Posted on Behalf of SOF Studio President, Tom
Hello H-Hour Community!
We have decided to change the Steam store list price for H-Hour: World’s Elite to $9.99 US effective today (approx. 10 am PST). We believe this price will better reflect the current content that is available with H-Hour. Previously we based our pricing on achieving certain milestones. The reality of actual sales volumes has meant we are not where we hoped to be in the development cycle at this stage. We also want to continue the upward trend in player base we witnessed recently with the Workshop release and its celebration sale. It was great to see enough players online to populate servers in all the time zones throughout the day as this allowed members the best gameplay experience. For all these reasons we feel this price adjustment is a step in the right direction for H-Hour.
The team had two major activities going on this last week. Much of their time was spent on the Workshop. This included:
- Public release of the tools needed to create custom maps for H-Hour.
- Release of special forums for Workshop.
- The move of map threads into the new forums.
- Fine tuning Workshop processes for our server scripts and the content presented on our servers for players.
- Supporting members who experienced issues with Workshop content.
- Working with map authors to correct submission problems and provide advice.
- Guiding the volunteer Map Monitors as they work through developing a review process for quality control. This will be a huge addition to the player experience as only reviewed and approved content will be placed on our servers.
The second major activity that was achieved last week was getting our newest programmer setup with our source code, familiarizing him with the use of our source control tools and a first pass training overview of our build processes for releasing content.
What’s Ahead?
- We will continue to support the Workshop Monitor team as they finalize their roles and the review process for future Workshop content. We are hopeful this will be complete and public by the end of the week.
- Bug review and testing will continue.
- The programmer will begin reviewing the source code itself to gain knowledge of the game’s construction before he begins addressing fixes. It is critical he understands the design and structure before making changes or deciding what should be addressed and when. With UE4 source code at what is an incomplete state compared to older engines, many changes were needed to engine code to accommodate functionality. The programmer has a challenge ahead of him as our source files number 73,000 at this stage of development.
- On the investor/partner front, I will be continuing discovery conversations with the group of industry leaders for the next while. As previously mentioned, working through the process for these potential agreements does take time. I will also continue following up on other leads or options.
The enthusiasm of this community and the volunteers continues to be a shining light for H-Hour and its future. Keep promoting the game on social media and playing on the servers as your efforts have been noticed and are helping me greatly in my discussions. Together we can get this done!
More next Monday…..