P2P plan

[MightySheep]

I'm not even bothered about introduction of P2P.

What I think is the biggest failure and justifiable reason for anger the ridiculous removal of the arrow system. I managed to find 2 of my friends out of sheer luck after a very long time of nonstop walking to the point that we all just wanted to quit. Now we are making village but since there's only 3 of us we realize we need to recruit more people. The problem is it's like there's this huge obstacle. Nobody wants to say "hey, come play this great game! btw youll have to walk really far in 1 direction and have like 10% chance of finding us / 90% chance of completely wasting many hours and tearing your hair out. Good luck!".

Player made map was inevitable so removing arrows achieves nothing but causing frustration for many and making people quit. Pretty stupid of devs to damage their own playerbase like this, surely they had to understand that by removing the ability to play with friends, you're removing most people's desire to even play the game.

[Óðinn]

I understand the reasoning behind it - obviously it was meant to stop people from making alts and circumventing the playtime, as well as it was meant to stop bots. That makes sense.

But the issue is more that there was nothing to replace this old system. Something vital was taken but it wasn't replaced with something less damaging.

[GenghisKhan44]

While I understand your need for money, jorbtar, the simple fact of the matter is I'm not invested enough in HnH to pay for it.

[jrocksmooth]

I'm curious of the math behind the subscription pricing. How much money was all this intended to bring in?

If you look at restaurants, they price meals either by what they feel people WILL pay for it, or what they NEED to collect to continue being in business.

From what I'm reading, this is more of a "I feel the product I made is worth $10 a month to play". Confidence is nice, but the creator of something is never the best judge of it's worth to those who he's trying to sell it to.

I feel I am a MUCH better judge of this, since it's my money and my enjoyment that I will get out of the product.

As a 25+ year RPG and MMORPG player, I've had the amazing luxury of being alive during the rise of the Commodore 64 thru modern computing, allowing my favorite games to come to life. The advent of MMO's allows me to play a game with literally thousands of like minded geeky gamer people. What's better than that?

Also, I've played many many games that were not worth the money I spent on them. We all have those.

At $10 (I'll use this, it's the best bang for buck deal they offer), you get 720 hours a month. Deceiving, since we can't play that often. Humanly impossible. To be realistic, it's more like 240 hours or less. Averaging 8 hours a day actively playing a PC game is an accomplishment.

Does the $10 a month give a 240 hour person a much better deal than a 24 hour person? No. Does a 24 hour restaurant provide a better deal than a regular one? No. Basing a sub fee on hours of playtime is ridiculous.

Since the server will conceivably be up 24/7, it's simple an access fee. Does my playing 240+ hours in a month cost the creators any more than a 1 hour a month person? No, since the server needs to be up when that 1 hour person decides to play, which could be any time at all.

Is the game (content, art, depth, breadth, etc etc etc) worth $10 a month? To me, no. It has neither the art style I love most, nor the little perks I've grown accustomed to over the many years of gaming. Can you craft more items than Minecraft? What about Feed the Beast? What about some of the browser games on Kongregate? I won't compare it to the AAA MMO's because you simple cannot.

I would pay a monthly subscription fee of $5, I feel the game warrants that for the hard work of the creators and for the time I would be able to invest in it.

I would honestly advocate quantity of subs over sub fee. at $5 a month, I would bet you'll get more total funding than at $10, and both would stop your bot issues or whatever. Even just allowing donations with cosmetic perks or even some very real perks, would be nice. One server I play Minecraft on is donation only, but has varying levels of perks. Hell, charge a one time $5 donation rank of "an arrow to Kin" or something. Be creative. We ALLLLL know that donation rewards are a reach around, but both sides know this so it works.

If you're trying to recoup funds from the previous versions of Haven, I wouldn't put that on the backs of this round of players. I also don't believe the $10 sub is where this title is at. But for $5, I'd sign up right now and give you the benefit of the doubt for 30 days that all will be well with bugs, glitches, issues, etc.

And arguing that $72 annually, so $6 a month, is too much for us cheapskates? How many players here KNOW they'll be playing in 90 days, let alone a year? Annual subs are for Income Statements and Investor Reporting, not regular gamers. Suckers spend money up front for a year in the future.

[JamesAlmasy]

Was looking forward to the new H&H.

Now I don't know what to think.

[Whitehyena]

I don't know how I feel about the entire situation precisely. It's a confusing feeling.

As I said, I'm not opposed to the fact that Haven needs money; far from it. I want it to grow. The subscriptions are a little... steep. And that's put 'moderately'.

But, I think it boils down to the fact that the people here are afraid of what I lovingly call, 'The Day-Z Paradox' - which is where the programmers/makers of the game ask for money - and get SHOWERED in it. People LOVE the game, so they make it rain on the Dev's head. Suddenly, the Dev doesn't have any desire to fulfill any of his promises to the community. He just got rich; thousands of dollars fell in the Dean Hall's pockets, at once, and after he lost interest in Day Z, it was sold off, like a cash-cow, and now lies a buggy, half-constructed mess that titles itself as a beta, and has done so for many years now. There is no sign of it ever leaving beta. It pretty much turned into:



And people don't want that. They don't want to feel like they were cheated. And I think that's what an 'Eternal Alpha' is capable of. Of being a huge.... gosh, scam. It sounds like a scam. 'Pay X amounts of monies, and we'll update the game when we feel like it.' And people don't want that. People don't want to feel like their money will be wasted. That's why I don't think Kickstarter/Steam would work for this game.

What can you do to fix it?

Er.... Well...


Kinda at a stalemate, where someone's got to give.

We want the game.
You want revenue.
The pricing isn't worth what you're currently providing, but conditions can improve with money.
We don't want to provide money, unless the conditions improve.

And I agree that having an upturned nose is not exactly warming to the community.

Not to be harsh - but, I mean, the consumers to your product dictate your products and it's livelihood. Consumers would not pay the price of a wedding cake, if we only got the ingredients. That... may not make sense to everyone, but it does to me.

If the subscription fees were reduced, would I subscribe? In. A. Heartbeat. I'd pay 5$ USD on the spot. 10$ USD is a little steep to ask from a game that when I played, I had more lag than playtime. Things that would help, though, in 'securing subscriptions':

1. Present a schedule/timeline, so that people know when your updates will happen. Pretty sure noone would sub to the game if you said next update would be in 2016. It doesn't have to be day accurate, but try and at least keep it week accurate. This not only gives you a wide window, but also establishes trust with your fanbase/customers. If you are consistent and on time with visible updates, people will value your word. It shows that your committed. Like. You know. A real job/source of revenue.

2. Fixing bugs first, and adding new stuff in later. Vitamins, despite being one of the earlier items in Day-Z STILL do not work as intended. It's better to have three assets that work properly than 10 assets that are buggy/glitched.

3. Paying for services (Microtransactions) seem like a perfectly good way to draw in revenue. Cosmetic stuff is a safe one. Boosts are not normally 'Okay', but some things would be good. Like, paying to revive a character? Be like, "Hey, you wanna not start all over from scratch? Gimmie a dolla." Poof. Character back alive, spawned randomly in the world, as naked as the day he was first made... but, he's still got all his stats, and knowledge. Might make a few more loyal veterans cough up a few more dollars, or if someone caught you with a cheap death, or trolled you really hard. Might not be for the hardcore crowd, but still.

But, those are just some ideas, guys. I guess, what I'm going to do is bide my time. Just coast it out on a F2P account until the server is stable; and once I get a stable read on the game, I'll figure out if it's worth the sub fee or not.

[DeathToSuperman]

On an optimistic note, I think Jorb and Loftar have their work cut out for them if they want to make money on this game. No matter what, I will contend that the price point is currently bad (primarily because it's a subscription basis), but assuming this gets fixed, I am hopeful that all this community pressure will encourage them to earn our purchases.

[Gotohellcadz]

I don't know how I feel about the entire situation precisely. It's a confusing feeling.

As I said, I'm not opposed to the fact that Haven needs money; far from it. I want it to grow. The subscriptions are a little... steep. And that's put 'moderately'.

But, I think it boils down to the fact that the people here are afraid of what I lovingly call, 'The Day-Z Paradox' - which is where the programmers/makers of the game ask for money - and get SHOWERED in it. People LOVE the game, so they make it rain on the Dev's head. Suddenly, the Dev doesn't have any desire to fulfill any of his promises to the community. He just got rich; thousands of dollars fell in the Dean Hall's pockets, at once, and after he lost interest in Day Z, it was sold off, like a cash-cow, and now lies a buggy, half-constructed mess that titles itself as a beta, and has done so for many years now. There is no sign of it ever leaving beta. It pretty much turned into:



And people don't want that. They don't want to feel like they were cheated. And I think that's what an 'Eternal Alpha' is capable of. Of being a huge.... gosh, scam. It sounds like a scam. 'Pay X amounts of monies, and we'll update the game when we feel like it.' And people don't want that. People don't want to feel like their money will be wasted. That's why I don't think Kickstarter/Steam would work for this game.

What can you do to fix it?

Er.... Well...


Kinda at a stalemate, where someone's got to give.

We want the game.
You want revenue.
The pricing isn't worth what you're currently providing, but conditions can improve with money.
We don't want to provide money, unless the conditions improve.

And I agree that having an upturned nose is not exactly warming to the community.

Not to be harsh - but, I mean, the consumers to your product dictate your products and it's livelihood. Consumers would not pay the price of a wedding cake, if we only got the ingredients. That... may not make sense to everyone, but it does to me.

If the subscription fees were reduced, would I subscribe? In. A. Heartbeat. I'd pay 5$ USD on the spot. 10$ USD is a little steep to ask from a game that when I played, I had more lag than playtime. Things that would help, though, in 'securing subscriptions':

1. Present a schedule/timeline, so that people know when your updates will happen. Pretty sure noone would sub to the game if you said next update would be in 2016. It doesn't have to be day accurate, but try and at least keep it week accurate. This not only gives you a wide window, but also establishes trust with your fanbase/customers. If you are consistent and on time with visible updates, people will value your word. It shows that your committed. Like. You know. A real job/source of revenue.

2. Fixing bugs first, and adding new stuff in later. Vitamins, despite being one of the earlier items in Day-Z STILL do not work as intended. It's better to have three assets that work properly than 10 assets that are buggy/glitched.

3. Paying for services (Microtransactions) seem like a perfectly good way to draw in revenue. Cosmetic stuff is a safe one. Boosts are not normally 'Okay', but some things would be good. Like, paying to revive a character? Be like, "Hey, you wanna not start all over from scratch? Gimmie a dolla." Poof. Character back alive, spawned randomly in the world, as naked as the day he was first made... but, he's still got all his stats, and knowledge. Might make a few more loyal veterans cough up a few more dollars, or if someone caught you with a cheap death, or trolled you really hard. Might not be for the hardcore crowd, but still.

But, those are just some ideas, guys. I guess, what I'm going to do is bide my time. Just coast it out on a F2P account until the server is stable; and once I get a stable read on the game, I'll figure out if it's worth the sub fee or not.

I think the best course of action would to just adjust the pricing immediately to what fans generally want, obviously there will be players begging for it to be free. But if they really want to make that mad dosh they ought to adjust the prices sooner rather than later, as I can see the game being barren in the next month or so with this current system and with jorbtars, erm- lackluster replies to the community? It only adds onto my point.

[WarpedWiseMan]

Well now. This is interesting.

I am obviously late to the party. As a programmer myself, I understand jorb and loftar wanting to monetize their product (I'm actually currently trying to get Valve to offer my own product) but as a consumer I have to ask if the experience is worth the expense.

Currently, I'm unsure. I'll probably give the game a run and see what I see. I'm in a different spot that I'll probably pay for a year's worth of gametime and only play for a month just because I want to support the team who gave me more than a year's worth of enjoyment for free and also because I'm rich compared to you filthy peasants so $110 is simply a nice lunch for me.

I'll be keeping tabs. If you happen to see a hafenite named Warpee running around, don't kill him or I'll quit again.

[overtyped]

Well now. This is interesting.

I am obviously late to the party. As a programmer myself, I understand jorb and loftar wanting to monetize their product (I'm actually currently trying to get Valve to offer my own product) but as a consumer I have to ask if the experience is worth the expense.

Currently, I'm unsure. I'll probably give the game a run and see what I see. I'm in a different spot that I'll probably pay for a year's worth of gametime and only play for a month just because I want to support the team who gave me more than a year's worth of enjoyment for free and also because I'm rich compared to you filthy peasants so $110 is simply a nice lunch for me.

I'll be keeping tabs. If you happen to see a hafenite named Warpee running around, don't kill him or I'll quit again.

Bob dole thinks it was unwise of you to tell your name.