Haven Redux

[Ouroboros]

So if you look at the player count of a typical MMO you’ll see a big bunch of players at launch, then it slowly dwindles until there’s an expansion then it spikes back up and then slowly dwindles again. Haven’s always worked much the same way except with new versions/pwipes instead of expansions.

The issue with this is that a new version requires me to have inspiration for some new take on the setting/premise which is pretty unreliable, and I have to be pretty inspired by that idea or the work is going to be plagued with distractions, procrastination etc and it’ll take like 5 years instead of 6 months to get done.

I don’t have that atm but I know some people are hankering for some sort of reset or the like. So what I could do, only if people want it mind, is a kind of Vanilla Haven re-run.

So I started git tracking Haven code around Haven 5 time, so I could do something along the lines of restoring Haven 5 and letting it run until people start to get bored of it, then restoring Haven 6 same thing, then back to Haven 7. Backporting more recent bug fixes, performance fixes and quality improvements and potentially backporting a few features, or even forward porting a few if there’s stuff from before Haven 5 that people would really like to see and there’s enough code for me to put it together.

I don’t think I have copies of area files from Haven 5, but I do have them for Haven 6 and they weren’t massively different.

This is still a bit of work but it’s not a crazy amount of work so it’s pretty feasible and doesn’t require me to somehow force myself to be inspired for a new version.

As I see it the appeal would generally be:
A) It’s sort of new, like it’s been long enough since those versions that people will have forgotten 90% of the lore/systems etc so that actually is kind of like experiencing something new.
B) Nostalgia, getting to revisit lore and systems from a while ago could be fun for players who were around then.
C) New players getting to see what older players talked about etc.
D) You get to experience the best version of that iteration, one issue with games is the code gets better over the iteration as bugs are found, tweaks are bad etc, but the pbase also drops over that same time, so you’d actually in this case be playing a version of like Haven 5 that’s more polished and bug free and optimized than almost anyone actually did at the time.

On the other side:
A) rose-tinted glasses, you might find the actual game is a lot worse than it was in your memory just because of nostalgia, or a lot of what you loved about an iteration really was the moment and people etc.
B) Regressions: a lot of later iterations are partly designed to specifically address problems with previous ones, so while I can try and do some tweaks or backports etc you’re still going to be running into stuff that’s strictly worse than it is today.

It’s also really impossible to know how popular something like this would be, I could easily see a load of people getting hyped for a retro experience but also easily see not many people being into it, I’ve really no idea.

I don’t think there’s enough players for retro Haven and current one so this would be the live game if I do it.

I wanted to get a feel for what people thought of the idea, if they like it or not, if there are particular systems or the like they’d especially like to see backported or forwardported etc if we do go ahead.

Please no essays, just your opinions, and please no arguing about how it should or shouldn’t function, if something’s unclear I’ll make a poll or the like later on.

[Diego]

I’d be really interested in taking things back to small town Haven, regardless of iteration. I played five and six and would love to play either of them again.

[bean]

i think the main issue with H7 was just the amount of AI sloppification. i’m not into that and i know many people feel the same way, and dropped off for the same reason.

i wouldn’t play an older version of haven that had blackfield, and that also seems unnecessary given duskholm exists now.

abominations would be interesting to see again, also the old b3 with the class system back when it was less power=corruption and the factions were all pretty balanced power-wise. but that’s from way before h5/6/7. that older version had problems for sure and i’m not saying it was better, just that it holds nostalgia.

[Mirudus]

I would also be much more interested in small town 5/6 than I would in continuing 7.
I am also not actively playing H7 currently, so I also would not lose anything if it happened.

In re: particular systems I’d especially like to see:
– small town environment/grid and previous lore, as established
– previous ability system in combat (i.e. cooldowns and refreshes)
– player dreamworld system (I thought the AI adventures for dreams were a very cool and appropriate application of it, but miss the ability to create/dreamgod/run events etc easily from your own dreamworlds)

[Ckaleb]

Consider trusting someone as a story admin again and be moderate on using patch-balance fixes to wrist slap. Eidolons and Higher Powers were cool and sorta put someone in a high narrative position, but were neutered when abused. Gotta have a relationship of trust and communication between players or the game suffers in every way.

Honestly, some of this discussion might be productive towards the question, ‘what are we going to do with the RG.’

[emo]

i could see myself playing, but it would go a long way to have some staff for moderation
and personally would like it if we could abolish the appearance system, or at least more subdued, contained to checkout or something
a lil tired of my characters forced to be attracted to Jason Mamoa

[Preheating]

I never played H5 at all, but I did play H6 and H7. I’d absolutely be interested in playing either H5 or H6 and shifting back to that smaller town feeling. For me, personally, I lost a lot of interest when I saw how MASSIVE the grid was in H7. It took away a lot of the opportunistic RP from just randomly bumping into people on the street.

[Calista]

If you just need an opinion one way or another then, yes. I’d be more than happy to come back to small town Haven in whatever iteration. The tweaks I’m sure need their own conversation but I’m in full support of this rollback.

[Crayon]

I would probably give Haven Redux episodes a try, but I suspect the novelty and nostalgia will fade fast. I’m not sure how feasible it is to backport the panoply of bugfixes or how likely it is that abuses, exploitation, and behavior issues would be any better.

As for what features I’d like to see backported:

1) the weekly RP XP and karma distribution systems were an improvement when they worked and make a huge difference in my likely unpopular opinion
2) the SR’d combat improvements in H7 were phenomenal and a ton of fun
3) Myhaven is a banger, imo
4) the AI-animated NPCs were actually pretty fun and don’t get slop on anybody’s face unless they’re dunking their own head in the trough; this could probably even be extended to giving people the ability to customize background, personality, etc., on NPCs for animated shopkeepers etc.

That said, while revisiting old versions is a great way to have fun with friends, if the goal is to make the best game, I’d rather see you try to isolate some of the elements people have the most nostalgia for and try to stitch them back into the fabric of a future Haven, with the first thing on my mind being the small town horror vibes.

I think H7 was actually quite good, the only real obstacle to its success was that it felt unfinished and undertested, and it felt like you burnt out before we got there (understandably).

I think the best format for a Redux run would be a pop-up game with a set lifecycle and somebody running a plot to wrap it up before we all remember why things changed.

[Esme]

I played on H6 and would be interested in playing a small town version again.

I agree, too, with a lot of Crayon’s suggestions. I liked being able to set challenges and the rolling system as well as fun.

I’d also love to see the dreamworlds have some proper ST Abilities like Mirudus mentioned.

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