09-10-2023, 04:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-10-2023, 04:34 PM by Ivan.
Edit Reason: Correct placement order of statements, and additions and corrections
)
To make Hazeron starship succesful imo, it needs to emulate what made Shores of Hazeron attractive in the first place:
- A sense of fear of being invaded and urgency to develop your fleet/colonies/empire to make it as unlikely as possible to be completely annihilated.
- The ability to meet other empires at various stages of develpment and interact with them. (Observe, spy, trade, assist, protect, invade, vassal, ally)
- Having easily designable ships with full interiors. Every player should be able to do this.
Basically there are two reasons why I lost interest in Hazeron starship alot faster than in 2014 Shores of Hazeron.:
1. Lack of threat and interaction with other empires, need for AI empires.
I know there is a thread about buffing the pirates, and I do agree with that, but I feel that is not enough to replace players.
It struck me that in Shores of Hazeron, you could basically do everything you can do in Stellaris, but then in first person. I don't htink there ever was any other game where you could really do this. There even was the looming threat similar to the Xenon from the X-series or Mass Effect's Reapers (in the form of the Syndicate :p)
To reach this, we'd really need some AI empires that can actually colonise worlds and which can either be friendly, neutral or xenophobic hostile species with whom you can interact in various ways through the diplomacy screen.
Right now you kind of can make this happen, by making different empires with different characters and have them form alliiances and/or fight eachother. This is dull though, due to the fact that you are the director, who decides who wins or loses, without any real feeling of fear.
Additionally, some extreme threat like the Reapers, Xenon or Outsiders would be neat. Some invasion that would only occur after some set or random time after you playing, or when specific conditions are met, and for which you have to prepare and build up a huge fleet, perhaps even ally with other empires. Just like in Stellaris. You could even just encounter them when you venture into another galaxy. (e.g. after you've visited 3 galaxies). It could be a part of the story aswell. They could maybe even be present in the mmo, if it ever comes back, appear periodically or as an event) and require players to cooperate to stop them.
The first person world of Hazeron , combined with the diplomacy/interaction features of Stellaris, would make this game be amongst the best 4x games that ever existed.
I realise programming AI that colonises, invades and in various other ways iteracts with player empires, is probably not an easy task.
If that is not possible, just periodic spawning of a hostile fleet that goes from system to system, would be nice also.
Without the game is fun for a while, but nowhere nearly as engaging as Shores of Hazeron was.
2. Interior design
Also, sorry, but have to say this again: the old ship and (similar)building designers were superior for interior design. Drawing rooms and room voids and associating room voids with door open states and pathing, feels a bit too much of a chore, to the point where, after designing 5 ships, I don't want to design any new ship interiors anymore, and because of that don't feel like playing the game anymore.
Just having two different interiors for ships is a bit dull, one for shuttles and corvette sized ships, another for frigates, destroyers and medium harvesters and haulers, I simply don't feel like designing a 3rd one for cruisers, battleships and carriers. I also still haven't finished a space station design.
It does not need to be the same as the old one, but just something where u can more easily draw rooms and just place doors, that automatically connect rooms. Adding floors one by one to buildings was neat.
Also in the old system areas were inaccessible, because systems were there. Right now you have empty, dead weight areas that are inaccessible, simply because you don't feel like designing interiors. The old placement of systems was nice, but too demanding on gpu. Instead it could just be 3D blocks that determine where systems physically are located, without actually drawing hunderds or even thousands of system modules. These 3D blocks were engines or weapons are located, would then not allow for hallways or rooms to be made in the exact same spot, to have an excuse as to why some parts of the ship are inaccessible. It made more sense and was similar to other 4x games where u need to place systems within the ship's hull.
Conclusion
Basically the lack of a threat/interaction combined with the interior design of ships and buldings is what made me lose interest to the current version of the game. If 2014 type of buildings and spacecraft interior design (or rather something similar, but more streamlined) would come back and there was something to fight and fear, I'd be alot more willing to play this again, and with a few exceptions, I think this would be the case for the majority of players and potential players. I think adding these features could mean the difference between a huge succes and failure for the Steam release of Hazeron Starship.
For reference: I played Hazeron starship for a little over 268 Hours. I played 2014 Shores of Hazeron for over 2000 hours in 6 months before it was taken down (I was unemployed at the time), and my total playtime until the removal of the old designer was around 5000 hours. Designing ships was fun, because even the most complex designs took a max of a few hours. Being afraid of Syndicate was fun. Being paranoid and having many distant backup colonies was fun. Being a vassal but scheming to overthrow the overlord was fun. Joining an alliance to overthrow the Evil Pony empire and blockading their planets was fun. Spending 50 hours on a single ship fiddling with voids, associating doors and pathing is not fun.
To me 2014-2016 Shores of Hazeron was the best game that ever existed. There's no other game that I have played more than that. My second most played game is Black Desert Online at 3783 hours, but that's only because it's a typical addictive/manipulative MMO that deliberately uses psychological tricks to addict players. It was not really fun at all. 2014-2016 Shores of Hazeron very much was fun.
I myself am trying to stop playing videogames, but I do want this game to be succesful. I hope that if I do start play mroe videogames again sometime, I can play a version of Hazeron Starship that has more of the things that, at least to me, made 2014-2016 SoH the best game that ever existed.
- A sense of fear of being invaded and urgency to develop your fleet/colonies/empire to make it as unlikely as possible to be completely annihilated.
- The ability to meet other empires at various stages of develpment and interact with them. (Observe, spy, trade, assist, protect, invade, vassal, ally)
- Having easily designable ships with full interiors. Every player should be able to do this.
Basically there are two reasons why I lost interest in Hazeron starship alot faster than in 2014 Shores of Hazeron.:
1. Lack of threat and interaction with other empires, need for AI empires.
I know there is a thread about buffing the pirates, and I do agree with that, but I feel that is not enough to replace players.
It struck me that in Shores of Hazeron, you could basically do everything you can do in Stellaris, but then in first person. I don't htink there ever was any other game where you could really do this. There even was the looming threat similar to the Xenon from the X-series or Mass Effect's Reapers (in the form of the Syndicate :p)
To reach this, we'd really need some AI empires that can actually colonise worlds and which can either be friendly, neutral or xenophobic hostile species with whom you can interact in various ways through the diplomacy screen.
Right now you kind of can make this happen, by making different empires with different characters and have them form alliiances and/or fight eachother. This is dull though, due to the fact that you are the director, who decides who wins or loses, without any real feeling of fear.
Additionally, some extreme threat like the Reapers, Xenon or Outsiders would be neat. Some invasion that would only occur after some set or random time after you playing, or when specific conditions are met, and for which you have to prepare and build up a huge fleet, perhaps even ally with other empires. Just like in Stellaris. You could even just encounter them when you venture into another galaxy. (e.g. after you've visited 3 galaxies). It could be a part of the story aswell. They could maybe even be present in the mmo, if it ever comes back, appear periodically or as an event) and require players to cooperate to stop them.
The first person world of Hazeron , combined with the diplomacy/interaction features of Stellaris, would make this game be amongst the best 4x games that ever existed.
I realise programming AI that colonises, invades and in various other ways iteracts with player empires, is probably not an easy task.
If that is not possible, just periodic spawning of a hostile fleet that goes from system to system, would be nice also.
Without the game is fun for a while, but nowhere nearly as engaging as Shores of Hazeron was.
2. Interior design
Also, sorry, but have to say this again: the old ship and (similar)building designers were superior for interior design. Drawing rooms and room voids and associating room voids with door open states and pathing, feels a bit too much of a chore, to the point where, after designing 5 ships, I don't want to design any new ship interiors anymore, and because of that don't feel like playing the game anymore.
Just having two different interiors for ships is a bit dull, one for shuttles and corvette sized ships, another for frigates, destroyers and medium harvesters and haulers, I simply don't feel like designing a 3rd one for cruisers, battleships and carriers. I also still haven't finished a space station design.
It does not need to be the same as the old one, but just something where u can more easily draw rooms and just place doors, that automatically connect rooms. Adding floors one by one to buildings was neat.
Also in the old system areas were inaccessible, because systems were there. Right now you have empty, dead weight areas that are inaccessible, simply because you don't feel like designing interiors. The old placement of systems was nice, but too demanding on gpu. Instead it could just be 3D blocks that determine where systems physically are located, without actually drawing hunderds or even thousands of system modules. These 3D blocks were engines or weapons are located, would then not allow for hallways or rooms to be made in the exact same spot, to have an excuse as to why some parts of the ship are inaccessible. It made more sense and was similar to other 4x games where u need to place systems within the ship's hull.
Conclusion
Basically the lack of a threat/interaction combined with the interior design of ships and buldings is what made me lose interest to the current version of the game. If 2014 type of buildings and spacecraft interior design (or rather something similar, but more streamlined) would come back and there was something to fight and fear, I'd be alot more willing to play this again, and with a few exceptions, I think this would be the case for the majority of players and potential players. I think adding these features could mean the difference between a huge succes and failure for the Steam release of Hazeron Starship.
For reference: I played Hazeron starship for a little over 268 Hours. I played 2014 Shores of Hazeron for over 2000 hours in 6 months before it was taken down (I was unemployed at the time), and my total playtime until the removal of the old designer was around 5000 hours. Designing ships was fun, because even the most complex designs took a max of a few hours. Being afraid of Syndicate was fun. Being paranoid and having many distant backup colonies was fun. Being a vassal but scheming to overthrow the overlord was fun. Joining an alliance to overthrow the Evil Pony empire and blockading their planets was fun. Spending 50 hours on a single ship fiddling with voids, associating doors and pathing is not fun.
To me 2014-2016 Shores of Hazeron was the best game that ever existed. There's no other game that I have played more than that. My second most played game is Black Desert Online at 3783 hours, but that's only because it's a typical addictive/manipulative MMO that deliberately uses psychological tricks to addict players. It was not really fun at all. 2014-2016 Shores of Hazeron very much was fun.
I myself am trying to stop playing videogames, but I do want this game to be succesful. I hope that if I do start play mroe videogames again sometime, I can play a version of Hazeron Starship that has more of the things that, at least to me, made 2014-2016 SoH the best game that ever existed.