaw #2:
This has been a completely free MMO since it started. What kind of audience do you think you've gathered? Players who are willing to spend a lot on a game or players who prefer games that are free or extremely cheap? Obviously, the answer is the latter.
Critical flaw #3:
Lots of people play the game on and off. This game has a lot of things to do, don't get me wrong. It's just that people can burn through the content within a month or two, then there's nothing left to do but raise quality and gain FEPs (read: grinding). There's no end-game content. People are too afraid to go to war with each other because the whole game is based on investing time in your character (see: keyless triple brickwalled fortresses that take up a supergrid to make sure they don't run into any unexpected trouble). People aren't going to want to pay for a full year in advance when they're not likely to play it that long at once.
Critical flaw #4:
Since the beginning of time, the devs have ignored and mocked the players who disliked aspects of the game. The community has evolved into an overprotective horde of fanboys who will immediately dismiss anyone who says anything bad about the game. You've lost countless new players while barely gaining anyone who sticks around. This is your most fatal flaw.
There's no excuse for this. Your game gets new players all the time out of nowhere or by word of mouth. The population should be increasing (permanently) every month. I've pointed this out before, but clearly you didn't care and preferred to side with people who say "This game is absolutely PERFECT. FEP is the most genius idea in an MMO ever. Don't change a thing."
Now, you see... if you addressed flaw #4, then flaw #1 wouldn't be a problem. If flaw #1 wasn't a problem, you could make the game cheaper, solving flaw #2, and you'd be raking in a hell of a lot more money than you're getting right now. Addressing flaw #3 would help with flaw #4, but I know you're too stubborn for that.
The root of all your problems is the way you've treated the new players. The way you've disregarded them and told them to go play something else if they don't like your game. The way your mob told new players "if you aren't good enough to play a real game (H&H), go back to Farmville lol".
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How to fix:
First, you must realize your mistakes.
1. Some people will pay the subscription, but they're an extremely small minority compared to all the players that try your game out and quit within a couple weeks. I dunno if they're the minority amongst the regular players, I guess time will tell.
2. Your game can't compare with high budget studios. Your game is charming and has its merits, but let's face the facts: the art is ugly and the programming is full of bugs. Personally, I like your ugly art. Many of the people here like it. It's unique and interesting in its own way. A lot of people also hate it and use modded clients that have smoother graphics and overall nicer art. I'm just telling the truth. It is ugly and I have friends who wouldn't touch your game with a 10 foot pole because it's not a 1080p 60fps HD AAA+ game. By comparison, your game looks like a crude PC game from 1996. Your audience will be severely limited by this. Your game has less appeal to people in general. They'll be skeptical to even give it a try, so you need to price it accordingly.
3. People quit your game at about the same rate they join your game. This is not a good thing.
4. People want to give you money, but you're asking too much. Don't expect to make a living off of the game immediately. Start slow and work your way up.
5. Your game is boring. Sorry, but there's hardly any gameplay. The only thing that makes your game fun is when you play with friends. Unfortunately, you're killing that option with your subscription model. You need to make it less robotic and more interactive to keep players interested. If the game wasn't such a chore, maybe people wouldn't use alts and bots so much.
To fix the monetization problem, read this:
viewtopic.php?p=533239&sid=c19de1283328b4c3517326442798ad2a#p533239
The gist of it: instead of punishing cheapo players, you should reward the paying customers. Let them buy the features they've requested numerous times throughout the years.
INSTEAD OF FORCING UPON THEM A SYSTEM THEY HATE, GIVE THEM SOMETHING THEY'VE BEEN BEGGING FOR.
I've posted ideas before on how to make the game more interesting, such as making permadeath less punishing or making character investment lower. Or making war more viable, like more useful siege tools or making combat rely more on skill instead of stats. People like having wars. Haven't you noticed how much fun everyone has whenever the world is about to reset? They post screenshots and stories and have a blast finally attacking their archrivals. Until that point, everyone just hides in their impenetrable fortress to grind stats, using alts and bots to do the dirty work so their true character can stay out of harm's way. I believe Haven would be far more interesting with features to allow factions, alliances, vassals; if the world had natural disasters to rarely destroy the fortresses that prevent combat; if players were encouraged to fight and stood a chance, not just a one-sided battle where veterans can hunt newbs for fun. Of course, this is only my opinion. Disagree with this part if you must, but everything before this paragraph is something you absolutely must take to heart unless you want your game to die.
![¦]](./images/smilies/troll.gif "Trollface")
