215 replies to this topic

[Harlotry]

The games problems are obviously more severe than most people think if you're losing 30% of your player base a month. All I really want is a road map for the game: what's being developed and for when, what's a priority. Most games in a beta or early access state can and do provide this and it would go a long way in convincing players to stay.

Or they can keep doing what they have been and let the game bleed out.  I just can't believe people can take a look at those numbers and be hopeful.

[The_Silencer]

Thanks for the update, Mr. Hughes.

[nepacaka]

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You just don't know.

most of the players do not attend the forum, and do not watch the news. they are interested in the result. so that it does not matter how I feel about that.

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New content won't do any good if the system is perpetually broken.

as I said. it was broken with the release of ascension. by your logic, they should not have to issue new furs for a whole year_

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But wouldn't it be better to have 2 new maps, 2 new mechs, AND working voice chat, consistent low pings, improved anti-hacking, and any other kind of FUNCTIONAL aspect of the game that wasn't working before_

yes. it would be better.

but it would be better if devs say: "in the next patch we kill hackers, fixed ping, rework invisible walls, and added new mechs, new maps, and make Hawken with fine womens and red wine..."

and what i hear(read) right now_

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We will have another Development Update in a couple of weeks

so, where the guarantees that all of this will be_ how i know what after 2 months i have my 2 mechs, 2 maps and some fine women_

you have such a guarantee_
not all people have enough patience (and I'm not talking about myself. because I've been waiting a long time)

[Odra]

The next update will discuss the previous updates and how the current update on the update reflects on those updates and vaguely discuss what they would like the next update to be but will simply say to "stay tuned for a soon-to-come update on actual content updates", but will not actually include any content/patch updates until a later update.

[Fstroke]

Harlotry, on June 29 2014 - 02:52 PM, said:

The games problems are obviously more severe than most people think if you're losing 30% of your player base a month. All I really want is a road map for the game: what's being developed and for when, what's a priority. Most games in a beta or early access state can and do provide this and it would go a long way in convincing players to stay.

Or they can keep doing what they have been and let the game bleed out.  I just can't believe people can take a look at those numbers and be hopeful.

Wow youre on a roll. What random number generator do you use. Seems like a good bit of software. Its working for you at least

Edited by Fstroke, June 29 2014 - 04:57 PM.

[CoglioneDestro]

hey hughes this is the my contribute to Hawken

Edited by CoglioneDestro, June 29 2014 - 05:34 PM.

[nokari]

CoglioneDestro, on June 29 2014 - 04:33 PM, said:

hey hughes this is the my contribute to Hawken

I can feel my arteries clogging with joy

[OmegaNull]

Hawken hasn't lost 30 percent of its player base in a month. Either way, it is amazing that none of you really even understand how much work is involved with anything the devs are doing. Could have all of this been resolved earlier_ Yes. However, there are times when something needs to be fleshed out and you think "oh, lets fix that later". By then, things have gotten so bad you don't have a choice. Yes, it sucks. But the fact things are being fixed is a good thing. I would prefer now than never.

Also, taking care of technology debt is something that is not easy and takes time. Let them take care of their services to better provide us with a better game and content! Patience will pay off. So lets continue to play and enjoy this game.

Edited by OmegaNull, June 29 2014 - 08:29 PM.

[Harlotry]

OmegaNull, on June 29 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:

Hawken hasn't lost 30 percent of its player base in a month. Either way, it is amazing that none of you really even understand how much work is involved with anything the devs are doing. Could have all of this been resolved earlier_ Yes. However, there are times when something needs to be fleshed out and you think "oh, lets fix that later". By then, things have gotten so bad you don't have a choice. Yes, it sucks. But the fact things are being fixed is a good thing. I would prefer now than never.

Also, taking care of technology debt is something that is not easy and takes time. Let them take care of their services to better provide us with a better game and content! Patience will pay off. So lets continue to play and enjoy this game.

The numbers disagree with that statement. The community numbers are now the same as they were pre-steam launch.  They've been hemorrhaging players.  The information from Steam proves it. Keep denying it but it's a probably a good chunk of the reason they reworked the economy; cash wasn't flowing in as expected.

[KejiGoto]

Harlotry, on June 29 2014 - 09:11 PM, said:

OmegaNull, on June 29 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:

Hawken hasn't lost 30 percent of its player base in a month. Either way, it is amazing that none of you really even understand how much work is involved with anything the devs are doing. Could have all of this been resolved earlier_ Yes. However, there are times when something needs to be fleshed out and you think "oh, lets fix that later". By then, things have gotten so bad you don't have a choice. Yes, it sucks. But the fact things are being fixed is a good thing. I would prefer now than never.

Also, taking care of technology debt is something that is not easy and takes time. Let them take care of their services to better provide us with a better game and content! Patience will pay off. So lets continue to play and enjoy this game.

The numbers disagree with that statement. The community numbers are now the same as they were pre-steam launch.  They've been hemorrhaging players.  The information from Steam proves it. Keep denying it but it's a probably a good chunk of the reason they reworked the economy; cash wasn't flowing in as expected.

Didn't you start playing Hawken when it moved to Steam_ According to your profile creation date that's when you did and could have sworn you stated earlier that was when you started playing.

Call me crazy but I have a hard time taking the word of someone who speaks about something they weren't around for.

Also the Steam charts only show the highest number of players during the day and not the total players. According to someone who has actually been tracking these stats (Ashfire) and can see individuals who play the game instead of just the highest total has shown that Hawken has been doing a decent job at maintaining numbers. While total players have been down this isn't any kind of surprise for a F2P title like Hawken, this is especially true during a time when there isn't much new content coming because the team is focused on getting other things done such as server migration.

Hawken's highest points of activity have always revolved around patches and it's no wonder numbers are down currently due to the lack of patches over the last few weeks. As someone who has actually been around since the first Close Alpha this is pretty much normal for Hawken. Numbers lag, a patch comes out, and numbers jump right back up.

[SS396]

KejiGoto, on June 29 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

Didn't you start playing Hawken when it moved to Steam_ According to your profile creation date that's when you did and could have sworn you stated earlier that was when you started playing.

Profile creation dates on the forums mean squat.  Its simply the date when you first logged into the forums not the date you signed up.  You could of created a profile in the alpha and never logged into the forums until yesterday, and it would show you yesterdays date as the creation date.  

There is a way to look up the real profile creation date on the account but there isn't any public tools available to do that.

Either way, don't assume anything by that date posted on the forums.

[dontmindme]

KejiGoto, on June 29 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

Harlotry, on June 29 2014 - 09:11 PM, said:

OmegaNull, on June 29 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:

Hawken hasn't lost 30 percent of its player base in a month. Either way, it is amazing that none of you really even understand how much work is involved with anything the devs are doing. Could have all of this been resolved earlier_ Yes. However, there are times when something needs to be fleshed out and you think "oh, lets fix that later". By then, things have gotten so bad you don't have a choice. Yes, it sucks. But the fact things are being fixed is a good thing. I would prefer now than never.

Also, taking care of technology debt is something that is not easy and takes time. Let them take care of their services to better provide us with a better game and content! Patience will pay off. So lets continue to play and enjoy this game.

The numbers disagree with that statement. The community numbers are now the same as they were pre-steam launch.  They've been hemorrhaging players.  The information from Steam proves it. Keep denying it but it's a probably a good chunk of the reason they reworked the economy; cash wasn't flowing in as expected.

Didn't you start playing Hawken when it moved to Steam_ According to your profile creation date that's when you did and could have sworn you stated earlier that was when you started playing.

Call me crazy but I have a hard time taking the word of someone who speaks about something they weren't around for.

Also the Steam charts only show the highest number of players during the day and not the total players. According to someone who has actually been tracking these stats (Ashfire) and can see individuals who play the game instead of just the highest total has shown that Hawken has been doing a decent job at maintaining numbers. While total players have been down this isn't any kind of surprise for a F2P title like Hawken, this is especially true during a time when there isn't much new content coming because the team is focused on getting other things done such as server migration.

Hawken's highest points of activity have always revolved around patches and it's no wonder numbers are down currently due to the lack of patches over the last few weeks. As someone who has actually been around since the first Close Alpha this is pretty much normal for Hawken. Numbers lag, a patch comes out, and numbers jump right back up.

I'll call you crazy.  

Seriously though, I stopped playing months ago and even then it felt like the community was shrinking back to what is was back in the early days or even lower.  And while a patch that fixes all that's broken with Hawken's servers  (and maybe VOIP) would be nice (and greatly needed), they'll eventually have to get some actual content updates out there with new maps, mechs, game modes, weapons, and cosmetics so that people will have a reason to keep grinding to earn those HC/XP points.  Hawken *IS* a F2P game, and will eventually have to capitalize on that in its own way.

And unless you have something concrete to prove that the numbers coming out of STEAM being used by STEAMcharts are that far off, people already troubled by the concurrent player numbers shown there probably aren't going to take you seriously.  As for Ashfire's numbers, aren't those just logon counts over a given time period (I forgot the overall details).  I don't remember the number that was thrown out there, but it seemed larger than I would expect... if he is seeing a large number of logons on his side, but steam is seeing a small number of people active in the game on it's side.. what does that tell you_

Edited by dontmindme, June 29 2014 - 11:03 PM.

[Ade_the_Rare]

Harlotry, on June 29 2014 - 02:52 PM, said:

All I really want is a road map for the game: what's being developed and for when, what's a priority. Most games in a beta or early access state can and do provide this and it would go a long way in convincing players to stay.

This is all you needed to say. This is the point the block of rant was trying to get to.

In reply to this, Hughes has already said he doesn't want to say anything as he doesn't believe they're in a position to while they're upgrading servers and sorting the tech debt.

Want to see a proper cluster-fuzzy bunny_ Look at Nether; roadmap was laid out, people approved, then dev team short-changed players (for w/e reasons), didn't sort out a lot of technical issues and moved onto a new game. Result_ A lot of annoyed people and the bulk player base jumping ship.

Mindlessly rolling out new content or promising things that may or may not be possible in the immediate future w/o fixing the tech debt and "simple" gameplay issues people experience will kill the game. The fact they've subcontracted to a team to fix the tech debt is a major positive, as it proves their commitment to making a good, working game, and leaves the devs free to work on the content, as they should be.

There will be dips and rises in player numbers over time depending on new patch/content releases, the time of day, the weather, who's winning the football, etc. etc. Some people simply get bored and move onto something else for a while. But if the gameplay is spot on, they'll always come back to it. Personally I'd prefer Hawken to be one of those games.

[nepacaka]

about steam numbers of players. well, i'm no need see this statistic (and don't see correct it or not), because I just go to the "Europe region" and look at the empty game servers.

Why do I need some numbers, if sometimes banal nobody to play with_
Siege with 3vs4 players, duels 1vs1 in DM, 5vs6 TDM...it's clearly obvious to me.

[Artist]

nepacaka, on June 30 2014 - 01:12 AM, said:

about steam numbers of players. well, i'm no need see this statistic (and don't see correct it or not), because I just go to the "Europe region" and look at the empty game servers.

Why do I need some numbers, if sometimes banal nobody to play with_
Siege with 3vs4 players, duels 1vs1 in DM, 5vs6 TDM...it's clearly obvious to me.

"I don't believe there are 6 billion humans on earth, I live at the North Pole and I'm clearly the only human left!!"

[nepacaka]

haha, very funny. try to play on 6vs6 match on UK and u clearly understand all. i don't see this 6 billions player in game.

hawken matches have so many choice
1) rare play 6vs6 on UK
2) play 6vs6 on USA with cowards, which actually leave from siege after 2 minute

Edited by nepacaka, June 30 2014 - 01:44 AM.

[Artist]

I only play in UK, have no problem finding games. At what time do you play_

Edited by Artist, June 30 2014 - 01:44 AM.

[MechaMakishima]

Hmmm I guess the reality of Hawken is that there is a lot of work to do. Never would I think back in 2012 that this game still wouldn't be out of beta/early access come 2015 but it's looking that way. It's true not to make promises you can't keep, but theirs only so long people can hang in there. You haven't exactly given me enough reason to drop more money into this game, or excite players with new meaningful content. The players that don't even use the forums don't care about migration, sure that stuff is important, but to many I doubt that's going to keep them playing.

I still don't get the argument of player base either, I mostly play on Europe server, it's pretty obvious the games player base has dropped. Yes you can find games(poor unbalanced matches for the most part), but is it like it was in 2012_ Hell no.

[nepacaka]

at different times. generally 17:00-18:00 hours. sometimes in the morning. sometimes late at night (10:00-12:00 am)

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I mostly play on Europe server, it's pretty obvious the games player base has dropped. Yes you can find games(poor unbalanced matches for the most part)

^this
but, i don't care about unbalanced it or not. win i or loss. i just wanna play in 6vs6 15min match without ragequitters.

Edited by nepacaka, June 30 2014 - 02:04 AM.

[Artist]

nepacaka, on June 30 2014 - 02:00 AM, said:

at different times. generally 17:00-18:00 hours. sometimes in the morning. sometimes late at night (10:00-12:00 am)

If you're in Russia, it means most players from UK/France/Belgium/Germany are still at work/school at that time.