2020-10-06 Shores of Hazeron Moving to Steam

[AnrDaemon]

And most importantly: PLEASE DO NOT WIPE THE UNIVERSE!

The game is not supposed to be restarted every so often. Universe resets happened in the past when an important decision had to be made about gameplay rules (that includes fixing severe bugs).

[Lucifer]

Wasn't there a vote in favour of a wipe?

Given it is being released on a new platform, hopefully with wave of new players, the universe should definitely be wiped. Either immediately on Steam release or if it is being put on Early Access, if it ever transitions out of it.

[Greydog]

I'd rather not see a wipe as I'm only 35 days away from warp 9.

My issue is I have no map and cannot access ring worlds without a ctd ...until that gets fixed I have no incentive to play anyway.

[Deantwo]

Wasn't there a vote in favour of a wipe?

Given it is being released on a new platform, hopefully with wave of new players, the universe should definitely be wiped. Either immediately on Steam release or if it is being put on Early Access, if it ever transitions out of it.

That vote is on Patreon, and it is almost even. See: https://www.patreon.com/posts/42418179

Aside from that, why would a wipe be useful? It would wipe the public blueprint exchange too, and remove progress of everyone that is playing right now.

It also again puts the fear/expectation of future universe wipes back into focus. We don't want universe resets to happen randomly whenever. Ideally the universe will never reset again, unless Haxus totally changes how the universe works and aa universe reset is required to keep code upkeep down.

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My issue is I have no map and cannot access ring worlds without a ctd ...until that gets fixed I have no incentive to play anyway.

That still seems to only be an issue for you though, which is weird.

[Haxus]

Here is an official update.

The universe database will NOT be reset. Resets in the past have generally been driven by some change or other, that made it easier to restart than to upgrade or fix the data. There are no changes of that magnitude on my list at all.

The Steam release will be December 1st or later, with no urgency to get it done. I am working on some significant changes that must be completed before then.

The biggest change is enabling the solo play mode to do about everything the multi play mode can do, and to make the solo database persistent. The solo play mode then becomes a playable game.

The product released on Steam will be a single-player only variation of Shores of Hazeron. It has been dubbed Hazeron Starship.

Shores of Hazeron will continue as the multi-player only variant of the game. I will restore the $10 per month fee, when I get around to it. This is a low priority and I don't mind letting things run free-to-play for a bit.

For about $25k, I can get a new server with 256 threads. It would replace seven of the Dell PE1950s, accounting for 28 threads (4 threads each). This achieves a nice upgrade to the servers without expanding into another cabinet, so my monthly server bill would remain unchanged. Those seven old boxes would move to the debug server grid.

[Haxus]

I have stopped building the Ubuntu 18 build. It is easy to restore if someone still wants it. Just speak up.

[Deantwo]

You might want to post all of these announcements in their own thread though. A little confusing to have it hidden away at the end of this week old update thread.

Shores of Hazeron will continue as the multi-player only variant of the game. I will restore the $10 per month fee, when I get around to it. This is a low priority and I don't mind letting things run free-to-play for a bit.

I guess you weren't satisfied with the Patreon? Patreon seemed to work pretty well though. Given more time it might have gotten even better then you would get with the $10/month fee.

The biggest change is enabling the solo play mode to do about everything the multi play mode can do, and to make the solo database persistent. The solo play mode then becomes a playable game.

The product released on Steam will be a single-player only variation of Shores of Hazeron. It has been dubbed Hazeron Starship.

Sounds interesting. I think a lot of people would be expecting being able to host a local multiplayer server to play with their friends though, but I guess people has asked for singleplayer for years too.

I have stopped building the Ubuntu 18 build. It is easy to restore if someone still wants it. Just speak up.

What does the launcher say if you have that version? Will it give an error message or just assume there is no update ever again?

[Zensras]

I feel like this is good step in the right direction.   I know your likely excited for the future and I want to say thank you for the many years that I have enjoyed Hazeron.     

Couple of questions I have still:

1)  Will the multiplayer portion be advertised with the single-player portion on steam or just added at a later date?

2)  How will updates be handled with both?

3)  Are you still shutting the Patreon down or will you just be doing direct donations again? I still like to donate at some point.

4) (Jack brought this up)  How will research / Ship building handled in the single-player portion?

[Haxus]

1. Both versions will likely mention the other.

2. Updates will continue as now. Steam has its own system of updates. It can be updated as often as I wish.

3. I will shut down Patreon as soon as they let me take the money. It should be available now. They said the 15th.

4. Research and ship building need to be running to fetch materials. Completion times are scheduled so processes will finish when run, if the time has already passed. So a process that only needs time to pass will finish when the game is run, if the completion time already passed.

[Haxus]

The online game will go back to being pay-to-play. It keeps the griefers away. There is no urgency to do this but it will happen eventually.