Approach to Make SoH Grow - A Suggestion

[Rockinsince87]

For years now, new updates have brought time and again more complexity to the game - very often creating more barriers for new players to overcome, new players which are critical to the financial survival of this game, particularly as it will soon go on Steam.



My suggestion is to strategize profoundly on what Shores of Hazeron is about - its purpose and identity. 

The largest barrier is the ship designer right now and the lack of full tutorials. 

I tried to get some friends into the game throughout the years. Many didn't mind the poor graphics - but the fact that it was absolutely unintuitive and full of lag or bugs with overly-complex gameplay made them all run away. Myself included, only coming back every now and then for nostalgia's sake - like many here, it seems.

Stability is another barrier. It's a ton better from what it used to be, there is no denying that. Yes stability will need to be improved if it plans to survive the reviews on Steam. 

And yet I don't think that having hundreds, if not thousands of dedicated players for this game would be so hard. I can see SoH's population easily increasing a hundred fold, and it's revenue even more.

As the population grows, the hardware needs will grow, and any stability issues will become further exposed. That's to be expected right? But I am agreeing that Hazeron is capable of thriving.

But for that, the mindset for the development of this game needs to switch to "What does the game's audience want? What needs to be done to attract, retain and monetize more users?"

Yeah it's going to be a culture shift for sure. I'm not suggesting that Haxus compromise on his vision. However, and unfortunately, once money is rolling the project becomes a service to it's community in order to exist and stay a float. Meaning there has to be some compromise on implementation of features not the features themselves. 

I believe the core reason behind SoH's poor performance over the years is due to the development team being unaware of these concepts.

Can't speak for Haxus. I can only say that the current landscape has not required him to think differently. 

On the other end, we have had some great improvements to increase usability and entertainment - for instance, having "under construction" airports automatically fetch the required resources to allow its construction, hence greatly reducing the tedious micro-management required to build colonies - which I personally love and has single-handedly rekindled my interest in the game.

Yeah that feature is great, a prime example of good features and good implementation.