Steam

[AnrDaemon]

Speaking of EVE Online, the catch is that they sell an item that has an ingame value.
Which means, the game has a balanced economy they can rely upon to measure value of traded items.

[Haxus]

I considered making the token an actual item in the game.

It would then be attached to an avatar, not an account.

You could lose it. Making it a nodrop item would help but not prevent that.

It could be transferred to someone else.

Are these desirable traits?

[Haxus]

So far, I like Slaxx response the best. Keep it simple, with a free to play period.

[Deantwo]

So far, I like Slaxx response the best. Keep it simple, with a free to play period.

Yeah, simple is nice. But like I said, you could just make it multiple tiers of subscription. That is if being a commander player will be interesting enough at some point. But for right now one subscription type is likely the best bet.

The only issue with a trial/free period is that we have no character progression, and we can move avatars between accounts with no issue. So say for example a 30 day trial would just mean you need to make a new account every 29 days and transfer over your avatars to the new account.

The invite system we have right now is pretty good I guess, haven't heard of any abuse at least.

Speaking of EVE Online, the catch is that they sell an item that has an ingame value.
Which means, the game has a balanced economy they can rely upon to measure value of traded items.

If we want economy to have a real world value, sure. But would require the in-game economy to be more stable/exist first.
Always a fun idea (that many games seem to wanna replicate) that can be implemented later I guess.

At least a way to gift gametime to someone else would be nice.

[Slaxx]

thats why its steam based, m8. it uses your steam account.

[Haxus]

FWIW, I am still thinking the Steam release is months away. There are still some significant items on the SoH “must do before Steam release” list.

There have been interruptions. 

Last week I went to Denver to get that dead server running. It has 64 CPU cores and lots of RAM, a significant chunk of our server resources. It’s hard drive failed; in all the years, I have rarely seen a hard drive go bad. That explained why the remote hands team could not get it to boot.

Unfortunately, SAS hard drives are not commonly used in consumer products so the computer stores don’t stock them. That meant ordering a new drive, and another trip to Denver later.

I received the new SAS hard drive on Friday. Tomorrow (Monday) I plan to go to Denver to fix the server. If all goes well, I will be back to work on Tuesday. Another day lost.

I think I am wide open after that to get stuff done again. That list has less than 100 items.

[Deantwo]

FWIW, I am still thinking the Steam release is months away. There are still some significant items on the SoH “must do before Steam release” list.

There have been interruptions. 

Yeah stuff like that happen, we can't account for everything. So no rush from here.
Just be sure to not drive (or fly?) yourself crazy.

I think I am wide open after that to get stuff done again. That list has less than 100 items.

Always plenty to do. But if we can do anything to help you, just ask!

[pizzasgood]

I would like having the option to choose whether the time I buy auto-renews or not, since both options are convenient in different situations.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Chiming in with my 2 cents. I played SoH back in the day when it was free to play, and I've been following it ever since I saw there was a planned steam release.
I have nothing against a subscription model. It works for a lot of people and I think it should definitely be part of the game. Speaking personally though, I would like an option to play a single player instance of the game for a one-time fee. I apologize if this has already been covered before, or if there are technical limitations that prevent single player. However, if it can be done, there is a sizable subset of gamers that don't have much of an interest in multiplayer, and could account for a decent non-subscription revenue stream.

[ChronoAtog]

Here are some ideas.

• SoH becomes free to play, with limitations.
  
• Command badge is needed to hold a captain or officer berth aboard a spacecraft.
  
• Emperor badge is needed to hold any government office or to establish empires.
  
• Architect badge is needed to enter an on line designer instance.
  

I like this idea but to expand on it, just to make sure.

Emperor Badge lets you make NPC ships, but can only give them basic orders
-> Move resources from Town A -> Town B (Take best known route)
-> Have ship guard planet A (they will be dispersed to cover the entire planet.)
-> Have ship attack planet A (they will group together in a clump, and look around the plant.)
-> Can build any building (but can only do so on controlled planet)
-> Players must man the ships functions he is on, npc crew can be civilians/defensive (aka shoot at people boarding)

Command
-> Have ships trade resources through Town A -> Town B, but map the route
-> Have ships guard this area (instead of having your ships guard the entire planet just guard said area, or patrol a route,etc)
-> Have ships attack area w/ formations
-> Can only build military buildings (but can do so on enemy planets w/emperor's decision)

-> Get access to specific control
-> Can have NPC's do any ship role.

Architect
-> Can build on a planet that has a capital building, can't build anything military outside of guard towers (has to be allowed by the Emperor), there must be a tile connected to the capital (aka he can't build out of no where, but the second a capital building is place down for the city he can build one tile off any tile connected to it.

F2P
-> Can man ships, will be useful for said emperor to have to pilot his ship if he doesn't get the commander role.
-> Can purchase/sell goods.
-> Can be part of the military


Commander + Architect + Emperor = full access to everything (within their power of course)
Commander + Architect = Can build military buildings anywhere, can maintain area's with a capital
Commander + Emperor = Like above but doesn't have the capital requirement
Emperor + Architect = Can't build on enemy planets, but can access the editor
F2P = Work force, so they will do trading, scanning for resources, military roles basic.