Why w11 is bad

[Kaios]

I think Discord is more to blame for that than anything. I post haven stuff every day pretty much, but basically none of it makes it to the forums anymore since everyone who would see it is in our discord or the old HH discord

Plenty of games have active forums even though a majority of their players use external programs for communication though, whether it's discord/skype/vent/team speak/xfire/IRC those things don't really tend to effect that as much as something else may be.

Moot could use some more threads for sure but since no real raids happen Im not sure what a "good" moot thread would even look like anymore

I thought the thread I made at the beginning of the world was fairly well done and would have been interesting but when stuff like that just gets trolled by idiots instead and lack of moderation assists in fostering that environment it really kills the motivation to try and do further effort posts of a similar nature. It's no wonder to me why that section of the forum is so shit and I stopped caring about it.

[borka]

You don't have to be very smart to realize that most convos are at Discord nowadays (i.e. village or neighbourhood channels) ... besides Realm chats ... thus most dramas even don't touch the Moot ...

[Kaios]

Exciting dramas such as this one? If someone had something mildly interesting to post about they would. Many realm chats are inactive except during player peak times but I would say that Hedgehugs has the most active realm chat of the three major realms, not much discussion of drama going on though from what I've seen it's mostly casual conversation.

[Aceb]

Exciting dramas such as this one? If someone had something mildly interesting to post about they would. Many realm chats are inactive except during player peak times but I would say that Hedgehugs has the most active realm chat of the three major realms, not much discussion of drama going on though from what I've seen it's mostly casual conversation.

I wouldn't call it exciting drama, rather flexing everywhere they can. You're naive if to think that people would really go throught effort to post something on forum, where they have to login and stuff, while on discord it is sometimes as simple as Ctrl+v screen with comment. And a much wider audience will see it.

Many realm chats are inactive? The two if usually spent time are active just by hermits. Any relevant informations or discussion happen mostly on discord (if).
Casual convos are everywhere just between small villagers and hermits. Occassionally some big boy will speak up.

Plenty of games have active forums even though a majority of their players use external programs for communication though, whether it's discord/skype/vent/team speak/xfire/IRC those things don't really tend to effect that as much as something else may be.

If You mean big games then yeah, because playerbase is big enough that forums might look a bit more alive. A lot of playerbase of any game almost is not even registering to proper forum of games. It often comes to reddit/discord/steam as main "forum" then, rest.

[Kaios]

I wouldn't call it exciting drama, rather flexing everywhere they can. You're naive if to think that people would really go throught effort to post something on forum, where they have to login and stuff, while on discord it is sometimes as simple as Ctrl+v screen with comment. And a much wider audience will see it.

Ok dude my bad I didn't realize so many players were that lazy I won't give them the benefit of the doubt next time. I don't want to hear anyone complaining about a lack of drama posted in the Moot though if that's all they are going to bother to do when something happens.

Many realm chats are inactive? The two if usually spent time are active just by hermits. Any relevant informations or discussion happen mostly on discord (if).
Casual convos are everywhere just between small villagers and hermits. Occassionally some big boy will speak up.

Except during peak times I said, when I'm playing I could be in Hedgehugs realm for a few hours before I see anyone type a message and I know it can be extremely active at other times. A few guys chatting once in awhile isn't exactly the level of activity I'd like to see over the long-term though.

If You mean big games then yeah, because playerbase is big enough that forums might look a bit more alive. A lot of playerbase of any game almost is not even registering to proper forum of games. It often comes to reddit/discord/steam as main "forum" then, rest.

The game doesn't have to be huge, the forum just has to account for all types of players and languages which this one most certainly does not.

[Dannedanne]

I'm a some-what casual player from World 6 and 7, my opinion is that this game was a lot better back when it was 2D. Not because of the graphics, but because of the different vision the game had back then, to me the idea of roleplaying in the Germanic iron age was very appealing, nowadays the artistic vision of the game has been compromised with Egyptian / pirate hats, and a fricking mcDonalds fries on your characters head.

On a more general note, it is obvious the game has taken a more "burgeoise" turn (focus on development of settlements) instead of a "barbarian" focus (living in shelters and dressing up in rawhide). I liked the older versions because of the system of "Personal Beliefs", where at least the idea was present of tuning your character to be either a civilized tradesman city-dweller type vs. a rough, primordial "barbarian" kind of character. That duality, and the whole personal beliefs system in general, was something i missed very much after its removal.

Now the game was taken in a direction i do not enjoy. The "city dwelling" aspect has been enlarged to such an extent, and so many different items added that give the player a leverage over mother nature, that i would say this is not a survival MMO any longer.

I did play "hafen", or 3D- Haven&Hearth if you will, and it was good at the time of launch. However there were some glaring flaws, essentially flaws that have stuck with this game from its inception. I am speaking mainly about the way stats work, and grinding in general. The devs never managed to prevent botting, or speaking more generally, the food system and the stat system, which both always lended themselves to endless grinding, was never properly balanced. Even though balancing attempts were evidently made, the core problems always persisted.

I've been thinking a lot about old H&H lately, and why i loved it so much, i think the pleasure in that game was exploring the open world, combined with the feeling of real weakness before mother nature. Not necessarily a feeling of mystery, but a feeling of awe in regards to the way the world was a very hostile place to your character, that is what drew me to H&H in the first place, and it does not exist any longer.

EDIT: Now that i think back, i did play in World 5 as well. My first encounter with this game was in very late World 4.

[bmjclark]

The only people who think there's anything moot worthy going on in the public haven discord channels are people who aren't in them tbh. The first step to dealing with the games shitty retention is accepting that there's actually a problem (which there absolutely is)

[stickman]

One thing that has been slowely creeping up each world is that once you get established you have no reason to trade, Especially if your in a major village. Every world its gotten worse and worse. there is no reason to hunt other then to get bones because the sausages and dishes made with them are SO BAD.

Farmed and harvested foods should be worse FEP/Hunger wise then foraged or hunted...

I remember in world 3, you could buy stuff with blueberries and chantrelles and deer meat.. I was selling the highest Q thanes available for cavebulbs. i was buying chests and chests of cavebulbs and tons of deer meat. now what do new players have to offer me? nothing.


Another issue is because Q spots are known after a few months there is no reason to enter LQ areas. If the only reason to kill animals now is to get bones then there is zero reason to hunt any animal near my base because they are all <200q. it would be nice if Q fields changed with seasons or something to keep searching and hunting areas moving around.

Lastly I think one reason why this world reached end game so fast is because of metal Qaulities... correct me if I am wrong but i think the anvil and hammer q this map shot up WAY WAY faster then it ever did historically... never have I had gear higher q then my attributes before so early. I dont think the deeper lvls should have been made available so quickly, i think it ruined the pacing and made this world reach end game months before it should have.

[borka]

@Dannedanne

World 7 aka legacy is still running ...
http://legacy.havenandhearth.com/portal/srv-state

There's even recruiting and market going on
i.e. viewtopic.php?f=64&p=835746#p831034

[MagicManICT]

The first step to dealing with the games shitty retention is accepting that there's actually a problem (which there absolutely is)

It's a problem in every MMO, even the biggest and 'best'. Back when some companies used to publish player counts, and others could be estimated (based on various data... the guy doing it never really released his criteria), games would see big swings based on major content updates. Some were more than half of the player base, and the "average" was somewhere around three months. That I can tell, as more and more MMOs have came out, and the average quality has slipped more, it's only gotten worse... it was getting worse then*.

Conclusion: I'd say that Haven doesn't have any bigger of a problem than anyone else. People get to a "cap" of sorts, get bored with the grind, and go do something else until the next "major release" (which is a new world). Other games draw attention away; real life matters come up. I think the problem unique to Haven is you can't just come back and start up from where you left off... livestock will be beyond dead, the base will probably be decaying, if not decayed, and for sure someone will have broken in just to find anything of value.

Side notes: "player retention" is a part of the reason why games like WoW have a 2-3 month release schedule of content updates--have a big release with an expansion, then trickle more content and story out over the next 6-12 months, at which time you start hyping players up for the next major expansion.

*I really wish I could source this. The website I followed back in the early days of WoW, when there were less than 50 commercial "MMOs" on the market, went dark about 10 years ago. I had used the site as source for a couple of research projects I was working on.