Istaria.... The Ghost Towns

[LOVWYRM]

*hides ALL catnip of Istaria in her lair and locks the door*

[velveeta]

hey!! i didn't shed!!!

[Veruliyam]

*comes out of the water*

*flops on the ground with a wet plotzing sound*

*belches loudly*

(pardon me.)

*waves a claw in front of his maw*

*shrugs*

My lair is safe. Too bad it's so difficult for non-flyers to get into. It would help rebuild Harton Valley.

[Mauricgriff]

There have been many ghost towns because any unowned plots have been too small to be of any use.
Many people have in game without a plot or lair, because there were no useful plots available.
At the moment the only lair i know available was up for sale at 300g last time I looked. There are many lairs not developed but this is not visible.
A few plots recently became available have been bought up and are being built on.
The reason for the ghost towns is people buying a plot not building on it and leaving the game.
Genievia is looking a lot better now, seen quite a lot of building there as well as building myself.
Btw on the day of this novian farming I did none of that myself (was too busy building on the new plot I bought in genevia) and did not have the feeling of massive asset stripping, although my impression was some T1/T2 res being stripped but not in massive quantities.
Anyway those are just my own feelings/impressions

[Yarsgo]

Personally, Mauricgriff, I think that any plot, no matter the size, is usable (ok, who will be the first to say Yarsgo said, "size doesn't matter"? LOL)

But seriously, most of the players I know did just like i did- started small, and worked up to much larger plots. I think that the killing-off of the AWOL large plot owners is the best thing to hit Istaria in a long, long time. Dedicated players who stuck around are now able to reap this benefit. A welcome reward, and a long time coming, for sure.

"Ghost Towns" aplenty currently- room for expansion and growth in Istaria IMHO.

[Vahrokh]

"Ghost Towns" aplenty currently- room for expansion and growth in Istaria IMHO

I wonder how Istaria can grow when Goggling for:

"mmorpg playable dragons"

won't return Istaria links anywhere near the top (if at all).

The game might be the best of all but with zero advertisement it won't be repopulated anytime soon.

The paroxysm: the single, only MMO with playable and living dragons and this incredible peculiarity looks like not exploited at all :S

[Velea]

Interesting... I just googled that same phrase and Istaria came up as the 4th thing, the first 3 all being the same other game.

Google works very strange in how it prioritizes things, I can tell you that. You can quite easily (with time) falsely inflate interest in a particular website by searching for it and repeatedly "hitting" the site and various sub-sites on it. I've watched it happen over a period of a month where someone falsely inflated interest in a particular organization by using this method.

With their new "suggest a better link" at the bottom, it's even easier to inflate interest, in fact.

[Kerech]

Same for me 4th link was Istaria. Top 3 links were 9dragons.

I'd hardly say that Istaria didn't get any exposure in Google

[awdz]

i'm not sure what my search engine is with windows internet explorer, but i tried a variety of searches with mmorpg, dragon, roleplay, play, character... the only time my lame thing came up with this game is when i put in istaria :-(

[Nisse]

only MMO with playable and living dragons

[cynical]
But all people want to do is kill dragons, why should they want to play something that's considered evil and destructive by so many people?
Why should they want to play something that most gamers only see as something to be conquered and destroyed?
Something whose only place in the game universe is to lay waste and to be killed, over and over.
[/cynical]

[Shur]

[cynical]
But all people want to do is kill dragons, why should they want to play something that's considered evil and destructive by so many people?
Why should they want to play something that most gamers only see as something to be conquered and destroyed?
Something whose only place in the game universe is to lay waste and to be killed, over and over.
[/cynical]

god i hate games like that.... i refuse to play the monster hunter games because they treat dragons that way... and if that fellow standing in falconreach is an indicator of things to come... i'll have to quit playing dragonfable...

[velveeta]

weird about dragonfable, shur - they can't be going toward an all draggys are bad game, cause i got a draggy companion.....

[Shur]

i still don't like the looks of that hunter in falconreach

[Vahrokh]

Interesting... I just googled that same phrase and Istaria came up as the 4th thing, the first 3 all being the same other game.

Call it "Google magic". As you say, it's easy to change ranking.

Now, I have no idea about the costs, but isn't it impossible to think to find a budget for some advertising? It pains me PLENTY to see months and months go on and on, you pour effort in improving the game and yet Istaria is less known than the members of a secret Freemasonry circle.

Remember: I lived 80 miles off the European Horizons data center....

... _3_ game packages (1 with broken CD) in the whole region were all that had been possible to find, after a very intense fight.

[Nisse]

Perhaps the developers are waiting to have the game in a more polished and finished state before spreading the word again?

(I'd think maybe sometime near or at the end of the tier revamps?)