What's with all the Sad Faces? ... Let me tell ya...

[Aamer Khan]

Now all you guys and gals know me.

Aamer, the fanboi. The blind follower. The guy who can't seem to acknowledge reality.

I have always tried in my inept way, to show ways around perceived nerfs, and keep the future bright. But lately, I have been trying to understand why attitudes have turned so sour.

Currently, we have many longtime players, ( some well over a year ) buckeling under the weight of needing to grind just one more level. These are not bored teenagers looking to be uber, but older stable players that just need a purpose.

Some like myself, have been quite satisfied with running a guild, leveling as we can and providing for our members. But now, many are high enough to no longer need our help. Many of them feel at an "endgame" stage of their play. So, quietly they drift off.

You see, the thing that kept us all going through the Satyr event was the purpose of freeing another playable race. It was the same thing with the Dryad event. We had purpose.

With the Fall festival event, many put up decorations and had lots of fun. With the current event, nowhere near as many decorations. Some of this is do to concerns about adding to the lag, but many have voiced to me the statement... "Why bother?" They don't find it fun.

So... Why the rise in anger we see now?

Simply put... A lack of purpose.

Please AE/Tulga Give us a purpose. ANY purpose. I know this will be hard to do, while trying to prepare and setup for the future. I can't speak for the entire shard or any other guilds, but for me and my guild, whatever you do needs to be quick. I am seriously concerned that within weeks I may be the only member left. And I still have around 25 active members... down from 72.

[Gliding Frost]

<bump>

I love Horizons.I spent hours and hours developing my dragon, working to rebuild Istaria one disk full of dim essence orbs at a time.

BUT I'm loosing friends by the bucket load. Dragons and bipeds that I've known since my first step off the training island are slowly but consistently leaving.

Of those wonderful friends who helped with my Right of Passage, only 2 or 3 are still here.

The same goes for the many hard working Community Builders that I build mines and bridges with on Bounty. At one point we had more then 100 people/dragons working at all hours of the day and night. Some left at merge and many more slowly trickle away as there is no new project and there doesn't seem to be one in sight.

Give us something to do! A new race to free or a town to rebuild! How about freeing Rachival? How about some storylines that reveal exactly what Gangaf's part in the fall was or how Draak became the lost dragon colony?

[Vito]

You said it all Aamer. Not sure it's about raised tempers as much as it is about boredom. Crafting is a grind. Adventuring? Well there are "old" games out there with more fun adventuring.

I still come here in the hope that something is forthcoming that will really turn things around. Dragons are finally getting some love and they sure deserve it after a year.

[Phillip]

a few dragon friends have left in the past week over the Lairs/ARoP backlash. my favorite dragon, Marjella, is gone. this SUX.

about a dozen biped friends now are gone due to the lack of epic quests, weapon & armor, T6 item decay misc. my favorite ELAR is gone. my favorite Shaman is gone. my hunting partner is playing WoW 95% of the time.

yeah i'm pissed.

[HratLi]

Greetings Aamer,

You've hit the nail on the head. Either they have assigned the quest makers to work ONLY on ARoP or they've seriously given up on storyline. Heck I've even made a post into the Suggestions forum : http://community.istaria.com/Web/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=33047 Last week about what's been bothering me.

I am a getting tired, and mostly bored with the world. It's been explored. I know where things are, Levelling for the sake of levelling is starting to get annoying because there is no REASON to do so. Sure I can make the next tier widget, but why would I need it other than to grind the next widget upanother chain. Crafting wise I've even built a Saris mansion, mostly myself, with perhaps a hundred or two of unitsfrom other crafters. The last few dynamics changes have been flat. Could have been exciting, but they were introduced like a newplay feature, not a story device. :(

Wife occasionally asks me if anything new has been introduced with the story since the merger, what can I honestly say?

-HratLi

[Tahrl]

My guild had 22 active members (not includingalternate characters) immediately prior to the release of wow/eq2. We're now down to 3 active members, and 3 others that occasionally log in to say hello. I'm under the impression that this is a common development seen in most games everytime new products are introduced into the market. The bleeding off of players causes some to become irritated because it calls into question the long-term stability of the world we play in. That irritation can seep its way into their interactions with other players.

Thankfully, there are people working to stop the bleeding by adding new content and making improvementsto the existing game.It'stheir work that will result in new players that will bring with them the positive energy we all need to keep our civility.

[Anikitos]

Nice,

You pretty much nailed it, but this has been stated many times before by both me and others.

No purpose ingame.

Introduce longterm raids with uniquepowerfullrewards and i guarantee that advs will flock back to the game.
Bosses that require TEAM WORK to bring down and drop POWERFULL REWARDS.

Those that are scared of camping(Wake up, you allready camp 99% of your HZ time) then maybe INSTANCING could be the key.
With instancing you could have a playfield or dare I say, dungeon, so that the guild or a group of ppl could enjoy a boss encounter.
In order to spawn your instanced playfield with the unique encounter, perhaps that part should be the reward from a quest series.

Like for example.
You want to have an Instance Encounter with Boss X.
You start doing some quest that require certain things so you get the opurtinity to spawn the Intance Encounter with Boss X.

Also this approach eliminates KS and griefing.
The quest starter could invite anyone he wants for this encounter.
So the assholes, dont get invited obviously! :)

Something like that, it could work.

Introduce a sense of danger so that advs can feel part of the community in defending it.
I know you started on Anchors and its a good start.



Anikitos

[Aamer Khan]

Somehow this kind of post leads to players saying that changing the game in fundamental ways will magically fix things.

You cannot expect them to be able to go beyond what the game engine allows, without long term and massive recoding. The engine is designed around NOT instancing. Portals just move your biote to another spot in the world... not out of it.

Powerful drops were NOT what kept us going during the Satyr event. It was the PURPOSE of freeing a race, and working together as a community that was the reward.

But prehaps thats part of the problem. AE needs short term large increase of players. Maybe catering to the uber loot crowd would let them have enough time to finish a new event... Welgers perhaps?

[Bori Grimbattle]

Ayup! It be time we freed Old Rachival from the Blight. I hear tell as well of the Welgars still being in captivity. Now they may make some good allies if we can but help them out.

We need puzzles and we need projects. The push-pull with the Aegis is going to wear thin without something a bit more solid to sink our teeth into.

[Vito]

"You cannot expect them to be able to go beyond what the game engine allows, without long term and massive recoding."

And that may just be the core issue!

[Phillip]

loot in itself is content. when done right, it works wonders.

[LaughingOtter]

Bigger & badder monsters and uber loot aren't the answer. Indeed, we need goals. We have the fire island tunnel to build, for example. What we don't have is any indication of why we should.

Aamer has it exactly. We need purpose.

[Altair]

Raised Temper??? It isn't with a raised temper that I find myself unable to log into the game... More an accute sadness....

There are alot of good points made in this thread, and I just wnat to give my opinion on a few things.

For startersI would like to say that while a new player race Would be great, whats the point? Due to the fact that one is not limited in crafting or adventuring Class wise why start a new character? I mean honestly; if i want a different Adventuring class i would just change classes. And the same goes for crafting. With the grind involved in most Adv. and Crafting classes I myself and many others do want to start a new character. In my honest opinion there needs to be limits to what one character can do, but there isnt and this leads to a few more things I want to give my opinion on.

Another thing I personally think is a major problem in this game is Adv. Balance, and im not talking class for class. Multiple lvl. 100 toons are going to be a downfall of this game. With a Multi 100 toon mobs soon become a joke. And what can be done to combat this? NOTHING! Thats right i said nothing, while a certain percentage of the player base are multi-classed not everyone is so you cant expect AE to increase the toughness of mobs. And as for multiple lvl 100 crafters, i mean honestly. How can you expect to have a decent "Player Based Economy" when a givin player can pretty much meet their own needs? In my opinion this is going to end up being the biggest problem with this game. How can you hope to have new people and vet players and designworking concept for both you either have to make thing much to easy or much to hard.

And Probly the last thing im going to rant on about in this thread is the rift between crafters and hunters. Yes it is there. Crafters who whine and complain about hunters who sell rare loot drops at a obscene price, and so on. Well guess what if you want the rare form go out and get it yourself. Or just dont buy it. Almost every crafter I have heard in these forums love hiding behind the "Player Based Economy" just to bad they dont consider hunters to be a part of that player base. In my honest opinion is that every thing that drops in game should be takin off the vielo. Its a hard life playing this gameas a 80% Adventurer and a 20% crafter. You will never have money.... Ever! And no the well if you need money the get a crafting job is not a valid answer.

But all in all I will have to say its been great here. The greatest thing about this game and the only reason it still goes on and hopefully continues to go one is its AWSOME community. I wish for the best for this game and even after all my misgivings i am still here. Hopefully things get better. But going by the track record so far...... Im Saddened..... :(


Altair Argannon
Eyes Of Istaria

[Kulamata]

I think it is several issues.

Our guild was strongly composed of mature,capable players, with a high percentage of women, and a surprisingly strong dragon contingent. Very much thetarget customers. Almost all have left. They had a strong crafting interest, and found the crafting repetitious andboring. On her way out, one muttered something about not playing agame to domore housework.And they did not findanyexpansionof the elements that attracted them to begin with.

1. I agree with the lack of large purpose. Satyr isles, Feladan, Dryads, Rite of Passage, all united many. I think those were events that were at least partly completed before release. At release, many devs were laid off, and of course more were laid off later. I suspect that the dev group has all it can handle with Ancient Rite, Raising the cap, and lairs. (An impressive list under the circumstances.) The suggestion linked above for the blight anchor intro was very well done, and is the sort of thing that can be done on the cheap.

Future major undertakings are pretty obvious. Retaking Rachival, deblighting the satyr islands, taking the huge fortress in the East to free the Eastern continent, freeing the Welgers, and/or the Kwellen would all be nice. And I hope that soon the game can support such massive undertakings without the severe lag issues that showed up before.

2. It is hard to be imaginative and cheerful when the future is in doubt. With the Tulga asset purchase, I hope the cloud is lifted a bit. That may be why much of the new landscape post-merge is less inviting than the old. And I think that's why salt rock was used at the Winter Festival. Or maybe snowballs lagged in development. But the snowballs are fun, trivial fluff indeed, but fun. A bit of the old spark, and good to see.

3. Adventure leveling was pretty easy just after release, if you were experienced in MMO's. And many of the fast levelers left the game, as they were mostly hunter-only types, and there was a great lack of high level content. They had only the wolves, marrows, and wraiths really to level on, and the marrows and wraiths were in the thund'rous, bilious dark. I believe that AE took that lesson to heart, and overcompensatedtrying to slow the game down. That led to balancing/adjusting/nerfing. But taking away or reducing something that people already have is perceived as aloss, even if something of objective equal value is substituted. The loss will be seen as the greater issue. Just how we're hardwired.

4. Crafting. Ouch.It was oneof the the game's highlights. But overly dependent on the repetition of simple tasks. Gathering, running. And because of the consistency of the basic structure, mutli-classing does not change the crafting experience that much. Slowing an already slow process down by requiring more running (the idea of local craft shops worked fine at the mith and pretty well at the marble fields, but is completely nonexistent at the platinum or iron fields ) made an inherently tedious task more tedious.

Most crafters do not get their jollies running back and forth, or constructing/deconstructing; they enjoy making useful things for others. Since the tech changes at the merge, the orders have fallen drastically. They could not be filled because the requested techs were not yet owned, or the components were seen as too hard or too expensive to get.And the population had dropped enough that demand was lessened. So,much lesspayoff to the crafter from making stuff for others, and increased tedium. Of course they left.

And increased spawn of monsters in the resource fields. The increased spawn means increased vigilance is required. Making people pay close attention to a dull and repetitive task (rather than slipping into the old "crafting trance") is guaranteed to increase the aversion level.

4. Thrills from drops. AE has shown a great reluctance to allow anything into the game that REALLY makes a difference. At one time the WD crystals did, and they were sought after, but they were increasing devalued. The blighted mith short swords are another example. They're interesting, but as something highly valued? The boar's mask, and related items did, and do make a difference, but there has not been anything similar for a long time. If you want a carrot, it should not be stale and dry, but tasty. Diablo is objectively a lousy game, but the loot kept players coming back for more for a very long time. Novelty, sets, and the opportunity to find something that would really help for a few levels. Tier V techs and forms have been financially rewarding for the players who can harvest them, but they are not a warrior's dream come true. The addition of more blighted equipment is an opportunity to introduce something that really makes a difference. There needs to be something more than immediate usability and decay; some need to be DESIRABLE. And of course there need to be items for all classes. Bows, handwraps, scales, mauls etc.

5. Dragons. Another major feature of the game. When the dragons were nerfed so very heavily just before release, the wind got taken out of a lot of sails. They are amazingly frail, and very limited in career opportunities. They cannot multiclass, cannot use many of the most interesting spells, and cannot participate in building projects except as gatherers and mules. In battle, they lack healing and res capabilities that would make them really valuable support players. Generally, the dragon players seemed to me to be the most mature and interesting players in the game, and they have left in droves.(The hoard leak fiasco hurt badly.) A good deal of the community flavor went with them. If, as Ancients, they continue to be as limited as they have been in the past, a major opportunity will have been squandered.

6. Quests. The RoP and the Darkstaff quests both showed imagination. With the Darkstaff rift, a source of spark and inspiration was lost that has not been replaced. There should be more and better quests; the beta imperial assessor quest was much better than the scattered group of quests that it turned into at release. An element of humor would help a lot I think. And real rewards. The Darkstaff quests were THE thing to do after level 5. And theLost Expedition crystal was pretty good too. But there has been very little similar since. The Darkstaff water cooler group was pretty neat, but has since evaporated. Quests offer a way to increase content with low development resources (I think) and do not run into server/engine limitations. But as so many have said, mail delivery and kill n of X are not worth adding.

There is so much that is good about the game, and the vision that it showed in beta, that it is very important to me that it succeed. I hope that a more positive attitude can find its way into the game, and the game will become more rewarding for Tulga and the players.

[Levity]

I don't know that there are an unusual amount of raised tempers. I've seen much worse over the past year.

More, as Altair says, some people seem saddened and dispirited. Many have left, some are hanging on but glooming about how they are about to leave.

On the other hand, there are new folks coming in, there are people still enjoying the heck out of things. I've met folks in the past few weeks that have kept me very interested in things.

Mind you, it's a bit of make-your-own-fun. As in, after a year of play I'm not 100 anything, and I've played a LOT and never been afk for more than the time it takes to make and eat some food. If I'm heading out for longer, I log out; I only leave the afk 20-30 min bits in there so as to keep up on commentary.

Because that's where the fun is. Talking to people. Roleplaying with them, chatting with them ooc. And that, Altair, is why there is a point to new races, new characters. It's called roleplaying. I have a definite story line that Levity is in. Without a drastic change, she's not going to be a healer of any sort, or a mage, or a Weaver or Enchanter. If I want to explore those parts of the game, I need a different toon for whom it is in character.

Why free another race? For the story. For the lore, and the possibilities of playing a new personality. Now that's what is keeping me coming back, day after day. I want to know what happens next in the story, both my personal one and that of Istaria, and I want to find out where Levity's quirks will take her next. Getting Events and world changes is a bonus on top of that.

-Levity Merrel, Crai Aisling, Sans AoP by Aiya's pad
90 Blacksmith/63 Fitter/45 Mason/40 Carpenter/72?3? Reaver

[Aamer Khan]

I changed the title to better reflect current feeling.

[HratLi]

Hah... Yes, I think that's more the tone I've been noticing.

-HratLi

[Fireclaw]

The game definitely needs to have good epic quest events like Feladen, free the satyrs, or release the dryads to bring the shard together again. These harvest events are just pathetic in comparison and in no way bring the sense of purpose and unity accomplished by those earlier events.

[Benedryl]

The reason I left in the first place and still have no desire to come back is that there's no purpose. As a straight out adventurer, there's just not enough for me to do. Grinding gets boring, but at least for a while there was a reason to do it. Being able to participate in the high-level events was great incentive to level up. After the merger, there just didn't seem to be reason anymore.

I've been lurking on the boards from time to time just to see if things have improved enough to warrant giving the game another try, but noting I've read so far has given me even the slightest intrest in returning.

On a more pleasant note, I hope all is well with all my old Bounty Peeps!

[Rainbow]

A new purpose would be good, for sure.

If I am honest I would have to admit to playing Baldurs Gate and The Hobbitt between log ins to Horizons. Neither arein the same league as Horizons, but in each I can log and find a quest that occupies me and has an end result.

I read today that Unity will lose their big banks on Wednesday and could not log in fast enough to start beating the deadline. Whilst that may not be quite the spirit, I actually had something to achieve, that is, stuffing my bank full with useful things to apply to my plot before it would become a truly time consuming treadmill. I did not think about logging out to complete another little quest in one of the other games.

It would be great to see a proper event like the Dryads again. During that quest, all servers came together on the boards trying to solve the puzzles. Most certainly on Wind the players worked to achieve it as a whole, with lower levels also being able to be included in some aspects. Higher levels were able to kill the monsters for the wands etc that were needed, so all players could participate if they wished to.

It feels a long time since we have had a quest with an actual end product that is worth achieving. I know we can not expect major quests every single week but even ifeach eventlasted a while, like the Dryad and Satyr ones did, it would provide more entertainment than getting all laggy gating to each town to click on every NPC to see if he would give you a sweet or not.


Rainbow