HWS Before and HWS+ Now

I started playing Empyrion in June of 2017. There were lots of problems. Eventually I found HWS and stayed because it offered advantages that other servers did not.
1 - OCD allows player to continue progress without too much time wasted.
2 - OAM allows player to collect resources automatically without wasting a lot time finding resources and gathering resources later.
3 - Smaller planet size allows less time spent traveling back and forth between POIs and bases.
4 - Smaller planet size means smaller orbits and less time spent collecting resources from asteroids.
5 - Abundant orbital resources on HQ planets for all but the rarest ores.
6 - Abundant POIs for collecting uncraftable components and devices.
And the number one reason I became a Patreon supporter - auto interest on bank meant I didn’t have to spend time flying to ECC everyday. Do you see the common element? It’s time.
All of these things allowed me to play Empyrion the only way I will ever play it - casually. Only 1 and 2 are still in place and honestly they won’t be enough to hold me here because I dont want to spend all my playtime grinding for resources that are few or nonexistent. The new HWS is pushing me away and I was one of the few who continued to play it over the past year and a half preparing for a new PVPVE experience. You want feedback. This is my feedback - Don’t waste any more time ‘fixing’ something that is inherently broken. Do an emergency full wipe and revert to the old HWS with new 1.8 landscaping including carbon and rethink everything else. Right now it’s worse than pay-to-play. Please don’t misunderstand. I appreciate that running a server is a lot of work and I do appreciate everything you have done in the past. Let’s go back and take the time to build something that will attract players instead of push them away. My advice is this - Make the start game easy and the end game hard for advanced players but not tedious. And the mid game challenging but fulfilling. And above all, make it worth my time.

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Thank you for your feedback! I value it a lot.

The other ones will be worked on and as you and many other like them as well and should not be seen as facts right now.

But I see your main point

Beside the fact that the new 1.8 landscape deco is buggy and unpolished for MP, this is tough call to make right now. It would mean even more time is needed to revert things and offer nothing new for a period of time. Furthermore, going back into my cave, without valuable community feedback.
Technically it would be of course the best, if there is a fifth HWS server, where I can do such “playgrounds”, until it’s finished but I’m a one-man show and don’t have the resources for it.

So I had to make the very very hard decision: do I let the old servers running further dry, paying way more money to maintain them, than money for them comes in, or do I release a work in progress scenario, that the communtiy can help me shaping to their needs?
Especially for patrons it’s a great way to contribute - I mean this is the whole nature of Patreon, no? Supporting content creators and not just enjoying passive benefits?

Not only your time. I think everyone is looking for the points you mentioned, they are great and HWS+ will also go for that.
The first impression was just not the best and for sure not my best decision to start an Alpha with restrictions and time investment, rather than let’s say make Elements super easy to get, let all start with level 5 Stack Size and go from there technical wise.
The placeholder orbits and planets are probably the bigger issue, cause they leave also a wrong impression of what I intend them to be.

As Dealer Origin you have this ability for free now, in case you missed it. The reason why this powerful benefits got moved from the $1 tier (which I rather lose money with), to a higher tier was explained at Patreon.

That’s easy to say and not really motivating but again, I get your point and can only repeat: please have some more patience - help shaping something better or wait until it’s back to something you liked.

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This is great feedback, but also great responses.

Please watch ’ HWS+ Interactive Trailer | Release on 15th June - Era of the Elements to see what the plan is.

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