I love the core feeling of Shores of Hazeron.
I just love that feeling of being on a moon, with my custom-made space ship hovering in the distance, looking at the beautiful planets slowly roll in the sky, and knowing that each little bright dot I see is a complete system with its own wonders, and all within my grasp - and who knows what I'll find there?
Unfortunately, that feeling comes at a high cost.
For years now, new updates have brought time and again more complexity to the game - very often creating more barriers for new players to overcome, new players which are critical to the financial survival of this game, particularly as it will soon go on Steam.
I tried to get some friends into the game throughout the years. Many didn't mind the poor graphics - but the fact that it was absolutely unintuitive and full of lag or bugs with overly-complex gameplay made them all run away. Myself included, only coming back every now and then for nostalgia's sake - like many here, it seems.
And yet I don't think that having hundreds, if not thousands of dedicated players for this game would be so hard. I can see SoH's population easily increasing a hundred fold, and it's revenue even more.
It's just a matter of designing the game for its audience.
But for that, the mindset for the development of this game needs to switch to "What does the game's audience want? What needs to be done to attract, retain and monetize more users?"
Designing a game is just like any other business - you've got the understand some core concepts and have a specific frame of mind to be successful. This is roughly broken down into:
-Understanding the customer's needs (what do my users want?)
-Creating a product that meets those needs (in this case, a sandbox space MMO)
-Communicating to the customer that the product meets those needs
I believe the core reason behind SoH's poor performance over the years is due to the development team being unaware of these concepts.
As a well-known example, we've seen a completely new overhaul of the ship and building designer. While the idea behind it makes sense (allowing for greater creative freedom and customization), it has, in my opinion, created a barrier to the majority of potential users, who would be disengage with the game as they see this new feature too complex and doesn't meet their needs (effort to entertainment ratio). This has been widely expressed since its implementation.
On the other end, we have had some great improvements to increase usability and entertainment - for instance, having "under construction" airports automatically fetch the required resources to allow its construction, hence greatly reducing the tedious micro-management required to build colonies - which I personally love and has single-handedly rekindled my interest in the game.
In fact, were it not for this, I would not be here, and would be playing another game as I write this.
My suggestion is to strategize profoundly on what Shores of Hazeron is about - its purpose and identity.
An online game's purpose is most often to provide entertainment to a niche of players. How does SoH aim to do so? What features does it need to have to create that entertainment?
We've all made loads of suggestions about how we'd want the game to be improved - the features we think would be good to implement. But unless the mentality towards the development of the game changes, then none of this will work in the long-term.
The launch to Steam is coming soon, and Haxus has expressed that it's either going to work or the project will be abandoned. Like many other players, I often rage about SoH's complexity and features. But I always come back for a reason. It's one of the games with the most potential to bring me lots of pleasure. I'd hate to see that potential unrealized.
I just love that feeling of being on a moon, with my custom-made space ship hovering in the distance, looking at the beautiful planets slowly roll in the sky, and knowing that each little bright dot I see is a complete system with its own wonders, and all within my grasp - and who knows what I'll find there?
Unfortunately, that feeling comes at a high cost.
For years now, new updates have brought time and again more complexity to the game - very often creating more barriers for new players to overcome, new players which are critical to the financial survival of this game, particularly as it will soon go on Steam.
I tried to get some friends into the game throughout the years. Many didn't mind the poor graphics - but the fact that it was absolutely unintuitive and full of lag or bugs with overly-complex gameplay made them all run away. Myself included, only coming back every now and then for nostalgia's sake - like many here, it seems.
And yet I don't think that having hundreds, if not thousands of dedicated players for this game would be so hard. I can see SoH's population easily increasing a hundred fold, and it's revenue even more.
It's just a matter of designing the game for its audience.
But for that, the mindset for the development of this game needs to switch to "What does the game's audience want? What needs to be done to attract, retain and monetize more users?"
Designing a game is just like any other business - you've got the understand some core concepts and have a specific frame of mind to be successful. This is roughly broken down into:
-Understanding the customer's needs (what do my users want?)
-Creating a product that meets those needs (in this case, a sandbox space MMO)
-Communicating to the customer that the product meets those needs
I believe the core reason behind SoH's poor performance over the years is due to the development team being unaware of these concepts.
As a well-known example, we've seen a completely new overhaul of the ship and building designer. While the idea behind it makes sense (allowing for greater creative freedom and customization), it has, in my opinion, created a barrier to the majority of potential users, who would be disengage with the game as they see this new feature too complex and doesn't meet their needs (effort to entertainment ratio). This has been widely expressed since its implementation.
On the other end, we have had some great improvements to increase usability and entertainment - for instance, having "under construction" airports automatically fetch the required resources to allow its construction, hence greatly reducing the tedious micro-management required to build colonies - which I personally love and has single-handedly rekindled my interest in the game.
In fact, were it not for this, I would not be here, and would be playing another game as I write this.
My suggestion is to strategize profoundly on what Shores of Hazeron is about - its purpose and identity.
An online game's purpose is most often to provide entertainment to a niche of players. How does SoH aim to do so? What features does it need to have to create that entertainment?
We've all made loads of suggestions about how we'd want the game to be improved - the features we think would be good to implement. But unless the mentality towards the development of the game changes, then none of this will work in the long-term.
The launch to Steam is coming soon, and Haxus has expressed that it's either going to work or the project will be abandoned. Like many other players, I often rage about SoH's complexity and features. But I always come back for a reason. It's one of the games with the most potential to bring me lots of pleasure. I'd hate to see that potential unrealized.
![[Image: ezgif-com-resize.gif]](https://i.postimg.cc/HxHQkhzX/ezgif-com-resize.gif)