2022-01-13 FYI

[jakbruce2012]

Please do keep some form of Berth-a Porting in. I would not mind the removal of teleport invites. They were convenient, however it was only needed early game before empire ships are flying. Perhaps have some kind of system where friends can quickly travel to each-other. Maybe with a long range transporter beacon(entangled preons?) to make a semi-permanent connection between those transporters. This way each player wanting to teleport to another would have to use a ship or airport transporter to do so, and would feel more sci-fi and less magic.

In this way you make the trip in space at least once, then have the ability to flash back and forth at will after.

For empire ships we definitely need some way to still get to them quickly when they are stranded since the AI is far too simple to be trusted.

Also removing the berth-a-port would remove what I feel is the primary early game advantage to breeding, the quick respawn that Highborns get.

Just my thoughts on the matter. Looking forward to whatever we get at this point.

[Wincil]

Aside from the war and conquest topic, I think it would be a lot more important to discuss the questions that Haxus asked us. How should empire creation work and what business model would work.

I assume Haxus still wants to have a small monthly subscription fee. Since he mentioned that it kept some of the more troublesome players away and lowered the chance of a player creating many accounts for malicious intent.

With the idea of buying the right to create an empire for something like $10, the monthly subscription fee could probably be lowered to $2-5 or something.
Or maybe an account could be a one-time purchase too, and then you buy the right to create an empire after that. Taking donations while having the game/account/empire be a one-time purchase does however seem like a good idea.

The point is, Haxus hasn't liked the idea of taking donations alongside selling the game in the past. I am not sure if there are legal reasons for this or if it is just personal principal.
The Patreon did do pretty good last time, even if the reward tiers were a little mismanaged. I am sure that a new Patreon could work fine if just left as optional and to the side. It doesn't even have to have any other rewards than "name in credits" for starters. The first milestone could be "if we reach $1000/month (or whatever) we won't need a monthly subscription fee for the game".

I would agree with what you said there

[Deantwo]

For empire ships we definitely need some way to still get to them quickly when they are stranded since the AI is far too simple to be trusted.

Haxus already said that you will still be able to berth-a-port to empire ships. You will still be able to berth-a-port to your empire ships via the fleet channel.

To be exact, the proposed change seem to be that you won't be able to accept a berth on a non-empire spacecraft that is in another solar system than you are. Meaning that you can no longer use berth-a-port to visit your faraway friends anymore.

See:

...

Martianant, that is what I was thinking. Perhaps you must be in the same system as a ship to take a berth aboard it, unless it’s an empire ship with an officer.

So yeah it sounds like it will be pretty good. I am looking forward to see how it feels to play with less teleportiness.

[Romlok]

I've been away for a loong time, but Hazeron still has a place in my heart, so I'd like to throw out some of my cents:

Firstly, I hope there will be more payment options than just PayPal, as I would rather go without online play than send money through that company! :(

I wasn't around for the Patreon days, but I like the idea of giving money via Patreon to support a game, better than the idea of paying a monthly subscription to play. For example, I haven't played Dwarf Fortress in perhaps a decade, but I'm still happy to send some cash to those lunatics every month through Patreon!
I understand that it's extremely difficult for such a niche game to be self-sustaining only via Patreon though, and I'm not sure how well having additional payments would gel with the "donation" concept of Patreon. :-/

If you do consider a pay to play model. Please consider a fee for creating empires and free to play to man a ship as a citizen. It would be a good way to show friends the game without them committing to a payment. 

I second this idea. I've long thought that Hazeron could be well suited to a tiered pricing model, whereby free/guest players could play the game as citizens and crew to get a taste, but not hold any governorship or captaincy.


And since we're on the subject, it might also be possible that similarly limited/guest roles could be used instead of berth-a-porting? That is, rather than the player's avatar getting teleported to a faraway ship, inventory and all, the player instead would "possess" and take control of an AI crewmember already on the ship. They would only have access to things that crew member would have access to, and the player's regular avatar would be "offline" back wherever they were, waiting for the return of the player consciousness.
It's likely not a full solution to all the problems berth-a-porting is intended to address, but something to think about?

Glad to see Haxus is back and Hazeron still has a future! :)

[Tracyn Kyrayc]

Y'all rich-ass people need to chill with that silly idea to only allow paying people to create an empire. That kind of idea will only keep new players from coming to SoH.

You gotta keep in mind that, while Hazeron is an amazing game with a lot of depth, it's not appealing at first sight. Let's face it, as amazing as the game is, it's fuck-ugly. We're not talking "That used to look good in 2007 but now it's outdated" ugly, we're talking "I'm in 1997 and even my eyes are getting scorched to hell by those graphics" ugly. Not to complain, I don't mind its looks, but hell.... when I first tried the game in 2013, I immediately got skeptical because of those graphics, but tried the game anyway and loved it.

But here's the thing : it was free, back then, so trying an ugly game was no bother to me, and though you need a while to get used to it, you eventually fall in love with it.

But new players coming to the game now ? They don't know how good it is yet, they don't know how much stuff you can do. All they're gonna think the first time they'll look at it "What, you want me to pay to create an empire in this old-ass, tech-demo-from-the-nineties-looking thing ? Fuck that pay-to-win mechanic. What is this, EA ?".

I've got a few friends who will gladly try out the game and are gonna love it if they do, but if they stumble upon a lot of barriers before even trying it out, they're not going to.

We gotta ask ourselves if we want Hazeron to be a closed, elitist kind of community with the same old, ever-entitled players, or if we want some fresh blood.

I'm not trying to be greedy, here. 10 bucks is nothing, but if Haxus said he can afford the hardware by himself and just take donations, why not do that ?

Who are you trying to keep out of this game by slapping a bloody fee on empire creation ? Like "you're a non-paying peasant, so you'll be limited to being the paying players' bitch" kind of mindset ? Again, is this EA ?

Let's be real, my dudes. I get that you wanna put this fee in place to prevent people from creating hundreds of empires and spawn on hundreds of planets but again, who cares ? Those planets are not gonna be full of Q255 stuff, and with the sheer amount of systems in the galaxy, they'll be but a drop in an ocean. Plus, it's be a massive time loss for the players doing that. And what if I pay 10 bucks to create and empire, and decide to dissolve it and make a new one ? I gotta pay again ? Hell no.

As I said, quit pushing that P2P on us. That shit belongs to 2005. Either go B2P, or F2P, as it was ten years ago.

Haxus, my duderino, I haven't been around in almost ten years, and the last time I messaged you was probably to cry about my ship being stuck in limbo, but I'm telling you... don't ruin that game with P2P again. It's an obsolete thing, and it'll kill people's interest in the game before it even sprouts. The total population will be low, again, and the game'll be empty. Again.

Alright, this wall of text is long enough. Tracyn out !

[Deantwo]

If you do consider a pay to play model. Please consider a fee for creating empires and free to play to man a ship as a citizen. It would be a good way to show friends the game without them committing to a payment. 

I second this idea. I've long thought that Hazeron could be well suited to a tiered pricing model, whereby free/guest players could play the game as citizens and crew to get a taste, but not hold any governorship or captaincy.

The issue with that is, as Haxus himself pointed out, the gameplay for an "adventure player" just isn't there yet. It is likely in the long-term plan to allow for a tiered account system, so players can choose to be either an empire emperor, an empire citizen or an adventure player. But I think it would be too early to start selling that now (even for free).

[Deantwo]

Y'all rich-ass people need to chill with that silly idea to only allow paying people to create an empire. ...

First of all, you come off extremely rude and entitled.

Yes in a perfect world it would be awesome if Hazeron could be totally free-to-play again. But untill Haxus says that is actually an option I am not sure your way of practically demanding it will help in any argument. And even if the business model starts as one thing, it can be changed if that proves to not work at all or a new alternative appears.

I do agree that a monthly subscription fee (pay-to-play) is the least attractive business model, especially if the fee is too high. But from the other side it has sone benefits, such as covering expenses and provide funding for upgrades in the future. Having a pay-wall on account creation also discourages abuse of the system.

You seem yo have confused the idea of having empire creation as a separate one-time purchase as something else. At least the way the game played last year you can create an avatar, explore your homeworld, and create a basic colony on your homeworld before needing to actually found an empire. And that is not to mention the idea of your friends not needing to purchase an empire if they are going to join your empire. You can make as many avatars as you want have spawn on as many worlds as you want without having to create or purchase an empire. Same as with the pay-wall on account creation, a pay-wall on empire creation would discourage a ton of exploits in the game. Having the empire creation be a separate purchase also means that it might be reasonable to lower the account creation fee and/or the monthly subscription fee.

All that said, and as I mentioned in my post on the topic a few pages back, I would probably prefer a that account creation was a one-time purchase if possible. But this would only really work if Haxus was ok with also receiving donations on the side, which is something he has been against in the past.
See: (Update thead post) 2022-01-13 FYI #118

Haxus has been avoiding the topic for a while, so I assume he is still thinking of solutions to it or just don't want to promise anything he can't commit to yet.

[Celarious]

Same as with the pay-wall on account creation, a pay-wall on empire creation would discourage a ton of exploits in the game. Having the empire creation be a separate purchase also means that it might be reasonable to lower the account creation fee and/or the monthly subscription fee.

While in theory this might work, in reality it won't. New players will join an existing empire and then perform said exploits, or people will pay and exploit anyway, see Mortius of Weltreich. If a big salt-based war breaks out, you can bet both sides will heavily exploit, despite being paid empires

[Romlok]

The issue with that is, as Haxus himself pointed out, the gameplay for an "adventure player" just isn't there yet. It is likely in the long-term plan to allow for a tiered account system, so players can choose to be either an empire emperor, an empire citizen or an adventure player. But I think it would be too early to start selling that now (even for free).

Fair point, however I think the basic functionality of what was requested/suggested - an ability to let friends experience (some of) the game for free - doesn't necessarily require any extensive adventure gameplay IMO. It could just mean temporary guest accounts that only allow someone to connect to the game as crew on an existing player's ship, and experience that part of the game.

Of course that doesn't exist yet either, so is also too soon to be selling, but on the surface it seems it may be less work (or at least more fun work, for an engineer type of person!) than creating a plenitude of adventure content!

[Tracyn Kyrayc]

Y'all rich-ass people need to chill with that silly idea to only allow paying people to create an empire. ...

First of all, you come off extremely rude and entitled.

Chill your boots, lad. Don't mistake my speech for actual rudeness. If it pleases you, I shall speak in a more refined and proper way, my good chap. And you can spare the "Tone of the whole post is rude and rather nasty. Given some of it seems to stem from misunderstanding of game mechanics and proposed ideas.", I'm not here to wage a forum war.

Yes in a perfect world it would be awesome if Hazeron could be totally free-to-play again. But untill Haxus says that is actually an option I am not sure your way of practically demanding it will help in any argument.

I'm not demanding free stuff, mate. As I've said in my two previous posts, I'd be hella fine with buying the game once, even for 30 or 50 bucks. But a lot of you don't seem to realise that P2P (not B2P) is toxic and unhealthy for games, and for players. Those who cannot afford a monthly payment will miss out on half of the fun, and be kept from creating their own empires. Those who can afford it but dislike wasting money on a subscription if they only play five days a month will feel the need to play the game as much as possible, and maybe neglect other hobbies, or neglect something else. And, my good dude, some of those who actually pay every month might look down on those who do not. I'm not making that stuff up. If you have played games such as SWTOR, or have played Fallen Earth back when it was a F2P with a subscription system, you might know how some communities can get toxic as hell. Not every player is an arse, off course, but some are, and that's enough to repel newbies.

You seem yo have confused the idea of having empire creation as a separate one-time purchase as something else. At least the way the game played last year you can create an avatar, explore your homeworld, and create a basic colony on your homeworld before needing to actually found an empire. And that is not to mention the idea of your friends not needing to purchase an empire if they are going to join your empire. You can make as many avatars as you want have spawn on as many worlds as you want without having to create or purchase an empire. Same as with the pay-wall on account creation, a pay-wall on empire creation would discourage a ton of exploits in the game. Having the empire creation be a separate purchase also means that it might be reasonable to lower the account creation fee and/or the monthly subscription fee.

Oh no, mate, I don't have anything confused. I did understand that players would still be able to play the game, explore (even though, as Haxus said, there ain't much gameplay for adventurer types), and play around with city. I get that they will be able to join an empire and play together with their friends. I get that the fee you speak off would be to unlock the ability to create your own empire. I get your idea.

And it's a bad idea, really, my dude. Getting SoH, and then having to pay more to unlock empire creation ? I'd be like if you bought... I dunno, Minecraft, but could only roam the world and interact with villages, or stuff that other people build. And when you want to build your own buildings, some pop-up appears and tells you that you have to pay more to enjoy the game at its fullest.

It's just wrong. Either make people pay for the whole thing, or don't make them pay at all. Again, I'm not being cheap, I'll pay a one-time fee of 50 to buy the whole game, it ain't gonna be a hole in my pocket. And again, Haxus did say that he could get by on his own, and with donations. If that's the case, and he makes us buy the game, I reckon he'll have quite enough to make the game last until it closes again. You gotta take this into account as well. When SoH reopens, it doesn't last for years and years. Even if the P2P model doesn't agree with me, I could understand people paying to actually build something that will last for a long time, even though it can quickly become ridiculous, like paying thousands over the course of 15 years for WoW. But SoH ain't gonna last, and paying 10 bucks every month for the game to close again in a year ? Yep, that's 120 bucks, mate. 120 bucks for something that will go back to dust.

But all the talk about the empire fee ain't even about funding the hardware, from what I've seen.... It's about people being scared of big bad exploiters making thousands of accounts to make thousands of empires and claiming thousands of systems. Sure, I can imagine that. I mean, I don't know anyone sad and pathetic enough to cheese a game like their life depended on it, but I do agree that this could happen.

So... what I've proposed earlier would work, wouldn't it ? If the fee is really about avoiding exploits, have people register a credit card through a safe, verified way, but charge them for 0.00 on account creation. And make it so a single card can't be linked to several accounts. 'cause I can see people creating thousands of free accounts, but I sure can't imagine anyone asking their bank for thousands of credit cards.

Credit cards or whatever, I'm not aware of every payment method in history. I reckon PayPal accounts would do the trick, since anyone can create as many of those as they want.

Because really, if you want the total population to amount to ten players, go ahead and make a monthly fee. You want your game to actually have players, you make it F2P or B2P.

It's as Athena said. When the game was F2P, the player base was growing. When it was P2P... it was dead. Do you want people to enjoy the game, or do you want a dead graveyard of a game ? Hell, might as well not bring SoH back and stick to HSS, if that's gonna be the case.

Don't know why I even bothered writing this. Not like it's gonna change your mind.