10-06-2020, 11:23 AM
In my opinion, Steam and a one-time purchase won't be sustainable. For one, the server cost is monthly, and a one-time purchase means you'll get the amount of money you're currently making from patreon for a month, if even that, before it dries up.
Another issue is the updates over time. Since universe 3, I don't really think the game has improved all that much. Sure, things like client-side movement smoothing are nice, but server crashes, bugged audio, bad client performance, lag, AI sundiving and more all still there from way back when. Also, the universe got expanded and more galaxies got added, which in my opinion doesn't really add much aside from being cool, and only spreads out the already thin playerbase even further. The new designer is cool and all, but it's completely locked off ship designing to all those but the most patient and skilled. It's borderline unusable, and I think it takes away more than it adds. And I'm saying this as somebody who actively supported it while it was being developed. I used to design my own ships with the old designer, but now it's just not an option with how annoying and fiddly the new designer is, ESPECIALLY on interiors. A design which took a few hours now takes multiple days.
Same thing with new cities and buildings. sure they look cool, but they cause huge client-side FPS drops, in many cases server-side locks and crashes, and are prone to being exploited with invisible buildings, buildings that have trillions of HP or designs intended to crash the client due to extreme poly counts. They also result in inconsistent style if you're not designing your own buildings, since a single person might not have created a design for every industry or use. The old buildings and cities were simple, and as far as I can see, more players care about that than the infinite design potential which may never get realized.
Gen4 avatars were never finished. It's a bit sad to see time being spent developing unfinished features like this and then being dropped, instead of being spent on fixing old issues from Universe 3. Also, Gen4 are pretty much agreed to be worse than the old gen3.
Similar to gen4, many other aspects of the game like even the new designer are unfinished. In my opinion, the time used to make these unfinished features could have been spent fixing old bugs and crashes, and making improvements elsewhere.
Obvious things like hash checking and caching aren't even being considered, which I'd argue is borderline necessary if any sizeable playerbase starts playing. Imagine having to download 200MB of designs every time you login, eventually increasing to gigabytes. That's just not gonna work.
And more. All of this is shown by the fact that minimal player activity and wars have occurred since these changes started happening, which is right after the Box was removed in Universe 5. The average players online count sat around 2 for literal years, with no combat activity happening during this time. Many old members like most of Syndicate refuse to start playing again due to things like the new designer usability. As a result, even after the return to f2p, the playercount is still low by comparison.
Also, as Athena mentioned, Steam has literally 200+ game releases per day. They're all unknown puzzle games which never get played or noticed, and Hazeron will have to contend with these and hope it doesn't get buried under the ocean of such releases. Steam isn't the way it used to be in 2011 and before where being on it meant free marketing, as now there's literally millions of unknown games being flooded onto it. It's worrying since most players who see the game are probably going to download and try it, notice the UI, client performance, lag, and instability, and then just leave right after. If you're lucky, they might not request a refund, but if they do, that'll be expensive since it's on the developer to refund the full amount, including the 30% which went to Valve. On top of that, Steam has a review system. If the majority of reviews the game gets are negative, that's essentially death for any game unless HUGE changes occur. All of that is even assuming the game gets seen by more than a few players, which is unlikely considering the recent releases pages on Steam.
And finally, because many of us are unable or unwilling to pay the $25 upfront cost, the playerbase is probably going to drop back down to the p2p days. 2 to 5 online, and it'll be stuck at that for years. It's just hard to justify $25 when the game hasn't seen that much improvement, and when there's a risk that it may shut down at any point if Steam doesn't work out.
Another issue is the updates over time. Since universe 3, I don't really think the game has improved all that much. Sure, things like client-side movement smoothing are nice, but server crashes, bugged audio, bad client performance, lag, AI sundiving and more all still there from way back when. Also, the universe got expanded and more galaxies got added, which in my opinion doesn't really add much aside from being cool, and only spreads out the already thin playerbase even further. The new designer is cool and all, but it's completely locked off ship designing to all those but the most patient and skilled. It's borderline unusable, and I think it takes away more than it adds. And I'm saying this as somebody who actively supported it while it was being developed. I used to design my own ships with the old designer, but now it's just not an option with how annoying and fiddly the new designer is, ESPECIALLY on interiors. A design which took a few hours now takes multiple days.
Same thing with new cities and buildings. sure they look cool, but they cause huge client-side FPS drops, in many cases server-side locks and crashes, and are prone to being exploited with invisible buildings, buildings that have trillions of HP or designs intended to crash the client due to extreme poly counts. They also result in inconsistent style if you're not designing your own buildings, since a single person might not have created a design for every industry or use. The old buildings and cities were simple, and as far as I can see, more players care about that than the infinite design potential which may never get realized.
Gen4 avatars were never finished. It's a bit sad to see time being spent developing unfinished features like this and then being dropped, instead of being spent on fixing old issues from Universe 3. Also, Gen4 are pretty much agreed to be worse than the old gen3.
Similar to gen4, many other aspects of the game like even the new designer are unfinished. In my opinion, the time used to make these unfinished features could have been spent fixing old bugs and crashes, and making improvements elsewhere.
Obvious things like hash checking and caching aren't even being considered, which I'd argue is borderline necessary if any sizeable playerbase starts playing. Imagine having to download 200MB of designs every time you login, eventually increasing to gigabytes. That's just not gonna work.
And more. All of this is shown by the fact that minimal player activity and wars have occurred since these changes started happening, which is right after the Box was removed in Universe 5. The average players online count sat around 2 for literal years, with no combat activity happening during this time. Many old members like most of Syndicate refuse to start playing again due to things like the new designer usability. As a result, even after the return to f2p, the playercount is still low by comparison.
Also, as Athena mentioned, Steam has literally 200+ game releases per day. They're all unknown puzzle games which never get played or noticed, and Hazeron will have to contend with these and hope it doesn't get buried under the ocean of such releases. Steam isn't the way it used to be in 2011 and before where being on it meant free marketing, as now there's literally millions of unknown games being flooded onto it. It's worrying since most players who see the game are probably going to download and try it, notice the UI, client performance, lag, and instability, and then just leave right after. If you're lucky, they might not request a refund, but if they do, that'll be expensive since it's on the developer to refund the full amount, including the 30% which went to Valve. On top of that, Steam has a review system. If the majority of reviews the game gets are negative, that's essentially death for any game unless HUGE changes occur. All of that is even assuming the game gets seen by more than a few players, which is unlikely considering the recent releases pages on Steam.
And finally, because many of us are unable or unwilling to pay the $25 upfront cost, the playerbase is probably going to drop back down to the p2p days. 2 to 5 online, and it'll be stuck at that for years. It's just hard to justify $25 when the game hasn't seen that much improvement, and when there's a risk that it may shut down at any point if Steam doesn't work out.
What even