If you summarize the points made in the thread so poorly, there's not much more to discuss.
Why we don´t need Haven
- Thread starter Eldrath
- Start date
- Status
Do you purposely avoid answering straightforward questions that challenge your opinions?
My statement was specifically towards our interactions, maybe your other argument is that those players will sway dev time/direction?
Is that somehow a new problem we didn't face in mo1?
This is a thoughtful post.
Though some of the points going against a Haven/Seed of Trammel is that it's simply unnecessary and a bit condescending, you hit on an important point that SV has softened on in their desperation.
An absolute safe zone is not supposed to exist in MO. . We are already going to be asked to pay a full sub for a game that contains areas we can never access after leaving once, thus creating two separate game worlds. They have already caved, we can look at where it leads.
MO in the past did have areas of relative safety with corresponding risk v reward. The highest value areas were much more dangerous than the lowest value areas. There were vast areas of the map that had almost no population. The likelihood of being murdered was effectively zero. These were not guarded towns; people intent on harassing people always stick to guarded towns and high population areas. These were areas for mining or fishing or adventuring that were too remote and unpopulated for PK players to visit often. Players could choose to go to a dungeon or high value area and would of course, encounter risk. So, MO accomplished a similar dynamic to eve without an absolute no kill zone.
The issue is not that the game is not safe enough for those that truly want to avoid the carnage, it's that some players always want more safety, and more of the game available to them without risks. They want to leave their isolated safe area and go to the dungeon with the same low risk they find in the desert or jungle areas with low value. They will not be upfront about their desire to undermine the nature of the game. It would be too easy to laugh at them and shut down their idea. So they will manipulate and hide behind "new players" to force a change in the game that restricts pvp.
It's up to the devs to hold the line and not cave to their demands, and players that want to see the vision implemented correctly to call out bullshit and unnecessary compromise.
Last edited:
i would let them start in a slave town protected by guards where they earn their right to leave.
I don't think that every haven player will have quit if they started on myrland instead. I think that's actually unlikely.
Agreed, I dont think so either.
If a person never chooses to leave Haven then its clear they don't want to deal with the PvP aspect.
And if thats the case, this isn't somehow taking away from the people playing on myrland. That person would very likely not play MO at all in the first place.
Can you have a healthy ecosystem without the smallest of creatures, plankton and the like?
If they are not in the game with us it is indeed taking something away.
Would the game have lost something if you found out running your business on Haven was more profitable? I think it would.
I really have to wonder how bad people are that they're concerned about the tiny population of people who choose to make their home in the tutorial area instead of coming out in the main game where all the best resources are found. Need someone your own strength to pick on? All the newbs leaving Haven knowing which direction their sword points too much for you?
Give the newbs their tutorial, and don't give it to them on a time crunch. If someone really wants to live on donkey/granum isle then fine.
Give the newbs their tutorial, and don't give it to them on a time crunch. If someone really wants to live on donkey/granum isle then fine.
haven is not only the newbie island but also, with multiple instances, it is the buffer for the initial flood of players any mmo receives upon launch day. it could possibly be the f2p or 'trial' island in the future, allowing players to see the game without affecting myrland.
honestly i feel haven is too large, too spread out, and allows for materials greater than it should. I dont have any issue with haven as a concept but i feel the implementation needs some major rework.
-barcode
honestly i feel haven is too large, too spread out, and allows for materials greater than it should. I dont have any issue with haven as a concept but i feel the implementation needs some major rework.
-barcode
I can agree with that. When I went to haven I was like "Why do they have this huge area. And why are there razorbacks here?"
Haven need only be large enough for a good tutorial in a believable setting and no larger, with no more resources. Based on that less spread out seems better so that the stations are closer together and newbs can find what they are looking for faster. You want like dogs, granum, donkeys, dapplewood, a few ingredients to make cheap potions/food to see how its done etc.
No, I wouldn't stay on Haven. With respect, I think this might be the misunderstanding that people have here.
There are different types of carebears. On one hand you have people like me who don't PvP, but I embrace it as an element of MO and recognize it adds to the experience even though I dont partake.
Now on the other hand you have the carebears who don't like pvp at all. They hate having to think about it at all and would prefer to play in peace doing pve/crafting. They don't play games with full loot pvp.
That second group is unavailable to MO.
Thats why im saying Haven doesn't take people away from Myrland.
The people playing and staying in Haven are people from that second group who happened to come across MO and give it a shot.
Yeah, while I could admit I'm somewhat torn on the idea.
I'm going to remain in the side that is pro-haven because it does more good then bad.
But I again think this island needs a hard capped time in which players can stay alike to the help channel where you only have so much time within it / on it.
Sure. I started the game when the tutorial was garbage and had to basically teach myself. Did this give me a unique experience? Yes, but do I literally remember it piece by piece? No.
I played through haven and it was actually memorable and enjoyable. I liked how it allowed vets to take advantage of progressing their characters more quickly because they knew which npcs to talk to and what places to be at to do things. It allowed me to make characters much, much faster then before.
Could this be a potential down side? Yeah. I dislike how character development was always so grindy, I never felt like making a character naturally where you just level your skills through doing things was very productive as opposed to just macros.
But haven made me feel less guilty about macroing because I could do less of it while doing other things that still benefitted me and were faster.
Haven also introduced a lot of systems that I believe players need to be told about. I don't care what anyone says but the original tutorial honestly fucked new players skills up 90% of the time because it injected random amounts of skill points into different areas that players no idea understood why or how. You could say it was on them to learn but how are you supposed to know when all that would happen was some dialog in the chat box that was easily ignored.
Again. I liked Haven. It was unique, it provided things noobs could take in bite sized chunks rather then just fucking their build from the very beginning, it also provided a race reroll token when they left meaning any mistakes they made on their characters race, age, height, etc. Could be fixed. So thats another perk of haven.
There are some games I continued playing because of good, interesting tutorials. I don't think it'll detract from the hard-core experience if people are time locked in the amount of time they spend on haven.
They should include a section in the tutorial somehow, where you do die and you lose your stuff and it teaches you about loss. They do need to add areas where you can be attacked, but other places should just follow the fledgling flag status like the last game (or something along those lines).
Now I'm not taking a dig at Godkin, but I will strongly oppose his view on this because I believe Haven helps more then it hurts. It also helps people find guilds.
Godkin will probably die on this hill, as he is someone who believed the old way characters work skill wise (as in, having multiple characters fill very specific niche roles rather than being all around useful characters) was a good idea which I also disagree with. As opposed to what we're getting now which is characters that can fight and craft.
I'm going to remain in the side that is pro-haven because it does more good then bad.
But I again think this island needs a hard capped time in which players can stay alike to the help channel where you only have so much time within it / on it.
Sure. I started the game when the tutorial was garbage and had to basically teach myself. Did this give me a unique experience? Yes, but do I literally remember it piece by piece? No.
I played through haven and it was actually memorable and enjoyable. I liked how it allowed vets to take advantage of progressing their characters more quickly because they knew which npcs to talk to and what places to be at to do things. It allowed me to make characters much, much faster then before.
Could this be a potential down side? Yeah. I dislike how character development was always so grindy, I never felt like making a character naturally where you just level your skills through doing things was very productive as opposed to just macros.
But haven made me feel less guilty about macroing because I could do less of it while doing other things that still benefitted me and were faster.
Haven also introduced a lot of systems that I believe players need to be told about. I don't care what anyone says but the original tutorial honestly fucked new players skills up 90% of the time because it injected random amounts of skill points into different areas that players no idea understood why or how. You could say it was on them to learn but how are you supposed to know when all that would happen was some dialog in the chat box that was easily ignored.
Again. I liked Haven. It was unique, it provided things noobs could take in bite sized chunks rather then just fucking their build from the very beginning, it also provided a race reroll token when they left meaning any mistakes they made on their characters race, age, height, etc. Could be fixed. So thats another perk of haven.
There are some games I continued playing because of good, interesting tutorials. I don't think it'll detract from the hard-core experience if people are time locked in the amount of time they spend on haven.
They should include a section in the tutorial somehow, where you do die and you lose your stuff and it teaches you about loss. They do need to add areas where you can be attacked, but other places should just follow the fledgling flag status like the last game (or something along those lines).
Now I'm not taking a dig at Godkin, but I will strongly oppose his view on this because I believe Haven helps more then it hurts. It also helps people find guilds.
Godkin will probably die on this hill, as he is someone who believed the old way characters work skill wise (as in, having multiple characters fill very specific niche roles rather than being all around useful characters) was a good idea which I also disagree with. As opposed to what we're getting now which is characters that can fight and craft.
I have to admit that I was the guy who hit the skill cap on the runescape tutorial island AND I also was the guy farming rare clothes drops on the maple story island.
Haven should have the same thing. like rare clothes/items drops so you can be the swag nobbie
Haven should have the same thing. like rare clothes/items drops so you can be the swag nobbie
The problem is that we won't know if Haven helps (early indication is that it didn't add anything meaningful or help with retention)
However, the damage is already being done and will continue to accrue. What this game is about, who plays it, and why are following the tail end of MO1 rather than the strong early game that had 10s of thousands interested. Though I admit, it's been a long time since the Vision in MO1 was abandoned, I'd hope with a fresh start Henrik would undo all the silly compromises.
Yeah, I liked specialization. It encourages teamwork, politics, and treating people cautiously. Reputation matters more when you need to rely on others. I still like it, though not interested in "dying on that hill" so to speak. I just see both sides. Just wait for the endless requests for more skill points, no matter how many skill points they hand out. People will always want more until it has no value. It's foolish to think you can normalize everything and make everyone happy without costing something else.
The similarity here is that both specialization and hardcore elements of the game make things more meaningful because they are difficult and scarce. That is in some ways the only advantage MO has over any other game in the genre and they discard it at their peril. The hand everything to everyone approach is boring and the opposite of what made MO great despite it's nearly infinite flaws.
This is a great discussion, besides the odd bit of ad-hominem going off track.
I'm actually not a fan of the Haven idea, there are better ways that will retain players far longer if done right from the start, and in the true environment as intended.
I do have hope that the new system of one character, no FTP and a reputation/standing system being given a good chance to work at this early learning stage is another good reason to add this as a unique aspect rather than another 'starter island' game, this is not comparable to old MO in this respect.
Reputation and Standing could even be given as reward to characters that associate and help new players as they vent their inevitable frustrations along the early learning curve, as my wife says "you die a lot, get over it", maybe griefers will at least wait a while before bothering, also a good time for guild recruiters to get involved, who else better to point out the many possible secrets and greater reasons to get involved asap, I know we literally had no clue about any of it until we got talking to players who knew, and if there's one thing we are NOT short on, it's players that have come back to see the game succeed.
Maybe here I can see the issue if there's a large influx and not enough around to help, so perhaps a timed global help chat like we've had before and currently.
Personally, I'm crap at quest-like tutorials and instructions, that shit in Tindrem Gardens made no sense at all when I started and left me more confused than before starting, not intuitive, but I'm more visual, hands-on, get out and do it in my learning so I don't know if that's broad spectrum for such a unique game but nothing beats personal interaction for both learning and player retention.
What DID make sense apart from other players helping, was the awesome videos watching others doing the stuff I had interest in, that set me goals, challenges and a path to persist with.
Tindrem Gardens, Haven and OMFG that Golden Valley in Wurm, that did NOT help, luckily my wife had already played it before we met and there was no Golden Valley when she started, so again, that direct personal help was the main reason I stayed, I did play both Wurm and MO for years due to other players interaction in those very early moments of starting the game.
BUT
*IF* Haven has to exist for some technical instanced buffer landing zone for this expected influx, then it really should be;
MUCH smaller
- like reduce it to the current walk from pond to graveyard to town, that's it.
LIMITED resources
- one type of rock ( maybe Granum so it's just like MO2 is now lol ), one tree type/wood, one pickable and one animal like a springbok so you get the feel for the AI and using bows, butchering cooking etc,
LIMITED skill levelling of any sort,
- nothing past the old FTP system anyway, maybe the graveyard is useful to get a vague clue about AI and fighting, hard to learn much more without being on the mainland system anyway.
LIMITED time
- seriously this should be a big deal, nothing encourages crap gameplay like being left on a half-arsed tutorial island endlessly, it's a great 'haven' for lazy gameplay, casual gamers, uber-carebears, impatient ADHD FPS gamers and ppl like me without a lot of free game time and can see no point to pushing further and might just stay in the mini-not-quite-mo2-game of Haven if there's no goals or time limits,
I personally think that's a big psychological one and the potential damage unseen.
LIMITED transfer items
- when you go to mainland, you only take rags and an axe or sword plus the limited skill set.
Blah blah blah TL;DR I say no Haven, but if you have to have it, make EVERYTHING limited including time.
I'm actually not a fan of the Haven idea, there are better ways that will retain players far longer if done right from the start, and in the true environment as intended.
I do have hope that the new system of one character, no FTP and a reputation/standing system being given a good chance to work at this early learning stage is another good reason to add this as a unique aspect rather than another 'starter island' game, this is not comparable to old MO in this respect.
Reputation and Standing could even be given as reward to characters that associate and help new players as they vent their inevitable frustrations along the early learning curve, as my wife says "you die a lot, get over it", maybe griefers will at least wait a while before bothering, also a good time for guild recruiters to get involved, who else better to point out the many possible secrets and greater reasons to get involved asap, I know we literally had no clue about any of it until we got talking to players who knew, and if there's one thing we are NOT short on, it's players that have come back to see the game succeed.
Maybe here I can see the issue if there's a large influx and not enough around to help, so perhaps a timed global help chat like we've had before and currently.
Personally, I'm crap at quest-like tutorials and instructions, that shit in Tindrem Gardens made no sense at all when I started and left me more confused than before starting, not intuitive, but I'm more visual, hands-on, get out and do it in my learning so I don't know if that's broad spectrum for such a unique game but nothing beats personal interaction for both learning and player retention.
What DID make sense apart from other players helping, was the awesome videos watching others doing the stuff I had interest in, that set me goals, challenges and a path to persist with.
Tindrem Gardens, Haven and OMFG that Golden Valley in Wurm, that did NOT help, luckily my wife had already played it before we met and there was no Golden Valley when she started, so again, that direct personal help was the main reason I stayed, I did play both Wurm and MO for years due to other players interaction in those very early moments of starting the game.
BUT
*IF* Haven has to exist for some technical instanced buffer landing zone for this expected influx, then it really should be;
MUCH smaller
- like reduce it to the current walk from pond to graveyard to town, that's it.
LIMITED resources
- one type of rock ( maybe Granum so it's just like MO2 is now lol ), one tree type/wood, one pickable and one animal like a springbok so you get the feel for the AI and using bows, butchering cooking etc,
LIMITED skill levelling of any sort,
- nothing past the old FTP system anyway, maybe the graveyard is useful to get a vague clue about AI and fighting, hard to learn much more without being on the mainland system anyway.
LIMITED time
- seriously this should be a big deal, nothing encourages crap gameplay like being left on a half-arsed tutorial island endlessly, it's a great 'haven' for lazy gameplay, casual gamers, uber-carebears, impatient ADHD FPS gamers and ppl like me without a lot of free game time and can see no point to pushing further and might just stay in the mini-not-quite-mo2-game of Haven if there's no goals or time limits,
I personally think that's a big psychological one and the potential damage unseen.
LIMITED transfer items
- when you go to mainland, you only take rags and an axe or sword plus the limited skill set.
Blah blah blah TL;DR I say no Haven, but if you have to have it, make EVERYTHING limited including time.
Last edited:
If SV plans on having Haven in MO2, make it so that players are there solely to learn how to play the game on a rail-roaded form. Not to live there, not to amass starting resources to take to the mainland, but to learn basic and advanced gameplay.
Make the players go through a series of activities where they learn how to move, use the UI, interact with world objects, crafting, combat, and so on. Allow them to go through the tutorials as many times as they want, however they will not be permitted to take anything with them when they leave.
This will return Haven to its intended purpose and nothing else.
Make the players go through a series of activities where they learn how to move, use the UI, interact with world objects, crafting, combat, and so on. Allow them to go through the tutorials as many times as they want, however they will not be permitted to take anything with them when they leave.
This will return Haven to its intended purpose and nothing else.
Seriously disagree with the idea of limited time. Newbs should not feel rushed through their tutorial just because a few veterans are antsy that they might stay there forever and not be ganked.
If there is a time limit it would need to communicated so a newb knows if they accidentally leave their character in-game they'll lose the ability to do the tutorial. And communicating a time limit will make people feel antsy by it's mere presence. It's simply better to limit the content and have no time limit.
Also I think giving rewards for the tutorial that carry over into the game makes it more engaging. But what you can get should be limited.
If there is a time limit it would need to communicated so a newb knows if they accidentally leave their character in-game they'll lose the ability to do the tutorial. And communicating a time limit will make people feel antsy by it's mere presence. It's simply better to limit the content and have no time limit.
Also I think giving rewards for the tutorial that carry over into the game makes it more engaging. But what you can get should be limited.
- Status