Business plan and priorities :)

[gillest63]

tbh all the forage quests are doable with a modicum of patience

From an oldie's point of view I agree but not from a new player point of view.....
Even after making 4 alts in Silan I still had nightmares finding that spot along the Silan world border....

And after 4 alts and 2 x 250 harvest and few other lvls in harvest, it was still making me mad....
Even though patience (that is a big aspect in Ryzom) is needed, some of the harvest quests 9This one particularly) were just not adapted...

So many ppl asking for help in general channel about that particular mission that it was ridiculous...
---------------------
Edit: can not post on general but to answer one thread there, I will say:
How much am I ready to pay....
2000 USD is what I am gonna pay....
The same minute servers are back up (....if....) I will spend 2k USD to buy new laptop to play Ryzom lol....
Part of my keyboard did not digest the last Stinga rum pouring

Cant play Ryzom without arrow keys can we ... (question mark key is amongst casualties...)

[mashed]

well i guess i was a lucky one because non of them really gave any real challenge to me.(with the exception of the fine zun amber) but at the same time when i was down on silan i was part of a small group which formed quite quickly down there. so i guess i really have them to thank there (not sure if your all still out there but i owe a lot of my faith to ryzom to these 3 ppl who were there when my time on atys all began, many thanks, Bomont, Quova, Durrang. it was them who stopped me going insane while we tried to figure out those darn quests ). so long story short i think basically they do need changing because no single person can do them(without prior knowledge anyway) but i also think that forage does need a frustration point even at early stages. because we all know those times will come and ya may aswell get used to them

[kalindra]

Ah, yeah, I spent so long on Silan that I got to know some of those digging spots by heart. I helped so many people find that damn Zun Amber near the cliff. The spot was so tiny and tricky to find. I remember having a hard time finding it too, even the second time I did it on my Aniro alt. But even then, I remember running around the village long time to find all those different mats for the first mission.

[iceaxe68]

My first time on Silan (before they nerfed the poor yubos) I never finished the foraging quest chain because of the frustration. Because I left there with little foraging skill and knowledge, I did little of it on the mainland until much later.

Later I went back and made an alt with the idea of doing all the things I missed before. Armed with more knowledge and experience, I moved quickly through the majority of quests, but still found the foraging ones frustrating and eventually abandoned them.

I think the difficulty was not the problem, though. The problem was that the difficulty jumped from dead-easy to really hard with no transition.

Even later, I made yet another alt on Silan. This time I knew much, much more about foraging. I managed to complete the quest chain, partially because I knew what stanzas would help and did some grinding to get them before tackling the later quests.

That's not a tutorial. At least, not a good one.

I wish I'd learned more the first time.

[cynthel]

I think the difficulty was not the problem, though. The problem was that the difficulty jumped from dead-easy to really hard with no transition.

So maybe there should be a few more steps in between to gradually get players to get used to finding nodes? That goes along with the rest of thread and would make a lot of sense.

I didn't have a very hard looking for it, because I took it one step at a time, did it take time? Yes, did I get a little annoyed? Sure, was I damned happy to finally find it? Oh yes! I guess I'm loathe to see it changed because it is part of game satisfaction to finally figure something out, whether it's how to kill a boss or how to solve a puzzle. A lot of games just give you everything, and you just have to shoot at bosses and have enough potions, forget the strategy.. ect..

Anyway, maybe if the zun amber had a larger area and was easier to find it'll be ok for Silan, I don't have enough mainland experience to really say if it'll bring us back to Silan being too easy as opposed to the mainland..
I only got to killing psychothingies in Yrk. Those are fun to explode, he he.

EDIT: Reading comprenhension ftw honestly.

[iceaxe68]

[...] I don't have enough mainland experience to really say if it'll bring us back to Silan being too easy as opposed to the mainland.. [...]

I wouldn't want to make the quests easier, just teach better beforehand, perhaps with a few more quests or more steps to the quest. Then there is a smoother ramp up to the challenges of the mainland.


Moving on to other topics.

Regarding advertising and recruitment of new players:
Think outside the MMO box, and find new market segments. This game can and does appeal to people not currently playing MMORPGs, or indeed any games at all. Find those people and let them know that Ryzom exists. (When it does, of course.) There are many many people who would love this game, but have never heard of it. Spending loads of cash to market to long-time MMO gamers would be a waste - they already heard about it, and said, "no, thank you", or they are here reading this now, and are sold already.

And just to beat the horse some more, good communication is essential to potential players, new players, and old diehards. Two way communication. Frequent communication.

I've heard some say that there's little to tell, so don't expect much. I say: BS. I work in software, my team has a daily meeting to tell what we're working on, and we NEVER have a shortage of things to say. Granted, some is either not appropriate or not interesting for customers, but it would be a rare day indeed that there was NOTHING that a customer might be interested to hear.

I'm hoping that the current silence is strategic, and that the floodgates will open once some critical milestone is reached. If it's just the way things will be, Ryzom will die again, and quickly.

[cynthel]

I'm hoping that the current silence is strategic, and that the floodgates will open once some critical milestone is reached. If it's just the way things will be, Ryzom will die again, and quickly.

I'm really wondering about that, I was hoping for an owner that cares for the community and communicates efficiently and often. If only to say, we are doing this and that but it's going to take a bit. People who are kept informed are willing to wait for quite some time.

But the fact that they haven't announced themselves yet, is troubling.

[chadsta]

communications is extremely important....
the gm's running around were a good start.. forums are great but i have way to much fun in game to worry about reading forums . maybe a board in game with quick messages so you can glance at as you run by. just quick messages find something your interested in you can check out forums later and read up on it.

now for silan
deposits that pop by themselves, are good for new players.. but not everywhere... around the main camp yes it helps but out and about make the deposits easier to discover except for the choice deposits.
the tweaking of stanza gave something interesting in ryzom digging which often could be slow ..

making silan harder is not what i'd like to see.. the yubos are a tad easy true true. i likeish the idea of the 4 lands to tp to from silan, like silan in the centre and all other lands branching of but silan including enough area to house the real low lvls creatures. one thing i would like to see is possible new creatures in the lowlands... as someone mentioned your killing torbaks by the truck load in silan for lvls. u come to the mainland and the gingos are smearing you all over the ground...

advertising gets difficult theres not many people who even know what the game is... i have mentioned it several times in other games i have palyed since ryzom all i hear is "whats ryzom" or "never heard of it" somehow we need to get it out there. targeting the more mature gaming people and some who currently do not play games at all....

i liked ryzom the way it was but some changes have to be made to entice new players. thats my thoughts but i'd be happy if they game just came back already

[karmelit]

Back in Nevrax's days I played whenever I had some spare time, even used my vacations fulltime online. Why go on vacation when Atys was so much fun? And they were quick to reply on these forums.
GF's managment made me start loosing the faith, and I watched so many friends go. We had a hard time getting a response during that time.
So slowly but steadily I stopped logging in, and in the end it was only to chat with friends.

This time our hopes are kindled again. But you cannot keep our trust forever if all we get is silence. Are we a world cut off from the universe or what? Give us some sign that there is life out there

I don't have to return! But I wish to. There are more worlds out there, and I am active in one of those. And so is many others. And we are here, now, to try to revive this world together with You, whomever You are. And let Gillest come home again

[acridiel]

I agree that some things must change on Silan. In particular that darn prospecting "Quest" for Zun Amber.
The idea of making the spot a bit bigger might just be what this problem needs, it may help to balance that annoying imperfection of the prospecting action (even on high levels) by giving it a larger area to react too.
And additionally I agree with the notion of having a few more missions in between to teach the new players the use of this action and the possibilities of combining actions more thoroughly.

As said above the biggest problem is that people are not able to read the instructions the teachers give again. Especially in harvesting this needs to be implemented. Even those players who do read through this quite long text and not consider it some unimportant blabla, will have trouble recalling what exactly that guy said, when its needed. Like when hunting for that clandestine zun spot. This needs to be fixed one way or the other.

About making things harder, I agree that the beginning is quite ok the way it is now.
The 200 Xtra HP were given back then because of people complaining they´d get killed far too often by the yubos, remember?
So, resetting it to the old HP base will solve nothing at all, people will only complain again about dying far to fast.
Resurrecting an old problem does not solve the new one.
Maybe 100 less will help? Middle ground anyone?
I really can´t say if it would help balance out the trouble.

If people die to often they complain, if people die not enough they complain.. yay...
Players will always complain and no-one short divine power will ever make everyone happy.
And judging by what job the one above does he´s got a pretty hard time to reach that goal too.

What needs to be found is a way to show people that Ryzom really isn´t about dying that much and that this can be averted by learning things as a player and not as a toon on the screen.
The Toon does not learn patience while digging.
The Toon does not learn how to judge distances to sneak past aggro.
The Toon does not learn the recipes of great armor or weapons.
This could go on for quite a while...

The Player learns all these things and that´s one thing of many that makes Ryzom so special. It´s not only about what action/button to hit when and learing the stats of Über Armor by heart. It´s about learning things that really challenge the mind. And social ability is only one aspect of that.

Silan at this time is a good base on which to build up from to get the players to really see these unique things Ryzom has to offer. And yes, I am against turning it into a Asia Cookie-Cutter Micropayment Grindfest Quest-Chaser just stare and see Adventure.
All things that are to be changed and there are many that need a bit of attention and polish, should be changed in regard to Ryzoms uniqueness and with it firmly set in the mind of those who´ll implement these changes.

Silan in particular should, as I agree with most of you, be made to prepare the new Players for the main lands. Bearing in mind that the mainland probably will change too in some ways. Hopefully at least.

What many seem to forget or seem to not bring into the right kind of correlation is that the main lands were never really finished by Nevrax in the first place.
They intended to do more "missions" and "quest like" adventures for the main lands all along.
They always intended to make the Outpost something else than was implemented then.
They always intended for us to have more things to do than what we have now. Just read the old manuals... *sigh*
They just never got around to DO all this stuff they had in mind.

So, if now whoever picked up the license and goes for a complete overhaul of the system and make it really DO what it was supposed to do, then Silan would have to change accordingly, or it would start the whole issue all over again. As I see it, there is guite a big chance that in Silan, we may be looking at what the Mainland was originally supposed to become, before Nevrax went under.
Ever thought of that?

Well, but all this is idle speculation without any word from our mysterious new owners and "they" might just be someone whos going to set up three private servers and lets us play forever and thats about it. -.-

Who knows without communication...

TELL US SOMETHING ALREADY!!! *shakes fist against the virtual sky*

CU
Acridiel