10-06-2020, 07:54 AM
The model we're talking about moving to isn't sustainable. Shores of Hazeron relies on a bunch of oddballs that, for whatever reason, click with this game like no other. They play it for extended periods of time. A one time payment of $25 doesn't cover that, considering how small the player base is the burst of money you'd get would be comparable to a month of patreon money. Maybe, maybe two months. I agree with Athena on the game getting buried, most of the general public is going to see its instability and just jump to something like Starmade, or Space Engineers or something.
I just don't think this kind of game will survive the transition. The current development path doesn't show signs that the core issues are going to be fixed, so anyone that does their homework on this thing is likely to be turned off. It's quite niche. I don't know how to put this in a way that will be considered, because I'm aware these ideas have been opposed in the past, but either a source code release or the release of a functioning server application would mean the success of the project isn't reliant on a central server. Your work could focus solely on the code, less hardware stability issues and server uptime. Both would allow modification from other people, and considering how intricate this is I could see it attracting people with the patience to figure it out and address many issues. No need to hire a minion if people work solely out of the desire to show their vision, for free.
That's pretty much the opposite of what you're planning, and I know you lean towards older software industry trends in terms of development. But, I just don't think this is working. And it's sad because I've been playing this thing daily for a bit now because it clicked with me, this game's done a better job filling a weirdly specific niche of the big space MMO than anything else I've seen. It's just that, there's a reason almost every conversation I have with people on the Discord or in Galactic Chat eventually comes to complaints about bugs and confusion about why things haven't been addressed. If nothing else I want to dive into this code and find out precisely what the hell is going on.
I just don't think this kind of game will survive the transition. The current development path doesn't show signs that the core issues are going to be fixed, so anyone that does their homework on this thing is likely to be turned off. It's quite niche. I don't know how to put this in a way that will be considered, because I'm aware these ideas have been opposed in the past, but either a source code release or the release of a functioning server application would mean the success of the project isn't reliant on a central server. Your work could focus solely on the code, less hardware stability issues and server uptime. Both would allow modification from other people, and considering how intricate this is I could see it attracting people with the patience to figure it out and address many issues. No need to hire a minion if people work solely out of the desire to show their vision, for free.
That's pretty much the opposite of what you're planning, and I know you lean towards older software industry trends in terms of development. But, I just don't think this is working. And it's sad because I've been playing this thing daily for a bit now because it clicked with me, this game's done a better job filling a weirdly specific niche of the big space MMO than anything else I've seen. It's just that, there's a reason almost every conversation I have with people on the Discord or in Galactic Chat eventually comes to complaints about bugs and confusion about why things haven't been addressed. If nothing else I want to dive into this code and find out precisely what the hell is going on.