Haven Redux

[Holic]

Kinda late to this but whatevs. I would much rather see H7 as it is currently receive fresh infusion of life, maybe like a soft relaunch without wiping everything. Obviously I have some bias since H7 was my first and I’m more interested in the unfinished stories there than having to start all over again with yet another new character, but having now experienced H6 code I can say with confidence that I vastly prefer the former. It has a lot more to engage with, lots of little QOL additions, incentives that make grinding feel purposeful.. I could gush forever. Is it perfect? No, but the potential there is insane.

I like the more big city feel but the map could use a trim and that’s an easy enough fix, maybe spin the relaunch as an event/story where the Legion or the Other or some kind of force has eaten up parts of the city to the point that they’re no longer accessible, just as an example.

The Legion is a very real, very present threat taking over parts of the city that people can’t easily gloss over or forget is part of the theme. That players can roll LTs only made it even more interesting and scary in the fun way, and raids actually taking place on grid as opposed to in the nightmare make believe realm made the stakes feel higher.

It has so many things to engage with. Arguably too many when you consider the learning curve for newbies, but god I loved doing couriers, encounters, smash’n’grabs, etc. I always felt like there was something to do, and people were driven to participate because of the potential rewards involved.

The Hunt needs to go, for sure. I’d honestly prefer Doom because you can plan accordingly to rest your character for x amount of time without actually losing the investment.

TLDR H7 was one of if not the best roleplaying experience I’ve ever had and I want to go back to that world.

[Evermore]

I share most of what the post above said, which also holds true as this was my first exposure to Haven’s roleplaying and narrative potential. I didn’t see the Announcement by Ouroboros initially, and I’m genuinely really saddened to see it get terminated. There’s so much I haven’t got to try yet that is available currently, and there’s so much story left unwritten and unfinished. I found quite a lot of motivation to keep playing, learning more about the game and being able to establish a society that could be welcoming to new and returning people alike. There’s no motivation to speak of throwing all that away, starting anew from scrap in a setting I know very little of, or even cobble up a character to throw into that sphere I feel inspired to play. I decided to commit to this iteration when I was asking for direction, and some of the kind and patient people who helped guide me towards diving into joining the society network, joining the anti-Legion movement, partaking in plots I felt a little out of place and uncomfortable in initially. Would have loved to see this was more of a wake-up call, that with some commitment and changes, this version of Haven can etch out a resurgence of sorts. But we can’t always have what we want, that is just life, right? 😛

Thanks to everyone who helped shepherd me during my rough and confusing start on my character; It was genuinely what made me stick around, because I found caring and committed people who helped me find quite an inspiring and intriguing world in this peculiar coastal city to try establish myself in. It was a great experience, even if I only have had little interaction with some of you. I would have also loved to see what this game could have been, or was before when it was bustling, and see what kind of interesting stories and events could take place. Best of luck 🙂

[Talia]

You are good, Evermore. I shared the same perspective…. 😛

[Talia]

Was the majority really for a wipe, Nova? It seems to me that it was at least an even split. But I am too tired to run the tally rn.

As I said before: I think a relaunch will just kill what is left of the game. The people who enjoyed the H5/H6 feel have mostly moved on to Dusholm. People who are currently sticking around on H7 will be demotivated. I know I will be. I don’t think I will make new chars if there is a wipe now.
Also, Undespire, the current hype MUD opens on 23. September. Wiping Haven a day later is not a good idea.

I agree with Holic that the best way would be a soft relaunch of H7. Fixing some issues, trimming the map, etc. but keeping the chars.

[Evermore]

Even, currently with those of us talking in Tells/Newbie, nobody seems to want to let H7 go. Some were not even aware of the possible wipe, yet, so it might be their voices are left completely unheard, favoured instead by a vocal majority of people who, to my understanding, had also moved on or abandoned this ship entirely.

[Kai]

For what it’s worth I hope at least the favor system could be rolled back to whatever version launches. I found this version to be the least griefy and I think that people knew they couldn’t just kill their way out of problems was a net positive to the game. I had a lot of fun with H7, sorry to see it go.

[Alpha]

It is convenient that Haven Redux is beginning at the start of the fall semester.

Looking forward to seeing the cool kids on campus next week.

[Dream]

There is a world where this could be a really cool theme in the same vein as LOTJ where we start a ‘timeline’ and go through Eras of Haven where Haven 5 is sometime in the 1970s, Haven 6 is the 1990-2000s and haven 7 is modern day. And through that evolution each cycle of iterations has a soft pwipe. That way you can get rid of all the secrecy/doom mechanics because the wipes will be fairly frequent.

You could go through the eras over 2-3 RL years and at the end of it all do it again if its successful.

Some cool things you could do with this is have immortal characters go through the iterations experiencing the changes in technology and theme. While some players might even want to play the grown up offspring of their previous characters once a 20-30 year time jump has occured.

I dont know. I just thought this was a fun idea and it might be mildly inspiring for Nova to consider. Like he even said he sort of needs something to get him in the zone to try new things.

Not saying this would be it, but any type of cyclical system has some real merits and stuff you could do to make it interesting.

[bean]

@dream my 2c:

i think players usually do themselves disservice when they seek to remake chars & their arcs like that across iterations

you are not hurting me as a fellow player if you do this so i’m not telling you not to do it, if it’s what you want to do.

but every iteration is a chance for a fresh start, fresh ties, setting aside old hurts.

maybe bob pk’d sue in h5. maybe he had good reason too. but in h6 they make new chars & get along great. this probably has less chance happening if they remake bob & sue, or bob the second & suzie suesdottir.

plus if you remake bob, ppl are less curious or hyped to meet bob in h6. they see you on who list and go, oh this guy again. whereas when they see connelly they go omg who’s this new connelly guy, is he cute??

again just my 2c, this is not a policy recommendation or anything. but i think it is usually in a player’s own best interests to embrace a full fresh start. to not do that isn’t exactly harmful tho, so live your best life.

[Alpha]

1900s Haven would be fun for a weekend. Maybe even a 3-day weekend. But months-on-end of questionable fashion, no texting, no pop culture from the past quarter-century, ugly cars, ‘muh racism/sexism is thematic, akshully’, and constant anachronistic meme references? No thank you, friend.

[Evermore]

Nothing about that suggestion sounds fun for me, beyond a one-weekend shtick. At that point, just host an event in Haven and brainwash us all present to behave like we’re in the Roaring 60s or something.

[Dream]

I felt very very old at the suggestion that the 90s were some sort of dark age of technology and living. I’ll go back into my cave.

[Alpha]

LOL.

My bad, Dream – that wasn’t the intention. I just know Haven isn’t as much fun without texting, we don’t have code for pagers, some players don’t even know what a CD is, and realistically players aren’t going to learn 90s slang, fashion brands, and current events with enough depth to make it immersive for a real-world setting.

[bean]

what if haven became a period drama where everyone’s birth year starts with a 1

[Seraphina]

I am late to the conversation. I am not sure how I feel about the redux myself. My biggest complaint with H7 was the heavy reliance on a very questionable LLM. But there were some very cool improvements that came with H7. RPFights were fun; courier events being my favorite. Destinies were interesting if you could get one. Favor was nice (when you could get it). Having AI determine what was good rp and what wasn’t in order to give you payout was not good. Half the time it didn’t even work. I liked the idea of bargaining… when it worked. I had issues where I was told that you could always bargain for purity but was blocked because the AI glitched?

I don’t think that the change from small town to big city was the issue. But the size certainly was. The small town worked a little better because we were closer to each other. But, there was still an issue of getting people out on the grid. That’s a player contrived issue, not an issue with the game development though.

Ultimately, it was the wild hunt that really did it for me. I understand the idea behind and need for trying to stop bloat but I also think that a little oversight can help that instead of taking away hard earned and not-super-easy to get karma away.

I feel like going backwards without the fixes and the improvements is an easy way to possibly bring back players for our nostalgia, but I’d rather see H7 get a little more personable oversight and less AI drivel. I dabble with AI just like the next person, and it can do some really neat things. But it drifts and morphs and changes to what it thinks you want, and needs to have a finger on its pulse to slap sense back into it.

I don’t expect Nova to take on that responsibility wholly, he’s been doing this for so long, it’s understandable how he’d want to move on from Haven and try some new things.

[Author]

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