The Ghost of Christmas Future, II

[LadyV]

Would a mod please move the Salem discussion to the INN where it belongs?

[MrGreen]

You now take 1 HHP of damage everytime you leave a scent (Battery & Murder excluded)

This is like from World 7.... We make base and then BOOM! Game is to hard for thieves. It is easier to make your own stuff! Becose leach healing is pain in ass.

P.S.: Salem and HnH 2 will be like FOnline: Reloaded and Fonline 2. Same engines, but totally different gameplay

For thieves this game requires 5 minutes a day to start computer and press run button on bot. Maybe sometimes kill some noobs.

I like to play 5 min and get free stuff fast. But now I need to heal my self forever each time and IT IS BORING!

[TeckXKnight]

HnH 2 will be dead if game will have same thief mechanic. This is real problem. This is why I and my friends left HnH. :( -1 hp for opening doors REALY? :lol:

The only reason that mechanic was put in place was due to the fact that some player(s) was/were abusing a bug which allowed someone to spam a bunch of scents in one spot causing lag and I think eventually a crash. I would imagine they've done something to address such an issue.

Everyone agrees the system isn't ideal but it was put in place because you could DDoS the server by running a bot to just rapidly spam criminal acts. The 1 HHP damage is more or less a bandaid to tide us over until Hafen.

[painhertz]

I remember now...... I don't think I actually played that long in World 7, by the time Ainran left I left so i had forgotten that was put in. Yeah, it did screw we "thief" types over quite a bit.

[txtrung0]

Thank you guys, for your understanding. I apologize for digging too deep into Salem. I admit I joined the discussion just because I was seeing negative comments about it and generally just want to clarify a bit.
But along the line we have had some legitimate talks about being free to play and pay to play. About that, I do have something to say.
Assuming the model of Hafen will be free to play, with player donation as its main source of income, I fear that it could come back being too cumbersome for Jorb and Loftar to maintain such strong development that require resources to process. It will then be a second Haven. The only viable outcome of this scenario is that Hafen can attract a big enough player base that is at the same time dedicated enough to donate to the server. Because as of now, there is no reason why people should support the game aside from moral values. I don't want to open the topic of free riders and their troublesome existence: it is way too complicated and politically involved; but I do want to point out that, in order to get enough resources to support the game financially, we need more contributing players. Or, give people more reasons to donate.
I have been always a fan of pay to play. Imo, free to play is the invitation letter for less dedicating, troll like players who can ruin the community, making bad decisions, such as inventing bot, cheaters, exploiters. Also I think it is fair to pay for such a huge amount of work. I know the donate button do just that, but not all player will do the same.
We need a healthy number of donating players to keep the finance stable. The only way of generating more donors now is by taking large amount of noob players, seeing them die out until only the bold ones remain. For that to work, we need a big enough server with virtually no lag, a stable client with minimum bugs, an easy to get started intro and a good community. Sadly, we have none of those. So we will always see people who could have been good players quit. It is not that the game is not for them. It is that we have not given the fair chance they deserved. We don't actively break potential players out of their cage and show them what they really like. So, in short, I find it unrealistic that the model will generate enough money to support faster development. Hence Haven is rarely updated.
On the other hand, pay to play get rid of that. Real pay to play subscribing system even reduce alts, but generally require players to be bold enough to try and stick first. Hafen nature is not that forgiving, and of course not one that can be easily grasp, so this is not viable also.
The only reasonable choice is a pay to be fast, minor impact cash shop system.
Lets say at the beginning, an addition bean from the pot is like double its effectiveness, in latter stages it will be less and less effective. I like system like that. It helps noobs to get started fast while present no real threat to the non paying player. Plus they can just raid others house to get the items for themselves. It also provide more reasons to buy from the shop, without making it mandatory. The system are for the middle man also, who do want to donate but find no real motivation.
With the money, the development can be carry on faster, the game will be more complete, people will actually start to see its beauty, and then we can go back to everything for free once the game improve!
But nah it the game is too good we will attract a huge community of free riders and that will again destroy the server. It is an infinite loop, for me being free is being doomed.
I hope you guys would consider my points and tell me what do you think and why do you favor free to play.

[Saxony4]

TL;DR

Fuck cash shops, never acceptable no matter how minor or if it's some 'cosmetic' bullshit

also Jorbtar explained that money isn't an issue regarding game development.

Real pay to play subscribing system even reduce alts

slightly yes, but then some rich prick oil baron or more realisticly a kid using his mother's credit card... can just buy up 100 accounts for alts, and have the advantage over others because muh money.

[Avu]

Fair systems for payment are either one time only, subscription or cosmetic microtransactions only. Subscription while the most fair is probably not gonna bring in enough players, cosmetics without the player base path of exile has (had) again I doubt will be enough so one time payment might be the way but the trick would be to put the payment after a free trial. I'd say cap stats and skills at say 50 let everyone play as much as they want learn whatever skills they want build whatever they want just cap the values if they want to raise more stats one time payment per account. Sure people will still use alts and whatever but they are doing it anyway at least the game will get some money new players will still be encouraged to give it a try is it pay to win? I guess but I'd rather look at it as free to try it forever. I know I'd be happy with such a system.

[Jackard]

I suspect F2P is the source of several issues we've seen regarding alts and exploits. A B2P model where players purchase accounts seems more sensible to me.

Cosmetic cash shops are fine.

I don't believe subscriptions would ever work for a FFA full-loot PvP permadeath game, let alone one with Haven's grind.

[TeckXKnight]

That was incredibly wordy. In essence you're saying that f2p games can't survive because they're free. Donations don't bring home the bacon. That is a given that anyone who has put any thought into the monetization of the game, and the necessity of monetization to keep J&L with the booze and bread necessary to survive and, more importantly, keep developing games.

While I agree that cash shops are a good option for the game, I disagree that they're the only option. I also disagree that the cash shop has to offer minor impact goodies to get anyone to buy anything. It breaks down to what we begin to put value into. As this is a video game, nothing has intrinsic value. People will pay money, and more money, when they feel they are getting good value out of what they are buying. Some things develop value to us faster -- the need to progress, as you've suggested, is one of these things. Niceties also tend to develop value to us over time, such as prettier houses, decorated cities, and things of that nature. Quality of life has immense value but should be off of the table. The second that you offer pay for quality of life, it is now profitable for you to strip back basic quality so that it can be resold, or so that paid qualities are more valuable.

So what develops value in a survival sandbox mmo?
1) Your character. No matter how much you try to hammer it home that a character is just a resource to be expended, it is valuable to the person playing it. It doesn't matter if someone has played for 5 minutes or 5 months, if they die and lose their character, or some similar situation, they feel as if they've lost a disproportionately large asset.
2) Your home. Whether this be a fir bed and a some wicker baskets or a magnificent brick and stone city, people place a lot of value in where they live. Whether temporary or semi-permanent, value rapidly accumulates to you where you live.
3) The goods you use. To no ones surprise.
4) Unfair advantages. Because it feels good to be better than others. To kill someone in combat who tries harder than you. To build a bigger city than a larger group. To have a better garden than your neighbor.

From this we can make some fairly quick guesses. Try to buy would work pretty well. Someone gets into the game for a free week, gets attached to their character and village, and decides it's worth the $20 to buy the game. One time payment, clean and done. I'd go on but I feel like I'm blathering at the moment, so I hope you get the idea.

[txtrung0]

Yes, and I don't mean to say "Fuck the 99 percents"
In my mind there are two kinds of people: useful and useless.

Useful people, no matter poor or rich, are always welcome. Useless one, eh, not really. They decided to pay the one time payment, good. They're the ones I like.
And by useless I mean the ones that want to enjoy and not giving a dime. Even a thank you is enough for you to be considered useful to me, as you are clearly giving a fuck about others ^^!)

So basically I agree with you. I still prefer the cash shop option as it brings more money and makes the players feel attached to the game more than a one time off the store buy.
Additionally, we can offer big deed to be lower of maintenance in exchange for money. Feel like you own that lot. Will that be game breaking?