Back to Starship?

[Rockinsince87]

Conversely the solo game loads the entire universe. All data is instantly accessible in the computer’s memory throughout the game. The temptation to cheat will be difficult to resist, especially when it comes to storyline. That will break the MMO but it would not preclude a single-server hosted network game. 

I would not worry about cheating honestly. It's an up hill battle that even the best AAA games have hard times stopping. Like you said, if it's single player it doesn't really matter. If it's a hosted game it depends. It's something that can be addressed if it becomes a serious problem. 

I like the idea of keeping network playability. The game cries out for it. The feature would require a fair bit of coding and testing. 

Yes, the game's best aspects are the ability to play with others. Crew a ship together, interact in a whole universe. That's something that will sell quite well. 

Hazeron Starship is currently configured to sell for $9.99 on Steam. Considering the million plus dollars I’ve already put into this project, it might have to sell quite a few copies before I get interested in investing much more. 100 copies? Nah; I carry that much in my pocket for spending money. 1000 copies? Ho hum. 10,000 copies? Now I’m interested. I do not know what to expect. Many games were kind of rough in version one, sold a lot of copies, then got a major facelift in version two.

So I'm sure you are aware but most games like Hazeron ended up going the route you are taking. The developers end up releasing hosted versions of their game and the devs no longer host their own servers. The community takes it from there. The devs then spend all their energy on development instead. There are quite a few big titles that have done this. Hazeron would be no exception. Regular updates and a face lift overtime would keep the community thriving. 

Look at Dwarf Fortress. It's been free for 20 years. It was an ASCII graphic game that had amazing depth. Yes it had a specific player base due to it's graphics but the base stuck with the game because of it's vision and great game play. They just released the steam version on 12/6/2022. The steam version is just a massive UI facelift with actual graphics and not ASCII. They sold 160,000 copies in 24 hours and as of now I believe it's close to 500,000 copies. 

I'm not saying Hazeron is going to do that in 24 hours or even a week or two but with proper discovery, transparency, and people playing this on youtube, people will buy it and people will talk. I'm not saying you should do this but I "suggest" you might want to think about making a roadmap page on your website. People will invest (buy) the game if they know what your vision is and what they can expect as Hazeron grows. 

If you do add the ability to host, I think $19.99 is not out of the question. It's possible to ask for more even but there would have to be a ton of transparency to the player base. I'm willing to spend $20 or $25 right now. I'm willing to do this because I've been playing Hazeron for 12 years now and I've seen it evolve despite you not sharing your vision with us. I like where it's going and I love your game. If new players can make the same connection, Hazeron will thrive.