Will hafen ever be popular or did it miss its chance?

[Try∞]

Seeing only mere up to 200 players every day, it makes me wonder will haven and hearth 2/hafen/haven and hearth ever be popular, or could it be that the game missed the chance to be popular and now will always have up to 200 players even after many years?
I hope not, but that seems the case even when the haven and hearth went 3D quite a while back, we haven't seen any player increase, but rather a decrease from what I heared about legacy and when the game used to be 2D with unique and cool pixel graphics. Now we have rogalia rip off which is pretty shit, has no sound effects and even dares to charge you, no wonder it has mixed reviews on steam.
But anyway what are your guys forecast for this game and do you know any games that were unpopular for many years and become big after a while. Or could it be that once the game misses the bandwagon of popularity it becomes this niche game forever?

Also would love to hear thoughts from devs.

[neeco]

There are/have been so many of these threads.

"Launch the game on steam"
"Launch the game on kickstarter"
"Advertise more"
"Why isn't haven popular?"
"Here's what you should do to be popular!"

...
...
..


You should totaly go watch today's stream if you have an actual interest. Jorb talks about some of these things.
Past streams have even more discussion on it, though I don't remember which ones specifically.

[Try∞]

well the streams are up to 2 hours each and not everyone have that much spare time. Time frames for each stream would be nice where they adress these topics.

[Aceb]

well the streams are up to 2 hours each and not everyone have that much spare time. Time frames for each stream would be nice where they adress these topics.

No one said You have to watch them in one go. There's a reason jorb puts them on yotube ya know!

[neeco]

well the streams are up to 2 hours each and not everyone have that much spare time. Time frames for each stream would be nice where they adress these topics.

I would have to spend my time re-watching them to find such things and as you said not everyone has that much spare time.
You can skip through them and find it though. One tip is to look for questions about it in the chat. These discussions are usually sparked by Jorb answering someone. Otherwise it just skimming through the 2 hr stream in 10-20 mins to find the key parts.

[vatas]

World 8's horrendous payment model has to be mentioned. Massive amount of people were hyped for Hafen and were then turned off by effectively having to pay to play. They may not know it has been since (more or less) fixed. I think we at least lost many Legacy veterans who haven't returned.

[Potjeh]

I think you lost more veterans to insisitence on infinite stat and quality growth. I'm one, and from playing with the Pande crew I'm pretty sure they left for the same reason - playing H&H is just not compatible with having an actual life. The game can still be salvaged, but I just don't see the devs ever being willing to make the needed changes to the core mechanics - at most we'll get a mechanic "reskin".

[Zentetsuken]

I think you lost more veterans to insisitence on infinite stat and quality growth. I'm one, and from playing with the Pande crew I'm pretty sure they left for the same reason - playing H&H is just not compatible with having an actual life. The game can still be salvaged, but I just don't see the devs ever being willing to make the needed changes to the core mechanics - at most we'll get a mechanic "reskin".

I've always been an advocate for infinite stat growth but I'm starting to switch sides. Most other mmos that have a wide variety of crafting and professions limit characters to only doing a few at a time or per character. I don't know if it would be smart or even possible to limit how many "professions" one can pursue in haven but perhaps making the quality grind incredibly slower and more difficult in all avenues would force people to focus on individual professions more. Maybe higher stats in strength or combat, for example, should actually hinder your ability to perform gentler, more dexterous tasks like cooking, farming or silk working? If it took 5 characters and an incredible amount dedication of time just to actually be able to raise quality of all industries across a village it might balance out a bit for the casual players or hermits who can excel at 1or 2 quality grinds and be able to trade and sell stuff from their preferred industries and highest qualities?

[Potjeh]

Nah, making it harder just makes it more bot oriented. Hard cap everything. In my experience factions quit when they fall behind in stats and quality to the point where they can't compete in PvP (and that's very easy, because in every combat system so far ~50% higher stats win every time), and catching up is just too much grind for anyone who has a job or a social life. Especially if you're trying to catch up with botters.

[Ardennesss]

Nah, making it harder just makes it more bot oriented. Hard cap everything. In my experience factions quit when they fall behind in stats and quality to the point where they can't compete in PvP (and that's very easy, because in every combat system so far ~50% higher stats win every time), and catching up is just too much grind for anyone who has a job or a social life. Especially if you're trying to catch up with botters.

Hardcaps just guarantee that people quit, what's the point of fighting for kills when there are hardcaps and you can just rebuild a capped char in 1-2 days?