Hey @everyone,
HWS 7.X.X / HWS 8 Story Teaser
HWS 7.X.X will be the first iteration of a brand new Game start for you! It will be completed in HWS 8 with Supergates… but I just want to see how it goes until then 
So how far is the research done?
Hard to tell but they spread out through the universe. They didn’t notice yet.
And what about them?
I think it’s time to let them free. The chances that they will survive are near zero anyways
Yes, and even if, the more for us, the better for the colony
A new Origin enters the HWS Universe soon…
“Prototype”
(awesome work from Tarek Samaan)
HWS Survey II results
The second big HWS Survey is closed now.
271 players participated which is insane! Thank you so much for that!
You can’t imagine how many people respond also in text form here and there and giving very valuable feedback!
Also worth to mention that there were so many who just said “Thanks” and appreciate our hard work overall. Not expected that and really means lot to me.
That is one of the most important and biggest support
Note: some results are simplified due answer possibilities
How many playhours do you have on HWS?
While we still have almost 1/4 new players (and in general ~150 new players per week) it’s very nice to see so many veterans, enjoying HWS for so long even though there are so many games out there! Thanks!
It is almost balanced
it is nice to see we have so many players from oversea!
Also CSW made a huge step forward here
Pre Join Questions
Always interesting for me. Especially the “Read / heard” about it is kind of a reward for me.
Hm, the Steam Webbrowser isn’t the best, I agree but still interesting to see people using the shortcut here.
A new question I was interested in. 39,9% said Yes, 47,2% said No. I think Eleon could improve the decision step for certain servers based on settings in the future.
HWS Connect
What should I say… With over 20 000 lines of code, thousands of hours work into HWS Connect it is very very nice to see you are using it and it became a part of your gameplay. Never thought that my self taught web skills will be so much used
Not a big surprise but overall interesting to see what is used most (and probably needs more attention in the future).
The main HWS features are reflected here especially like OCD, OAM and the EB. But just within 1+ month I was able to push HWS Connect Daily Loot to rank 1! I think it was a good decision to learn from mobile games.
You will get rewarded more if you login in a row and can choose from different package. Kind of a crate system.
Stay tuned for a big improvement for that in the future!
But especially the brand new HWS Skill Tree feature got my attention and overall it is welcomed. Most of the time I saw that people don’t even use it / know about it. I think it needs some time and bit polishing here and there.
With the Origin Skills I offered at the moment most people are excited about them. Nevertheless I had to spread some Oil over them with the recent “Hacking” discussion. I think some player still didn’t recognized my intention behind such a hot-polarizing theme.
Anyways, this will be quite big for HWS 9 I think.
HWS Start experience
Same question as last time and similar result. The start text isn’t that helpful and / or can’t be improved that much to be honest. I try a different text theme next week but overall kind of limited in that small text area without good UX flow.
A little surprise is the experience for you. Although we had no surface wipe on them and some flaws here and there regarding NPCs it was overall good. I think the POIs / Story were part of that as well. Room for improvement for sure.
PDA & Story
To sum up the PDA topic it is overall accepted but not that used yet. But the missions we do have and the ones which are working are very appreciated. Since I’m a quite passionated gamer regarding this I will push this for sure. Not to mention that HWS is the only server making full use of them.
Just sayin that you can stay tuned for that
HWS Gameplay
We are coming now to the hot topics
Nevertheless the challenge for me here is to create an universe where both parties can live and fight along together. And every time I can only say: challenge accepted!
That was a very controversial and difficult topic. 27,3% said that I should regulate it with resource distribution. 18,5% wanted to split PvP and PvE completely but allow a travel system once per week. 9,6% preferred a split where you can warp in to PvP but only with a Stargate out.
And then there were tons of suggestions and feedback. But the overall result was: let it be and leave it as it is. Similar to the subject above it is always tricky to try a forced road. While it might be good for one part of the group the majority would suffer from that hard cut. And only in a mixed system there can be most interaction happen. Maybe in the future a more dynamic and soft system is possible but I will keep a mixed universe for now, regulating hotspots with resources and POIs.
While a lot of player don’t even know what I meant with that question the result is overall positive and @A.F.T hard work appreciated. Eleon took some parts of it for a reason into their official Config now
Nevertheless it will be always a dynamic / changing object.
Old but gold. Similar result as the first survey. 48% likes the three Origins we have but 36,2% want more customizations / reason to play these Origins. While I really do my best to go that way it is not always easy with the tools I have at the moment. Either I get punished by Jascha, the Game or you
Similar to the HWS Connect feature list. But that my name is even recognized as a feature was hilarious! I feel honored!
Uh, a very difficult and tricky topic for me! 74,2% like the current HWS universe. Sure there were also tons of feedback and mostly complains about the PvP meta atm but in fact it is the best universe from ALL we had so far And that is something huge for me… I mean I could let it be now and go to vacation but somehow the challenge is always there to reach the “perfect” universe.
The coming HWS 7.X.X universe, which should be seen as a preparation for HWS 8 has a slight different universe layout. It addresses a lot of feedback / problems I got for the current universe and it will be very interesting for me if it was a right direction or not. The main feedback for example were the “Implement more SV warp routes”. With the new layout this should make a lot of people happy I think.
Also the feedback to “reduce the amount of planets but make them more interesting” were quite meaningful. Because I looked in the structure statistic and saw totally surprised NO structures on so many planets! Asura, Maya, Son G, Videl etc. etc. are totally empty. Even though some of them have Gold! Crazy… some of these planets have the (requested!) theme “Enviornement hazards” but still… empty. Maybe because they are PvP…
So “Never change a running system” is true, but at least we can learn and go back to that running system if the “improvements” didn’t work!
This was a little strange result. 78,2% like the current BP spawn Class of 7 (in combination with other playfield limits). Nevertheless a lot of written that it is too big.
So even if I value the written feedback more towards a 50%/50% I think the general intention behind “scaling down is better than scaling up” is a success and should be kept. For hotspot and performance reasons we can limit more playfields down but if some player can showcase their crazy buildings it is part of satisfaction and fun I guess.
Quite a dry result… 50% likes / use them and 50% don’t at all. I expected more for them and bothers me a bit. Either the reward on them were not good enough (although they had Gold during PvE!?) or the concept is not good / understandable. I just know that the feedback from the first usage of them (HWS 3) were incredible positive.
I still think it is a good transition from PvE to PvP players. Having a countdown to build something for PvP and then see if it worked or not. Like you have time in some Tower Defense games before the next wave is coming.
Another negative result were the Stargate planets (Mio + Ray). I kind of agree with a lot of feedback that they don’t have valuable POIs or resources and after some thoughts I don’t know what the intention behind that was. I think because you can use OCD on them and having too much resources there would be an inflation source.
Will think about better gameplay for them or if they make sense at all if we have tons of Mission / Instances in the future.
Because the majority really like the Missions / Instances. I have to admit that most of them were not fully implemented such as the Battle Royal one we had in HWS 6. I will change that.
One of the most hottest questions. 62% like Golden Globe… and the rest? Well, obviously the performance, the limits and gameplay related things like Faction dominance were for many a negative point. While I am not against dominance (because that is in the end the reward for coordinated tryhard gameplay) I see the problems we have / had and try to fix it in HWS 7.X.X with stricter rules, gameplay and limits. Boost the performance a lot while still giving reasons to live on GG. It will be not that comfortable anymore and some got really rich because of that season but we will see and revisit / compare on a later stage again.
Homeworld with the unique resource layer system is more liked. However the main feedback is not good to make resources so easy to get. Of course the Bunkers were also very heavy in the negative note and removing them in HWS 7.X.X from there will boost the positive things but I will definitely spread out the resources so the other XWorld planets are not boring anymore!
Stay tuned.
A beautiful graph telling us the above as well. While the idea / intention of them is good they should be used carefully and not on PvP hotspots at all. More likely they will be placed on PvPvE planets to give beginner more reasons to train for PvP.
It is nice to see that the POIs are overall very good balanced for you. As you know almost all of them are made / modified by ourself so this feedback is very valuable and feedback for us to improve them even more.
So all in all, with all the hate and joy the clear majority like the current HWS Gameplay! That is very nice to see and motivation for us to flip the last two bars
Every time worth it!
I don’t think it was only because of the Origin planets. But after 2 years, seeing this progress is very relieving…
HWS round up
That section is mostly for own purposes and analyzes like the HWS Website design feedback or Discord but some valuable graphs nevertheless for you:
64,6% think the HWS Police doing an awesome job and being already part of HWS.
While I totally agree on that one I also know about some flaws here and there. For your understanding it is important to mention that @andreaPOLICE and @gareth are one of the coolest pair we could think of! We are very lucky to have found so motivated and helpful guys.
But since they have to report a lot of things still to me I am in the end, as always, the bottleneck
Also the lack of NA Police / admins were mentioned I am more than aware of. @JUNIPER is currently trained for that position and so far I have heard positive feedback. Thanks for that!
But the position of a NA full admin is unfortunately not available at the moment. @hopskotch were so far the best and most competent one but he is gone. And after the last two negative experience with admin abuse and worse there is neither the trust nor motivation for another one.
After waking up and reading all the chat it is at least very relieving to see so many helpful NA guys. Teaching and discussing with beginner. Sure toxicity is also stronk there but with Alpha 8 it will be reduced I think… hint hint.
So yeah, sorry if that position is not simple a “make an application form” one but rather a “get my trust” one. There are some guys on NA I would trust for that position but after 2 years I also know and experienced how fast you can get burned out and it’s kind of bothering me that it will remove the reason to play because that is a fact for sure. Once you are full admin, you can’t play that game anymore as you did before. Already having guilty conscience for Hops and DeeExpus, great players, not playing the game anymore because of that path. Not speaking of Jascha and me at all…
Just two words: Thank you!
We really trying our best, even for the NA guys and even for some haters/ wait…
One of the best TL;DR in a graph! We really appreciate your feedback and your valuable life time. Making so many players happy is our main goal and even though we don’t need to be that tryhard sometimes I think it is worth if we see communities are built on HWS, friendships are formed and even one marriage!
As long as Empyrion exist we will exist and try to improve non stop.
It was in the end my dream to be a Game Designer / - Programmer … so here I am (and speaking for Jascha too a bit)
Your HWS Team
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