Some Far future Ideas for Istaria

I have a few post game Ideas to maybe bring the game back to its prime. I’ve posted a ticket for it already but i wanted to post it to the forums, that way the community still present can read over it. Also so i can elaborate more on what exactly it is i’m suggesting, it’s going to be a bit lengthy but that’s why i’m posting it here so i don’t feel so bad for the essay’s worth of ideas to give the game in the far future. it mostly involves expanding the map and having new super high lvl quests and maybe a lvl cap raise. but hear me out i know, it's probably been suggested like a 1000 times, most games that have been out for years have done at least one of these, mostly mainstream Mmo’s like WoW and GW2 and even Tera.

Firstly, Expanding Istaria and other realms in the game. By no means is istaria a small map, at all, in fact Ist. was my very first experience with an open world game. However, by expanding the map, maybe via discovered previously unexplored territory by boat and dragon wings, maybe even by a portal gone a rye, The world gets bigger, offering a plethora of new activities and places to explore.(especially after the jump to a better server)
I know, it'd be quite a lot of work, and it would be very difficult. I’m not saying i want to see that right away. No that’d be something that gradually over a long period of time it would be great to see. I believe it would be a great value, like most mmos it would require a very large update and there would be bugs along the way but the larger map would give all players a little extra to explore and if in the event of a server merge, would give all existing players a place to build their lairs offering them a wider range of breathtaking scenery and locations.
As well as Making the map larger, I was also thinking about how one would traverse quickly across the map and activities hidden in locations throughout the map. For transportation of course portals would definitely continue to be a thing, but alternatives to portals could also be considered. Mounts, Ships and Airships depending on how far advanced civilization is, Mounts being the big one. Horses, cows, or even giant chickens, if there are farms then peds have had to have been able to domesticate a ride-able animal for helping them get around, especially seeing as pets are now a thing. Even if it’s not farm animals. The other idea, and i know it’s been talked about and it’s probably not likely to happen, is having the players playing as dragons be mountable by other races, with the players consent of course, even if it’s not via a player, it could just as easily be offered by specific Npc’s conveniently placed around the map. Same goes for other modes of transportation. The hidden locations I’m referring to could be something like hidden dungeons which with ultimately take me into my second suggestion, or group of suggestions


Raising the lvl cap, adding a second dragon class adventure school, new quests, and new equipment. With a larger map and a higher Cap comes the addition of new and exciting things to do and one hellova climb to get those new lvls and make them worth it. Let's start by covering the lvls first as the lvl cap doesn't need to be raised by much. When the rite are done and the craft schools are maxed, lairs are built and boredom sets in the post game content becomes available for players to explore(let's say the lvl requirements being 100 craft rating and 100 in the current adventure). As players progress to the newer parts of the map they would begin running into mobs with lvls that slowly begin to climb into the 150’s to 200 range that would be 190 and up for the regular mobs and 210+ for hunts, and like for the major hunts in the rift for dragons, they'd need several people to conquer successfully. To offset such a climb in levels the player lvl cap could be raised to between 170 and 180.
“OMG!! those lvls are so High, it’d be too much work to get there, it’s hardly worth it to get there.” I hear you, but the lvls would be gained just as easily as the other ones, especially with the additional activities that come with a larger map. The community events that would happen every weekend and the rift runs for ancient rites were fun, and i know i’m not the only one that thinks that, I propose the new lvls be gained in method similar to those activities. Specifically by re-runnable dungeons that would offer new, unique and rare items, equipment, forms and hoard items, Maybe even cosmetic items if it’s possible. These dungeons would be filled with epic mobs, mini bosses and maybe a super boss at the end; demanding co-operation, problem solving and organization. As for community events, I would definitely like to see more of those, even the event is automatically triggered once a day, week or month for extra: exp, materials, titles, or coin.


New equipment means new tiers of materials means slightly more crafting, but hear me out. To avoid taking the titles of Grand-master crafter away from people the acquisition of these new materials with only be obtainable after achieving the title of Grand-master title and can only be obtained by the super high leveled mobs and rare mobs, there would be as many complex side quests that would allow you to work and craft these materials as there are craft abilities and because these materials were just (re)discovered after all the new continents were found. In addition to the new materials perhaps an entirely new tier of armors and weapons is created requiring nearly twice as much work to put together as a set of T6 scales, don’t be discouraged tho, these items should be worth the effort. Some of these newer materials would be : Orichalicum(A fuchsia pink to purple or even green metal used to make armors and items, it's lighter than adamantium but also as sturdy) and Pegmatite(an exceptionally coarse grained rock)

New quests for peds in general would be pretty cool. Lore wise, culture wise, ability wise, peds aren't as in depth with their quests like dragons were last i checked, i know it’s being worked on at the time of my writing this, but i wanted to generalize my suggestions to a single post. My idea comes from poking at a few different major and minor MMO’s but it’s worked for others so far so maybe start the different races of peds off in what is essentially a homeland and give them a few more racial abilities they need to learn about, then move onto touching lightly on where the race(s) the player chose to play come from. as the play progresses in the chosen class(es) maybe have regular lore and culture quests that cover lore on why that race is where they are, how they got there and what’s in the future for that race. Maybe like the grand-master crafter title and the Dragon's Rites, each bipedal race would have a rites quest where the player would gather their friends and hunt specific high lvl named mobs or fight back particularly powerful blight creature or an event spawned anchor that attempts to encroach on the land or major city of that race,. and once completed they would gain essentially a title, with a buff specifically made for that race, recognizing them as one of that races elite warriors. Also maybe getting to the source of the blight is nearly with in our grasp with a new string of quests. Or perhaps our downfall is nigh and perhaps the gods in istaria have sought to lend aid in a dark time, maybe Drulkar makes a surprise return. Or perhaps an entirely new story line crops up one that would slowly begin a separate story that would carry on well after the blight have been brought to heel(if we ever get that far. I can be hopeful tho).



As Classes go Peds have many, the choices are quite intimidating to me and the work of building a ped is what keeps me strictly to dragons. Speaking of dragons, the dragons could use a second adventure class centered more around the use of magics and spell-casting giving dragon spell casters more of an fighting edge and making a caster build more visible. It would present as a choice kind of like the dragon factions, only instead of being limited to one faction or the other, each faction will have dragons that offer both a melee fighting style and a caster class fighting style, and in order to keep characters currently existing from losing all their lvls/progress, the current offset of abilities could be considered a balanced fighting style using both primal and physical abilities.


Lastly on my suggestion list, is advertising, it’s less to do with the game itself and more on how to get it out there even at its current and glorious form. I know, I know, it costs quite a bit of money for advertising time. however, I actually happened to find Istaria Via an add, i can't remember if it was off Dragcave, or some other forum clickable site relating to dragons. regardless i saw it and was immediately drawn to the by the premise of Dragons as a playable race. Seeing as that mechanic was entirely unheard of, still is now that i think about it I'm thinking since the only other game that I've played a true dragon in is Spyro, no surprise there tho. If advertised in the right places it might actually be successful in bring in the players, especially because i know there are still people out there that love dragons. And with the release of the remastered Spyro games, there’s bound to be a large new generation of dragon lovers on the way.

Those are just some of my suggestions and opinions. Things i’d love to see for the game in the future, the far future, but the future nonetheless.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

Thank you for taking the time to post your ideas. We appreciate them!

Two main things stand out for me that I wanted to respond to.

- Dragon Classes. Adding new crafting classes is "easy", but adding new adventure classes is unfortunately very very difficult. You can find numerous threads on the forums from the last 10+ years where it has been discussed and there are major hurdles to it. At this stage in the game's life I am unsure if we'll ever address it the way many might want.

- Raising the level cap. This is an issue that has been brought up and discussed many times as well, both here on the forums, on Skype or Discord, and also internally to the team over the years. There are hurdles here as well, the biggest of which would be the need to add more resources, more items, more formulas, and to add higher end-game content to account for the additional 20 levels per class. Not to mention the imbalance we would have to deal with for Dragons.

These are both great topics of discussion, however, and I do not wish to discourage you or anyone from bringing them up! Thanks again for playing and caring about Istaria!

In beta, Dragons could play the biped adventurer classes. I was pretty fond of my Dragon druid :)

But that changed for release, and probably rightfully so. Still, it was fun while it lasted.