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Thread: Some Suggestions

  1. #1

    Default Some Suggestions

    Hi. I'm new and not even sure if I'm going to stick around. However, being a long term gamer and mmo player. I really like alot of what this game has going for it. I like that the team is dedicated to keeping it running, even though it's small. I also like that it sort of does what no other mmo really does anymore.
    That being said, I would love to make some suggestions. Though I'm not a dedicated player, I hope you devs would really take what I'm going to say into consideration, and I hope the community won't defend you too avidly. I'm only giving my opinion and nothing more.
    Lets get started... Your game is amazing as it is already. You are a game which forces close community interaction; allows players to build openly in the world; makes the growing of a character a mechanic (modern gamers call this dated grinding fluff); and allows people to be dragons! In short you are a game that is a dying breed. You don't see it anymore, in a world of instanced dungeons and group finders. This alone will keep your niche for as long as you are willing to keep the game running; however, I do think some things could really be worked on in order to pull a few people in and help further enrich the experience of your loyal player base. Lets go over these...

    1. Dungeons. I think the original devs choice of not putting these in the original design of the game was what ultimately shot out of the mainstream eye back in the day. Dungeons are a staple of all fantasy. We had dungeons when Homor wrote the Odyssey or when the King Arthur stories were first published. I could go on and on about dungeons in lit but I won't. Suffice it to say that dungeons are just important. Gamers want to feel that tension of venturing into the dark unknown. They want to get lost and they want to fight scary creatures. They want to feel like Frodo in Lord of the Rings. It's just something that is in us. Also dungeons make for good player based co-op opportunities. It is an excuse for players to group up to accomplish a certain goal.
    What You all can do... I understand that you are a very small team, but I think with a focus of resources I think you can accomplish this, and I think you need to dedicate one or two updates to nothing but this at first. You already have the ability for dragons to did lairs. Use this mechanic and make a big maze like cave to start with. Put 3 mobs in it that would be considered boss like and somewhere in the cave have a big chamber with a boss surrounded by monsters. This big chamber boss would be your server wide boss that is going to take 30 or so people to take down.
    Now you got that done. On the next update, you need to have some quest lines that will take players back into that horrid cave. A player on youtube told me about a type of one way dungeon system that your are trying to get into place and grow. Make portals into your cave that allow for players to enter one of these one way dungeons to finish their quests by finding items and fighting their way to the end. So now you have both a massive open world dungeon (like Everquest) and some smaller instance-like dungeons. You can put ore veins in here you can put rare crafting drops in here. This place is now a guild battle ground and a place for questers and crafters. Rinse and repeat this process until you get a few of these under your belt. It might take a few years for your team, but I'm telling you it will add a very strong element to an already unique game. Think about all these Asheron's Call people who don't have a home anymore and hate modern mmos. Your game is here and is the closest thing to their original game on the market. With some dungeons, it very close to it for the pve crowd.

    2. Live events and social media. You have a major event going right now which is awsome. I would suggest you go somewhat back to your roots when you were called by another name. Once a month I would suggest the devs pick a day and an ingame place and just let the monsters invade. Make the players ban together to drive them out. If that sounds like alot for the team, use player volunteers to help be monsters and such. We do this in Ultima Online to some degree and it works wonderfully. We have small little live events every month which just gives us all a feeling of community and it lets us feel close to the developers. Take advantage of twitch. Record these monthly raids and post them on youtube and twitch. It lets the outside community know you are alive.

    That's all I have. Just a few tweaks in an already neat system. Just remember this... You all are the last of a dying breed in the modern gaming crowd. If UO goes under, you can be there to pick up a few players. Asheron's call... there. What about Final Fantasy XI or Everquest. They have fans that would need an old-school home. Give them dungeons and bosses and they will strongly consider you guys as that home, should their games be shut down. With daybreak and their parent company's track record, that is a real threat every year.
    Don't scream at me too much. I only say this because I do care. I'm just telling you what alot of people who look at this game would say. It has A, B, and Dragons, which is awsome!! But I really need my dungeons and boss mobs to feel like its a proper rpg.
    Anyhow, thanks for listening. I wish you the best of luck in this game. I'll download it and give it a try sometime soon.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    For 1, there is a number of dungeons currently in game:
    -Dralnok's Doom (T6)
    -The Rift (T6)
    -Helian's Tomb (T2)
    -Ashlander's Tomb (T2)
    -Fiery Rift (I cannot remember the tier at this moment)

    They may not be the instanced type of dungeons most games have, but they do have unique content, Doom has it's own epic, The Rift is unique to dragons and is involved in their Ancient Rite of Passage, Ashlander's Tomb and Helian's Tomb are involved in the Tier 2 tombs questline and the fiery rift is for the dragon school 'Crystalshaper'. And there certainly are plans to add more with future content updates.

    As for 2, we do in fact throw invasions on the live shards (me for Chaos and Sarsilas for Order), but with the winter event we have been working on getting things ready for the finale once that is over we will continue our natural course of raiding.

    Lastly, on social media, we do have a twitter and facebook profile, and some of us have considered doing developer livestreams, but that is currently still up in the air.
    Oooooh, what does this button do?

  3. #3
    Staff :: Developer Sarsilas's Avatar
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    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    EDIT: Dang it, Liseth, you ninja'ed me this time! You're right with the amount of dungeons, but I'm not sure if those are the dungeons he's looking for. I think he's looking more into open-world dungeons you can step right into.

    Original post:
    Thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions. Regular or dedicated player or not, we appreciate the feedback from all walks of life and experience.

    I cannot speak for the rest of the team nor for our design lead on most of your suggestions, but I do want to point out some things -
    Quote Originally Posted by taubu View Post
    [...]You already have the ability for dragons to did lairs. Use this mechanic and make a big maze like cave to start with. Put 3 mobs in it that would be considered boss like and somewhere in the cave have a big chamber with a boss surrounded by monsters. This big chamber boss would be your server wide boss that is going to take 30 or so people to take down.[...]
    We would certainly create caves and such directly in the world with monsters if it was possible. Our engine is very limiting with the monsters; they see the world as a flat plane and ignore all world objects. We cannot spawn them within lairs or caves due to this, as they are technically just objects.

    To work around it, we have completely isolated areas of map set aside for pseudo-dungeons. In the main world, you have cave entrances or crypts you step into before getting a teleport screen, where you can choose the dungeon. Once teleported in, you're moved to an isolated area where all of our cave-like or tomb-like assets are buried into the ground slightly, with the ground textured like the floor of the model. This way, we can spawn mobs and such "in" caves. The drawbacks are that they still ignore terrain, though, so if you walk around a corner, the mob will walk directly through that bend in the wall to get to you instead of running around it. Unfortunately, it's the limitations of our engine.

    With the upgrade to the Unreal Engine, we might be able to fix those issues and allow for more integrated dungeons in the map. However, I'm very unsure; I work with the event team and art team, primarily, so I don't know what will or will not be possible.

    Quote Originally Posted by taubu View Post
    [...]Once a month I would suggest the devs pick a day and an ingame place and just let the monsters invade. Make the players ban together to drive them out.[...]
    In a way, we already do this; every now and then we'll make a global announcement that a town has fallen and spawn copious amounts of monsters in the town. I hunted for a screenshot but I cannot really seem to find one right now, unfortunately, but lately, I spawned three Blight Anchors in Dalimond, a main city, which forced players to take them back. After the fact, I let my own character fight against the Gifted herself as a 'final boss'.

    Quote Originally Posted by taubu View Post
    [...]If that sounds like alot for the team, use player volunteers to help be monsters and such.[...]
    It's hard for us to have players help. The only way we can spawn monsters / be monsters is with Game Master commands and entrusting those to players is very, very risky. It's very easy to give someone the tools to troll / attack others once given the ability to attack other players.

    Quote Originally Posted by taubu View Post
    [...]Take advantage of twitch. Record these monthly raids and post them on youtube and twitch. It lets the outside community know you are alive. [...]
    We currently do not have a Twitch account, but as for other social media and YouTube - we do post various screenshots and videos on Facebook, including those sent in on players. I believe our Twitter account is mostly just for server ups/downs, though, and occasional updates.
    With YouTube, I have my account that I post trailers and some videos too. I'll see if I can do anything with recording events on my own time.

    Going back to Twitch, I do want to say it'd be a little hard to stream our usual events. Most are very spontaneous to keep people on their toes. The upcoming finale for Hours of Frost, however, might be stream-able. It's up in the air, though, considering we would also be streaming our voices, commands, and plans, which would be odd to communicate to a player watching.

    Thank you again for your well thought-out post and suggestions. We love to hear feedback; without feedback we cannot improve and grow.

    Avatar by Scaleeth

  4. #4

    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    Hey. Awsome response time. I'm sold and going to download when I get back from the park with the family.
    Liseth: You argued me very politely and have both proven me slightly wrong and confirmed some things I wanted to hear.
    Sarsalis: Very honest remarks and makes some good sense. I was talking more open world dungeons. Instances are good too but in their own way or limiting as well.
    Anyhow, thanks for reading these. I'll gladly give the game a very real look.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    One more thing. In UO the company does interviews and is strict on who they let on their event team. So in essence, you would take only dedicated players who have a good in game rep and only give them access to powers on a limited basis (like when your doing the events). Threaten them with an account ban if they wanna abuse it and troll. Anyhow, have a great day. I'll hopefully see you in game. Any suggestions for a server to play on?

  6. #6

    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    It would be neat if we could just walk into a dungeon... there's a perfect entrance for one at the dead pool. We do have to teleport into our dungeons, but they aren't instanced, you will see any other players in there as you come across them. So they are more like an open world dungeon than any other game out there.

    Lately we have had announced world raids/events. They can be pretty fun. Some spontaneous, un-announced ones are also always fun.

    Welcome to Istaria!

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Some Suggestions

    Quote Originally Posted by taubu View Post
    Any suggestions for a server to play on?
    Chaos (averages 40-60 players) if you want higher player numbers, Order (averages 15-25 players) if you want RP.

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