Longevity

[Andaras]

"Istaria has many Saris, in fact it's the MMO with 7 lives."

I beg to differ, Istaria is GIFTED as well as having Saris Gifted
as a native race. Istaria may have lived 7 lives so far, but
being gifted stretches that out to an Eternity of Lives.
*crosses claws*

I was here during the bleakness that hit the Empire during
the times of EII and the Bankruptcy before that. The days
when you did not know if you would be able to even get to
the server to login. I never stopped waking then, and have
not stopped ever. I like many I know here, will remain until
the blackness rolls over the Empire and we suffer our final defeat
from the Withered Aegis.

Do I believe Istaria has a Future? - For as long as I can wake and
see the world I call my Home, yes!
Do I believe it will grow? - with all my Heart I wish to see this world
restored to its previous glories. When there were 10 Splinters of
our Empire and we saw 100s of newly gifted each day. (I firmly believe
it should never grow to be the size of WOW - it would be ruined IMO)

I continue to pray I win the Lottery BIG, my first act after depositing
my check would be to visit Virtrium's offices and negotiate an investment
to brighten Istaria's future flame.

May the light of Istaria never be extinguished!!

Andaras

[Armameteus]

The reason the WoW community is as bad as it is today is mainly for two very specific reasons.

1) They're the type of "big company" that care more about what's coming into their funding, rather than making a deep, concentrated effort to make the game all-around better. All they do normally in the new expansions is maybe add a new semi-original (though usually hardly unique compared to the other ones) race, plop in a bunch of completely unnecessary new abilities/schools/whatever-they-are's and raise the level cap by 10. It's hardly more than just fattening up the already obese cash-cow that they perceive it as. If they really wanted to make an effort toward making the game better, they'd try something totally new and never before considered that would really shake up the video game market. Instead, it's just the same bland grey gruel that they shovel into the open maws of those willing to pay for it. This is mainly why they don't force out any players, so long as they pay for "new" content so they don't get bored--they just want their money. The 'fake-new' content is just an easy way of making the game seem better, which gets more people to play, which means more money for them.

2) Because of the fact that they allow their community to get out of hand in terms of the countless trolls/spammers/downright jerks they let in, without seeming to really care about them apart from telling those affected to either "deal with it" or "just ignore them", players tend to start thinking that anonymity somehow entitles them to be a prick. If their community got better, at least a little bit, to show they're really trying to 'exterminate' the 'infestation' of bad players, it would be a whole different story. But they don't. So it isn't.

Why Istaria is better is because of this.

Yeah, hijacked my own thread because if I put it here, people would start getting upset. Check it at your leisure.

I do agree with you though Andaras. I hope it lasts for a long, long time. And, to be completely honest... I've actually considered that lottery fantasy myself. Or something akin to it anyway. If I had the money, you can bet I'd make a genuine effort to help out the Virtrium team in a way that at least appears more like a business proposition, rather than a donation.

[LOVWYRM]

(I apologize to Lightning: Having talked with him I got the point-
and do agree in the main )

[Eelime]

I think, unless the devs can somehow come up with the resources to increase their advertising/marketing (doing interviews and such is a good way to get new players) and get the resources to make a lot of new content, the game might die. Not because the player-base will leave (not all of it anyway) but because so many people have no idea what Istaria is or what it has to offer, and because of that, it's possible that the devs may not receive enough money to continue development of the game and may have to close it down (or close down all but one of the servers).

I have a few ideas on how to make Istaria better, but I don't think they may be very plausible, as I have no idea what resources the devs of this game have at their disposal, what they're willing to do, etc..

The first of my suggestions is create a content expansion that introduces a lot of mid-to-end-game content, for those that have been here for a while and want something new. And I mean a lot. Enough to keep the average player busy for a month or so. They could sell this expansion for $15-20. Because the expansion is aimed at mid-to-old players, old people that have left will come back (means more subscriptions) and people that are already playing will stay longer, it also means that newbies (people who have only been here for a few months or so) wont feel pressured into needing to buy this expansion until they're at a certain point in their development.

My second suggestions builds on my first, it was said that if they had more money, they would invest it into marketing (advertising) and (i think) to get art assets and such? Well, from the money you get from selling the expansion and the new/old subscriptions, you can invest into that (and I'm sure a lot of people will buy the expansion just out of love of the game, I know I would, and I haven't even been here two weeks), which will bring in new subscriptions (because of the increased advertising and such).

My third suggestion is to update the graphics of Istaria a bit. The game looks lovely right now, especially if you have your settings right, but you have to admit, there is stuff that could, and even should be changed. There are a lot of player mods out there that greatly increase Istaria's beauty. Maybe you could make these mods standard (as in they're included with the initial client and/or are automatically updated to all clients). Not only are better graphics nice to look at, but they're also easy on the eyes. I know many people who didn't get into video games until recently (as in the past few years) because they claimed that looking at the graphics of video games gave them headaches or made their eyes hurt. But, the graphics aren't a big priority, content, something which most MMO's lack, is what Istaria has, and what it should keep.

My fourth suggestion, is to introduce a new account type. Similar to that of the recently-made-free-to-play MMO's LOTRO and DDO, that is; Allow a few races to be free to play (not just humans) and then offer people the option to BUY races that they can then play for free. Make it so a large number of Istaria's races (except Dragon and a few others) are available for free-to-play. This will increase the player base, make it more likely that people will switch to subscription (so they can play the other races, such as Dragon), and create profit/money from people buying the other races to play with their free-to-play accounts.

My fifth suggestion is kind of outlandish, something to be done one, two, maybe more years into the future. That is, to create a "second" game. There is a couple of ways you could go with this. But, both ways are very similar. IT would be much like City of Heroes and City of Villains are. They're both essentially the same game, just different "skins", and players from each game can interact and fight each other. My idea is to either make a "second game" (this one you have to purchase) that lets you play as the Withered Aegis (think that's what it's called, sorry I'm new :S)"faction", not in that you would automatically get to attack the "normal" players, but it would be a second game that revolves around you essentially being an evil person trying to further expand the blight (or w/e) across Istaria. This could in turn create a new kind of quest-type that could literally affect the game world. Each faction could do their best to complete missions/quest that would either push the blight back, or expand it, or even make it spawn in new areas.

This would make it so Istaria can keep it's relatively PvP-free status, while also attracting people that enjoy player vs player conflict, even if it isn't actually fighting another player.

My other idea for the "second game", or it could just be another expansion, is to create a game that is only accessible to players who have reached a certain point (again making it so people wont feel pressured into buying it) that would make you "Ascend" or, kill your character, transporting you into a Spirit-plane. This would essentially put a "mark" over the world for you, give you access to completely new areas, and give you a new "look" and other abilities. Like, making you semi-see-through, giving everyone the ability to take "wisp" form (allows for faster travel/flight), and gives you access to new abilities. And, at certain times (like if you're fighting a big-boss in the spirit realm) you could become visible (along with the boss) to the normal players. And because the other players would only be able to see, not actually interact, you could have a huge boss fight in somewhere like New Trismus, which would be awesome to see, and not have to worry about newbies dying.




I have more ideas, but that's all I will post for now. Like I said, I have no idea of what the devs can do (or can't/won't do), so some, or all, of my ideas may not be possible for them.


Now, on to the second part of my post.

I know we all wish the devs could do more to increase the games popularity, but chances are that (at least for now) they wont be able to do anything to drastic. That's why I suggest we, the players, start our own Istaria ad-campaign! Essentially, what we, as players, can do to increase Istaria's popularity is a lot, actually.

I'm sure a number of you are members of other forums, some for role-play, some for other games, some for other things. And, most forums have a place for off-topic, or "other-game" related topics/threads. We can all make an effort to post "reviews" or "advertisements" for Istaria, showing/telling other people how amazing the game is.

We can also increase the player-driven Istaria groups on all the social media websites (I think I saw that there were a few) popularity.

It's possible to even spend your own money to place an ad (if you have the money and permission from the devs) on a website. Or, if you have your own website (that isn't already related to Istaria) place an ad there.

I'm a member of couple of forums for other games, and I've already posted about Istaria there, and I'm hoping it will attract one or two people, and maybe if I'm lucky, one of them will like the game and try to get their friends into it.

Some things to keep in mind if you plan to make a thread for Istaria on another forum: Make it very informative. It's okay to have long post, but be sure to break it down a bit so people don't have to read one huge non-stop wall of text. Include one or more pictures, but not to many (3 or 4 should be the limit). In my post, I included a picture of a dragon pointing, with the words "Istaria Wants YOU" that I put at the top of the post. Make sure to not make it so much about YOUR opinion about the game, but the actual facts about the game (Istaria's huge world, the player-housing/lairing in Istaria, the many different races of Istaria...including dragons, etc..) and the opinions of other people like, "Istaria is an MMORPG that has a MASSIVE world, it has 12 different playable races, including dragons that can glide and fly! Also,all the races of Istaria are very unique, not your run-of-the-mill fantasy MMO races." stuff like that, you can greatly expand on it to.

As players, we essentially have more ability to attract new players than the dev have (right now, anyway), so we should all make an effort to play our part. We coordinate to make post on the more popular forums/websites (by that I mean, have someone make a post on a forum, and then the rest of us go to that post and reply with our experiences and expression/thoughts on the game). There's a lot that can be done that I haven't thought of. I don't know if it's still a problem, but a member mentioned that Istaria could use some search-engine optimization or w/e it's called.

Anyways, that's by 2 (or more lol) cents on the matter.




Edit: Also, to add. I understand that a lot of the world, especially the USA, is having hard time for money. But, I'm sure that most of us, if not all, can afford the little extra it would cost(one-time-payment) for an expansion. And, chances are, by time that the devs got around to actually being able to develop an expansion, and then releasing it, the economic troubles of today will be gone, or at least reduced enough that a lot of us would feel comfortable investing $20 or more in a game that we love. As of now, I'm sure a lot of us that play Istaria are no stranger to paying $30-60 or so for a new game that we'll only play for 5-10 hours, so it wouldn't be much of a problem to spend the same, or less, on an expansion we'll spend days, weeks, months using.

[Amerelium]

As I've stated on earler occations over the years: Seing what his game has endured already, NOTHING can kill it...

[LungTien Temeraire]

As I've stated on earler occations over the years: Seing what his game has endured already, NOTHING can kill it...

The game is Gifted

[Armameteus]

As I've stated on earler occations over the years: Seing what his game has endured already, NOTHING can kill it...

I would like to think that, given this game's past, it would prove to be more than difficult to fully 'destroy' it once and for all. Though it's likely that nothing lasts forever, I'd hate to see this game die out before it's at least had a chance to realize its full potential.

[Shinkuu]

Istaria WILL Die... Eventually... but then so will WoW. That is just inevitable of all things.

Do I think it will last another year? Yes, I do believe it will last another year. It will likely last another five years (assuming the planet does not go bye-bye in 2012 for some reason LOL).

However, I HONESTLY do not think it will last beyond that in its current state. IF it can change and grow it may linger for even longer but I cannot imagine it as it is.

Is it currently dying? Eeeh... I would say it is Critical Condition but not really on Life Support just yet.

Is the way it currently is hurting the game? Yes, I believe the current game suffers from a number of little design flaws and other problems that are, while perhaps not flat out killing it, preventing it from growing in a healthy way.

Will it change and start to grow in time?... I am afraid only the Devs have that answer for you.

[Frith-Rae]

What Shinkuu said...so...QFT that up there..yea..lol.

All games come to an end. Istaria has certainly outlasted all expectations, especially after being dumped Atari it certainly has faired better on that sea than any game that has come since those times. So fast the environment for these things has changed...

The only thing that would determine wether Istaria has more than another few years in it is if the slow trickle of the "long term committments" that fade away each year is replaced not with the 6 month players, but with an equal amount of long-term committers. I feel these are getting harder and harder to find the in MMO community, but it is possible to find them out there.

Other than that, yup, what Shinkuu said...

[Romirez]

after seeing what i have seen, this game will last. EII was a huge attempt to kill it, and it didn't work. as long as we have the original developers working for Virtrium, this game won't go away. will it grow to WoW proportions either? probably not, unless some big expantions or design changes are made.


and yes, i'm a 'lifer'.

[Andaras]

after seeing what i have seen, this game will last. EII was a huge attempt to kill it, and it didn't work. as long as we have the original developers working for Virtrium, this game won't go away. will it grow to WoW proportions either? probably not, unless some big expantions or design changes are made.


and yes, i'm a 'lifer'.

LOL

To be more appropo to Istaria, you my friend are GIFTED!

Andaras