praha wrote:In all seriousness, Ring should have been a 2nd or 3rd expansion. A real expansion should have been rolled out with a LvL 300 zone, new mobs, new textures, and iterms/rewards (use your own definition for reward here) similiar to the Kitin Lair, and maps that would boost the total realm of Ryzom by at least 50%.
The decision to work on the The Ring was, I imagine, a decision to attract a large number of new players with something
completely unique to MMORPGs, whilst also giving existing players a genuinely new reason to stay/return. What you suggest would have given a new, allbeit temporary, reason for jaded players to stick around or re-subscribe, while not attracting a single new player. If the current strategy of adding more mainland content (like Outposts) wasn't saving Nevrax, then what reason is there to suppose that more mainland content would have pulled them out of their dire straights?
praha wrote:
Most of us, fanboi's or not, probably would have tossed down $25-35 for a digital download of this new region. If Nevrax really wanted to save the company a free "so-called" expansion called Ring would not have been the answer. Sometimes I wonder how many nitris ballons they got over there in the corperate building. They just keep making the worst decisions in MMO history (yes, rivaling CU or NGE).
It was a gamble yes, and it didn't pay off for Nevrax, which is a great shame. In hindsight it can be seen to be a grave error, but perhaps the "safe" alternative was seen as merely delaying an inevitable collapse?