When Beta Ends.

[Dabilahr0]

I understand it might be a long ways away, but I can't help but wonder if the end of the beta-version, which I have recently come to know/love, will bring with it many new players and lots of dishonesty, theivery, scamming etc. All of those things seem to be, for the most part, absent atm.

 

Regardless of social polotics, guilds, alliances and personal conflicts, it seems to me that EL is a pretty tight-knit community. I mean, as opposed to other games I have played. Entropy and all others I dont know to give credit to for creating this game, seem involved in the forums and, more importantly, the game itself. I really admire that. Also there isn't many players so there is a pretty firm grasp on cheaters and liars, whereas games with 1000's of players, a simple scam or rude gesture wouldn't even be noticable. Even if an abuse report was sent in and any action was taken (hypothetically of course) it still wouldn't affect any of the other players.

 

Maybe I'm just speculating because I have never been part of a beta-game, but I really think that the potential this game has could bring with it alot of stuff that wouldn't be "good".

 

First topic I have created.

 

I'd be glad to hear what everyone else thinks about this, if anyone even does think about this.

 

~S

[Guest Doombringer]

I really hope not, the community on EL is great, they are hardly any scammer, or annoying people on it. IF it does become like that then playing it would become nasty, and would lose that role playing feel. The worst though is that it would become like (dare i say) runescape. Where u cannot trust anyone.

[shasso]

I think there wont be any drastic changes in peoples behaviour, problems can be caused by new people, especially if the player count grows a lot. I believe there is so little scamming because it is a small community and if u do something bad, everybody will know about it. When trading big amounts of potions or whatever i always pay in advance even if i see the guy for the first time because if he pulls a trick on me, ill just never trade him again and tell about him to everybody i know. I never have been scammed so far. The game is also created in the way that its kinda difficult to scam anyway if you are just a bit careful. But if you do get scammed its your fault, n00b =)

 

btw, i miss delosek, where he go =)

[crusadingknight]

I really hope not, the community on EL is great, they are hardly any scammer, or annoying people on it. IF it does become like that then playing it would become nasty, and would lose that role playing feel. The worst though is that it would become like (dare i say) runescape. Where u cannot trust anyone.

What about those people who attack you in pk, drop good stuff, then flame+whine at you until you give it back...and we have far more of those than scammers.

[fred_penner]

At the moment the mods and admins of EL can pay attention only because there are so few players.

 

If someone playing Runescape (or any MMORPG) gets cheated or scammed, sure they might complain to the admins and maybe something gets done. But if nothing happens and the victim quits the game, those admins don't really care: there's still 1000s of other players who aren't quitting.

 

The admins (and oldbies) take this game really personally and when an asshole appears and makes the game un-fun for someone, they take it personally too. It's only because the community is small that they can take things so personally.

 

Take the "market channel" for example. Mods watch the chatter and warn/mute/boot people for getting off topic. And they're just overseeing maybe 40-50 people, max. Take the game up one order of magnitude and they're watching 400-500 people. Not only does the job of the mod become impossible, the market channel becomes useless - too many messages flying by and you'll never catch the one you want. It's a design that works for a small game, but not for a big one. The game is self-limiting in the number of players it can accomodate at any one time.

 

This game was built to be small (probably not intentionally) and it wouldn't survive if it got bigger.

 

Take a look at the storage at VOTD or Grahm's Village. It's always 2-3 players thick around the NPCs. Again, take it up one order of magnitude and it's 20-30 players thick. Not only will most people lag out, you won't get close enough to interact anyhow. And again, the game is self-limiting.

 

It's things like the above issues that will keep EL small. As the crowds get thicker there'll be more people who walk away and play another game.

 

Therefore, as long as the admins and mods are continue to be dilligent and screen out the dickheads, the game itself will keep the number of players down. EL will always be a small, tight knit community.

[chatterbug89]

wow...you two never made me think about this. I mean...if you play the game for even a month and it is like everyone knows you, which is good and makes the game diffenrt than your average MMPORG (or whatever...people continusly argue over how it goes...).

 

Now...as fred was saying, it will always be a small comunity like thing...but how can that be?!

 

lets say this game becomes a paid/free game. With the introduction of the paid play the game will get some mroe plublicity, bringing in many more paid and free members! This comunity will NOT stay small....unfortuantely. Of course, with the comunity getting big it means more $$$ for the developers, which is good...who shoudlent' get paid for there hard effort? BUT, as you said...people may go searching for a new beta game or a game with a smaller comunity if EL gets to big...

 

Of course, there is a simple fix to this....more maps...more thigns to do...more storages....not havign everyoen end up on IP right away. This way people can go to many differnt places and everyplace won't be crowded. Having like 20 maps woudlen't even cut it thou if the comunity got realy large....now if you have like 50 to hundred maps, and have more things to do people could pick and choose where they like to hang out, and people could be mroe spead out. This way it would appear to be like a smaller comunity.

 

Oh well...I don't think EL will have a comunity population burst anytime soon....

[Entropy]

The idea is to split the game on multiple servers, so if we have 10K players, there will be 10 servers, all independent from eachother, with different communities, etc.

Recently we exceeded the 300 players online limit, and AFAIK, things didn't go bad. Ultimately, it's up to the community to deal with the scammers, the admins/mods should deal only with the troublemakers (flooding, cursing, etc.).

Anyway, we (the development team) are n00bs when it comes to MMORPGs, so we will see what we will/can do when it will happen.

[Dabilahr0]

Fred, you said that people will be forced out but if the developers ever make a decision to accomodate a Mmorpg, for money or publicity etc. *knock on wood* then a large, impersonal, chaotic mess is going to be where the happy-go-lucky community of EL once was.

 

Right now I am very content in logging in every morning and walking from one place to another, all the while seeing people I have seen before. It's like the game was created just for this community and I think everyone that feels the same as me should cherish that.

 

I would NOT hold a grudge against the development team if they chose to go all out with p2p, and I don't think anyone would have the right to, but I would miss just playing with the small group of people who currently make EL.

 

Looking forward to more thoughts on the matter,

 

~S

[Sadez]

The idea is to split the game on multiple servers, so if we have 10K players, there will be 10 servers, all independent from eachother, with different communities, etc.

Recently we exceeded the 300 players online limit, and AFAIK, things didn't go bad. Ultimately, it's up to the community to deal with the scammers, the admins/mods should deal only with the troublemakers (flooding, cursing, etc.).

Anyway, we (the development team) are n00bs when it comes to MMORPGs, so we will see what we will/can do when it will happen.

Some time ago the game Tibia faced a similar problem, they just had one server and it was full. The comunity wanted to have a single bigger world split in many servers, but they did the contrary: Many different worlds sized like the first one. That strategy worked fine and now they have like 30 game worlds. Some worlds have enforced pvp, others are non pk, some are in germany others are in USA and others are only for paying members. But the real growth of people began when they started offering paying services, which consisted in new areas, new spells, and character promotions which gave advantage over non paying characters.

Well I hope this may help