Early Impressions

[Matias]

Since the game is in a death loop I think because of an angry RG.

1. Early impressions of the new grid. Is it doing it for you?

2. Early impressions of the lookfor system. Do you understand it? Is it mixing things up?

3. Early impression of Windermere. Is it inspiring any interesting student RP?

4. Early impressions of LLM interactivity. Is the AI RP the bane of existence or can you dig it?

[Oracle]

So far I am quite enjoying the game. I don’t have as much time to play these days as I used to, and I really struggled to find something to hook onto in H5 and H6, but this version seems to be going well for me.

1. The grid is a bit large for my tastes. I usually avoid getting a car or bike as a character because walking helped me to know the grid much better and allow for patrols and being captured / attacked, etc. This time I gave in and got a vehicle. I think I am getting the hang of it though.

2. It took me about a week to even realize the lookfor system was there and then to figure out how to use it. It isn’t as intuitive as I would like. I’m still not sure I have it figured out completely but I am starting to get hits on it and be able to feel more involved, which is nice.

3. I haven’t played in Windermere yet.

4. The LLM stuff is a little janky, especially with its opening salvo. Perhaps it should wait for the player to open the scene instead of jumping to some weird conclusions like it did with the one I was involved with. On the other hand, and I think this vastly outweighs the downsides, I deeply appreciate the chance to roleplay with something (even if it isn’t someone) as badly off-peak player. I play in the hours where in some versions there were only 2 or 3 characters online. Getting patrols or encounters to fire when there are so few players online was painful and just depressing. This time I happened to stumble into an event where the others couldn’t reach in time, so I was on my own. It was really refreshing to have something to bounce my RP off instead of just talking to myself and feeling very weird. I think this holds a great deal of promise for us off-peak players (assuming we can get encounters to go off and get a chance at some karma, too). I haven’t jumped into the dreamworlds yet, but I am also looking forward to trying that out for off-peak RP.

[Dovie]

1. Early impressions of the new grid. Is it doing it for you?

I like the new grid. I like that there are various neighborhoods that have different flavors. It still feels a little too big to me, but I remain open minded. I’m quite excited to see more shops/stores opening up. I hope people will start making use of offices too for RP. I personally love the loft/shop combo layout and wish there were more of those outside of downtown. In general, would have been great to see a variety of shop/store layout types more diversely spread in each borough. The one downside of some buildings is that they feel easy to get lost in, but I think once we get used to navigating the grid, it will be easier to handle.

One aspect I do really enjoy in h7 is peak hours for shops and stores. The reminders are great. Players seem to really flock to those locations to help support RP (and in general it seems like groups tend to congregate and move to various locations). Highly encourage everyone to keep spreading the RP location love here.

2. Early impressions of the lookfor system. Do you understand it? Is it mixing things up?

Admittedly, I need to test this more myself. I did one encounter, which was essentially similar to how encounters in h6 worked minus having an SR account. The thing I would really like more clarity on is whether your PC should also be included in the encounter itself (it seems a little odd to me to run the encounter and also have yourself be a character; I saw this was asked in another thread, but I do not think we have an official answer yet).

3. Early impression of Windermere. Is it inspiring any interesting student RP?

This I can’t speak on as much. I think there’s a segment of the player population that is participating in student/University RP, which is great. Just not my sphere (yet). Because the grid is so large, if you are not organically a student/teacher/WU focused player, you may not cross paths as much. That being said, turnout to IC events has been very positive across the board and there’s been a high player count so it feels like people are trying to form new connections, etc. to get into more RP hooks with one another. I’m hopeful this spirit will continue. I’ve seen class events on the calendar too, which is great!

4. Early impressions of LLM interactivity. Is the AI RP the bane of existence or can you dig it?

I’ve heard of LLM interactivity, but I’m not sure which form of ‘look for’ this appears in. I would be curious of people’s experience interacting with the AI.

[August]

I. Early impressions of the new grid. Is it doing it for you?

The size of the new grid is immense, and it is daunting – but in the long-term? I imagine that it will get filled up with more and more shops, stores, themes and ideas that people couldn’t bring out with the limited space of a small town in h6. No one has to worry about not having a house, there is more than enough for everyone – and caters to every sort of trope. Motel guy? Rent one. Student dorm? All yours. Lofts are incredible, and having a shop and a home in the same place has been down right incredible for aesthetic and convenience. It’s def. doing it for me.

II. Early impressions of the lookfor system. Do you understand it? Is it mixing things up?

I agree with the sentiment that it’s not as intuitive as it should be or I’d hope it would be. I couldn’t make sense of it during the testing phase, and I still can’t. I’m sure it just takes actually using it a few times to get the hang of it, but until I can hold off on *doing* stuff across the grid and focus on them, I’ll stay inexperienced.

III. Early impressions of LLM interactivity. Is the AI RP the bane of existence or can you dig it?

I can dig it when its not done by a player, so this is not bad. It’s a tool to make the world far more alive. Society NPC’s are suddenly ‘alive’, gathering dreamworld xp isn’t such a chore when you’re alone, and it can even be interesting. Generally, I consider this a form of writing practice. Less skin in the game, not as serious, but still something very promising, especially in text-based games.

–
Overall, this iteration rocks, in many ways that H6 fell short of.

[Rosethorn]

Grid:
Like others, I feel the grid is a tad too big but over all I enjoy the thematics, the variety. I’m excited to see the empty properties fill up the list! There’s definitely a lot more room for creativity with the lack of unawareness and everything being out in the open.

Peak hours, also great. I keep forgetting to set them for the rest of my spots but it’s fun to see where the crowds are at varying times and the number of events popping up.

Lookfor:
I haven’t gotten to really mess with this much but I think there’s a lot of room for potential. Shoutout to Thomas and Arachne for their deep dive into Opportunities and Incitements on that front.

It’s all a learning curve and we’re figuring it out together!

LLM:
Definitely janky, but again, potential. I’ve only done one patrol so far and it was hilarious but like, in a good way. I haven’t been able to get the dream scenario LLM to work yet though, so I’m probably doing something wrong if others have been able to.

I think it’s overall going to be a good tool, like was mentioned above – writing practice. Especially if it learns to stop powerposing people lol

[Dream]

I’m wholly impressed by the LLM driven NPC’s and Patrols. I’ve been scolded by my base NPC’s for squatting and not being professional. The one patrol I experienced was just amazing. Gone are the days of repeating echos in a spirit banishing where you just have to make shit up. Now the even morphs and reacts to you and has a conclusion.

Everything about the LLM content is amazing.

—

The grid IS crazy immense. But as we are up to 80 players active, maybe thats not too big anymore.

—

Bugs aside, this new version of Haven is fantastic. The lookfor system seems interesting. I had a good social meet thanks to it as well.

[Chiara]

Grid

So far I’ve enjoyed what the grid offers in terms of space, but I do find myself missing the unique shape of the old grid. I’m hopeful that as players continue to settle in there will be more and more locations to hang around in.

Lookfor

I’ve been a little disappointed in trying to use the Lookfor system. I think it’s mechanically proper and I don’t have a problem with the way it works, but I just haven’t managed to get any interaction on it on a personal level using the support mode. I can’t say if this is or isn’t related to the way it works as opposed to prior patrol systems, but this has just been my experience with it.

LLM

I haven’t had any opportunities to interact with LLMs at all. Frankly I wouldn’t even know they were involved if it weren’t for the occasional newbie chat talking about them. I’ll use this to segue into my minor gripe, though, which is that I find starting out factionless and non-supernatural to be a pretty isolating experience in Haven 7.

The society recruitment mechanisms seem to be all player-run and I’ve found it a challenge to create any IC discussion on that topic since most aren’t starving for members; tells now being hit or miss makes it even more difficult to break past this barrier. Living without a faction/society/etc, Haven 7 is a rather quiet game where there seems to be little going on outside of calendar events and drinks at a bar. I do hope this changes as we get past the game’s first weeks and months and the options for societies diversify, but this has just been my personal experience I wanted to share.

Etc

Some other mechanics like cdrives, opportunities, and incitements haven’t really come into play for me yet and I have a bit of a hard time conceptualizing how they would. Acedia, invitation, and favor have also been beyond my grasp and so I suppose I’m still waiting to see the new features Haven 7 has to offer.

One thing I am enjoying quite a bit is the way Peak Hours work, I feel like they really stimulate roleplay for those locations.

[Mirabel]

The sheer number of new systems and major changes is definitely a little overwhelming, but I suppose that just takes time to get used to. There’s a staggering amount of bugs that make it difficult to figure out how things are meant to work.

The AI NPCs are very impressive and I think that could be used in more places. With a grid as enormous as this, it would really help fill the city out, since it’s essentially almost totally empty outside of a few ever-changing hotspots. Haven has always lacked a meaningful NPC presence, and this can be a great solution to that. I’d love to see anything from interactive shopkeepers to summonable demons, even if it’s just for flavor and RP without any mechanical impact.

Windermere is a little plain and generic. The campus is almost too realistic and thus kind of flavorless. There’s no obvious gathering place, no hotspots, and having like eight entrances leaves the place without a natural funnel for for player traffic. The lore behind the sphere is also kind of barebones, but we can work with it to build on that with our characters over time. I had just hoped for more of a hook that might give the place some weight. As it stands, there’s basically no reason to ever be there outside of calendar events. The room descriptions are very pretty, but the place is a bit dull.

[Thomas]

I also like the AI NPCs.

I think the college would be helped by a couple AI instructors.

I also really like the idea of being able to summon AI demons! In general, my dream has always been to be able to go on AI adventures with my friends.

[Matias]

The Grid

I really like it, I like that it’s empty, I like that it’s so detailed even if it’s clearly LLM generated. Given Haven is a fake city to an extent with fate crafted residents it makes sense there’s nothing there and people are populating it in real time as it were. I also like how there is definitely enough space that if you want to just go do your own thing in a borough or some subsection of a borough you can do that.

The Lookfor

Conceptually like it in practice not a big fan. I need more time with it or a player guide or better helpfiles. I don’t know.

Windermere

I like the lore on the website, the college campus is lacking that central hub although players can solve that. I like the characters in that sphere so far, I’m trying to get connections with as many as I can. It looks promising in general.

LLM Interactivity

I don’t think anyone can say this is not a significant improvement over electric shock, ghost army, magnetism of the old patrols. I haven’t interacted with the LLM named NPCs yet, but at least patrols are pretty good.

[Stitch]

The Grid
It will ideally get fleshed out more as more is added to it. Even if characters disappear, their shops will remain until someone elects to buy it up and do something with it or otherwise. It’ll just take time in this regard, but we finally don’t have a deficit of shops. I agree with Matias that spectating and watching it grow has been an enjoyable experience. I do agree that I’d like to see more loft/shop combos to encourage people to move to other places than Downtown, and it’d make sense to have these in the kind of city that Haven is. Not having a vehicle because you accidentally crashed it after getting the hell out of a post-Big Game Hunt is -painful- though in terms of getting around.

The Lookfor
The helpfile needs to be better. Mechanically, I understand it, but it’s still very… uh. Difficult to wrap your head around what you’re doing. I think Encounters should also be independently launched with Lookfor as well, rather than included with the other patrols.

Windermere
The college is okay, and definitely a notable improvement on historical iterations. Sure, it doesn’t have as much ‘presence’ as White Oak and ‘that which shall not be named’, but that might be a good thing, to be perfectly honest.

LLM Interactivity
Good. I think I still have some moral issues with how LLMs/GenAI is trained, but it does give some good stories that are grounded and make sense within the context of the lore, for sure. Definitely a plus.

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