HTs on Global/Hattrick Future
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.10) as reply to (7831771.9) | |
| To: HT-Johan | 2007-01-09 at 14:10 | ||
| Reply to (7831762.16)
In the past we agreeded that the best part of Hattrick had been the community, nowadays I am not sure we can say the same and probably I can guess that this has been caused by a such great explosion of the number of players. As a profit enterprise, will you always prefer quantity to quality or could we hope for an inversion of this tendence? Absolutely not, and that's never ever been the case. If quantity would've been the most important thing for us we would have made the signup process a lot easier and we wouldn't bother to check them as we do today. I still think the community part of the game is the best part, at least that's true for me and it has always been that way. That said, it's of course true that the community has evolved together with the rest of the game. Some years ago the Hattrick community (or rather communities) were rather small. Small communities have their benefits, they're very intimate and you get the feeling that you "know" most of the people. The larger a community gets the less you feel you know the people, but on the other hand you get other benefits like a bigger source for new informtion and new knowledge. Today there is a lot of big and small communities within the Hattrick community, but the first one you'll see is often a big one (the national one). I think that's the major change in fact, that most ppl have to search for the smaller communities. Yada, yada, yada...back to the question. Quantity matters of course, but the quality of our product will always be more important. At the same time they're also combined, better quality means bigger quantity and bigger quantity makes it possible for us to improve the quality. | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.24) as reply to (7831771.1) | |
| To: Everyone | 2007-01-09 at 14:10 | ||
| Reply to (7831762.50), which was so long so I make the quotes here shorter:
What are from your point of view the major challenges you are facing? Keeping the spirit of the core-community up, integrating as much users as possible,...? There are many challenges to face, but I think the biggest one is to further develop the challenge of the game. For some time we've focused, and also been forced to focus, on other areas of the game and the game world. That work has not been in vain, it's been very needed. As a result, Hattrick is more reliable and a much better game/community today. But on the other hand, not that much have happened to the core game - and that's I think our biggest challenge now. To improve the core game is also a challenge of course as it must never be allowed to go too fast. So this is also something we must think about when adding things to the game, which is far from easy. Every new feature must fit in the current format, and at the same time change the current format - but not too much! But I think the new youth squad system will definately meet the standards here, it will be a totally new challenge and a bit different...but still fit in the current format. Other major challenges are also the growth of users and promote/develop the community in my opinion. Where do you see Hattrick in season 50? Just keep it running as smoothly as possible or do you have some visions or dreams on how a perfect game should look like - and what would that be? Oh, there are definately dreams and visions. The best part of it is that there are more dreams in the HT team today compared to just a year ago. Anyway, we see a game which is still simplistic - the device will still be 'easy to learn, difficult to master'. To the simplistic game we've added more depth to both the core game and the game world, and also promoted more alternative career possibilities. With depth to the core game I'm talking about, at least first, to develop things already in the game a little bit further. For instance, there is still much to do with the psychological part of the team/game. We have fiery and honest players, and such stuff could play a bigger part. But the key here, to use the things already in the game and let them play a bigger and/or different part. And If I'm allowed to really dream...it would be really cool to play matches live (really live!), where you could make (or pre-plan) substitutions and change tactic etc in the halftime break if both users agree on that. Of course, you should be able to chat with your opponent during the whole match. I think that's my wettest dream. :) | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.62) as reply to (7831771.1) | |
| To: Everyone | 07.02.2007 at 17:14 | ||
| Reply to (7831762.436)
You said this in the HT answers thread when answering about the substitute thing: "That said, I will definately not rule this out for the future, even though it will still have to compete with some other major feature prospects." What "other major feature prospects" are you referring to? Well, for example I can think of numbers of things to do with the psychological part of the game. Players' agreeability isn't used that much in the game, maybe that could play a bigger part? The same goes for other psychological values as honesty and aggressivity. Maybe certain types of players perform better when they play together, maybe a team's mix of psychological values should matter in some way? On another area some kind of mentor system (experienced user mentor newbie user) and then we also got the cup of course, the elections, the national team system plus some things I bet I've forgot about in this very moment. :) | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.74) as reply to (7831771.73) | |
| To: Everyone | 01.03.2007 at 15:26 | ||
| Reply to (7926938.673)
Is HT future having more and more features, demanding more and more time to play? I think it's a necessity to add more and more features to this game, otherwise it will not survive in the long run. That said, it's also important that the featueres we add don't require that much more time. And if we want to add a feature which may be time-demanding (which we'll only do if we're sure many users will like it) we should always make sure that such features are optional and not too superior to the 'basic' version. And the feature you're refering to (the new youth system) will be an example of the latter; an optional feature for the users who want to put in more time in the game for the fun of it. They may also earn something from the time invested in the youth team as they may end up with youth players with somewhat better secondaries, but the benefits must be kept on a fair level compared to the old system as there still will be users not willing to invest more time into the game. So I honestly think this feature fits very well in the old Hattrick philosophy. While I'm at it, how much time you "need" to invest in a youth team will be vary a lot from user to user. Some will maybe invest some hours every week in it, others just some minutes. I guess it will vary just as much as in "ordinary" Hattrick, some users think some minutes a week is enough while others seem to see Hattrick as their (second) home. :) A general answer to your question is that we don't want to add more very time-demanding obligatory features in the future. The game should still be playable even if you only want to give it some minutes every week, but it should also at the same time deliver something to those who want to put in more time into it. Will (some) rules zig-zag every couple of months? No, never will and never really happened either. In fact, I consider the example you're refering to as a one time accident. A very teaching one for us HTs of course, we shouldn't allow such accidents to happen either. As I explained in the youth thread, we found a way which we thought would be the best for game even though we had earlier hinted in another way, so we had to choose between going for what we think is the best solution or stick to we said and live with a worse solution. We chose to go for the best solution even if we knew some users would be angry with us. But I don't think one should make any general assumptions/conclusions from a one-time accident. The rules needed for you to make up your gaming strategies and similar decisions don't vary much, and if they do you do get information about it in advance. There are usually some new things to think about each season which may somewhat affect your gaming strategy, but each new thing is so small that it will not destroy any strategy by itself. | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.84) as reply to (7831771.1) | |
| To: Everyone | 15.05.2007 at 20:44 | ||
| Reply to (7926938.7).
Currently, you can buy a player an hour before a game and he performs as if he had known his teammates forever. Except for the occasional team spirit drop, there is no drawback. Is it a feature you are comfortable with or would you consider adjustments? I think it favors money over planning and allows unfair surprises, especially now that there are so many high-level players sold at cheap transfer prices because of the salaries. There is a routine for formations, couldn't there be a "routine" for individual players? It would make sense in my view that they don't perform at full potential immediately and need a few training sessions to get to know their teammates. Yes, we're pretty comfortable right now with this feature. One can always argue about it's not very realistic etc, but I think it fits quite well into the game experience. At the moment there is, as you say, a problem with very high skilled players being sold for a cheap buck, which affects this feature a lot as your team can get a lot better within a few minutes (and the monetary cost for doing this isn't that big today). This is however in my opinion not a problem because of this feature, that's rather an economical problem. And as I've said before in this thread we prefer to solve the root of the problem than trying to cure the disease. That said, this "routine" idea you mention here is an old idea which isn't totally abandoned yet (nor is it on the agenda though). One bad effect of it would probably be a negative impact on the market, which may in fact have a negative impact on the game experience. Adding realism isn't always good for a game, even if it of course might be. On the plus side on the other hand is that it encourages planning, and of course that it adds realism. | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.85) as reply to (7831771.1) | |
| To: Everyone | 15.05.2007 at 20:52 | ||
| Reply to (7926938.1000)
You have built a well-known and entertaining game. But we fear that you will end the free package like some MMORPG games. Have you got a plan like that? Nope, and I dare to say that we'll never get such a plan either. | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.117) as reply to (7831771.116) | |
| To: Everyone | 03.10.2007 at 18:23 | ||
| Reply to (8995830.940)
The community is still waiting for an announcement about upcoming changes, or at least some info when the changes will be announced. You guys continually give vague promises on when we will be informed, however when you fail to meet your own deadlines you just react with silence. Do you really think you are doing the game of HT a favor with this kind of information policy? Our master plan is to do the worst we can right now in order to look amazingly brilliant in the future. ;) Seriously, we are looking into our information policy and see how we can make it better. A new policy isn't set in stone yet, so I will not make any promises about how it will look like. I just want to confirm that we've listened to the community's opinion(s) and we think we got some good ideas to improve the information situation for both you and ourselves in the future. About the upcoming changes, that announcement is not even a week away from you. Don't dismiss this promise as just another vague one. | |||
| From: | HT-Tjecken | (7831771.132) as reply to (7831771.20) | |
| To: Everyone | 28.11.2007 at 17:41 | ||
| Reply to: (10070922.78) (and 77)
Adding up on Peluza's question: Have you any plans regarding election system? Have you any plans regarding the Cup? Have you any plans regarding placing new teams? [I didn't check, maybe you already acted on this] And, most of all, why did you asked the community for input about those issues (cup, over an year ago [?]; election last January; placing, more recently) and then ignore our contribution? Lets put it this way: There is a lot of things we want to improve in this game. What you mention is three things and there is for sure more to add to that list. But we can't do everything at once, we simply have to find out what we think is most important to improve for the game overall as we can work on just a certain number of things at the same time. Now, I'm not saying elections and the cup are unimportant or that your input has been ignored - we just have found other things more important. Actually, I find it hard to complain about the overall improvement decisions we've made recently. I think everyone can agree on that the economy of the game was in desperate need of an overhaul, and so was the game engine to favor secondary skills (which partly also is important for the economy). The most important thing with all these changes is that they're the start of a move towards a long term goal where the economy (and game) not need to be altered (that much) with. We're not there yet, but you have to start somewhere. We have certain things on top of our agenda right now, none of them being the cup or the election. But even so I feel we should be allowed to discuss these things in the community, why wouldn't we? I'm quite certain that you want to hear our opinion no matter when/if etc something can be done about it. And your opinions are very important for us, and it is possible that we change our agenda (except the very top things, as they're decided on and most likely are being) worked on). You do influence us, but it's not like you can order us exactly what to do. So I definately think it's better to hear what you say about the things you find important, rather than just listen to what we already think is important. | |||
