HWS 7 After the storm | Current state & Roadmap | Website report

HWS Announcements
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Hey @everyone,

So, first of all thank you all very much for joining and bringing back the 120+ player experience, it was really great to see!

Even though it was bit chaotic at the beginning and we are still little behind in completing everything, we hope you had a great and fun start.

As always I would welcome feedback from you; how was the start? The universe layout? Story? etc.

Thing I have on my “todo” list:

  • complete / update the Guide here and in the ingame PDA
  • do not force the start equipment too heavily with the PDA (people can skip it, it might not trigger if many people are in a motion sensor, fa:supply can’t be grabbed with a full inventory etc.)
  • fix remaining Prof. Void things and implement a real reward teleport at the end (spoiler: Gold Rush planet Mission)
  • fix PDA for Combat Testing Facility and Elemental Space Race
  • complete playfield descriptions

For all of that the time was missing sadly, sorry.

That brings me to something different I want to share:

Consistency of HWS in the future

Until now it always worked that before a major release, I could finish everything by myself (more or less) but this time, for HWS 7, so many things were planned that I just couldn’t complete the massive amount of work needed. I have come to the realisation that after 8 new universes filled with new features all for the major releases, that this is becoming an impossible task and the result is not the vision I have for HWS. I’ve therefor made the decision that this needs to slow right down to a manageable level and although its an upsetting and disappointing decision for me, it is realistic and best for the continuation of the Server and the community who support us.

Therefore I have to announce that no new universe or features will be implemented to HWS for the foreseeable future until we have perfected and balanced all of the features currently available.

Of course minor changes and alterations can still take place but the current setup here feels right, all of the features we “need” are there but not yet balanced 100%.

My plan for the immediate future is to work on HWS Connect, balancing of features, more events, more PDA missions, and still bringing a little new “content” within the universe you are already getting to know. Consistency is something very important to me and I feel we’re now in a position to achieve just that.

My goal was always to integrate a Single Player experience in a Multiplayer server, with a tutorial and story at the beginning and is what we have finally accomplished. Now to make it as flawless as possible.

I hope you can understand this and I appreciate even more if you feel like pointing out to me to anything you feel this current version should have or can be improved upon.

Current state and roadmap

Some things were done without a proper announcement so let me clarify these here:

  • For NA, SAN and EU we skipped the third restart per day (11pm EU / 5pm NA)

  • Black Hole will be wiped for EU, SAN and NA at 5pm (GMT+1) all the same

  • Golden Globe and all Homeworld planets will be surface wiped now 5pm instead of previously 9AM to give everyone a better chance

  • 4 EGS Bunker on Golden Globe are available now (EU all sold out already)

  • Devs are currently trying to fix the conflict between deposit, anti grief zone and pvp anti grief zone - preventing you from drilling ores near POIs on PvP

  • 10 global bases and 2 private global bases on PvP and PvE are possible currently (might change in future. Still observing the meta)

  • HWS Garage is NOT at the EGS HQ anymore but instead WEST of ECC (you can use a teleporter on the EGS HQ to reach it). Instead you can sell YOUR OWN ships at EGS HQ.
    Only condition: only if place is available. If we see someone is griefing with a big ship pushing others away etc. we will destroy it without a warning)

  • EGS Star is again in the Homeworld Space (5000 / 0 / 0) allowing you now also Elemental Bank interest collections!

  • As already mentioned: 2 new PvE planets will be implemented only reachable with Stargates. The feedback from 6 was quite good about this and it brings a good dynamic to allow people to build without overloading PVP.

  • More Focus on PDA missions, events and overall, a smoother experience.

  • On Sanctuary you don’t have the “Super” Golden Globe anymore, no HWS Garage, no Penthouses, not all missions you have on the main servers because…

HWS Sanctuary Server

To be honest the server isn’t proving popular with a maximum count of 10 people. Even though we pushed ourselves (Jascha especially, with the implementation of CSW / OCD etc) the usage doesn’t justify the $150 per month operating costs.

Our plan is to monitor the situation on Sanctuary during the course of this season with the hope that it becomes more popular but if things stay the way they are, we will most likely take the decision to turn it off at the start of season 3.

HWS website & background

On a different topic I always wanted to share some information about this HWS website and what all of that means.
As some know I am a Web Developer and quite early I realized the potential of playing games over the web. In combination with Jaschas skills we created something you won’t find anywhere - playing Empyrion to a certain degree over the website via HWS Connect.
But also the forum is a quite special piece of software and overall I like coding if I don’t have too many get support calls :wink:

Anyways some people asked me why I have integrated Google Adsense (adverts) or how I have done certain things.

First of all Google Adsense, the adverts are helping us in keeping the web server costs maintained and running through your support. So I know what you think about that topic but it would really help if you turn off your adblocker just for HWS at least. You don’t even have to click on the ads. Just displaying them alone is a big support already!

The other story why we expand to NA for example was also because we saw at the beginning a lot of NA players on EU via Google Analytics. That brought me to the point where it could make sense to expand to there.

image
(geo visitors last seven days)

So even though it is a small website in comparison I am really happy so see all of you (or most of you) actively using it :slight_smile:

image

300 active users per day and with alpha 7 a major boost I am very happy and try to improve your experience non-stop.

Regarding how we / I achieved it is of course a little secret and maybe some day I can export some modules to the public. But for that I need to refactor my thousands lines of code to a better state :wink:

As always, feedback how to improve the website is always welcomed!

Again as always: leave me your feedback and even though we can’t make everyone happy we will nevertheless continue trying. :slight_smile:
Thanks for reading!
Enjoy HWS 7!

Your HWS Team

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amazing work as usual @RexXxuS and @Jascha . couldnt have asked for better map and performance . so thank u .
regarding sanctuary i beleive its similarity in map as same as both NA and EU is making it less polular . i would recommend removing similiar playfields as NA and EU and adding horde of aliens in space and planets . and making it the alien zone to go to thats what i recommend . cheers budd ! and rest !!! lol :smiley:

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THx Rexx i Gree whith what you said.

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Polishing and improving the current experience over new universe construction would get my vote.

I would also humbly suggest that a downloadable pdf “quick start guide” or “universe overview” in the same proffesional manner as the new garage ship “operating manuals” might help new visitors to the server get up to speed quickly and reduce the bounce rate. As well as providing that “premium” image to the HWS experience.

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Generaly i like all said especialy:
fix remaining Prof. Void things and implement a real reward teleport at the end (spoiler: Gold Rush planet Mission) :slight_smile:
Completly agree with slowing down and starting polishing everything, balancing features etc.

With Sanctuary its quite easy. I was expecting diferent universe layout, of course I understand its not possible to do because of huge time investment, but in my opinion that would help.
Might be just adjusted a bit or something easier to do. More like Exploration, events, story, mysteries etc.
Theres ECC but so far it doesnt seem like we can get interest there or take out OMAs, that might be a bug, if working it would bring at least economy tryhards there.
In 6.x there was a problem with POIs not refreshing on Hera (other planets too but lets keep it on Hera there im sure) so once we plundered those it was done for whole seasson, no reason to come back.
Simply put Sanctuary needs to be fixed and there must be something to do, something interesting, something unique which would bring ppl there.
As user of San in 6.x my feeling in general was that server was abandoned and crashes on start of it dint helped it, that causes its low popularity, after visit in 7.0 i have a bit same feeling. Just feedback nothing else.

Seasson 7 is so much better so far, i greatly appriciate this improvment, thanks a lot for your hard work, you wasting my real life with how awsome it is :smiley:

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Good work! The best empyrion server.

Feedback from my side. From my point of view:
I think that starting as a new player and doing first “information” missions takes longer than before. I didnt notice arrows in information center (?) and I had to figure out that I have to stand on all those places to have mission done and I had to go back around. Nice idea with those SVs landing on starter planet. Starting as freelancer is now very easy if compared to hws6. It’s nice that I could use fa:supply after start.

Also I think that its a good idea to fix current things first instead of creating new features while old one are still not working properly.

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It’s for the best

Some thoughts.

Add magnesium to NA EU on golden globe.

Need more massive deposit for erestrium zascosium 20 to 40k on planets that wipe daily.

I got my HV repoed yesterday because it got damaged and fell into class 2. It was fixed then after 20 minutes it when’t HWS. Only got 2 warnings. Can we get more warnings or longer period of time.

ps Starter was one of the best i had on HWS in a long time, lots of creatures to kill.

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Still learning my way around HWS. You have done so much with the server since I played about a year ago. Added so much and I can not imagine the time.
That said I just wanted to say Thank you HWS Team for all your work. Happy to be part of a great community.

Rex relax we will still all love you and your server if you dont add tons more to it. Make an honest woman out of that Girl of yours and enjoy life. HWS is headed back to the top again where it belongs.

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yes, slow down. I don’t think the success of the server will be defined by creating extra services, unless it is one that truly enhances gameplay. This server already has so much more to offer than any other server around. Focus on consistency and content. Cool missions, challenging POIs. Some thoughts :slight_smile:

  • Sanctuary is now more or less a copy from the EU/NA servers (with maybe some minor changes). I don’t think this adds value (just another environment to do what we can do at EU/NA, but in a more or less empty space, with just a few players and almost no interaction).
    What I would do is make this a mission server. Maybe just a crazy idea, but CSW to Sanctuary and either have portals to take you to other planets/places or players can warp their CV to special mission planets. Maybe planets with special POIs. Give us a reason to go there and offload traffic from the EU and NA servers. But in and out. Main servers is where we live.
  • Can we get a list / overview of all the missions and maybe special POIs. Maybe this is already available, but would not know where to find it. E.g. the Battle Royal mission in the PDA. I played it single player but don’t know where to find it on HWS. And I found a few missions in some of the orbits, but have nothing more than their name. What would help is info where we can find them, single player or faction, difficulty, short description of what you could expect, maybe special items /rewards you may find, etc.

I think this release (even though not fully finished) was a lot smoother than 6.0. Don’t think there were any major issues (that I ran into). just tweaks and stuff. I like the universe. I think a good balance of size and performance. Maybe add a few connections in the bottom of the map (I have to take 3-4 jumps or so to get from CSW to any real planet, while the distance is not that big. Could be 1-2 jumps.

As always, your effort and those that help you are much appreciated.

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The starter was great epic loved it loved the sv reminds me of the old sv in like pre pre alpha long time ago, 7.0 is great love it:)

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