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

[Brickbreaker]

Tried explaining this game to a dude I met just recently and he plays WoW with all expansions. As I explained it to him he seemed overwhelmed and unable to
understand the whole concept of sandbox mmos. I told him you can make cities from scratch anywhere in this massive world etc...
But when I got to showing him this he completely dismissed it because it was in 2D and it's intro was nowhere near as epic as WoW's .

Anyways I then wondered why no big developers took on a challenge of making sandboxes. I'm aware of Wurms and Roma Victor (If it's still operational) but they are all just not up to standard imo.
Don't they make them because; noone wants them, system requirements would be too high, not profitable or the idea never even came to their heads?

[Teme]

UO might come close to this.

Also why wont big game companies make games like H&H? Coz they only think money and they'r noobs

[Dondy]

Some people have problems playing games without structure. They may not be able to answer the question, "What do I do next?" if there is not an obvious response. With H & H the question, "How do I win?" becomes even more difficult to answer definitively.

I am told that some games with pvp have collapsed after being overpowered by small groups of strong characters who wiped out all the lesser characters. The lost their player base because there was no way to advance to ablities where you could defend yourself.

Most game developers may want a higher degree of control, such as knowing what the cities are and where they are. If our developers had that kind of control they could develop a whole bunch of mini-games like "Travel to the Seer in Codexia" and similar quests. This would be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you want out of H & H. Rather than getting fun out of watching all the little people toiling away at the tasks they set, the local devs seem to rather enjoy the hands off approach of wondering what would happen if they introduced a new strain of bacterium to the petri dish.

[Undefined]

It's a very niche genre, but that's what indie developers thrive on. Trying to produce a big smash hit of a game requires appealing to the lowest commmon denominator and attracting as many people as possible.
90% of MMO players would dismiss a game like this because of it's difficulty scale and lack of instant gratification, Not to mention the freedom to be a total dick to each other.

Ultima Online in it's early days compared to what it has become now is a clear example of why big budget development teams simply can't risk making a game like this for profit.

[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.

[Brickbreaker]

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).

[Garlicman]

What about EVE Online? It's a sandbox MMO as well.

[Brickbreaker]

What about EVE Online? It's a sandbox MMO as well.

Yes, but EVE Online is pretty much the only truly decent sandbox out there. Why isn't there more?
I can accept sandbox is in the minority but surely there has to be more developers than just EVE that would want to give it a go?

[Wipfmetz]

Because making the games you want is a luxury. If you want to live from making games, you have to make games which make money. H&H is far too niche to make enough money. If you ignore the niche part of it, then you have the very serious question of the permanence: right now, the world can be reset without the devs having to worry about their own personal future.

[Onionfighter]

The fact that this game isn't commercial allows the developers to take a lot more risks in terms of game play.