Sorry but if you don't like the first two hours of the game you're not going to like the next 200 hours. Haven is about as good as it gets
Danger of the 2-hour Steam return window?
- Thread starter Darthus
- Start date
As others have mentioned, the problem is that Haven doesn't really represent the full experience of the game.
Also a "demo" of the game makes no sense to me, you can't make a demo of an expansive multiplayer experience.
Having read others responses, I'd say the only "real" solution is to make Haven more like the real game, which means adding an area where you can kill/be killed, a small town with guards (maybe add a Haven-ish Kranesh, since Haven is designed after Fab), where there are slightly more lucrative resources (though nothing super valuable of course) etc, maybe even areas to control etc. Essentially turn Haven from simply a safe tutorial island to a very small preview of the real world. Main issue I can see is that you'll have a much higher percentage of griefers and idiots in that PvP area since it's a noob island and there are no consequences which would give people a bad first impression, but of course could just make the guard presence much sturdier in that small PvP-enabled town.
But even then, that's not going to solve the 2-hour issue, but it could make a free to play Haven work and actually give people more of an idea of if they actually would like to play. But that also sounds like a lot of work.
Yes you can. Go on Steam and find a game called Project Gorgon. Has a full on demo of the game that allows you to experience a lot of what it offers.
Games can totally have demos that truly reveal the gameplay.
I enjoy the game, but I loathe Haven. There is nothing to do there that can’t be done in a more fulfilling, enjoyable way in the actual game. Haven has no meaningful economy, no diversity of pve, no difficulty, and no pvp/risk. Further, it seems like half or more of the new players don’t even realize it’s a tutorial island because understanding this requires basic literacy which most mmorpg players lack.
Incentivizing refunds with an awful starting experience is just self destructive for this game’s continued development.
I haven't started playing yet, but the problem is the same for all mmo games. The solutions are known and tested.
1. Fee only for subscription
2. New players start in the real world
3. Temporary 'young' status protecting against pvp
4. Lowered skill level and stats for new ones
1. Fee only for subscription
2. New players start in the real world
3. Temporary 'young' status protecting against pvp
4. Lowered skill level and stats for new ones
Brutal.
Is that really true?
If it is...you can't teach someone to read who hates the idea. Anyone old enough to play a game like this who won't read probably does.
You could tell people out loud what they're supposed to realise, but in the first two hours (in ANY two horus) there probably isn't enough time to repeat it all as many times as it would take.
Right now the tutorial throws walls of texts at the player. I don’t have a problem with this, but I’ve seen numerous “let’s play” of Haven where the content creators just skip through the text and just complain that the game gives no direction. Also, at least during the stress tests, there were tons of people in help chat clearly stuck on Haven, unaware of if or how they can get out.
These people are unlikely to stick with this game regardless, but Starvault’s goal should be to entertain them for at least 2 hours so they don’t lose money via steam refunds. Haven just isn’t cutting it.
nope, but you can mitigate the negative externalities of that stupid (in this case, refunds).
It is not "stupid". If you are a content creator you're not going to be streaming the reading of a wall of text to your audience. This is a Twitch issue, on YouTube the decent ones read the text and then just edit out the reading.
- There's a difference between streaming the reading of it and skipping it entirely, unless you're determined not to pre-read it and stream when you've already done so. (Or unless it's impossible to run through the training more than once.)
- If you're not streaming, but editing vidieo, it's fine to do that 'thirty sedond training montage'.
- I have to say that a "Let's Play" stream of someone skipping all the text and barging ahead not knowing what to do in the game would just make me cringe & go watch crane fails, instead. And I don't even like crane fails.