2022-01-13 FYI

[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.