Steam

[RKB53]

The part that really put me off against this subscription based model is that I previously bought a month. As i usually do. To try out the changes since I last played. However something came up and i had absolutely no time to play the game at all. As a result I basically just wasted my money.

Since then I've always been just hovering around looking at change logs and leaving it at that. I don't want to commit to paying for 30 days when I might not even be able to play the game over that time.
However I do understand the need to have a continuous income to maintain the game. But does this model really fit the modern market?

EDIT: The only way I could see this issue being solved is if you bought hours instead of days and the timer only counts down during time played?
Though I don't know whether that would be practical financially. Plus this is ultimately all up to Haxus and he appears to have already made his mind up (Which is fair enough, this is his creation).

[Vectorus]

On the old styles, would you be willing to wait on deleting them till the eve of the public launch? Or at least a couple of months?

I thought old style cities were here to stay based on earlier info, so I am still heavily reliant on them. Can transition, definitely, but it would take a little time.

As far as I care, old style spaceships can go tomorrow - Dean might need a bit longer. I'd ask for spaceship build queues to be instantly finished before old factories are deleted, if possible.

[Haxus]

Are our existing accounts and subscriptions safe?

Yes, they are safe.

Steam does not require or request exclusivity. I can continue to distribute, market and sell my game through any other channels. They just want to be treated fairly. For example, a promotion offered through any other channel needs to be offered through Steam as well, at the same time.

I can issue free licenses through Steam all I want. 

Steam has some interesting tools that can be integrated into my software, as much or as little as I want.

Just about any positive success on Steam could motivate me to stop my own self-publishing efforts. They present a pretty nice credible store front.

[Haxus]

something came up and i had absolutely no time to play the game

Send me e-mail with your login account name and I will gladly credit your account with some time. I have done this for many people.

EDIT: Nvm. I figured it out. Your account is active for 30 days starting now.

[Tureis]

something came up and i had absolutely no time to play the game

Send me e-mail with your login account name and I will gladly credit your account with some time. I have done this for many people.

EDIT: Nvm. I figured it out. Your account is active for 30 days starting now.

Would it be possible to create a system that just worked on activity as opposed to a set 30 days? Instead of buying a month you buy 200 active hours for example (though I wouldn't phrase it like that in marketing because even though that'd honestly be better on the user end the gut reaction to selling hours is bad).

[Haxus]

eve of the public launch

There is no rush to remove those things. It is just something I would like to do. The eve of the Steam release might be cutting it a bit close. That does not allow much time for testing.

So far the old building and spacecraft code has been easy to keep alive. However, bug reports that apply to the old style cities and spacecraft get little to no attention, unless critical. A player last week showed me an old style city where the buildings were blinking. They were not blinking on my Ubuntu box or my Windows 10 box. That bug is unlikely to get fixed. Code decay will eat away at those things. I just hope that few new players witness them.

[Vectorus]

Do you know of anyone else using such a system? I am not sure it sounds financially viable, unless the unit cost of hours were quite high. That is, we'd have to calculate the average hours a player spends online right now per month and peg the price so it was roughly even. 

Also note that for frequent players like Mortius,Dean or myself this would not necessarily make a very good deal compared to what we get now. Having said that, the future of the game is always more important.

[Haxus]

system that just worked on activity

That might work if a player's footprint on the servers completely vanished once they logged off.

It does not fit with SoH, where a typical player creates a large amount of data that persists and uses server resources even when they are not there.

[Tureis]

Do you know of anyone else using such a system? I am not sure it sounds financially viable, unless the unit cost of hours were quite high. That is, we'd have to calculate the average hours a player spends online right now per month and peg the price so it was roughly even. 

Also note that for frequent players like Mortius,Dean or myself this would not necessarily make a very good deal compared to what we get now. Having said that, the future of the game is always more important.

Well, one month is currently 10 dollars, if you averaged 8 hours a day for 30 days for instance you'd only have 180 hours so offering 200 hours at 10 dollars would allow rollover to the next month. This would be beneficial to someone who doesn't have a set schedule. I wouldn't make it the only means of purchase though, I'd keep it as an optional method.

[Ikkir Isth]

On old cities: I mean, being able to nuke them was more or less the idea all along right? You don't want to have to support multiple styles if you don't have to.

Of course I'm not really playing at the moment (let most of my yearly sub just go by unplayed) so I'm not concerned about any cities (and I would just start over anyway, was only on to test new city building).

Really though, probably good to start going over a true roadmap to Steam release right now, and go over potential blockers.

My 3 main concerns right now:

Starting tutorial and guides: need a better intro into everything, and it needs to be some sort of in-game tutorial with tutorial windows, hints, etc. If someone starts up your game and immediately has to tab out / close it just to learn how to play it, thats not a great experience. This mostly just covers survival and city building and making money, then basic spacecraft flight. Ships and building design is its own animal that needs covering later.

Sufficient, good looking public designs for every building, preferably dependable ones that can be linked into some tutorial. Same for ships. These designs need to show up the first thing when people go looking to build stuff, be clearly purpose labeled, and, of course, work.

Anything left to do with the economy, or item crafting setup/times/progress bars/etc, do it now. You want players to be able to earn money doing any task without being confused, you want to fix any and all possible rollover things left (is it still possible to overflow vulcium suit sales from a spaceship?), etc. Right now, starting players earn a single credit a work-click, plus of course they have to actually start making bullion in the first place, so the best way to gain actual funds right at the start is to just make a giant road and go afk-build it, since working factories is just a click-to-run and then run away to the next factory while the job itself is automated. Alternatively of course, theres petty theft (anywhere from stealing suits to grabbing teepees from villagers and bartering it back to them for things), a minor amount of foraging power (find a gem tile area and hawk a few of em every few minutes), etc just to get you started. Once in space, and then a short time later, you make just enough money from trading (and jobs are usually not worth doing at the moment), and then once you are progressed enough you harvest and print your own money and have, well, way too much with no real money sinks.