Where did everybody go? Server count down

[OIchi]

...

Well, it's mostly how I imagined things to be when people talked about speeding things up.
In my opinion study tables getting empty faster is not a real issue, just usual complaining about things being different.
Sure, with the timers getting shorter there are more things that needs to be done in a shorter period, but most of those are not really that important.

Aside from that, I absolutely agree that credos should have been sped up, in fact I'd say it should be reworked for both worlds.

In any cases, writing about what you like about it and what you don't, makes sense, crying that the game is dead and flaming devs is definitively not the way to go.

[SnuggleSnail]

The purpose of a game is to make you feel good feels. People don't like to feel like they're """behind""", or like they're missing out. If you have to wake up in the middle of the night to refill your study desk or experience feeling like you're falling behind that is objectively bad. It forces people to choose between two very bad options.

I'm not saying it's the biggest deal in the world, but it is unarguably bad and if you disagree it's not a personal preference thing, you're just not rly in touch with what makes you feel good/bad (which is very common)

[OIchi]

I guess PvP crowd might not be too happy with the increased speed, less time to harass people, palis getting up quicker, drying faster and quests having less of an impact.

Disagree. Benefits for the average player apply just as much to the hardcore player killers and vice versa. Everything being sped up means you have to be online more often and more vigilant in checking out your surrounding area for foreign claims and constructions. I'd argue the pvp crowd probably loves how this early world start has gone so far, if that wasn't already evident by them stating that they are essentially "unchecked gods" at the moment.

It's all about time. It takes time to find another base, get there and steal their shit. If securing your base takes less time, pvp players won't be able to hit as many targets.
To be safe from PvP all you need is palisade and with leather taking way less time to produce you get there faster.
At this point in the world nobody cares about staking claims next to your base, so all the benefit of claims drying faster is yours.
If we compare time required to secure your base to the time required to get vandalism, it actually got harder to get that vandalism, since as I mentioned before quests do not give as much lp in comparison anymore.
So overall, it's not something that helps with early world pvp.

PS. "unchecked gods" was referring to the population density, since there simply were no other PvP groups in the area.

[OIchi]

The purpose of a game is to make you feel good feels. People don't like to feel like they're """behind""", or like they're missing out. If you have to wake up in the middle of the night to refill your study desk or experience feeling like you're falling behind that is objectively bad. It forces people to choose between two very bad options.

I'm not saying it's the biggest deal in the world, but it is unarguably bad and if you disagree it's not a personal preference thing, you're just not rly in touch with what makes you feel good/bad (which is very common)

I guess, you are right. It may be because I mostly got rid of the feeling "behind" thing, especially with things that don't matter much in the long run.

[Zampfeo]

World 6 had no changes either and it did not affect the player count.

Haven has been in decline for years and the lack of development after the Steam launch just cements that. All the groups that used to come here from other PVP games don't bother anymore. All that's left are the factions that have to create artificial conflict with one another and the larpers.

I have no desire to play a world without cave claims. I am no longer a teenager that can pull all-nighters to protect my pixels in a 20 year old game. Especially when other games exist that do what Haven does better.

[vipes]

accelerated rate of time passage that basically multiplies all labor required.

I think this is the biggest gripe for me. W16.1 has double the labor required with half the usual playerbase (which was already too small).

IMO the devs need to put "development" on hold and focus on growing the player base for a while. There seems little point to playing a social MMO with this few players.

[Massa]

New speed is good for everyone.

There was a lot of unpleasant downtime and waiting in the first week to two weeks that ultimately kind of manifested as looking at trees or spending too long killing badgers.

[Hingle_McCringle]

4. The world is too small for peace gaming.

the hermits will stare you dead in the face and tell you 3 huge continents is too small for 500-100 concurrent players when you can go multiple hours without seeing another person on day 1

it will never be big enough for them until it's single player

Would agree, how on day 3 can you say the world it to small, doubt they walked more than 10mins in one direction....

[Kaios]

So overall, it's not something that helps with early world pvp.

PS. "unchecked gods" was referring to the population density, since there simply were no other PvP groups in the area.

Uh yeah, the population density is going to continuously decline especially when players hardly have any chance to explore and set something up. It won't be very long until they get bored and the randoms to gank gradually vanish at which point they will move on to the only players remaining in the world that managed to secure a foothold somewhere.

New speed is good for everyone.

There was a lot of unpleasant downtime and waiting in the first week to two weeks that ultimately kind of manifested as looking at trees or spending too long killing badgers.

I'm not disagreeing that there are some good things about it, faster study time is nice but they should have taken more time to consider the impacts such a change brings. Arbitrarily speeding up or slowing down time has way too many mechanical downsides without making adjustments in some areas. For world 16 it was a consideration to INCREASE the cost of criminal skills such as theft and vandalism, and yet in this world they ended up being obtained faster.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Not enough people even tried this world for it to peak slightly past 1k.
It's hard to point to any of the gameplay or mechanical changes as responsible, except insofar as there were few communicated and the only ones forecast seemed to suggest they were catering to only PvP focused players.
The decision for most players to skip the world happened before the world even started, before anyone tried any of the balance changes.

That's not to say I agree or disagree with any of the criticisms mentioned here. But if you want to know why the pop is lower, you need to look at the run up to 16.1. Lack of communication, missing the 6th month mark by over twice over, underwhelming patch notes with no promising additions and a few disfavored changes? I'm not surprised some players and n villages opted to skip this world, and others decided they'd spend a few days raiding then quit (which in turn signalled to their friends to not get invested.)

It's also not particularly clear what the plan is going forward. When the shorter worlds were originally conceived, I had supported the concept with the proposal for three month worlds because it would result in new players discovering the game finding it less likely to be in a population lull, which could have meant they'd be more likely to find a still active village or one recruiting for the next world. I'm not sure six months is short enough to support that, or if Jorb and Loftar will ever create new worlds rapidly enough for that theory to be tested.