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Ghrae

Global Quests - How to include a wider base of participants

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It seems to me that on Global Quests, a small percentage of the community works on the project and the vast majority do not. There are various valid reasons I'm sure (language barriers, global done while someone is at work, etc). But for others, 1/2 the global is done in a matter of moments and the other 1/2 is buying expensive items that people don't want to donate; they want to sell. And I'm not knocking those who want to sell oranges - instances cost money and selling things like oranges allows people to recoup.

 

And new players can not help because they are new. They don't have huge EMU, the ability to farm instances or the nexus to harvest uber items.

 

So what if we restructured not only what is required... but how it adds to the global quest.

- Harvestables - nothing that can be gathered in anticipation of the quest or requires uber nexus or emu. But instead at the time the quest starts, a location(s) where a special plant needs to be harvested. Nothing goes to inventory or storage. But gains "points" to that portion of the quest. There is a weighting system based on difficulty. Lower level players actually gain more points PER harvested item, but they fail more so it takes longer to get those points. Higher level players get a lower weighting b/c it's easier and faster. Thus any level player helps

- Something similar could be done for fighters. Perhaps attacking a particular type animal (like racoons on any map) or a particular target on a specific map. Each hit gets points based on weighting. And perhaps a max number of attacks before no more points (so a few fighters can't get all the points - it would take a group effort)

- Various skills could have similar uses (ranging at a particular target, casting a particular spell in a certain map / location, etc etc). Obviously skills that require ingredients would need far fewer "points" than harvesting / attacking.

 

Edit: Limits to be placed so a #global isn't done by just a small number of players. Perhaps something like no more than 5% can come from any single player (idea by Infection)

 

 

Edit : More #global days, especially those affecting different player types and levels would also help encourage a broad base of help (idea by Finja, others)

Edited by Ghrae

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I like all of your points! Another thought is to limit the amount donated from one person to 10% of the entire goal, forcing more people to donate.

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I like these suggestions as well.

I've sometimes donated stuff, but more often it seems that what I can do has already been done. And yes, I know I can always buy an orange or some grapes, but in EL as in RL, I prefer exchanging goods and services to exchanging gc or $$.

I am not complaining at all, just feeling like I can't contribute much even though I benefit from the quest and I don't think I'm the only one.

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I think these are great ideas and I would like to see them. I've wanted to help more but usually by the time I read the forum and find out the global needs something, it's already done or down to the expensive items. I've donated those when I have them, but I've found very few grapes or pears and I sell the oranges as soon as I get them so I can pay for the resources for the instance.

 

Another idea would be global messages when the global quest is going on so that we can participate if able. Even with the ideas you gave I wouldn't even know that something is needed without some kind of in game message. I read the forum at most once a day, and often 2 or 3 days between reads.

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Anything that gets rid of the high number of oranges needed... only found in instances, which these days are primarily done by people looking for personal profit, not helping in a community goal. Anything that gets rid of the need of greedy instance farmers.

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Make is mostly harvestables again. (~150k harvestables like when this started) but instead of pushing to finish all the work in one day, have certain people collect donations throughout the 10 days and then just deliver them when the time comes.

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Anything that gets rid of the high number of oranges needed... only found in instances, which these days are primarily done by people looking for personal profit, not helping in a community goal. Anything that gets rid of the need of greedy instance farmers.

 

Why we still have the myth of 'greedy instance farmers' is beyond me. What do you expect someone to do whose primary activitiy in the game is fighting? What other than instances? Invasions are super rare and usually last not longer than an hour. Invances happen once in a blue moon if you are lucky enough to catch one and are overrun by 40+ people. Thats a mere xp farm and has very little to do with fun. PK is dead too. So what should they do? 'Farming' instances is the only way for them to get some fun and teamwork going. They sure make some profit over time with that, but its by far not enough to give half of their drops away. Do you expect the same group of instance fighters to support your treehuggy global with oranges every time? For what? To get less mini events for a week? That obvioulsy doesnt affect those people in the least bit.

 

The reason that so few people participate in the global is not that it is to hard. Its simple lack of interest. And the suggested changes wont attract more people either. I see two main reasons not to help:

 

1. There is that group of people mentioned above. Generally more interested in action based activities. For those sitting on their butt for hours harving the same thing, clicking the same mix button or casting the same spell is not very attractive. Those people simply do not care about the global. It offers no benefits for them. Neither in the process nor in the rewards.

 

2. Harving and walking back and forth between two points are certainly not the most exciting parts of the game. They are not an end in itself, they are done for a reason. To see your storage grow, to get supplies for other more attractive skills, to get money,...So if people do this rather boring aspect of the game, then most will do it for themselves. And not waste several hours of their spare time to get...nothing. Sure that is probably egoistic but can you really blame them? This is a game, we are here to have fun, so we do what we think is fun for us. Doing something for 'the greater good' is simply not very appealing to most.

 

Supporting the global is only attractive for people that LIKE to sit together and work on a common goal. Its people that find fun mostly in this kind of activity. And only those can be attracted to join in and help. The suggestions may make the process more fun for them, sure. But dont expect the whole playerbase to share your definition of fun.

 

Regarding new players: Especially new players want to have fun in a game and get to know the game. They want to try a bit of this and that, then move on to the next aspect. Doing the same thing again and again bores them. At least if its a true newbie and not an alt of a seasoned player that knows the game already. Also especially for newbies gaining stuff is important. They need to build a stock, gain the supplies to become a strong player. Why would they spend time for a community they dont even know yet instead of working on their game progress?

 

I spend lots of time orchestrating harv parties and begging on channel 6 for donations when the global was new. I gave up on it. It bores me to death, the rewards i mostly dont use anyway, so why the hell...?

 

*edit cause i have to be a good girl and cant tell people what i think about them :<*

Edited by Finja

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Low level instances rarely break even on shares even if oranges are sold for profit. Doing them as a donation is fine if the whole group is willing but that is difficult to find.

 

Additionally, I have a friend who has been buying every Orange produced from our single weekly 60-89 group for the last year, and he still has not gathered 25. Something to think about before yelling at instance farmers.

 

Edit: How about crediting some instance hours for giving an Orange to global box when it is active? For 60 hours ea I think they will come in fast enough.

 

Edit 2: How about a new global reward: For the next 240 hours we wait less for instance/invances. Credit back half the hours needed to start one. So instead of setting your #ii to 0, it would set it to 90 for swamp runs, 80 for mountain, etc.

Edited by Rabbitman

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Anything that gets rid of the high number of oranges needed... only found in instances, which these days are primarily done by people looking for personal profit, not helping in a community goal. Anything that gets rid of the need of greedy instance farmers.

 

 

well you see, globals of less food, no mini events doesnt effect fighters at all, so why to donate?

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The Global Quest Items and Global Quest Reward Should be related to each other - right now it appears the items are becoming more and more difficult to obtain. Would you take a job and not know what paycheck is until afterwards?

 

Ways to increase participation:

  1. Have reward related to items requested - period of time when normal food use is lower, healing rate is higher, mana regain rate is higher, action points faster, reading rate higher, etc
  2. Have different skill rewards - faster magic experience, etc but not at rate of special day
  3. Have competing global quests with different rewards
  4. Earn special invasion credits - for your donations you may be sent on invasion (teleported there by NPC) and your time is limited to your credit. When you exit map (by ring, spell, beam or death) you are done
  5. Add special creatures which need to be killed

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Why we still have the myth of 'greedy instance farmers' is beyond me. What do you expect someone to do whose primary activitiy in the game is fighting? What other than instances? Invasions are super rare and usually last not longer than an hour. Invances happen once in a blue moon if you are lucky enough to catch one and are overrun by 40+ people. Thats a mere xp farm and has very little to do with fun. PK is dead too. So what should they do? 'Farming' instances is the only way for them to get some fun and teamwork going. They sure make some profit over time with that, but its by far not enough to give half of their drops away. Do you expect the same group of instance fighters to support your treehuggy global with oranges every time? For what? To get less mini events for a week? That obvioulsy doesnt affect those people in the least bit.

Well, nobody says they have to contribute ;)

However as you said, there are people who like the action and killing and there are people who like to harvest/mix/socialize etc and there are people who are somewhere in the middle.

That said, i barely can ask a player who likes the "action" to sit and harvest for hours, but i guess you must understand that it's the same for the other group too.

What makes me sad is, that fighters (don't get me wrong, i don't mean all of them of course - but it's a great portion of em) try to sell oranges or other "fighter only" items at quite high price.

We all know that price of "exclusive" items can and usually is manipulated by those who have enough gc to do it (like the oranges price lately).

It would be for example nice, if instancers could sell oranges at a discounted price - so everybody wins, fighters get payed and global quest will get completed.

I know that fighters usually don't care about anything that does not affect a/d exp per minute and/or drops and most of the GQ rewards are not aimed at fighters (or we had a very bad luck and haven't seen some more fighters oriented rewards.

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I guess the only 'fighter oriented' award is the ''shorter time between dailies''.

Less mini events is nice for gc alts.

Less food (mini Joule) is nice for all mixers.

More special days, not sure it even worked :P

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Getting invancers/fighters to sell oranges at a discounted price, is the same as asking harvesters to sell rosto's and other stones at a discounted price. In all honesty it will never happen, and is unfair to point fingers at fighters and say you are a tight arse, when in fact harversters are just as guilty

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Getting invancers/fighters to sell oranges at a discounted price, is the same as asking harvesters to sell rosto's and other stones at a discounted price. In all honesty it will never happen, and is unfair to point fingers at fighters and say you are a tight arse, when in fact harversters are just as guilty

Hmm not sure it's the right comparision, if people are willing to spend time to harvest AND haul loads of gypsum and other harvestables without getting payed for it.

Also, what i was reffering to - the discounted price should of course be set only on oranges used for global quest.

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Getting invancers/fighters to sell oranges at a discounted price, is the same as asking harvesters to sell rosto's and other stones at a discounted price. In all honesty it will never happen, and is unfair to point fingers at fighters and say you are a tight arse, when in fact harversters are just as guilty

 

 

 

Ummm... I'm noting at the moment all the harvestables for the global are done.

Waiting on oranges.

 

But I'm sure those harvestables just magically appeared there, it's not like people actually took the time to harvest them (without getting paid for it, must have been "tight arse" harvesters involved in that).

 

And note the tons of gypsum repeatedly requested for the globals... normally sold at 10gc each at storage for a valid reason. All being freely donated.

Edited by Burn

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We can have an endless discussion about the greedy fighters or the cheap harvesters or whatever, but do you really think that will solve it? Everyone plays this game the way it makes them feel good and enjoy themselfs.

 

What I like to see is some sort of kudo/karma/system where everyone can see who did what for the global, so the people that donate get graditude and respect for their work and/or donations (other then the global reward).

 

An other way to make people help would to have a new achievement in game: this person helped on XX global quests. That could be very simple:

1 orange = x points

1 gypsum = x points

 

And xx points = 1 x help

 

The only problem is that not all harvesters bring their harvested stuff to npc, but let ppl with higher emu/mule do it.

 

About other global rewards, I like rabbitman's idea to shorten time between instances.

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Make it part of a raffle, chance a person who donated wins something

the more oranges the more chance

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Make it part of a raffle, chance a person who donated wins something

the more oranges the more chance

 

Allthough this is a good idea, it would discriminate against the ones harving imho.

 

 

 

Edit: typos

Edited by DonC

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Gloomy, I'm with you to a point. Burn's unreflected opinion just needed some clarification. Even more cause it came right after a sensible post from someone who fights in instances and contributes to the global as well.

 

Can we please please please finally stop with the stupid mixer vs fighter thing? And instead of pointing fingers at each other accept the fact that there are different kinds of players enjoying different aspects of the game? Being a fighter or mixer doesnt make you a better or worse player, more or less greedy. You just chose one of the possibilities the game offers. More fighting orientated players dont wont to be held responsible for things that dont affect them. As well as the people that mostly mix or harv dont want to be bothered with fighter issues.

 

What makes me sad is, that fighters (don't get me wrong, i don't mean all of them of course - but it's a great portion of em) try to sell oranges or other "fighter only" items at quite high price.

We all know that price of "exclusive" items can and usually is manipulated by those who have enough gc to do it (like the oranges price lately).

It would be for example nice, if instancers could sell oranges at a discounted price - so everybody wins, fighters get payed and global quest will get completed.

 

The price for oranges is high at the moment because of the new potion. Speculators caused that price hike, not instancers. And of course now others ask higher prices too. If you can get 2.5 for your silver ore or 9gc for your HEs or whatever the current market prices are you dont sell it for less either. Or at least, most wouldnt. The orange situation will hopefully settle down again. The 10k they were at is a very reasonable price to ask. When i started instancing on a regular basis about a year or so ago they were above 15k, so it already dropped quite a lot.

Selling oranges to the global at a discount is a nice idea in theory. Problem is that there are not that many regular instance teams getting lots of oranges. It would be a select few having to discount their drops every time for something that they arent interested in, just for the greater good of the community. Most likely not going to work.

 

I agree that oranges should be removed from the global requirements and replaced with something that can be mixed/harved. Not because instance fighters are evil greedy bastards, but because the global neither interests them nor affects them. Change it so it meets the interests of those involved in the process and rewards.

As long as the oranges are needed maybe here is some kind of compromise: You do like harvest parties, so maybe harv something in a group to sell for gc. These gc could buy the (possibly) discounted oranges. Could be something like silver or coal, almost everyone can do it, not too heavy and brings nice amounts of money. This way you do have the team work similar to when all requirements are harvestables.

The idea to have a storage bot in TG was brought up ingame. Maybe radu can be convinced to allow a bot free of charge for the community to make this easier.

 

And note the tons of gypsum repeatedly requested for the globals... normally sold at 10gc each at storage for a valid reason. All being freely donated.

 

That is because those people donating all that get something out of it and are interested. The harvest part is usually done in very short time. So obviously the motivation to do it is big enough. The motivation to donate oranges however isnt. Stop pointing fingers at others for something that is only natural. Either the motivation to donate has to be increased (e.g. by related rewards) or it has to be replaced.

 

Ummm... I'm noting at the moment all the harvestables for the global are done.

Waiting on oranges.

 

Waiting, exactly. That is the problem. Waiting for others to support YOUR cause although it does not benefit the donators in the least bit. For some weird reason you expect others to go out of their way and freely do something for you. I dont get it.

Edited by Finja

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Make oranges drop from harvest events aswel, price will decrease for an orange, and people donate them more

win win

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I do appreciate the discussion. However, fighter vs mixer shouldn't be an issue in THIS thread. My goal was not to bash one side or the other, but to find a method where the community could work on tasks to earn a #global and in a way to do so without pointing fingers.

 

Scarr - thanks for the suggestion, but while I'm not a fighter, I do believe that fighters running invances should be able to sell to those doing orange quest or potions. Just like they do with RDHOLAMAMAMAM. Especially since book drops don't go for as much money as they once did

 

Infection - I should have gone back and edited the harvester part of my suggestion. I sort of suggested a limit in the fighting section, but I agree that some sort of limit in harvesting would be best. Like 5% max per player so that we would encourage others to help out and truly make it a community effort.

 

Lelugo - I'm sure your idea (or something simliar) is what will have to happen, at least for the current #global. However, it doesn't really fix the greater problem (although it is a quick and easy fix)

 

Finja / others who contributed to more #globals - Good point - more #global days would be nice, especially if they were more varied. Sometimes it might affect only summoners, but at times when it affects fighters... well even most mixers will do a Haidir or Daritha a lot of times.

 

DonC - Karma points might be difficult to program. And the #global itself is already a reward (especially if we could get some more #globals)

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1) Award points based on how much a person donates.

2) Add some cosmetic rewards such as unique clothing/hats/weapons.

3) ???

4) SMILE

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It should be easy items that require group work.

You can attract a wider range of participants by making the quest need items that accumulate in people's storage like fur hats, skunk hats, etc..

Edited by hussam

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