Making EL better

[Vanyel]

Edit:. also adding a map or two to C1 will help because it gets crowded in some maps.

 

Isn't it a reason for Irilion?

 

There is enough space in the game as it is. Sometimes I think the game is too spacy.

[Aislinn]

I think the notion that anybody new coming in COULD or SHOULD compete with a player who's been here 5 years is ridiculous.

It's not fair to the 5 year player, nor is it conducive to making a long-lasting game.

That mindset needs to go.

What needs to happen is not change the game so everybody is equal as fast as possible, but make it so there are interesting things for the "newer" people to do as well with other "newer" people.

Eventually, the 3-4-5 year people will do other things, need to take time off for rl, try other games, basically slow down or stop leveling, leaving room and time for the "newer" people to catch up and be the top.

 

Imo buying and selling of characters messes this natural progression up. The people who should be playing together moving up together aren't, they are just buying top characters and not playing the game as it was made to be played and leaving huge gaps in amounts of players in each level range.

[Alddra]

Who said you have to compete ? Why dont you just play and have fun ? It's a game. <------Notice i said game, that means it's suppose to be fun.  If you want to compete, set personal goals for yourself, perhaps set a goal to make 1 skill level a day, or in a week or something like that.  Compete against yourself, not others.

This is not one of those "hack and slash level to the top in a week beat the game" type game. Segragating players based on who is buying / selling is not a good idea.  It's like saying ok all the dwarf toons can only stay in votd, forever! How many people would make dwarf characters then? How many people who are currently dwarfs would make a new toon or leave because of that ?

I"m not a fan of buying/ selling characters either, but , it's thier money and they play the game the way [b]they[/b] want to. Personally, i like my character, i'm proud of every single level i have achieved on my own, be it a/d , potioning, alchemy, summoning, whatever.  But limiting me to one continent?? Are you serious? How many players you think would leave EL then ?

 

 

Well said Bernie, I fully agree with you. I play the game because I like it. I may envy those in the high level skills, but my goal is to have fun playing EL, not to compete with other players. Segregation would totally ruin the game

[frogimus]

Eternal Lands is a lot different than other MMOs, and that might be a big reason we don't retain a lot of newbies. A lot of them may be looking for the hack-n-slash, cutesy characters, turbo leveling, or even more GvG or RvR content. EL is a fairly complex game in comparison to a lot - how do you spend your PPs, what combinations do you mix, which armor/weapon/mob combines for best XP?

 

EL isn't for everyone. Personally, I don't want it changed to *be* for everyone. It takes a certain type to stay in EL. Yes, they get bored and leave a while, but most come back

[Mauler]

Yeah thats true. Ive been playing since the crash, but early last year stopped due to health, come back a couple weeks ago.. Go into kf and get harmed dead in 1 shot with 100 full hp.. Then decide to kill 300 Fluffies and get absoultely no drops apart from potions.. oooooooh.....

 

The only good thing about this game is the people who play it... u dont know anyone, u leave... know the community and u get HOOKED. thats all i can say really..

 

And the thing about the continents... Just wouldnt work. The game to me atm is finished done and dusted. They may aswell just make a new game for .. bought characters? You see its just not right.

Edited July 31, 2009 by kansle

[Burn]

I think the notion that anybody new coming in COULD or SHOULD compete with a player who's been here 5 years is ridiculous.

It's not fair to the 5 year player, nor is it conducive to making a long-lasting game.

That mindset needs to go.

What needs to happen is not change the game so everybody is equal as fast as possible, but make it so there are interesting things for the "newer" people to do as well with other "newer" people.

Eventually, the 3-4-5 year people will do other things, need to take time off for rl, try other games, basically slow down or stop leveling, leaving room and time for the "newer" people to catch up and be the top.

 

Imo buying and selling of characters messes this natural progression up. The people who should be playing together moving up together aren't, they are just buying top characters and not playing the game as it was made to be played and leaving huge gaps in amounts of players in each level range.

 

 

^ Pretty much full agreement.

 

I see people having higher levels than me as a challenge. If I want to "compete" with them I have to earn my way up to their level, and that earning levels in itself is a part of the fun for me. If I were to easily be on level with people around longer, I'd have left long ago out of boredom.

 

Instead, just over a year later, I got only 11 people to "compete" with in Potion, and a lot more in other skills. Trying to work them all. I think the fun will run out if I ever become a top player in every skill (not likely to happen, hehe). As long as there's even 1 person with a higher level than me in a skill, that skill remains a challenge and keeps the fun going for it.

 

Even fighter-wise (which is where all the char buying is), I've passed 100+ for att and def in just a little over a year of playing, and that's with spending *much* more time on mixing skills and only spending a few hours a week average fighting. If I'd spent all my time working up att and def that I'd spent on alch 108 and pot 100 (and all the harving involved for those) and working all my other skills, I can only imagine how far I'd be a/d-wise by now.

 

 

And I really don't get char buyers at all for this reason. If I can get 100+ a/d as a primary mixer in a year, how far would a pure fighter get in the same time?

Edited July 31, 2009 by GoodDay2Die

[hussam]

Edit:. also adding a map or two to C1 will help because it gets crowded in some maps.

 

Isn't it a reason for Irilion?

 

There is enough space in the game as it is. Sometimes I think the game is too spacy.

 

 

Not always. Take MM for example. it's full of silver harvesters because all good C2 spots were removed.

Edited July 31, 2009 by hussam

[sora_barzahd]

The level gap isn't the main reason why new players don't stay.

 

There's multiple reasons. One being the economy and how difficult it can be to get established in it if you don't know the short cuts. Another common

 

complaint is that while the tutorial quest provides items, newbs lose them within five minutes of obtaining them, as they level past the death protection. I

 

could go on and on, but it all leads to the same thing. EL has many issues with keeping new players that many believe to be ok, as it takes a 'certain

 

person to play EL. This is fine and dandy, but the game won't grow. The mechanics of EL will have to change if EL is to attract more players. As for the

 

level gap between players, it's not a big issue currently. Eventually, EL will need caps of some sort, or at least a revamp of item formulas to help curve

 

the mass production of manufacturing items.

 

*As a side note* For EL to truly be fixed, a full wipe will be needed.

[hussam]

Bad Economy is not the problem. It is one of the consequences of player greed and the problems in EL

 

One of the major problems is lack of patience in new players. This causes:

1. People create alts and use them for illegal multi to help get the main char's stats go up quicker than normal. Lack of patience in newbies is the main reason there are so many rule violations in EL.

2. People start buying pickpoints and taking tons of negative perks so they can quickly have the attributes for PKing/training on strong monsters/etc.. This is all bad and it makes the work of people who have been playing for four years seem less relevant. That's why I'm always saying that pickpoint buying and negative perks are ruining this game.

 

EL is my first online game ever so I can't do comparisons but in my opinion, the only bad things in this game are:

1.gc selling for $$,

2 char buying

3.mini harvesting events.

4. greed.

5. lack of patience in newbies.

First three things seem to be somewhat related so eliminating them will make EL much better.

Edited July 31, 2009 by hussam

[Pyewacket]

Bernie, I see your "keep all the dwarves in VOTD" and raise you a "Keep all the dwarves in VOTD FLOWERSHOP".

 

*forever*

[sora_barzahd]

Player...Greed?

 

If you haven't noticed, it takes a hell of a lot of GC to buy higher level things because of some of the ingredient costs. The lack of patience is because it

 

takes too long to get that GC at low levels. The biggest problem is that the gold amount is the only thing stopping newbs from using said items. Once again,

 

everything boils down to the fact that the EL economy is a huge issue. It affects everything in game and is why there's a thread every week about some

 

scheme to curve it temporarily.

 

I don't know how Ent puts up with it. The only real way to actually fix the economy would be a wipe and formula remodel. There's no possible way of

 

doing this without losing the current player base, so other things have to be done to curve it. The problem is that very few like the curves done. He's got

 

his balls locked in a vice grip under a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. This is why EL can't adapt and why even talking about trying to

 

improve things is pointless. Nothing worthwhile can be done as any big change will scare a large portion of the player base away.

[Vanyel]

Edit:. also adding a map or two to C1 will help because it gets crowded in some maps.

 

Isn't it a reason for Irilion?

 

There is enough space in the game as it is. Sometimes I think the game is too spacy.

 

 

Not always. Take MM for example. it's full of silver harvesters because all good C2 spots were removed.

 

Wouldn't adding some more resources a solution in this case? Adding a map with no silver won't change a thing, will it?

[Aislinn]

Player...Greed?

 

If you haven't noticed, it takes a hell of a lot of GC to buy higher level things because of some of the ingredient costs. The lack of patience is because it

takes too long to get that GC at low levels.

Right there you said the problem. Lower level players shouldn't be getting high level expensive things yet. Same problem. Everybody wants to have the best and be the best first week out.

I would call that player greed.

[Wizzy]

Player...Greed?

 

If you haven't noticed, it takes a hell of a lot of GC to buy higher level things because of some of the ingredient costs. The lack of patience is because it

takes too long to get that GC at low levels.

Right there you said the problem. Lower level players shouldn't be getting high level expensive things yet. Same problem. Everybody wants to have the best and be the best first week out.

I would call that player greed.

 

I agree with you on this point. However as mentioned before about most new players being locked because of violation of rule 5.

 

Lets be honest here, how many people, that just down loaded a game and started playing take the time to read the rules. It is about the same as reading the licence agreement to a peice of software. Yes, I bet some people do it, But that would be a small percentage. Is it anyway that rule 5 could be better explained to new players, wether it be the Tutorial npc, or RED Flashing Text during charater creation?

[Bernie]

This is not one of those "beat the game" type games. You dont start with uber nice st00f, huge bag storage for picking up stuff, or even nexus to actually wear/use the higher level items. It's designed this way for a reason. Not being a dev i can only throw out an "oh i dunno , maybe so the newbie's learn how the game plays, how/what pp's are , where to spend them" . This game is meant to be "expierenced and explored" not won or beaten.

 

I can only speculate that a lot of new players trying out EL for the first time are perhaps very young (8-13?) and just dont have the patience to play EL and get to know what it's really like, or how much fun it is to explore and try new skills.

 

You can't have it all and do it all in a week here, that's one of the attractions of the game for me. Also, you have a great community of minds, opinions, personalities. You make friends here and you keep them.

 

You ask how to keep new players from leaving? For one, maybe stop complaining about how the game is now. Changes happen, sure maybe we dont like them all, maybe we love others, but it happens, roll with it, grow with it, learn with it. A new player starts playing and all they hear / see is old players complaining about this or that. Where is the "lead by example" there for the new player?

 

Help a new player, explain stuff, show them stuff, let them discover stuff too. That's the fun after all. As far as gc is concerned for a new player, guess what there is flowers and a garden right there on IP, they can harvest and sell veggies to npc in the tavern for gc WHILE they are reading stuff in the enecylopedia, which is what i did when i first started. I did this for two days. I had pleanty of GC to accomodate items i needed when i began.

 

I dont see a whole lot that is "broken" with the game if anything. Harvest and sell stuff if u want gc. Make stuff and sell it. Tons of ways to make GC, i never understood the economy problem as I have always tried to be as self sufficiant as possible a player ie.. makeing all my own training potions, ess's, armors. What i could not make myself i harvest/sold to buy. It's amazing stuff npc's buy, and it's nice they do

 

If it aint broke dont fix it.

 

We dont need segragated player base. Make ur own gc. Stop complaining about the game in front of new players. Help new players. Sit back and enjoy a game. Smile it makes people wonder

[Aislinn]

Player...Greed?

 

If you haven't noticed, it takes a hell of a lot of GC to buy higher level things because of some of the ingredient costs. The lack of patience is because it

takes too long to get that GC at low levels.

Right there you said the problem. Lower level players shouldn't be getting high level expensive things yet. Same problem. Everybody wants to have the best and be the best first week out.

I would call that player greed.

 

I agree with you on this point. However as mentioned before about most new players being locked because of violation of rule 5.

 

Lets be honest here, how many people, that just down loaded a game and started playing take the time to read the rules. It is about the same as reading the licence agreement to a peice of software. Yes, I bet some people do it, But that would be a small percentage. Is it anyway that rule 5 could be better explained to new players, wether it be the Tutorial npc, or RED Flashing Text during charater creation?

I wouldn't say that most new players who do get locked for rule 5 leave and quit though. Most actually start over. It's the established players who get caught who get pissy and leave (talking about rule 5's effect on players leaving only here).

As to your suggestion...I personally would be fine with that, although red flashing letters don't sound very welcoming imo. Not everyone does the tutorial NPC either. As you pointed out, a lot of players don't read. Full stop. Very hard to combat that.

 

Edit: saw bernie's post after I posted. What she said.

[Dilly]

This is not one of those "beat the game" type games. You dont start with uber nice st00f, huge bag storage for picking up stuff, or even nexus to actually wear/use the higher level items. It's designed this way for a reason. Not being a dev i can only throw out an "oh i dunno , maybe so the newbie's learn how the game plays, how/what pp's are , where to spend them" . This game is meant to be "expierenced and explored" not won or beaten.

 

I can only speculate that a lot of new players trying out EL for the first time are perhaps very young (8-13?) and just dont have the patience to play EL and get to know what it's really like, or how much fun it is to explore and try new skills.

 

You can't have it all and do it all in a week here, that's one of the attractions of the game for me. Also, you have a great community of minds, opinions, personalities. You make friends here and you keep them.

 

You ask how to keep new players from leaving? For one, maybe stop complaining about how the game is now. Changes happen, sure maybe we dont like them all, maybe we love others, but it happens, roll with it, grow with it, learn with it. A new player starts playing and all they hear / see is old players complaining about this or that. Where is the "lead by example" there for the new player?

 

Help a new player, explain stuff, show them stuff, let them discover stuff too. That's the fun after all. As far as gc is concerned for a new player, guess what there is flowers and a garden right there on IP, they can harvest and sell veggies to npc in the tavern for gc WHILE they are reading stuff in the enecylopedia, which is what i did when i first started. I did this for two days. I had pleanty of GC to accomodate items i needed when i began.

 

I dont see a whole lot that is "broken" with the game if anything. Harvest and sell stuff if u want gc. Make stuff and sell it. Tons of ways to make GC, i never understood the economy problem as I have always tried to be as self sufficiant as possible a player ie.. makeing all my own training potions, ess's, armors. What i could not make myself i harvest/sold to buy. It's amazing stuff npc's buy, and it's nice they do

 

If it aint broke dont fix it.

 

We dont need segragated player base. Make ur own gc. Stop complaining about the game in front of new players. Help new players. Sit back and enjoy a game. Smile it makes people wonder

 

 

yeh.. what she said!

[sora_barzahd]

Player...Greed?

 

If you haven't noticed, it takes a hell of a lot of GC to buy higher level things because of some of the ingredient costs. The lack of patience is because it

takes too long to get that GC at low levels.

Right there you said the problem. Lower level players shouldn't be getting high level expensive things yet. Same problem. Everybody wants to have the best and be the best first week out.

I would call that player greed.

 

Well the way to fix this would be to make it less accessible. It's not greed if it's sitting right there for them to buy it. Anyone with the required amount of Human

 

Nexus can wear a piece of armor or a weapon. You can reduce this by doing what Hussam has said and eliminate the PP's one could get through negative perks

 

and PP buying, which is a short term solution, or you can set attack level requirements on weapons and defense level requirements on armor. This may drive

 

down the demand slightly on some weapons and armors, but it gives something new players to work towards.

 

Well, maybe it is greed, but the economy runs off of greed, just like real life. You don't need a big house or a fancy car but they are nice to have. The only thing

 

stopping you from obtaining them is that you can't afford it, like in EL. This requires you to have to work for it.

[Wizzy]

I agree, reading is not something that can be enforced on anyone

[Zenial]

*read, skim, read, skim, reply*

 

Heh, ironically, I don't think new players would detect most of these problems controversies without us here to point them out!

 

 

A lot of players left because they got used to things a certain way (old harvest/pk/attributes uncapped and what have you....). New players, being new, aren't going to relate to that.

 

Also, the matter of being able to buy and sell characters. The character still has to have the same amount of accumulative hours put behind it regardless of how many users. I can't see how being passed around amongst users or just having one owner affects newbies... they're new, it's their job to feel tiny (or else buy a character )

 

However, in other games, they do decrease the xp-per-level as the community progresses. Say, in early years, L30 is X exp, they'd drop the requirement 10-20% over time so lesser players can catch up. But in a way, that's not fair either, so... *shrugs*

 

Oh, and to drop a new bomb, how many games have a strong lifespan of +10 years? (Nethack? Pong? Rhetorical?) Maybe EL's just slowing down naturally...

 

my two cents.

 

Oh also, I unauthorizely declare the economy fine.

[bkc56]

... or you can set attack level requirements on weapons and defense level requirements on armor.

This has been suggested before in other contexts, and I still think it's an excellent idea. It's totally appropriate that only a skilled fighter (above some a/d level) would be able to justify, function in and/or use some high-level armor or weapons.

 

If they can't wear/use high-level items until they have the appropriate a/d levels, it would reduce/eliminate the race for the best toys that newer players often have.

[Wizzy]

... or you can set attack level requirements on weapons and defense level requirements on armor.

This has been suggested before in other contexts, and I still think it's an excellent idea. It's totally appropriate that only a skilled fighter (above some a/d level) would be able to justify, function in and/or use some high-level armor or weapons.

 

If they can't wear/use high-level items until they have the appropriate a/d levels, it would reduce/eliminate the race for the best toys that newer players often have.

 

I agree

 

The best weps/armor in game on a level 50 a/d player, is no match for a equipmentless 130a/der

 

Though people often feel the need to have better equipment, and spend much wasted efforts trying to earn this equipment, rather then spend that time more wisely on their skills

[Aislinn]

I agree too, I would LOVE to see required levels for most things.

[Ateh]

if everyone put $100 into Radu's paypal account he would make whatever the f*** changes you want once it hit 60k

 

that'd only be 600 players, we could have all the GC drops increased from mobs, break rates reduced, hydro ores in EVTR, 125 more yetis on c2 and one roaming around whitestone just for kicks, trik would pay 350gc for a leather helmet, find rates of binding/efe/serp stones would quadruple. Newbies could get thier own mule until they hit OA 25 with an hourly reminder that once they hit OA 25 muling is illegal unless you do it with a guildy who lives more than 5 streets away.

 

Its all about the Benjamins, raise enough of that green stuff and suddenly radu would turn into a magic lamp genie granting everyone three wishes

 

Failing that, full storage wipe ftw

[Ateh]

double post double post double post double post

 

i just remembered whats better than a full all round storage wipe, fun !!

 

simple fun like bringing horses back but not making them require shed loads of creature food, and no one time use whistles, thatd be fun you know the kind of fun that only costs 5kgc but is something different to do

 

the kind of fun where theres an abundance of rare ingredients coming into the game so price of high end stuff drops in turn

 

the kind of fun where theres more than enough creatures for everyone to train on at all levels

 

the kind of fun like ND KF, thats fun you see and everyone loves it so much they want to see ND expanded a little

 

the kind of fun everyone had at NDD invasions, sure they broke armors and used a load of resources but it was fun

 

simple, cheap fun is what I think would be good for EL