Prelude: World 15

[VDZ]

I believe a lot of people hold your opinion, but when push comes to shove the majority would find the game uninteresting if there were total safety. If you're one of the ones that would genuinely prefer it I'd strongly recommend >> https://store.steampowered.com/app/4131 ... ew_Valley/

Stardew Valley is nothing like Haven. At least recommend something like UnReal World or Don't Starve.

[bmjclark]

I'm pretty sure most players do not care about others being sieged or killed.

It mightn't be everybody who cares about specifically these things, but they emanate life through the game regardless.

Maybe you don't care that somebody is getting sieged, but you like to cook for your village and suddenly there's a big demand for food because somebody else wants to help.
Maybe the person getting sieged is in trouble, so they're paying a token per LC of brimstone.
Maybe somebody's village got razed and now they want to come live with you.
Maybe somebody got razed and now your village is spooked, so it's time to add an extra wall.
Maybe somebody killed Snail, and you get a nice jolt of schadenfreude.

Go take a look at some old legacy PVP threads and check out how much engagement/interest there was from people who clearly didn't PVP.
Go check out EVE's concurrent players verse a timeline of when giant battles are happening, or somebody did some rly cool shady shit.

Games like this THRIVE on cool shit happening, not the moment to moment gameplay.

To be fair, big sieges just flat out didn't happen in legacy. All the big moments that I can remember (after world 4, world 3 was obviously different with brickbashing and honestly, the current playerbase would treat brickbashing far differently than sodom and AD did in W3) came from either tracking people off their hearthfire, bug jumping, bug ramming or a major betrayal from an insider. I don't remember a single legit ram raid happening to any major village in world 5, 6 or 7.

I still think that the "cool" moments in legacy were more common because stats and quality were pretty much irrelevant beyond a certain point. Someone with a Q200 B12 and 1000 strength would one shot pretty much anyone once their defense was down, but so would someone with a Q120 B12 and 500 strength.

People were also far more aggressive about tracking off hearthfire and all the drama was posted on the forums which also helped.

[Wurtag]

I believe a lot of people hold your opinion, but when push comes to shove the majority would find the game uninteresting if there were total safety. If you're one of the ones that would genuinely prefer it I'd strongly recommend >> https://store.steampowered.com/app/4131 ... ew_Valley/

Stardew Valley is nothing like Haven. At least recommend something like UnReal World or Don't Starve.

I have played Unreal World and I like how that game respects my time, but it is not necessarily about being single player and turn based. Most of the time shouldn't be a problem things like going to the bathroom, attending a call, doing home chores or anything unexpected. It's pretty annoying when you go to hunt carrying a cart and you have to teleport back to keep safe your goods, just to be afk safely for 3 minutes. I think that, if those goods are scent free, you should be able to logout with your cart, like your horse and your backpack.

On the other hand, talking about uninteresting things, I find rather boring rexploring underground layers in this game. Traveling along the surface is much more enjoyable only because there is more content. Maybe we could have more random materials, mobs and events spawning underground in the future.

Anyway, neither of those games compare to this one when it comes to brutality and raw adventure, and even the most peaceful player enjoys some kind of interaction with others directly or indirectly.

[mrM]

HYPE
its good to see this after a somewhat long hiatus

a suggestion to possibly address some of the issues with world size and burnout:
Add a one time world event, either player triggered or timed. The world size is small, however is expanded by activating the (new volcanos?) thus melting the ice surrounding the edges of the map, allowing access to new land, and effectively expanding the world to the current size. Or perhaps a new magma formed continent. The volcano(s) would be triggered by anyone breaking through the final level of the mine within x radius of the volcano(s). I would think this would put a 2 month minimum time cap on it. Or just toss in 1000 sprucecap corpses. Add hearth magic to examine the state of activation. Add exclusive content to the outer ring of the world. (could just be cosmetic, rocks, trees, a biome or two, ect.) One would think it would give people reason to stick around a little later in the world.

[Mashadar]

Please listen to the people who say that the world needs to be smaller.
With the humongously large world in the last 2+ worlds, you barely meet any other players and it feels a lot like a singleplayer game, even early world where the player numbers are the highest. I nearly finished mapped the entire continent I was on before I met the first player (well, players in that particular case). Isn't that just sad?
For H&H-like singleplayer games we can play Dwarf Fortress or URW, where you can log out for any amount of time without any of your things decaying.
This game's strength is that it's a multiplayer game.

I'd suggest a world size of 7x7, but if you want to play it safe, you can just try 8x8 and see how that goes. Then you can consider 7x7 for World 16.

[Aerona]

Size isn't everything. Starting and resource locations matter too. If starting locations are near each other, there will be more encounters, and more exploration and socializing (or at least, one or the other, depending on which direction the player chooses to go). If resources are concentrated, players will have reason to concentrate around them and compete for them, but if they're spread out they'll have reason to just disperse and guard their own. So those are some key levels to keep the level of intensity about right. Combined with those, having a larger map allows players to self-regulate by choosing where they want to play.

It could be neat to have the option to start in a more challenging or crowded location, though I'm not sure how that could be exploited.

[Mashadar]

It could be neat to have the option to start in a more challenging or crowded location, though I'm not sure how that could be exploited.

Sure, I'm all for it. The simple variant is just to have everyone start on the central continent and those who want safety can go settle on another continent by using a whirlpool.

IMO, your idea follows the principles of good game design. Make resources like natural wonders and ore nodes more common in the center and more scarce in the outer regions of the world, then give players the choice of roughly how far away from the center they want to spawn. That gives people an actual choice of how they want to experience the game.

[Necrisha]

I think that even if nothing else changes about the map it would be nice to use the skull to infuence our initial spawn in the world, by merging the numbers on an analog clock with a compass rose. Being able to either spawn in the center by leaving the skull blank, or say typing the number 8 in the skull to spawn to the southwest quadrant of the larger world map somewhere would make a huge difference in a lot of people's start. Especially if the factions want to spawn close enough to fight each other.

[noindyfikator]

Let us once experience MMO aspect of this game. Make next world much smaller

[terechgracz]

We could have world be 10x10 but locked at first to be only 5x5. As time progresses world could increase along with spawn locations. Imagine 3x3 spawn locations at center but 5x5 unlocked world, then after month 4x4 spawn location and 6x6 world. This could make worlds last longer and more fun, some people won't be able to survive initial early game but maybe they will come back when world gets safer for them. Unlike now, everyone survives but is bored and never comes back.