What do you think is the most fun about Hafen?

[donatas081294]

For me is the aspect of being a Hermit.
Build your own thing, make food, hunt animals, meet new people (of course if they are friendly) like the game before it becomes a timed chore.

[Nightdawg]

Meeting lots of cool people and doing random shenanigans together.

[jordancoles]

Probably the big boats for me, and the island living/pirate life

I've really liked the map gen in recent worlds where there are tons of little islands and interesting things out in the ocean

[JesusTheAstronaut]

I love the sense of discovery, and how all the different things you can do progressively reveal themselves as you interact with new things. Crafting recipes reveal themselves after you've encountered the correct ingredients, curios revealing themselves once you can see them, different ways of doing things become obvious once you understand, and experiment. You're constantly unpacking things.

I think the fact the game embraces permadeath and PvP is super important for a game like this. It's what truly gives the game depth and meaning, and despite it charming exterior, underneath is a game of exploration and survival.

Also, I really enjoy that quality and stats and levels are almost optional things to focus on in some ways. If someone gives you a level 100 axe, you don't see a prompt telling you that you must have a certain strength to wield it. For some, quality and stats can be persued like credos, in that you can treat leveling up as a pet project rather than a requirement for progression. But then of course, if you WANT to spend 9 hours a day playing the game, then quality serves as a huge grind and timesink if that's what you enjoy, because some people legit enjoy pushing that sort of stuff as far as they can.

I could go on. H&H is probably overall my favorite game I've ever played, at least from a design standpoint. I was really into UnReal World and similar games before I found H&H in 2012 and IMO it is just so much more satisfying and well made than anything else out there. The amount of love and consideration that went into this game is truly inspiring to me.

[Teleskop]

the joy of starting butt naked in the fresh world with your friends
the joy of building a cozy little shitshack as a hermit and taking care of it
the joy of making funny things with custom sketches
the forums
the community
the joy of having a task to do a cool looking pavement for your village
the good feeling of finding a rare foraging curio
etc etc

THE JOYS OF HAVEN

[redscarfdemon]

exploration! just riding a boat around and looking at the new stuff I haven't seen yet. building something cool.

[GamingRAM]

The early game. There's a lot of stages of progression that you go through. Some of them are time gated, but most of them either unlock some new content or provides some QoL (quality of life).

Getting your first fishing rod, gets you new foods.
Getting your first leather backpack feels awesome.
Your first bat cape will give you stress free time into the caves.
Your first hard metals provide so much new stuff, from gear, housing, cutlery.
You spent weeks gathering materials to get your first sea worthy boat, you can finally go to new lands.
Finally upgrading from your ugly ass Nettle Shirt and Pants to real leather clothing feels awesome, even if it doesn't actually open many more possibilities.


But alas this extends to pretty much just the early game, after which it's just about getting the same stuff you already have but with bigger numbers, and I doubt it'll ever change. I don't think the devs have a clear vision for Haven outside of "a living breathing world".

I think there's room to expand the sense of progression. Getting bulky enough hide clothing could give you access to the mountains. You should need special boots or something to go into swamps. I think we can bring back getting splinters on your foot if we limit it to certain biomes (would also need to move clogs higher up on the tech tree, footwear shouldn't be 2 blocks of wood levels of easy). We could have lighting (torches n such) have actual use by limiting your Perception stats when it's dark (the phases of the moon couldd also impact this, full moon not impacting PER at all while half moon giving only half PER, and so forth). And it's not like this kind of stuff wouldn't fit into Haven, we can put Ice Blocks into cellars to help preverse them.

[axus]

The sense of accomplishment in the face of overwhelming danger.