Change of Policies: aggro dragging, spawn camping etc...

[jared96]

but they won't send the kitins to try and kill us these days

When Ryzom was a "buzzword" in the industry, the biggest "claim to fame" of Ryzom was the "RAID Engine", it saw heavy usage in the beta and closed beta stages often with periods of weekly and more than weekly events. I have taken my "vacations from game" a couple of times, lasting severl months at a time but since "retail" I have only been here for one Raid.

What originally attracted me to this game in the original press releases was the line that said we could "build fortifications". Well other than the silly temples, I haven't built anything. The ability to build even temporary fortifications and defend against kitin raids would add a whole new dynaic to the game. The ability to build is already programmed (we did built the temples), the ability to have Raids we know is already there. I have never understood why these raids are not a routine event.

Suggestion:

1. Why not have one or kitins patrols strike every region at least once per season. I remember in FBT kirosta patrols near Matis so the programming is there. Nothing enormous, just a train of saw 30 kitins that would enter a region and "patrol it" until it was wiped out.

2. Let one of these patrols in any given Atys Year have a few more kitins say 40 whuch would "cut and run" back to the kitin lair when their number reached 10 in order to "report back".

3. The following season, the patrol that managed to "report back" would receive a massive kitin invasion in the region the patrol escaped from . Our kitin observers could report that "our forces did not manage to kill all of the kitin in the scouting patrol and we fear that our region will receive a massive invasion in the near future."

4. Later the observers could report that "scouts have reported that the invasion is likely to attack [name town, outpost, whatever on <insert date here>].

5. Allow like 4 RL days to "build defenses".

6. Have the raid at the specified date and time......let kitis do damage to OP's which could then be rebuilt. Maybe even allow them to be destroyed which would then require that they be retaken from npc's. Make the attacking forces bigger than any one faction can handle so that an opportunity would arise for people to negotiate for OP mats which they might not have access to otherwise.

7. Let the patrols and raid kitins have chance of dropping OP stuff. Not tons of it but not wheel odds either. The bitteness in the game comes from having classes of "haves" and "have nots".

8. Let the "gods" be present to bestow an aura on the participants defending hominkind. The amount of protection provided by the aura will be "earnable" and perhaps decrease SLOWLY over time. Lets say aura has earnable value of 100%; you can get 50% from kami, 50% form kara. Your starting point is your faction fame divided by 4. So a peep with faction of 100 / 0 starts with +25 / -25. A peep with 50/50 starts at +12.5 / - 12.5. By killing patrols and defending invasions in Fyros and Zorai, you earn Kami bonus......by defending in Matis / Zora, you earn Kara points. NOTE bonuses would NOT change fame. Let tehse points also be used to purchase things. A point buys a TP (kara point buys kara tp regardless of faction and visa versa). 10 points buys an OP mat or a KL. Forget for a moment whether 10 is appropriate or not but just consider the concept.


All of the above but the fortifications and "bonus points" already has been done and tested in game and therefore would have little development effort to implement. The bonus points seems woth the development time as it would provise the "have nots" with a shot at getting just about anything in game if they worked hard enough.

[jared96]

i think Anyway that The Community started to Die when Nevrax added the OP´s to the Game and i dun think anything else can stop our dying Community

The server population certainly hasn't recovered from those days.

[komissar]

Indeed it would be just great to see more of the PvE elemnt ingame involving raids + an ability to actually "Build" stuff like we have built the temples...

But we shall see what GF guys come up with... First they have to sort the problems at hand anyways...

[vguerin]

i think Anyway that The Community started to Die when Nevrax added the OP´s to the Game and i dun think anything else can stop our dying Community

The server population certainly hasn't recovered from those days.

Episode 1 resulted in a large exodus of players, though many were beta and newer players that just never grasped that conflict was part of the game from the beginning. Releasing the game without conflict gave a false hope to those who do not like to play that type of game.

The server population has recovered over time, unfortunately several bad decisions later our population is still low. Still "the squeeky wheel gets the grease" and despite suggestions for moving on, we have always (and still do) suffer bad management decisions.

I know Melinoe isn't the only guild that has old players log in and ask if "anything new" is going on... Sadly they get a similar response each time. Nothing new and few of the promises fulfilled. Rarely do they resub unless it's to fill in time til their next game is released.

In the end, whether an old player or new player, Kami, Karavan or Neutral we all want something dynamic that we can foresee wanting to play for. New content in any form is a good way to go, not bug-fix patches to fix the bug-fix patches.

OP's becoming a part of Atys were not the reason we have a low population currently, we survived that and got bigger for awhile. The game not moving forward is not getting old timers back and sure gives little for a new player to grab onto after they make their first Master. Couple that with recent "relaxing" of the rules of conduct and I feel we have been left to play on our own...

Meanwhile fewer and fewer resub

[gcaldani]

Low population....

How do you think it's possible to increase it?
When i go reading forums around the net i very often read of people complaining about the cloning MMO's, crying for the lost SGW and asking for a freedom, classless game. A sandbox. In one word: Ryzom.
The, why many leave or even don't try ryzom?
Many answers could be correct: need more content, need different mechanic, etc... forgetting that for 'new' players' there is plenty of content if u stop giving them all the needed 'big' stuff just the 2nd hour they step into ML.

But that are not necessarly the right answers:

most people want 'population' and if they don't find a good number they leave, regardless of the fact they are having fun. Most of players move around MMO's following stereotypes, and population is one of it.
A high population can be considered a good 'hope' for the development of the game, due to the good income. Altough the good population of SWG didn't prevented that community to lost their entire game.

Now, if everyone leave because there is no population, how the h**l ryzom could get a good one? Someone have to start staying into game at one point.

In a normal timeframe, a mmo achieve this with 'closed' and 'open' beta, working after release to, at least, maintain the interest of players with some new content. Even a pre-beta forum can achieve this goal, releasing infos in a step-by-step way to raise curiosity and getting feedbacks.
So, in the case of a game as Ryzom, that already have thrown out of the window the beta population, and lost others because of bad choices (some mistake it's possible, but many in a row....), what can be the medicine?

Only one: a new medium/high release of 'new' content, using ATS as a free 'beta' for that content, at least for one 1 month.
In one world, GF have to invest some damn buckets as if they would start a new game. If not enough, at least they have some income that would not ever gained, if they wanted to start a new game, for years.

In this case maybe Ryzom can build a higher population that can move into Live server happy. Also a 'real' new content can be used to have new ads, reviews and such around the net.

The only problem is: what can be a 'real' new content that can be good for Ryzom?
Answer this, before it's too late.

In my opinion, now it's the time to group all the bored veteran players that cannot play all the clones around or they do just becasue they cant stay without.
There are so many players around that:
wait a new release, hoping in something new, whining after a while because they found nothing but a clone or, at the best, the same, usual, conformant way to make a MMO with just better graphic.
The time is passed. The great success of <youknowthenamehere> is starting to be old now. Most of that players (that were pretty new to the genre, coming as a single title user first of a previous game, so the success was not because of the quality of that game, as too many still pretend, but just because that company already had a big playerbase from single user games all over the world) now are old and they still think that <theirgamehere> is the standard, just because they never known that MMORPG were pretty much older than their game.
It's time to return to a more complex, fascinating, immersive MMO, as in the past (at least for some).

Ryzom has all that qualities. It is even the only MMO with some AI into the world, while all others are mindless.
So, my opinion is to bet on the diversity instead of searching to clone.
It's too late and the graphics cannot be compared to new titles so bet on the strong points of Ryzom, before a new title will be released with AI, sandbox style and such....!!

Sorry if this sounds a bit off-topic, but i always get this need after 2 hours of forums reading around the net.

[viper579]

:

Now, if everyone leave because there is no population, how the h**l ryzom could get a good one? Someone have to start staying into game at one point.

there are decent bit of people on normally, just they dont talk much as ryzom doesnt have a very good social interaction system. look at uni chat, sometimes it starts to get active before a csr tells people kindly to shut-up about non-QA stuff.

perfect example, hunting with a group. to find one you have a few choices
- your friends list
- guild mates
- region chat (tp from region to region seeing whos doing what)


so from a new players point of view, the game looks half dead automatically (well it did to me). if we had a channel were people say actually talked to each other from all the regions and then a seperate one for QA atleast people could see, yes there are players. i mean on silan, watching uni chat you get the impression there are 15 people on the mainland.

[fiach]

Whenever I play a different MMO, I always try to get people to try Ryzom by putting my review on that games fora or the forum of whatever guild I happen to be in at the time.

Invariably I get the same response, "its to much effort, theres so much to learn with stanzas, crafting is too involved, theres no quests......" etc.

Now, thats fine I suppose, some people want to just buy premade skills and to just spam the same skill button for the rest of their immersion, but I spent about a half hour on TS in one game describing the stanza system and the one toon, all skills system, the in-depth crafting system to people that were actually LOOKING for a game like that!

Two couldn't get the game to run on Vista, Two didnt like Silans presentation and three didn't bother because the other 4 didn't/couldn't play it

I think alot of people leave because of the politics, ref the exodus of players to Cho, most threads turn into 20 page flame-fests, ref a mature player seeking a neutral guild in the Guild Forum, that poster was met with a thread chock filled with immaturity.

I personally think Cats were a huge mistake on Neverax' part, they gave people the ability to "beat" the game in half the time and leave .

Also greed for them has turned friends from beta into bitter enemies, sometimes in OPs as I Spacebar through targets, I wind up targetting friends that I "grew up with" here and it really gives me pause for thought and regret that I have to press 1 and try to kill them and that saddens me and even caused me to leave Ryzom for a period of time

Unfortunately OP's have become the core game of Ryzom to a huge amount of players, and OP's will be here until they turn off the servers I guess.

But unless more players learn maturity and treat this as a game, into which people come to play for enjoyment, and learn police themselves and weed out malcontents, then I fear that server turn off, will be sooner rather than later

[wardone]

wise words Valda

could not aggree more

[jared96]

Episode 1 resulted in a large exodus of players, though many were beta and newer players that just never grasped that conflict was part of the game from the beginning. Releasing the game without conflict gave a false hope to those who do not like to play that type of game.

Conflict can be part of a game without making it mandatory to be part of the game in order to access all the goodies. Not saying particpating in the conflict shouldn't have rewards, just saying there oughta be an alternative route without penalty.

The server population has recovered over time, unfortunately several bad decisions later our population is still low. Still "the squeeky wheel gets the grease" and despite suggestions for moving on, we have always (and still do) suffer bad management decisions.

It's certainly had a lot of turnover but it has never since approached the numbers from "back in the day". If the number of OP's in game were fixed as a % of players, I'd say we'd have about 12 OP's now.

Exclude OP battles and exclude toons who haven't moved in 2+ hours so peeps standing in front of stables 24/7 don't count and tp across the planet doing /who's. Lemme know what ya get.

In the end, whether an old player or new player, Kami, Karavan or Neutral we all want something dynamic that we can foresee wanting to play for. New content in any form is a good way to go, not bug-fix patches to fix the bug-fix patches.

OP's becoming a part of Atys were not the reason we have a low population currently, we survived that and got bigger for awhile.

My friends list and /who tours said otherwise. Sure peeps stayyed around a while to see what would happen but after all the bickering started and PvE only games like LOTR went into beta, we lost a lot.

Tonit's 250 area tour:

Fyros 250 area - 5 peeps
Zora 250 - 8 peeps (4 afk)
Matis 250 - 4 peeps
Tryker 250 - 3 peeps

Only did the afk check in Void. Now this at a time 7 pm EST / 11 pm GMT where there should be peak numbers on. Year 1, you did an afk in Void or Scorched Corridor and you were well into double digits. Void would be well over 20, Flaming Forest you'd have 15 digging and at least 2 full teams doing timmies. Don't you remember looking to plod and finding both plod spots taken ? Now it's rare to find one taken.

It's not the PvP that causes the bickering and sour grapes it's dividing the communityy into "have's" and "have not's". Provide an alternate route to "earn" the goodies" and peeps would have less reason to feel disenfranchised. The boss pop method is even worse. Kill a boss .... you own it unless you screw up.

[gillest]

Low population....
How do you think it's possible to increase it?

1- What about starting by securing the existing customers before recruiting new ones???? At the rate at which old players are running away, I doubt the new ones will be enough to fill the gap.........

2- WHAT ABOUT MAKING ONE FREAKING PATCH RIGHT....???
And what about stopping the 3 years old (age) communication: WE FIXED THINGS, TKS.....

Suggestions:.....

All FANTASTIC Suggestions but what can we hope for when they are not even able to fix a small patch gone wrong in 2 weeks........


I still keep hope but it is really becoming thinner everyday.....

And still no news from Marjo who is supposed to be back since Monday....
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OOC: I know I have been very pushy on that thread but I am very anxious when I see the way things are going lately....