36 replies to this topic

[ticklemyiguana]

First, a song.
https://soundcloud.c...wken-precussive
(Hyginos, it’s spelt PERcussive, dammit.)
 

Welcome Back, Pilots!

Since January 5th, the forums have been down. Servers have slowly been going offline, the coffee was getting cold, and prior to that we had absolutely no communication with our developers.
There are a lot of questions that have been asked, and certainly there are many answers to be had.

Also first: There are new developers. This is real. The hypetrain is waiting.

Second: The acquisition of the Hawken franchise to our new overlords (Reloaded Games) was finalized on March 13, 2015. There is currently a very small, very communicative, and very dedicated team working on breathing life into the mother######ng best game of all time ever sweet jesus yes Hawken. They have reached out to many members of our community utilizing the Hawken TeamSpeak in order to get a feel for our expectations as the mother######ng best community of all time I ######ng love you all its core playerbase.

Third: A few pieces of information to encourage the transition.

1. Things are going to go SLOW. But they’re going to go forward. Reloaded has a small team working on Hawken, and currently it’s up to capnjosh (the lead producer for the game) to draw up an appropriate team and plan for the game. Please be patient and respectful. After hours and hours of voluntary communication on his part, it’s become very evident that we love this game, and if you screw this up I will find you and hurt you they have a bit of pressure to deal with. It’s best for them, us, and the game, to let them work at their own pace.

2. They are intent on bringing us more mechs, more maps, and more game modes. Hail Satan.

3. Adhesive games did a stellar job waylaying the pitfalls of bankruptcy. Please harbor no ill-will toward them for their silence. They spent a lot of time and effort making sure Hawken could be handed over in as pristine a condition as possible. They understood very well that they had the pleasure of serving one of the best communities in the world, and did their best to respect that.

Moving Forward.

Toward the end of Adhesive’s run with Hawken (may their spirits forever roam free) something pretty brilliant happened. The community came together and attempted to actively reverse the decay that came with the silence of the developers. We made events, we organized steam game drives, we posted challenges and tutorials, and I’m not saying a lot of this wasn’t happening all along, but damn did it make an impact on me as Hawken slowly sunk.

War Wednesdays is still on. Currently it’s sort of a make-shift deal, as there are no private servers for us to access, Nope. Nope. Nope. They're back, and every Wednesday at 9PM, we cram into our teamspeak and yell at each other about Hawken.

https://community.pl...wken-teamspeak/

Ulta Violent Wednesdays, with Dr_Freeze001 is active as well!
https://community.pl...ommunity-event/

 

Two Nights at Straya is apparently an up and coming weekend long event on some island on the other side of the planet. Find it here:

https://community.pl...ghts-at-straya/

 

Also keep on checking the community event hub over at https://community.pl...-hawken-events/
Thank you, silverfire, for stealing my fire.

And somewhat finally, The Project Phoenix Initiation Celebration!
For those of you who were around in December, we threw a fantastic community event on 12/12/14, and we’d like to celebrate Hawken’s reactivation in a similar vein. It's scheduled for April 3rd, another Friday.

Starting now, you can sign up for Tiggs’ Hawken Hopeline. Over the past week or so, as the new developers started to check into our TeamSpeak with greater frequency, it became evident that we were going to need to expand. Merl organized a page on GoFundMe in order to crowdsource the 200 extra dollars required to secure a year’s worth of a high capacity teamspeak server annnd- it took 1 minute.
One. Minute. Now, five minutes after that first minute, we were nearing 600, but Tiggs, ######ng Tiggs, Tiggs immediately threw in two hundred dollars of her own money to make sure we had the space.

Tiggs’ Hawken Hopeline is a raffle of extra money raised that will be awarded to our community in the form of MC. Now, we’ve heard speculation that MC is going to be giftable this time around (fuzzy bunny yeah) and so we’re hoping to bring that in with a bang.
There will be a first, second, and third prize of MC, likely starting at a value of around $25 USD. A post will follow with instructions.



TL;DR:
HAWKEN IS ALIVE. PLEASE LET DEVS DO DEV THINGS. RELOADED EMPLOYEE PUT DOWN 200 DOLLARS OF HER OWN SALARY TO MAKE SURE THE HAWKEN COMMUNITY COULD HAVE A TEAMSPEAK CAPABLE OF SUPPORTING A HUNDRED OR MORE MEMBERS. LIKE THIS POST FOR A CHANCE TO WIN METEOR CREDITS.
There are going to be hard times. Things are going to go slow. But the people who have picked this game up want to see it succeed, want to see our community grow, and I urge you to please, please, GO OUT AND PLAY SOME ######NG HAWKEN.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 20 May 2015 - 10:34 PM.

[Bunnykillkill]

IMO the hard times are behind us.

 

Now we know HWK is not dying and in fact have a future, contrary to living on dwindling hope and hazy speculations.

This should at least give the community a common overriding goal to look to and work towards.

 

And yes, it's a long road ahead, but at least now ppl know that their hard work to support the game/community is not a 50/50 gamble of wasting time and resources.

Edited by Bunnykillkill, 21 March 2015 - 03:09 PM.

[EM1O]

o Yazz!!! now maybe i won't get that "Server client capacity exceeded" blab next wednesday!

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

Appropos of nothing whatsoever, Tickle failed to mention that every person who donated for the initial TeamSpeak has a little moneybag symbol to the right of their name in the TS channel - including Tiggs.

 

These people are awesome and deserving of respect (for about a millisecond).  Tickle would have posted that if he'd not been called off to Illal System in order to fight the spread of the Hawken Virus.

[Guns_N_Rozer]

we are alive .....because hawken is alive .yeah thanks a lot to capnjosh.and his team ..he is a great person 

 

[Dawn_of_Ash]

Wow, this is quite a dedicated dev team we've got here, that's utterly amazing! Thanks new devs! :D

 

Also, Tickle, the AU community has a bit of an event that is hosted every Saturday and Sunday 9pm (Sydney Time) - which is 11am EST. The announcement had only been made on the Oceanic Steam Group like a week ago so it's not very public. We also don't have a name so I'm going to make one on the spot even though it's technically not entirely my event. XD Let's see...The Oceanic Weekend Wasteland? 2 Nights at Oceania (so original XD)? Oceania Weekend Madness? Maybe I should ask the creator of the event before I make up a name? XD Out of curiosity, which one sounds the best?

[OmegaNull]

Bravo sir! *sniff* said things better than u could have. Let's Hawken!

[ticklemyiguana]

Wow, this is quite a dedicated dev team we've got here, that's utterly amazing! Thanks new devs! :D

 

Also, Tickle, the AU community has a bit of an event that is hosted every Saturday and Sunday 9pm (Sydney Time) - which is 11am EST. The announcement had only been made on the Oceanic Steam Group like a week ago so it's not very public. We also don't have a name so I'm going to make one on the spot even though it's technically not entirely my event. XD Let's see...The Oceanic Weekend Wasteland? 2 Nights at Oceania (so original XD)? Oceania Weekend Madness? Maybe I should ask the creator of the event before I make up a name? XD Out of curiosity, which one sounds the best?

I actually really like The Oceanic Weekend Wasteland. Post again when you've got that settled and I'll edit when I see it.

[Dawn_of_Ash]

So to clear up the times (and the name), it is known as "Two Nights at" and let me try and pronounce this right "Strayla". When I initially suggested the name, it was a joke but....well, nothing to do about it. XD Okay, so the name is "Two Nights at Strayla", an Australian event that is held at 9pm Sydney time and, according to the internet, 6am EST. If anyone, for some reason (XD), is awake at that time I'd recommend you check it out at least once - we have an amazing time there. 

Edited by Dawn_of_Ash, 22 March 2015 - 04:42 AM.

[Silverfire]

<3 tickle

[SigmaOmega]

@ticklemyiguana I want to have your children. Good work!

[Setonius]

Been playing long enough with Tickle to know that you do not want his children!

[Superkamikazee]

This is crazy, it's back.

[ticklemyiguana]

Been playing long enough with Tickle to know that you do not want his children!

Best post on the forums.

[Valimer]

I feel like we should talk about Reloaded Games. They were the publisher who bought All Points Bulletin and turned it around. Has anyone played APB and what do they think?

 

I've played APB and it's definitely a cash grab pay-for-the-edge game. Do you guys think Reloaded is going to monetize everything they can with Hawken? Or will they try to keep the competitive game play untainted?

[Amidatelion]

There have been several Q&A's already. 

 

Here is one

 

and

 

ere is another.

 

I'm sure that as more happen they will be announced on social media and on these forums.

 

Twitter

 

Facebook

[ticklemyiguana]

I feel like we should talk about Reloaded Games. They were the publisher who bought All Points Bulletin and turned it around. Has anyone played APB and what do they think?

 

I've played APB and it's definitely a cash grab pay-for-the-edge game. Do you guys think Reloaded is going to monetize everything they can with Hawken? Or will they try to keep the competitive game play untainted?

Honestly, I don't know. As someone who has had pretty decent facetime with Reloaded's representatives, I'd like to have faith in them. I haven't played APB, and perhaps I should in order to familiarize myself with the organization.

 

I will say that currently my impression of the individuals working on Hawken is stellar. However I have no evidence to support supporting their company other than "this is all we've got."

If they want to turn it into a cash grab, we can't stop them. That being said, we can do our best to ensure it doesn't by continuing to be an organized community that respects and listens to its own members. We are Hawken's core playerbase, and as a free to play game, Reloaded needs dedicated players who spend money. This is the nature of F2P.

 

As an organized community, we can at least voice our opinion and let them know when we will put our feet down and cease to buy into a game.

[crockrocket]

 according to the internet, 6am EST. 

So 3am PST.... Well that explains my hangover the next morning

[Valimer]

Yes, in the end all we can do is post here and wait and see what they do with the game. But if there's any one thing I won't stand for it's tilting the balance of the game. Reloaded has to realize that the competitive element is the driving force behind Hawken, and with out that there would be no game. 

 

Believe it or not game designers do read the forums. I've talked with veteran game designers at my college and they say they actually do go online and read what people think of the game they are working on. So it is important that the veteran players become involved and establish a demographic that Reloaded can recognize and market to. That is the best chance of seeing what we want in the game.

 

Or maybe they already have a plan and don't give a crap what we think, who knows?

Edited by Valimer, 23 March 2015 - 09:24 PM.

[ticklemyiguana]

Yes, in the end all we can do is post here and wait and see what they do with the game. But if there's any one thing I won't stand for it's tilting the balance of the game. Reloaded has to realize that the competitive element is the driving force behind Hawken, and with out that there would be no game. 

 

Believe it or not game designers do read the forums. I've talked with veteran game designers at my college and they say they actually do go online and read what people think of the game they are working on. So it is important that the veteran players become involved and establish a demographic that they can recognize and market to. That is the best chance of seeing what we want in the game.

 

Or maybe they already have a plan and don't give a crap what we think, who knows?

 

Well, here, let me fill you in a bit. I'm not sure if you're actually new or if it's just your first time logging on since the forums went down, but even if you aren't I think it's worth writing out for anyone reading.

 

Hawken has a great competitive scene, if for no other reason than it actively encourages players to improve and work as a team. This is where a lot of legitimate balance suggestions stem from, as competitive players have been in the shoes of every tier of play at some point in time - in addition to obviously being dedicated enough to want to provide that sort of feedback.

 

However, I have to disagree on the competitive scene being the driving force of Hawken. In my mind, the driving force of any game is the population that brings the greatest revenue stream.

 

Hawken's competitive teams and players* are extremely elite relative to 95% or more of the people that play the game (the ratio changes when you look at the forum community, but most players are not a part of the forums). I don't want that to sound elitist. It's the result of the game having such a high skill ceiling due to all the variations available in the game, coupled with a low number of players in total, in addition to Hawken being marketed for a wide audience - while at its core remaining a niche genre. These factors mean that the truly competitive players make up a very small portion of the player base, though some are very vocal.

Though I'm pretty sure almost 100% of competitive players have put money into the game, their contributions likely pale in comparison to the next tier or two down (arbitrary terminology), who are almost equally devoted to the game, but have massively greater numbers.

 

I do think Reloaded, whatever goals it has financially, understands that balancing the game appropriately is important. I also think they browse the forums as much as your average user or more. It would be a foolish decision for a company to acquire an established game with little experience in it, and not look to the community to help them get set up. This being said, the team working on Hawken right now is very tiny, and is just beginning the process of understanding what exactly the game is. Unless there's a legitimate conspiracy to hoodwink us, their primary goal is to make the game profitable, and that means catering to and expanding the dedicated playerbase as a whole, not just the competitive elite.

 

*disclaimer. When I refer to the competitive community, I refer to the group of players that consistently and actively participates in the tournaments available. It is worth noting that this is largely dominated by the North American playerbase, partially due to cultural differences and partially due to server latency related issues. My interpretation of competitive is not intended to alienate those of equal skill who do not participate in events such as TPG for whatever reason.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 23 March 2015 - 09:47 PM.

[Valimer]

@ticklemyiguana

 

Yeah it's the first time I've logged in since the forums were down (I never realized they were down, I've been gone a while) I've played ~100 hours of Hawken and I have spent money on the game. 

 

What I was referring to when I said "competitive element" is the core game play of Hawken. Hopefully everyone who plays Hawken has at least a little competitive nature in them. My point was if they "fix" Hawken the same way they did with APB, Hawken will suffer. In the end Reloaded may do whatever they want, of course their financial goals are to make as much money as possible, but methods to monetize Hawken that compromise the integrity of the core game play is unacceptable and Reloaded needs understands this. You say that you believe Reloaded understands balancing the game is important, but evidence suggests they do not and will capitalize on that in order to make money. 

 

That's a lot of words to say that I hope they don't make it p2w, but the way Reloaded does business buying up dying games and re-publishing them, it's obvious they are in the industry to make money, not to make great games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Hawken come back to life no matter who the publisher, but I really doubt we will see Hawken turn into what forums have dreamed of for all these years.

[ticklemyiguana]

@ticklemyiguana

 

Yeah it's the first time I've logged in since the forums were down (I never realized they were down, I've been gone a while) I've played ~100 hours of Hawken and I have spent money on the game. 

 

What I was referring to when I said "competitive element" is the core game play of Hawken. Hopefully everyone who plays Hawken has at least a little competitive nature in them. My point was if they "fix" Hawken the same way they did with APB, Hawken will suffer. In the end Reloaded may do whatever they want, of course their financial goals are to make as much money as possible, but methods to monetize Hawken that compromise the integrity of the core game play is unacceptable and Reloaded needs understands this. You say that you believe Reloaded understands balancing the game is important, but evidence suggests they do not and will capitalize on that in order to make money. 

 

That's a lot of words to say that I hope they don't make it p2w, but the way Reloaded does business buying up dying games and re-publishing them, it's obvious they are in the industry to make money, not to make great games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Hawken come back to life no matter who the publisher, but I really doubt we will see Hawken turn into what forums have dreamed of for all these years.

Of course that's entirely understandable. I very much hope you're wrong, but after multiple years, I think most of us are just instinctively prepared for the worst as it is.

[palad1ne]

let's see if this work out this time. 

Edited by palad1ne, 24 March 2015 - 01:33 PM.

[DER3Z]

Its been a long ass time.

[Teljaxx the Unintentional]

I AM LORD FESTIVEX! YOU WILL ALL BE MERRY OR...

 

Wait... What day is it? WHAT YEAR IS IT?!? The last thing I remember is something about presents, and everyone wearing Santa hats.

 

Oh well, whatever it was probably is not as important as THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF THE HAWKEN!!! *DA DA DA DAAA!!!*

 

Now I just need to go exploring and figure out just what the fuzzy bunny is going on.

[Xpander]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

[Fstroke]

I might run out of likes on my first day back. I'm excite

[ticklemyiguana]

I might run out of likes on my first day back. I'm excite

I've run out two or three times so far.

Ps: good to see you back.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 26 March 2015 - 10:41 AM.

[Fstroke]

I've run out two or three times so far.

Ps: good to see you back.

Likewise my friend

[Liederkranz]

I was on holidays abroad when I found out all the hype had finally became real and when I actually read answers from the new Capn of the ship to the players, heard him talking with our good friend Fawken. I suddenly wanted so bad to play Hawken, and I hadn't my laptop with me!

 

This is very good news, I'm really happy this is happening. :D

[(P:B)Augmentia]

This brings me hope. In the past things were kind of meh here and there, but now that we have the loving caring devs that the game deserves, we should be quite fine for the future. Cheers to our new overlords!

[Solishian]

Thumbs up for this and any other effort put into bringing Hawken back into life, and may be draw more player into the game all around the world.

Btw. we need some really cool Mech smilies here!

[Dirkasourus]

Welcome back fellow pilots.

[Jiggernautical]

Edited by Jiggernautical, 03 April 2015 - 11:12 AM.

[OmegaNull]

I AM OMEGA!

[KilleR_OrigiNs]

Redacted. 

Edited by KilleR_OrigiNs, 30 April 2015 - 09:46 PM.

[Morticius]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha...huh?