Haven Redux

[Crayon]

I didn’t want to engage with this because the OP specifically requested no arguments, however, I feel obligated to defend Dad’s honor here:

[quote=Evermore]Of people being able to impose veterancy and superiority over others.[/quote]

[quote=Evermore]But, no, I also genuinely believe the Hunt is a terrible mechanic that does little motivate/incentivize players, and mostly exists to cripple someone, stifle progress, etc.[/quote]

You lost me here. The entire point of the Hunt and similar mechanics is to keep the MUD from becoming topheavy with karma wealthy players stockpiling, retaining, and using karma faster than any new player could hope to catch up with. The mechanic you’re complaining about most does the thing you claim to want most.

[quote=Ama86]the part of Haven that was consistently popular. That’s it’s school sphere. Nothing else ever stood up to the test of time. All other aspects of Haven, across its versions, failed to be good enough to really get the population outside the school sphere to be enough to sustain a game.[/quote]

School spheres are cool.

Haven’s school spheres are actually [i]historically unpopular[/i]. The [i]appearance[/i] of thriving only came about by completely isolating that sphere of the game in a small sub-sphere where the size of the sphere facilitated more engagement.

In Haven 1, to the best of my knowledge, there was no school. It was mostly a concept of a school. Theoretically there was a Haven High somewhere and it had students and a football team called the Gatekeepers maybe, but it didn’t exist physically and virtually nobody incorporated it into their characters’ backgrounds.

In Haven 2, there was a physical school, but it was virtually never used and the players of school age characters pretty much never went to school or did things at the school.

In Haven 3, there was a school, it was incredibly unpopular, and a handful of especially stinky eggs drove changes that would come in the next iteration.

In Haven 4, there was a school and school age characters were limited to playing in that school. For the first time it became somewhat popular.

In Haven 5, the school remained, but play in it was seasonal and largely contingent on large groups of active, story-centric roleplayers joining it at the same time. There were a few windows of success but for the most part, every time those player groups bounced in disgust, the sphere would crumble.

In Haven 6, ???.

In Haven 7, there is a college sphere and it’s not super popular.

For most of Haven’s existence the school sphere has been unpopular or nonexistent.

[quote=Evermore]Of people wanting others to play how they felt the lore/mechanics should be interpreted.[/quote]

Yes, that’s how collaborative narrative works. We all have a set of guidelines and rules in the form of a very deliberately light lore we’re supposed to be following, and as this is a written medium, the only things keeping us coloring within the lines are ourselves and each other. Haven is very, very, very deliberately designed to have as lightweight, easily-learned, and nonrestrictive lore as physically possible specifically to make it easier for newbies to adjust and get up to speed. If [i]that[/i] lore and the expectations it brings are too much… I don’t know what to tell you, mate.

[quote=Alpha]maybe the issue with H7 isn’t the Wild Hunt[/quote]

I actually had a friend keeping an eye on the login metrics for Haven around this time period because I could kind of smell the direction the wind was blowing and wanted to have a finger on the pulse so I could try to identify what was making it so weak. The biggest dropoff was actually a month or two before the Wild Hunt, around when I started phasing out of play. I don’t know anybody else’s particulars, but I felt like I was running into bugs around every corner, it was taking them a while to get fixed, and I was too tired to keep trucking. That’s not a knock on Nova, I’d have been fried after a [i]fraction[/i] of all that work & months of opening bug fixes too. After the first dip, the Hunt delivered a second big dip, but I would argue that at that point the game was already self-selecting for players that overvalue long-term code power and perceive systems like karma as incentive structures moreso than as permission structures.

[Crayon]

@bean
Garbanzo.

[Evermore]

“The biggest dropoff was actually a month or two before the Wild Hunt, around when I started phasing out of play.” That’s actually interesting. I was of belief that the Hunt was the main detractor. That does sway my opinion of it slightly, and actually helps understand the other factors that caused either quick burn-out or just general disinterest in the continuation of this cycle. I came in around early December, I want to say, and was away for Christmas to come back about 1.5 month later, late January. By that time, player count had significantly dropped from what I previously saw on the Who list. And a lot of conversation was going on about the Hunt, so I guess that biased my perception of it.

Also, to elaborate on what I don’t like about the Wild Hunt currently is that it doesn’t seem to work with the current amount of players. The first Hunt I was hit by pretty much swept everyone excl 2-3 people. If it hits again come August, it’s likely going to grab every character again, safe for one or two. I am not against the idea of a system existing to prevent a game from becoming too top-heavy. One of my issues with a MU* I played before Haven was how it had also reached a state where just about everyone walking around kind of ended up being this master-of-all bundle of bloat, and little was required to maintain such a position in the game’s power balance. In an ideal state, with the RPXP and Karma bonuses later introduced, and enough people around to actively engage in encounters and plots, the loss of the Hunt could probably be regained within that first month. The last time that happened, it was a different story.

Appreciate your input/corrections, Crayon – genuinely.

[leah]

hello my friends

i just want to chime in and say a few things:

1. the idea of a haven classic is a good idea and was one of the foundational ideas that we wanted to build on over at duskholm.

2. in no way do we at duskholm agree with any sentiment that we’ve made a better game, nor would we ever dream of downplaying the 15 years of Haven development that Nova very generously gave out for free to us and the rest of the world with no expectations for any sort of credit (although if you look at HELP HAVEN in duskholm or my announcements in our forum you will find me dick riding Nova into the sunset for everything he’s done)

3. i have always advertised that we at duskholm don’t suggest that we should be your main game, and that if you just play duskholm during your haven downtime, we’d appreciate that.

Pooch and I have no interest in competing with haven, we love haven, we love Nova and Discordance and Editor and we are eternally grateful to run a copy of what they built, and anyone who espouses rhetoric to the contrary, or espouses rhetoric of any form of duskholm superiority does not have a vision that is in-line with that of the duskholm staff.

To Nova specifically: If you’re going to do this, I think usurping H7 with H:R is the only way it works. Splintering the pbase between two Havens might not be possible with the dwindling population of our hobby. You know better than I do, that’s just my two cents. Thanks for everything, I love you, and tell Mom I love her.

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