Suggestions to revive the game?

[Sh. Fred]

The game was released around 3 years ago and it seems empty at the time. I'm not really big into F2P games, But in this specific case, I think re announcing the game as a F2P game would actually benefit both the developers and the old players who purchased the game, Because with a lot of new players arriving at the game, There's gonna be a whole new set of opportunities for everyone.
Secondly, Forget the discord and gather all your community back in the game chat. This way, You could actually immerse this world for anyone who actually plays the game.
This game looks really promising, Don't let it go to waste now.

[marto]

Publicado originalmente por Decoy®:

on the store page you can read this: Gray Hack is a massively multiplayer hacking simulator game.

massively multiplayer .... and is it online?
that's done. next?

We're not talking about Gray Hack tho

[Tinkuwu]

I just got this game, so far so good, though I'm kinda stuck at the beginning.

[Arucard]

Publicado originalmente por marto:

Publicado originalmente por Decoy®:

on the store page you can read this: Gray Hack is a massively multiplayer hacking simulator game.

massively multiplayer .... and is it online?
that's done. next?

We're not talking about Gray Hack tho

Yeah, I'm not sure what that response was meant to illustrate, but I guess I was trying to make a distinction from typical MMORPG. Thought I made my point pretty clear, but to make it simpler; you won't be led through the game by "quests" or "missions". Treat it more like the real net that you find threads you want to explore, slowly find a place for yourself, and join a community that suits you.

[Skoggkat]

He just wants to argue.

[Spanospy]

Here's my understanding of why this game is referred to as a MUD rather than simply an MMO.

MUDs originated from text-based terminal network games of "multi-user dungeons". The main interaction with the game was through sending commands, and had no on-screen buttons. The interface also focused on text and typically had no graphics unless created by text.

That's not to say that there weren't any MUDs with computer graphics. Meridian 59, EverQuest, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot were referred to as 'graphical MUDs', but that term died out in the late 1990s and was replaced by MMORPG.

In this context, the visual difference between Grey Hat and Hackmud is that Grey Hat has a graphical representation of a modern-ish OS, while Hackmud is inspired by the text-based terminals.

[zeeb]

This game was never designed to survive if you think about what features it consists of.

[Quilnux]

I bought the game, ran through the tutorial and at the end was like, tf? I have to do the tutorial a second time? It kind of turned me off. I can understand the premise of this story-wise but I really don't want to go through the tutorial again, even though I know that 80% of it is just the same commands again, it just feels like I'm wasting my time. So it's possible people are turned off by doing the same thing twice just to get to the multiplayer aspect of the game. I'd refund it if I didn't already have 2 hours in.

[marto]

Publicado originalmente por 76561197971811883:

I bought the game, ran through the tutorial and at the end was like, tf? I have to do the tutorial a second time? It kind of turned me off. I can understand the premise of this story-wise but I really don't want to go through the tutorial again, even though I know that 80% of it is just the same commands again, it just feels like I'm wasting my time. So it's possible people are turned off by doing the same thing twice just to get to the multiplayer aspect of the game. I'd refund it if I didn't already have 2 hours in.

You don't actually need to do it twice. Just join the other channel with the password you received.

[Quilnux]

I'll try that again. It didn't work for me the first time I tried it and it was pretty late at night so I went to bed. I'll have to look into it.

[Kikinaak]

The way to revive dying online only games, is to add offline mode and private servers. A lot of people are hesitant when it comes to dropping money on what amounts to an extended rental, guaranteed to be lost when the servers inevitably go down. Others love multiplayer but avoid mmos, expecially pvp mmos, due to past experience with trolls and toxic playerbases. If I could host this for just me and a couple of friends to explore, it would be an instabuy.

[Quilnux]

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

The way to revive dying online only games, is to add offline mode and private servers. A lot of people are hesitant when it comes to dropping money on what amounts to an extended rental, guaranteed to be lost when the servers inevitably go down. Others love multiplayer but avoid mmos, expecially pvp mmos, due to past experience with trolls and toxic playerbases. If I could host this for just me and a couple of friends to explore, it would be an instabuy.

Agreed. This would be the way forward. I've started to not purchase games that don't support self-hosted dedicated servers because of this. You buy a game and a year or two later it's unplayable due to not having servers. So this should be standard for non-AAA devs.

[marto]

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

The way to revive dying online only games, is to add offline mode and private servers. A lot of people are hesitant when it comes to dropping money on what amounts to an extended rental, guaranteed to be lost when the servers inevitably go down. Others love multiplayer but avoid mmos, expecially pvp mmos, due to past experience with trolls and toxic playerbases. If I could host this for just me and a couple of friends to explore, it would be an instabuy.

The problem with doing this for hackmud is that it relies strongly on seamlessly integrating user-created content with dev-created content; the difficulty in distinguishing between the two is crucial because without it, you basically just have the trust scripts and a pve loop (and events, but that's a whole nother thing). To host a private server, all of the PvE loop would need to be exposed via its source code, which then ruins the actual gameplay for the main server.

Private servers would likely end up needing to make their own entirely new PvE content to keep its playerbase interested; at which point, hackmud's identity (and its story) will likely be distorted by whoever is running the private server

[Quilnux]

Publicado originalmente por marto:

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

The way to revive dying online only games, is to add offline mode and private servers. A lot of people are hesitant when it comes to dropping money on what amounts to an extended rental, guaranteed to be lost when the servers inevitably go down. Others love multiplayer but avoid mmos, expecially pvp mmos, due to past experience with trolls and toxic playerbases. If I could host this for just me and a couple of friends to explore, it would be an instabuy.

The problem with doing this for hackmud is that it relies strongly on seamlessly integrating user-created content with dev-created content; the difficulty in distinguishing between the two is crucial because without it, you basically just have the trust scripts and a pve loop (and events, but that's a whole nother thing). To host a private server, all of the PvE loop would need to be exposed via its source code, which then ruins the actual gameplay for the main server.

Private servers would likely end up needing to make their own entirely new PvE content to keep its playerbase interested; at which point, hackmud's identity (and its story) will likely be distorted by whoever is running the private server

And yet none of that actually fixes the inevitable. I understand what you are saying, but it still doesn't change the fact that the game is dying. Perhaps this decision to tightly couple the UGC and DGC was a mistake if the intent was to make a game with any kind of longevity.

[Kikinaak]

Publicado originalmente por marto:

To host a private server, all of the PvE loop would need to be exposed via its source code, which then ruins the actual gameplay for the main server.

This fallacy has been soundly debunked many times over the history of gaming. It assumes there will be crossover between the two, that players on private servers would play on and impact the main one. The reality is that the very reasons people would be interested in having a private server are the very same reasons they would not play on the main one, and would buy the game, so the crossover and impact would not be as widespread as you claim, and is not guaranteed to be negative.

Publicado originalmente por marto:

Private servers would likely end up needing to make their own entirely new PvE content to keep its playerbase interested; at which point, hackmud's identity (and its story) will likely be distorted by whoever is running the private server

Content creation, be it dev or user, is the life blood of most games. The ability to create their own content on a private server is one of the stongest arguments in favor of having them, as such creation is a labor of love to many. As far as identity and story of the main server, those can presently be summed up in one word: dying. I fail to see how any change from that could be in any way a negative thing.

What most arguments against private servers for a pvpcentric game boil down to is predators being angry over losing their prey. And if thats the hill the dev wishes their game to die on, then die it will, and such players like locusts will abandon it and move on to the next feeding ground.

[marto]

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

This fallacy has been soundly debunked many times over the history of gaming. It assumes there will be crossover between the two, that players on private servers would play on and impact the main one. The reality is that the very reasons people would be interested in having a private server are the very same reasons they would not play on the main one, and would buy the game, so the crossover and impact would not be as widespread as you claim, and is not guaranteed to be negative.

With all due respect, you don't own the game, nor have sufficient context for what the game is like. Hackmud is, by itself, just a JS sandbox. Any player running a private server who wants to launch their project with any actual content would need to make entirely from-scratch PvE content that took Sean years, or Sean would have to basically spoil any remaining shred of undiscovered content that exists through providing script source code.

With the current size of its community, any private server would most likely have a 100% overlap between players from the main server and said private server (besides any hypothetical players that are hesitant on buying the game because it has no private server support -- that number is apparently at least 1, so maybe I'll get pwned on this point)

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

Content creation, be it dev or user, is the life blood of most games. The ability to create their own content on a private server is one of the stongest arguments in favor of having them, as such creation is a labor of love to many. As far as identity and story of the main server, those can presently be summed up in one word: dying. I fail to see how any change from that could be in any way a negative thing.

Players can already create their own content on the main server, and have done so repeatedly (the majority of events are created by community members and curated/supported by the developer). The argument against private servers is that in doing so, you will divorce any sense of mystery from a game that arguably is only hanging on due to the mysteries it has left. The identity and story of hackmud is dying -- providing the private server support you actually want would be the blow that kills it stone dead. After that happens, you've lost the groundwork to make your community content from.

Publicado originalmente por Kikinaak:

What most arguments against private servers for a pvpcentric game boil down to is predators being angry over losing their prey. And if thats the hill the dev wishes their game to die on, then die it will, and such players like locusts will abandon it and move on to the next feeding ground.

This idea of "predators being angry over losing their prey" is operating on the assumption that the playerbase ♥♥♥♥♥ over any new player we can get our hands on. The opposite is true: in fact one of the main complaints amongst mid-tier and veteran players alike is the utter stagnation of in-game conflict due to "frenmud" and generally not wanting to grief new players out of the game.

There is no other game like hackmud. We still play it because there are no "feeding grounds" to go to when it is gone. It is a centralised place to express yourself through its intricate scripting environment with the aesthetic provided through its presentation and lore. The hill Sean is "dying" on is one you have constructed yourself, where the price of not dying upon it is to feed what's left of hackmud to the locusts; giving up instead of endeavouring to actually fix anything.

With all that being said, private servers would be nice to have, but I would rather the game have other significant issues be fixed before private server support is considered. Private servers would require immense community effort to fix the fundamental issues that are causing hackmud's decay; ones that we have discussed for years and have no good solutions to.