What would be FUN?
At this time of examination, there has been a lot of discussion about mechanics, nerf this, boost that, change the other. But not much discussion of just plain fun, which most agree is what is really lacking? Players talk about risk/reward, but not fun/frustration ratios.
Some things I think that would up the fun quotient;[*]Loot that really matters, at least for a few levels. Not common, but not never-never either. Diablo II is a master of this. Pulsing spectrum III or IV? Wonderful. (For about three weeks. Then a sour taste. )[*]Quest rewards that matter for one reason or the other. Hauberk of the Quester, the Darkstaff crystals, Accolade of Expedition, Masks. All nice.[*]Fluff. Snowballs were great fluff. And the festival decorations and fireworks.[*]Mixed areas. The great example was the lower iron works of Kion; Jman crafters getting their iron; hatchlings working on spiders to level; the fyakki charmer wandering through; the huntresses, and later, huntress groups. The spooky ruins and skeletons next door. Golemsand keepersup the hill. Just magnificent.[*]Shard-wide projects. What an adventure to build the satyr island tunnels, or to free Feladan. Constructing, valiant runners, desperate defenders. Obvious potential equivalents: freeing Old Rachival, the Welgars, the Kwellen, REALLY pushing back the Blight, by cleaning up the WD for example. A real assault onooh, tremble now, the WEDGE, to open the Eastern Continent.[*]NOT listenening to players, at least not in detail. No player that I knew of imagined crystals as desirable loot that did not harm crafting. (Great idea,sadly bowdlerized over time.) This is difficult; having the imagination to do what players really want, butwhich they don't knowthey want yet.[*]Teasers. Been some lately. Good. Tricky to tease, but not overly divulge. However, withmore practice...[*]Whimsy, humor. The silly gnomes at the Feladan fountain; the dryad houses; snowballs; fireworks; some puns in named critters' names. The beta version of the imperial asessors. (I know it can be very difficult to be whimsical when up to your tail in alligators.) The teasers so far on the player-generated quests suggest that they will be fun. With some humor. Searching for a shoulder parrot? Great![*]Different items. Who remembers banners? Great idea, but ruined by being too difficult to get, too weak, and insanely heavy, but in principle novel and useful. The Boar's mask, Scabby staff, Moss club, Tyrant shield. All great, well implemented, but we've seen nothing like them for quite a while.[/list]
And the other part of the equation matters too; the fun/frustration quotient can be upped by reducing frustration.[*]Debugging. After all this time, stuff is still being released that has not been adequately tested. Close friend, with a $400 Nvidia card, has the choice of using old drivers, and crashing every 'port, or using newer drivers and lagging horribly (3 fps) in town,since Jan 11, when client graphics changes were introduced. I picked up 35 fps at first, now I'm up 5-10 with a Radeon card. How much fun does the game have to be to offset his frustration? Or for another area, much of the impact of the Ancient RoP will be diminished if it does not run smoothly.[*]Nerfing. Something taken away has a much greater impact than something given. Terrible psychology.[*]Repetition as a substitute for accomplishment. Running as the major component of crafting, or killing x of y, or killing over and over and over to advance.[*]The current state of the spawn system. Better than it was, but apparently improving it has been given up on, as I have not seen any improvements for a while. And the combat queue does not seem to work as smoothly as itonce did, but has becomeerratic recently.[/list]
Umm, sorry, the frustration part got a little out of balance, but perhaps that reflects the current state of the game. Anyway, more ideas for just plain fun out there?
