But this thread will focus on the most hafen related issue: they have a server reset mechanic to keep the game interesting for everyone. In short, they embrace the need for the constant server re-sets, since once certain groups gain the advantage, the rest of the server stand a little chance to oppose them or to have a significant influence in the in-game world.
3. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “RESET MECHANIC”? This “reset mechanic” is a way of returning to game to a start state, so that players remain interested in playing the game. It is a necessary ingredient to making the game work over time.
To illustrate this problem, let’s use an analogy.
Every Thanksgiving, a family gets together for a game of RISK. Only it’s not “let’s play Risk every Thanksgiving” – it’s “let’s pick up from where we left last year, in the SAME game of Risk.”
The same game. The same conflict. Year, after year, after year.
Imagine that, in year 2, Uncle Bob starts winning. In year 3, Uncle Bob presses the advantage. By the end of this game session, Bob basically owns the board. Fast forward 10 years. Same game. Uncle Bob is now an unassailable tyrant. The other players (i.e. everyone other than Uncle Bob) wander away from the board – because they know they don’t stand a chance. If a new player joins the game, Bob snuffs them out in their infancy, and they quit immediately.
Everyone is bored. Even Uncle Bob is bored – because he hasn’t faced a challenge in over a decade. But he won’t give up by choice. That isn’t human nature. In an MMO, we call this phenomenon server stagnation. The game is incredibly fun – right up until someone wins. Then, unless there is a way to start over again, the game stagnates and everyone quits
They have adressed the issue of people feeling frustrated by loosing their bases by letting their characters to transfer from world to world. I think this does not suit hafen well, since people enjoy character building and a new world with advanced characters is just the same as the old one. However, the point is, that they do not fight the problem of the world getting stagnate, but make the biggest problem their best advantage. The other key point is that they will change the world rules from server to server (change the meta-game). In legacy, trees were extremely important, but nowadays only mining and metalworking has the actual influence to the game. Next world it could be animal husbandry (extreme hide and bone quality increases).
Characters are permanent, and advance over the course of many Campaigns. This gives you the feeling of persistence that we’ve come to expect from MMOs. Campaigns, though, aren’t permanent. They still be “persistent” between game sessions – but they don’t last forever. How long will last? As long as the game is still fun! And they don’t all have to be the same duration. Some Campaigns could last 1 month, or 3 months. or 6 months. or 1 year. These Campaigns aren’t just “instances”, though -- they are fully populated, continent-sized, seamless zone MMO servers with as many people as the server architecture will support. The ONLY thing they have in common with an “instance” is that they are time-limited. Because each Campaign is marching towards an end condition, this means that the World doesn’t have to be static anymore. We can break the Campaign into different “phases”, and adjust the rules of the game change during each phase. We can also allow the players to fundamentally change the world, without fear of the long-term problems this usually creates. And since the Campaigns are discrete, why not make each one unique? Why can’t each one have a completely unique world map (mountains, forests, lakes, castles, villages, quarries, mines, mills – you name it)? The “exploration” phase of the game can be different in each Campaign. The world will never be stale. We can take that initial rush of excitement you get when you enter an MMO for the first time, and bottle it. We can make it repeatable. To that point: since each game is a stand-alone event, we can even change the rules (and win conditions) of each Campaign. We can experiment with different rules, to see which ones are more popular – and keep the game continually fresh.
I wonder whether it could be possible to freeze the old characters until month 3-4, so everyone would have to start with lower tier characters and enjoy the grind and base-building. So every world re-set would not frustrate the gamers and they would get back their characters. And still have the motivation to play the initial months to find the best spots, build bases and etc.
8. BUT SINCE THE CAMPAIGN WORLDS GO AWAY, DOESN'T THAT MAKE IT LESS PERSISTENT THAN MOST MMOS? Actually, no – because, remember, most MMOs don’t allow you to modify the world at all. The only persistent data they store IS your character data. Since your character data is permanent in Crowfall, too, it’s technically accurate to say that Crowfall is “just as persistent as most MMOs.” The difference is that our maps aren’t static. Campaign Worlds will constantly be created and destroyed, which means the Universe is continually in flux. As a result, the game will feel a LOT less static.
The world life-cycle scenario:
10. WHAT DOES A TYPICAL CAMPAIGN LOOK LIKE? Here is an example of what a Campaign might look like:
Phase 1 is Spring. The Campaign map is hidden by fog of war. You are dropped (typically naked) into an unknown, deadly environment. This world is filled with the ruins of ancient castles, abandoned mines and haunted villages – which you have to explore to scavenge for weapons, tools and the resources to start building fortifications. (just like in hafen)
Phase 2 is Summer. The Hunger starts to infect the creatures. Resources become scarce. Your team claims an abandoned quarry and must fight to keep it. You use the stone to build an ancient keep, to use it as a staging area to attack your neighbors. (the limited resourses idea is quite interesting, the metal and the gear become valuable, mines like in W3 could become nodes of conflict)
Phase 3 is Fall. The creatures become more deadly as the Hunger takes hold. Resources are heavily contested and transporting them is fraught with peril. Your guild frantically builds a wall around your city, as the nature of conflict shifts from smaller skirmishes to siege warfare. (animals gain more strenght as the world progresses, similar to my idea of the beast kings)
Phase 4 is Winter. The environment is brutal. Warmth is hard to come by. Your kingdom grows in strength; your neighbors falter and you demand that they swear fealty or face complete loss of the Campaign. Instead, a handful of smaller kingdoms choose to band together against you. (happens in hafen, actually)
Phase 5 is Victory and Defeat. The World is destroyed in a cataclysmic event as the Campaign comes to an end. Your Kingdom emerges victorious, and you return to the Eternal Kingdoms to enjoy the spoils of war. Your adversaries head home, too -- to lick their wounds
Also, what bugs me, is that they do not have that much done in comparison to hafen. Yet, there are many people donating and subscribing. IMHO, hafen should be more widely advertised. At least, try to launch on Steam to get more people playing. More players = more competition = more fun and drama.
This is why I have given short comments above each quotation.
Concisely, another MMO that has the same issues as hafen did not try to fight the need to re-set the worlds, but uses it as the main feature of the game. The worlds last from 1 month to whatever time. The mobs get stronger, at the end everything ends in a cataclysm and the next world starts. The players are able to get back their old characters, so the world re-sets are not that frustrating for hermits like in hafen.
I think, hafen will struggle to generate enough content or to balance the game so it will stop being boring after a few months. Instead, there could be a way to get back your characters after 3-5 months from the server start and make the server restarts a part of the game.
I definitely don't think hafen can exist in its current state. Worlds end up barren by month 3, and boring way before then.
With this change though, everything would basically need to be rebalanced. It'd be nice having some stuff from previous worlds carrying over, but it'd be important to be carefully balanced so players can't maintain an insurmountable advantage every world. I don't believe in jorb's ability to balance things properly though, which is why I'm doubtful about this idea.
Sounds like they are working around the technical problems of pulling off a single-world server and use instances campaigns instead to split the load.
The problem with pulling the concept to Haven is that this would be the end of one-world-for-all here, resulting in stale worlds like Legacy (which still seems to be technically alive in the sense of being able to log-in but) basically only being populated by a bunch of hermits - or people being pissed off because their building projects get wiped (or are pointless since no server population to use them is left).
I enjoyed the end of last world and I like that they gave a try at making the end of the world a player triggered event but I think how it was setup motivated players the wrong way. An end of world event should be something that no player has control of when it occurs but every player has to work together to prevent if it does. If we don't work together or others thwart those efforts the world ends.
Kaios wrote:I enjoyed the end of last world and I like that they gave a try at making the end of the world a player triggered event but I think how it was setup motivated players the wrong way. An end of world event should be something that no player has control of when it occurs but every player has to work together to prevent if it does. If we don't work together or others thwart those efforts the world ends.
Will you try to prevent the world end right now?
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jorb wrote:All your characters will be deleted, and I will level every village any one of them were ever members of.
by LadyGoo » Wed Jul 20, 2016 7:51 am 
