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starscreamer

Generating an Income, creating an RPG feel

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hello all.

 

i have some suggestions for a game that i love to play, EL.

 

before you all start trolling, just know that its because i loves this game and i know that its starting to fail (fewer actual players less generated revenue for the Dev team) Radu has mentioned several times that hes struggling to get funding from players.

 

in my humble opinion, i have diagnosed 2 problems; firstly (as mentioned many times before) EL isnt really an RPG its an open world game with fighting and magic. in order for it to be an RPG you should be able to play different roles.

 

fighter is the only real role, mage and summoner arent usefull in combat and harvers and mixers are surpased buy NPC sales, so...

 

one way to get mages and summoners back into the fray would be to nerf the 2 spells MI & smite summon, these 2 spells are way OP MI can fully negate a really strong mage and smite summons 16x16 AOE renders summoners high end summons useless. so...

MI could be re calculated so you have a 3% natural chance to break the spell and a magic/5+ reason+will/5% chance on top so a high end mage would have about a 40%chance to break the MI spell

the smite summon shouldn't be an area effect, instead focused on a single target

 

Rosto's, attrib removals, perk removals and any other item that affects the character should only be available from the EL shop

 

NPC chars shouldn't sell anything that is make able by players (most recipes will have to change to allow this) also would have to drastically change the make and drop rate of all related stones and essies (serp stone binders EFE ect)

 

these few changes would allow those who want to fight and those who want to mix depend on each other for in game items, sure somethings would be hard to get in the beginning but that would level out as fighters who want ings start having to pay mixers who want gc.

 

so onto the Pay to Play

 

one way other MMORPG games generate revenue is with a P2P system ( i am fully aware that this has come up many times)

 

a basic account will allow you to own ONE character, extra chars would have to be rented from Radu on a monthly basis

 

the p2p should be a monthly subscription fee entitling you to some nice extras (worth the extra fee)

something like;

-a free alt per p2p subscription

-more gods. allowing you to worship 5 gods instead of 3 (as long as they don't clash)

-careful guy perk. a slight chance that when you die you don't drop a rosto or any gear on death

-slightly less chance to break tools and gear

-slightly fewer harvesting events

-Exp booster, applies to one skill, a small exp boost (5or so %) can change it once a month on repaying the monthly fee

-lower instance waiting times

-better horses and speed hax ( more horse steps per whistle and less food consumed per speed hax step)

 

this would enable EL to keep the free to play ethos intact, if you choose to only play one character in EL you wouldn't have to buy a thing, but for those who want a bit more, the option is there.

 

im sure there are many other ways to make money for the dev team, but i play some other MMORPGs (EVE, guildwars, wow and EL) and pay to play seems to be the way forward.

 

also no i don't have a lot of free cash and no i don't want to buy my way to the top

 

 

 

 

 

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Don't like most of this... but maybe a month trial lol

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1. Balance is not the main issue here.

2. It has been proven by countless games that F2P games are more profitable, thats why most games nowadays is either f2p or moving from p2p to f2p.

 

There are 3 main reasons why EL is not popular and new people don't come often:

1. terrible terrible website. Its hard to navigate, and the design reminds more of a 15-year old creatign his first webpage, rather than an actual game website. People first go to the webpage, and when a web page is that bad, nobody really expects anything from the game itself and leave.

 

2. Terrible User interface and animations. Whats the second thing people see when going into the game? yeah... the interface... its OMFG WTF IS THIS SHIT bad. Same goes for animatins - walk animation is terrible, there are no animations for skilling.

 

3. No ads. Really, nowadays there are so many mmorpgs you either have to advertise or have a REALLY good game to succeed,

 

 

really, if Radu changed the website and UI, people would actually start playing instead of quitting before they even enter the game. And if he got even a few global ads (youtube, google ads), you would start seeing people comming in.

 

 

I would actually really like to start playing EL again if it had a future. I really enjoy training for some reason and chatting with people here. I enjoy it a lot. But its just too dead to bother. :/

Edited by LongMustache

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Doesn't look professional. its functional, but thats about it. Especially so for in-game UI. Go to any game's website and take a look, then compare it with EL. anyone who plays any mmo, and stumbles here would most definitely quit because the first impression is awful.

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hello again.

 

i sense a derailment of topic lol so...

 

to push this topis in a good direction

 

1. Balance is not the main issue here.

 

but it should be, a game with a good balance but poor graphics is far better to play than a poor game with good graphics.

 

 

2. It has been proven by countless games that F2P games are more profitable, thats why most games nowadays is either f2p or moving from p2p to f2p.

 

 

not true most games offer a free 2 play option with a premium account, a free months trail before having to purchase the monthly subscription, or just plain out full paid game.

unless you are a games developer running a current MMORPG, im not sure how you are qualified to say f2p are more profitable than p2p lol

 

 


1. terrible terrible website. Its hard to navigate, and the design reminds more of a 15-year old creatign his first webpage, rather than an actual game website. People first go to the webpage, and when a web page is that bad, nobody really expects anything from the game itself and leave.

 

2. Terrible User interface and animations. Whats the second thing people see when going into the game? yeah... the interface... its OMFG WTF IS THIS SHIT bad. Same goes for animatins - walk animation is terrible, there are no animations for skilling.

 

 

EL's website and graphics/animations are on par with some other MMORPG websites/games ove seen/played, it might not be as polished as WOW or EVE but thats not that important imo, game play far outweighs fancy graphics

 


3. No ads. Really, nowadays there are so many mmorpgs you either have to advertise or have a REALLY good game to succeed,

 

 

really, if Radu changed the website and UI, people would actually start playing instead of quitting before they even enter the game. And if he got even a few global ads (youtube, google ads), you would start seeing people comming in.

 

ads aint cheap of free.

no incoming capital = no capital for advertising, quite simple logic i think.

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in my humble opinion, i have diagnosed 2 problems; firstly (as mentioned many times before) EL isnt really an RPG its an open world game with fighting and magic. in order for it to be an RPG you should be able to play different roles.

 

fighter is the only real role, mage and summoner arent usefull in combat and harvers and mixers are surpased buy NPC sales, so...

 

 

I am just a mixer - i never do instances/invances/invasions or train on mobs - i enjoy the game and there are plenty of others that do the same

 

That said, some ppl probably do get bored - I would love to see some festive events - maybe some nice gifts from festive quests etc

Balance of the economy would also help - there are too many items that have their prices driven by players that impact so many other items prices (EFE, binding stones etc) - NPC them for a fixed price !!

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in my humble opinion, i have diagnosed 2 problems; firstly (as mentioned many times before) EL isnt really an RPG its an open world game with fighting and magic. in order for it to be an RPG you should be able to play different roles.

 

fighter is the only real role, mage and summoner arent usefull in combat and harvers and mixers are surpased buy NPC sales, so...

I am just a mixer - i never do instances/invances/invasions or train on mobs - i enjoy the game and there are plenty of others that do the same

 

That said, some ppl probably do get bored - I would love to see some festive events - maybe some nice gifts from festive quests etc

Balance of the economy would also help - there are too many items that have their prices driven by players that impact so many other items prices (EFE, binding stones etc) - NPC them for a fixed price !!

 

One problem with the economy is that most items which can be player-made are also sold by NPC - for a cheaper price than any player can buy and make.

And yes, you can harvest and get them for free - but that's not the point.

 

Having no NPC sell what can be made would distribute the money more equally or at least faster and thus even out the game board a bit more and give more

purpose to new(er) players. Also it would make specializing into certain skills more desirable. Having all the items which can be player-made items sold only

by players would also help to better connect fighters and mixers as they then really need them in order to get their gear.

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Not sure that's really a good idea:

the NPCs put a hard cap on the price of items like steel and titanium armours, that are used by lower to mid-level players.

The dragon armours and top weapons (radio-actives, halberd, scythe) aren't sold by NPCs anyway.

 

Prices of harvestables have increased only a little over the years (less than 25%, in general)

The rare items like binding stones and enriched essences (at least EME and EFE) have increase a lot more (200-300%...).

It used to be that NPC prices were a lot higher than market, now it's the inverse: ingredients alone are more expensive than NPC price of the product.

 

Add to that the several millions of gc that flow into the game every week* (instance/invance/invasion bosses), and you could end up with a situation

where the top level fighters can pay whatever needed to get the rare ingredients for their armours and weapons, making even the lower

armours inaccessible to the lower level players.

 

So I'd rather see a change that made gc rarer, and creates a larger influx of items, forcing prices down; keeping NPCs in such a scenario would have

them act as a safety valve for at least certain items.

 

(*: and that's direct gold coins, I'm not taking into account the value of the drops, wich can be several times the value of the dropped gc!)

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Its the cost of the rare items, such as EFE, binding stones which is making anything produced with manu skill more expensive than buying off the NPC - so why level manu skill at all?

 

As for making gc rarer - I have no idea how you think that is going to help now - there is far too much of it already out there - thats just going to make newer players have more of a disadvantage

Edited by crannog

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But why are EFE, bindings etc. so expensive? From what I heard, they were not really sold all that much through El shop, so most came from in-game (and at a higher rate than they were used), so the only reason for the price explosion I can see is players with a lot of gc and not enough to spend it on. So less gc in game should have a good influence on those prices.

 

And if you make gc rarer by replacing the gc part of the (instance/invance/invasion) bosses by items, that should not influence newer players, as they don't play in that league. Of course I have no idea if that will help, but not changing it is certainly not going to help.

 

(As an aside: I'd also like to see the whole gc and char trade outside the game disappear, but that's a whole different kettle of fish, and I don't see how to enforce that).

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arguing about game balance, when theres barely anyone coming? You first have to get people to start playing, and then worry if they would stay..

 

The issue here is that players do not come.

@starscreamer Im not sure which planet you come from. i can't count how many MMORPGS are free to play with microtransactions. I can count on my fingers the ones that charge to play a game. And no, there are no profesional games who have webpages as shitty as EL. At least not any that have been released in recent years. even indie games, who don't have much, if any, funding have a webpage apropriate for gaming industries. Take a look at no man's sky or albion online. The only one with a simplier webpage i could find is sea of stars, and even then, its pleasant to look at and has news on the front page - and thats a game which has steam as it's main source of sales.

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...

But why are EFE, bindings etc. so expensive? From what I heard, they were not really sold all that much through El shop, so most came from in-game (and at a higher rate than they were used)...

 

...

The rare items like binding stones and enriched essences (at least EME and EFE) have increase a lot more (200-300%...).

It used to be that NPC prices were a lot higher than market, now it's the inverse: ingredients alone are more expensive than NPC price of the product.

...

 

 

Its the cost of the rare items, such as EFE, binding stones which is making anything produced with manu skill more expensive than buying off the NPC - so why level manu skill at all?

 

 

...

NPC chars shouldn't sell anything that is make able by players (most recipes will have to change to allow this) also would have to drastically change the make and drop rate of all related stones and essies (serp stone binders EFE ect)

...

 

 

it never ceases to amaze me how people post replies to topics without reading the original post.

if NPC stop selling player make able items, special stones drop and creation rate would have to increase

 

Many moons ago i used to make and sell fire essences to make GC now its much more common for players to simply buy all the FE HE AE etc from an NPC cutting out the lower/newer players who used to make these essences for gc, most things now are the same price as NPC things, steel bars for one. cutting these from NPC inventories would give a real purpose and role to many of harvers/mixers who currently have to compete with an NPC with unlimited numbers

 

 

 

...

As an aside: I'd also like to see the whole gc and char trade outside the game disappear, but that's a whole different kettle of fish, and I don't see how to enforce that

...

 

it seems many feel this too(including me), and it seems to be a quite polarizing subject (prolly cus many might have a $$$ investment in this)

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Oh, I read your original post. I do not agree with it, though:

NPC prices work as a safety, limiting the prices upwards. Removing a safety when it comes into action is in general not a good idea...

And changing the recipies sounds nice, but you do not give any suggestion about how to change them...

 

And yes, HE, AE, and steel bars were traded at NPC prices. That doesn't mean they were not good to mix. But the mixers didn't provide enough of them (those three are profitable at NPC prices). FE have never hit the NPC cap (at 12 gc/each...) btw... Don't forget that the big consumers of those items prefer trading with a player (even at NPC price) when that player offers several thousands of the item (saves a lot of time). OK, harder for a low level player to get several thousand bars, but not impossible, and a nice profit when sold. (steel bars are back below NPC price btw. Just saying...)

 

Wrt to the rare items, and armours from NPCs, see my previous posts. (Did you see the bit about shop not selling, and rares coming into game faster than they were used?)

Edited by revi

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Statements without proof, also called private opinions, in no particular order:

- If you make EL p2p, it is dead.

- People don't go to EL for the RPG aspect

- 100k rostogols are killing the game

- people come to chat and perhaps do things with friends or guildies, not the general EL community, which doesnt help attract new players

- most new characters are alts

- NPC prices are needed to limit inflation

- once you reach high level EL is boring and without challenge

- no truly new content since the introduction of instances

- new players can make good money 'harvesting' furs, as well as raw materials and making FE

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Just a suggestion, change the shop system radu, it makes you dependant on certain item sales, which then go over the top by greedy people.

My suggestion is, create a shop coin, or use the platin coin for it, make price 1 coin like 10 us cent, you can buy in shop 10 coins for1 us dollar 100 coins for 9.5 us dollar, 1000 coins for 90 us dollar or buy 1 coin for 1000 gold coins in game. The last one, will give you the controll that about the gc flow in game, and set an upper price limit for people wanting to sell shop coins.

Restrict the amount of coins a player can get by trading gold coins to npc, to 1-4 per el day. Make it a special drop for monsters What does that give you, an insentiv for players to buy the coins in shop, a way to reward players who play the game, a stop to the rising gc/us dollar game, that does hurt the el shop more then anything. you can reset the way prices was made to a new consistent way in game, where making costs belong, and through that set a bit of new air into the game. It also makes the game less Dependant from Fighters,

Introduce a few new Items, that uses themself up like horse whistles, that have their uses.

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