(10-06-2020, 05:01 PM)Haxus Wrote: Free to play, hoping for sufficient donations on Patreon, isn't a sustainable business model. The amount was encouraging but 20% of that was being paid by one player. Thank you Jakbruce2012.

I checkmated myself by setting up a Patreon account. I did not consider what would happen when I went to Steam. The old pay-to-play system via PayPal would have been more harmonious with Steam. Then I could have kept both systems of payments. Now I will likely use Steam exclusively, for purchases and distribution.

Also, I was painfully reminded of one huge problem with free to play. It allowed griefers to drive players away without consequence. One of the most demoralizing aspects of developing a game like this is the spiteful people who willfully try to destroy what you have built, even making it their personal mission in life.

The one-time $25 fee was kind of a trial balloon to see what people thought of the idea. Many of you expressed what I have always felt, that the continuous nature of game play called for a continuous system of payments. The one-time-fee idea might be abandoned. A monthly fee makes more sense.

However, if the monthly fee is $10 but most people play for less than three months, a $25 fee might be a better choice. Or maybe a $20 download fee then a $5 per month maintenance fee.

I have been working toward a Steam release for a long time. If not for that goal, I probably would have abandoned the project some time ago. That goal has kept me going. I was ready to quit at the end of last year but I couldn't do it without having at least tried Steam.

I know I'm going to take it in the face on Steam. It's the way I have gone through life. I don't ask permission to do anything. I do what I want to do. An old friend used to say, "The school of hard knocks has a high tuition." Was that a warning?

A change is needed. My flight instructor taught me: when things aren't going the way you want, make a change. Then wait to see the result. That rule has saved my life, literally. If you want to find out if the reaper is waiting to cash in your chips, take flying lessons; you'll give him the opportunity.

So this move to Steam represents a change, hopefully for the better. I expect turbulence. I just hope Shores of Hazeron survives the initial onslaught. If player numbers look encouraging, I can add servers. The architecture is highly scalable. It just takes more computers.

Steam is a great platform. It supports Windows and Linux (Ubuntu). Their method of updates is really slick and efficient, both from the developer side and the app store side. More people will try Shores of Hazeron just because of the visibility and their trust in downloading software from Steam. It's a big leap for people to download a program off the Internet and run it; some would call it suicidal.

The poll is showing a preference to restart the database, currently 13 to 9. It is easier to keep the universe database than to restart it.

There is possibly a technical reason to force a restart. I was toying with the idea of restructuring the universe so the pvp and pve dimensions each have 10 galaxies. It was encouraging to see similar comments from players. It's a lot of space for both dimensions and then it doesn't give the impression that the pve dimension is somehow less than the pvp dimension.

(10-06-2020, 05:01 PM)Haxus Wrote: Also, I was painfully reminded of one huge problem with free to play. It allowed griefers to drive players away without consequence. One of the most demoralizing aspects of developing a game like this is the spiteful people who willfully try to destroy what you have built, even making it their personal mission in life.