Why aren't there more games like H&H?

[spectacle]

Haha, imagine if all every person who ragequits after drowning meant the loss of a paying customer.

[DatOneGuy]

If there 'was' another game like HnH it probably wouldn't live to scale. Outside of Wurm (got old fast, real fast), Minecraft (survival seems to be going down a path something like this, hopefully), there really isn't much in this genre no matter how much you generalize it.

The idea of sandbox survival RPG (for lack of a better term) as a genre seems to be relatively new in concept and most people won't even know about it because most MMO websites you visit tend to only have listed commercial games most of which are Korean MMOs.


I think that while a lot of people don't see it, this is the kind of MMO that a lot of people who jump from korean MMO to korean MMO are looking for. Why? It offers (effectively) what most Korean MMOs promise, has no NPCs so it's not brainnumbing grind (Kill monster receive exp, repeat), it's repetitive (which MMO gamers tend to love) but on a larger scale. It's very much based solely on the imagination of the actual player, you can do pretty much anything you want with the given mechanics, no one's stopping you from making a tavern, a huge city, or going griefing other players.

I'd love to see other games in this genre placed in different time periods with different lore, but I don't think anything will compare to Haven and Hearth in this sub-genre for a while.

Your completely right. But I'm not thinking of the players,... Im thinking of the developers.
Surely they are aware that sandbox mmos exist and surely they are aware that there is quite a potential for them.
The only true reason I see them for not trying this, is because it could be the system requirements for a dynamic world are too large (which I guess is the reason loftar decided this game to be 2D).

The same reason any good game doesn't have clones/similar games popping up left and right, a (rather poor overall) comparison is to Monster Hunter. The people who wanted a game that was more challenging and realistic in the genre love it. The people who loved aiming and all that other kind of stuff say it's too hard and quit. That's just the way it works, if it's only your own time you're wasting you can go on and attempt something like Haven and Hearth but companies have to produce results that can make money, do you think the money they use to program a game like HnH would actually go to use?
Furthermore, consider MMO payment systems for a second, there are really only 3 at the moment:
1)Cash shop - Utter shit, I spit on these games. This would probably kill a game like HnH faster than NPCs that give quests everywhere.
2)Pay to play - Many people skim right over pay to play, however I'm not sure if something in that sort would for HnH and have little experience in the area.
3)Buy once - This seems to be the best deal for indie devs to not ruin their game and players actually WANTING to buy, if they want to pay more after they can donate or do other things.

There are also combinations of all of the above, generally any combination of paying AND cash shop is frowned upon and seen as absolute shit, examples: WoW-Cash shop + Pay to play + Buy ; Guild Wars : Buy once + Cash shop (Last I've heard they were getting it...) ;

Really a 'buy once' method is the only one that properly would work on a game in this sort of genre however it means not having monthly income from the game to pay server fees sadly.

I'd love to see more games in the genre, but I believe the real problem is that while there are probably developers would like to make something similar, it's hard to do due to the lack of funds, feeling of too high a cost for the game if not, and then you have the problems with making a size-able game actually not lag. Imagine Haven and Hearth with 100,000 characters on one server (don't even get into multiple servers, that would ruin a lot of HnH experience imo since you could run from someone by just moving servers amongst other things), now imagine something like that also in 3d taking up a lot more resources.

If I had the skills in artwork or knew anything about server infrastructure and networking, I'd give it a shot (and ultimately fail most likely), but I don't.

[Yehezkel]

Game developers don't look at what will make the customer happy. They look at what will make the most money. Why put so much effort keeping a single customer if a thousand take their place? I could go into a whole discussion about this but I will leave with one final sentence:

Why make something great when good sells better?

[saltmummy626]

Game developers don't look at what will make the customer happy. They look at what will make the most money. Why put so much effort keeping a single customer if a thousand take their place? I could go into a whole discussion about this but I will leave with one final sentence:

Why make something great when good sells better?

I have to agree. Plus most game developers don't even look at what the player thinks either. they always look to those stupid game rating companies and all the game magazines for the information on how well games are doing. they dont bother to look to the people who actually play the game, they just say, "hey this game website says our game sucks! well we wont even make a sequel then!" when in fact what the real player wants is a sequel or DLC. If the scores aren't good enough then the game is doomed but not doomed by the people playing it. that's what makes me happy about H&H, no ratings, no ignoring the real players, constant updates, and the appreciation of our beloved developers.

[Ownt]

there's this amazing game that has been in development for, like 5+, years now and it takes place across an entire galaxy, essentially. you travel throughout space, can build in space or you can colonize planets. it's made by independent developers and looks fucking fantastic but i cannot remember what the damn game is called. maybe some of you have seen it and can remember.

i found it, it's called Infinity

http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCzDKj3h ... re=related

[Wipfmetz]

Game developers don't look at what will make the customer happy. They look at what will make the most money. Why put so much effort keeping a single customer if a thousand take their place? I could go into a whole discussion about this but I will leave with one final sentence:

Why make something great when good sells better?

I have to agree. Plus most game developers don't even look at what the player thinks either. they always look to those stupid game rating companies and all the game magazines for the information on how well games are doing. they dont bother to look to the people who actually play the game, they just say, "hey this game website says our game sucks! well we wont even make a sequel then!" when in fact what the real player wants is a sequel or DLC. If the scores aren't good enough then the game is doomed but not doomed by the people playing it. that's what makes me happy about H&H, no ratings, no ignoring the real players, constant updates, and the appreciation of our beloved developers.

Are you honestly thinking that commercial developers don't do any market research, but that they base their decisions on internet videogame reviews? Or do i misunderstand you here?

Infinity

That's pretty.

[DatOneGuy]

Game developers don't look at what will make the customer happy. They look at what will make the most money. Why put so much effort keeping a single customer if a thousand take their place? I could go into a whole discussion about this but I will leave with one final sentence:

Why make something great when good sells better?

I have to agree. Plus most game developers don't even look at what the player thinks either. they always look to those stupid game rating companies and all the game magazines for the information on how well games are doing. they dont bother to look to the people who actually play the game, they just say, "hey this game website says our game sucks! well we wont even make a sequel then!" when in fact what the real player wants is a sequel or DLC. If the scores aren't good enough then the game is doomed but not doomed by the people playing it. that's what makes me happy about H&H, no ratings, no ignoring the real players, constant updates, and the appreciation of our beloved developers.

They do do research, they just don't see you as a person, but as a number. And how they can extract as much money from a number is normally a commercial developer's main concern.

Why make something great when good sells better?

Sadly the reason we'll always have 'good' video games.

[Rhiannon]

Most have hit it on the head...it's money..not loyalty money, but revolving door noob money. It's get the most in, hit them up for as much as you can and move on to the next noob. Interestingly, the most succesful "indie" money games are a few Ragnarok Private servers. As ROPSs are based off the official game but often have massive gameplay changes, custom items, quests and various other mechanics specific to the server they qualify as indie games ran by indie developers who quite often change the code to such an extent that the game itself (other than graphics) bares little resemblence to the official game.

Take RebirthRO for instance, it's been around for years and years, with a stable base of approx 1700 players on the Loki server at any given time which = many thousands of daily players throughout a 24 hour period. The Devs of that server pull in 1000's of dollars per month from custom item purchases/donations. There's probably high as 20 or so RO private servers that have reached the milestone of the indie devs making a pretty good living off nothing but a game without being in a studio/team. A modest living acceptable to them which is the key to being an "indie" dev, you aren't looking for millions, just a good living.

Totally custom indie games, especially Sandboxes, have such a hard time because to be successful outside the typical MMO market (which requires huge revolving door noob item mall or P2P purchases) you have to go after the loyalty money. Those gamers who like to make a "home" in your game and if given the chance would stay around for a lifetime. The current MMO market is based on "hit and run" gamers, short attention spans, "max out and move on to the next"..ect,ect. I've been at RebirthRO for years, and over those years I've probably spent 2.5k dollars. Multiply that times all the other longtime loyalty players who basically "support" their homes on that server and you can see how the devs have made enough money to live off their own indie "reimaging" of RO.

Though H&h has that potential it could never generate a living because there isn't isnt enough "homesteaders" (Due to the greif mechanics). So it's all really in the perspective of the devs themselves of Indie games, what their "goals" are as to whether or not they can actualy make a living off an indie game. H&H is indeed the best foundational idea of what that genre of mmo gamers (Sandbox homesteaders) are looking for. I myself basically quit all the mmos and browser games I played since finding it almost a year ago. (Save Atlantica occasionally((Only because of the investment in my character)) and my RO server). Due to only a couple mechanics here though, most of those gamers only stay long enough to be greifed out and then "dream from afar" and pray for a clone..LOL But I can certainly understand and comiserate with the OP of this thread.

So why aren't there more?...it's because there are very few people who would be happy making a modest fortune instead of the "big bucks". Greed is the key in todays MMOs. For some reason it's either a million a year or nothing. Making 50k a year and doing fine just doesn't seem to appeal to enough devs to create a large selection of indie games of various genres. There's alot of indie games, from browser based to flash and java. BUT only a couple of each genre in each type that create the right atmosphere to bring in the loyalty longterm money of homestead gamers.

[Brickbreaker]

Yup... that is actually the reason I posted this. The dev's are clearly deciding not to be professional with this game, which was a shame because of the
potential it has. I'd personally give it a go since I'm currently learning C++ and have reasonable knowledge in using Blender but probably not so keen on getting a server and supporting it.
Anyways I'm not entirely convinced that money is ultimately the reason they decide not to make sandboxes, for example: just look at console games they are
constantly being innovative and are diverse and yet they make tons of money. Payment methods shouldn't be a problem as shown by Wurms and ATITD which both are profitable in 3D despite server costs (Wurms has numerous servers).

[DatOneGuy]

Yup... that is actually the reason I posted this. The dev's are clearly deciding not to be professional with this game, which was a shame because of the
potential it has. I'd personally give it a go since I'm currently learning C++ and have reasonable knowledge in using Blender but probably not so keen on getting a server and supporting it.
Anyways I'm not entirely convinced that money is ultimately the reason they decide not to make sandboxes, for example: just look at console games they are
constantly being innovative and are diverse and yet they make tons of money. Payment methods shouldn't be a problem as shown by Wurms and ATITD which both are profitable in 3D despite server costs (Wurms has numerous servers).

Consoles don't involve even half the problem computers do. You can go out and buy a console and easily set it up, there's no actual hardware problems, it's 'one type', that's it.

Money is one of the main reasons, look at Wurm and compare it against any Korean MMO and you'll see exactly why.

You could turn around and look at Minecraft (Notch worked on Wurm too) and see that it CAN be done yes, but it's a new field. The same way didn't see ANY console companies moving to MMOs for quite some time (not sure if EA did, but THQ did recently taking over Dragonica for US) is because it's a new field still isn't fully defined and is a big risk despite the potential for such money. They instead decided to do their whole 'DLC' deal as a way to take control of the continuous return without having to provide continuous support.


As for HnH going commercial, http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/doc-src, it really can't be said better.

--
I'm not sure C++ would be the best language for it, but then again I haven't gone too far into C++ and it's the only language I really 'know' to any extent.

I'd also go so far as to say that 2D>3D for this genre, however I do happen to strongly prefer 2D in any genre besides FPS, so meh.

2D via 3D isometric (Haven and Hearth, Ragnarok), seems to be the best it gets
3D is often rather hit or miss.