Ryzom

Must clarify my incoherences..........

I really like the new Silan but this was very badly adapted to the mainland experience awaiting new players..
2 main reasons I reckon would be
- spoon-feeding on Silan (as well as some really real hard tasks) bringing cultural shock when joining mainlands.
- Not enough communication = not enough new players so low level would fell very very lonely in mainlands lvl 0 to 150 areas....

1 - What i meant by spoon-feeding, you guys explained it enough; new Silan was too much quest driven and not a true reflection of what is after, quest reward of what i named wrongly uber-gear (Fyros flaming sword is for me uber-gear, especially with stats it had from NPC). Those swords (150 craft if i remember correctly) and equipments should have been kept hidden to increase pleasure of discovering them when seen mainlands and experienced players wielding them...

So;
- spoon-feeding of equipment = promise not kept by the mainland
- Spoon feeding of quests and tasks = promise not kept by the mainlands (and nowhere mentioned that the mainlands are not quest driven....)
Maybe something like: "be VERY CAREFUL little homin, the new lands you are going to join will be very vast and different and you will not see initiations or quests like we gave to you here, so study our teachings well, blablabla...."
- Spoon feeding of easy levels as well would be my first reproach tho: even the team quest (only one....) can just be finished solo (except the bosses...)
It is possible to blast through most level magic and melee in 2 or 3 days without dying once....

Then you come on mainlands, very proud of your skills and as soon as you exit Yyrkanis gates, you end up in 10 seconds eating dirt with a Yubo pissing on your dead body......
Then you go 100 meters further and you meet our friend gingo which promise you numerous trips to the altar in his first growl....
but but but..... I was killing 10 torbaks in sequence just a few hours ago on Silan, why why why....

So yes, I say it again; make Silan harder...
I agree the new concept of Silan is much better but is far too easy...
We all died in most games when starting, that is not what repel players: I was killed probably 5 or 6 times by my first yubo on old Silan when game came out, as where most players...
Strangely enough, lot of people were not quiting for a few deaths back then....

And indeed, last reproach about Silan is how silly harvesting-prospecting is....
Either make quest sources open automatically or make a 3 meter range and little angle starter stanza....

Silan =
- too easy on combat (nightmare when coming on mainlands)
- does not create enough teaming spirit (should maybe have a full line of quests-tasks-missions made around teaming around mid-Silan so then all would be LFG!!!!!!1111!!! )
- Too hard on harvesting..
- Crafting quest were actually pretty good teaching but should no give rewards ... or.... maybe give as a reward some information about secret Choice mat Spot so the reward would actually be to make your own stuff with better mats and then flood the merchant with it = much more in line with mainlands.....
(maybe access to a choice harvesting area with a guard not letting you in if you have not finish crafting teaching... area could have few spots of one kind of every mats used for all craft: this could actually be a real good reward and also help players to go through harvest branch to make sure they can dig the q50 present there...)

2- Communication indeed is the key;
- Download is already free; send a 3 months free subscription to all reviewers of all major MMO and gaming sites (that would only cost lil bit of bandwith and that is all if I am not mistaken).... So is already some free advertising...
- Put some banners on main gaming sites....
- Make sure more frequent communication is on mainpage as well lol: Stupid GF and their stupid idea of freezing the website was probably not the best idea toward potential new customers and potential cashflow lol....

Anyway, just some ideas, even though game may not come back as any of us expect....
Though, even if I understand what has been said in other thread by keeping secret and so on, I have to say that what is happening right now is not giving me great confidence toward future communication skills of eventual new owners.....
I really wish I am wrong tho

I only want one thing: PLEASE LET ME LOG IN

Can't play a freaking game anymore since you gave me hope again...!!!!!

Toc Toc..
Who is there..
Meee...
Meee who....
MEEE WANNA LOGIN NOW!!!!!!

Too lazy to edit but 2 things to add concerning Silan...

- Making it harder will not change anything, just making people prepared and also most probably increase cooperation between players; which is 99% of the mainland operative mode....

- ONE thing I woud surely keep; free indefinite trial (maybe even add one month on mainland but this could contradict what I am going to say)...
Considering hypothesis I made before, and also looking at Silan the way it was in the past, I saw quite a few pennyless players staying on Silan and never entering mainlands.....
Those should not be neglected... those are as well a real asset of a very complex game (especially if Silan is particularly hard; as mainlands); Those non paying players addicted to Silan do what subscribers do; help people, show around, maybe would have mastered choice spot (see previus post) and crafted some gear for newbies....

Would rez the latest and help as any mainland player would do......

Now education wise, incoming player need to learn to die....
Can not seriously consider Silan worth anything to any new comer if it is a easy as any Asian MMO and then be transported to an area where they would not survive over 3 blows....

Hmmm,

I wonder if bring back and adapting the old newbie zones to be a sort of transitional gate to the mainland could solve some of those problems.

danolt wrote:Hmmm,

I wonder if bring back and adapting the old newbie zones to be a sort of transitional gate to the mainland could solve some of those problems.

I wouldn't mind something in the middle yes, but the problem with the old zone was the segregation of races. I think it makes more sense that there would be one opening to the surface and then homins could travel to their homelands from there like in Silan. You'd think it would be dangerous the homins still living under to have more then a few openings in case of another invasion?

And gameplay wise, one newbie isle makes for a populated newbie isle, as opposed to the lonely ones they had before... And personally I like seeing other races early one in case I decide another race looks better....

I was thinking more along the lines of keeping Silan as the opening of the game and players could travel back and forth from the old newbie zones to Silan. This would allow for a better feel for the mainland and also create an area where racial histories and cultures could be better presented.

I agree that Silan should be harder, not easier. We need more aggro mobs. We need social mobs. We need a ragus boss and a gingo boss (just like we have an ocyx boss, a kitin boss and a cray boss), who should be at least as strong as common mainland animals are.

Also, we need some mainland eye candy to keep newcomers interested: maybe some mounted rangers on mektoubs, some some patrols with guns around the camp. Maybe even a NPC outpost that newbies could conquer.

I agree about the "they should bring back the old newbie areas" part, too. People would be allowed to actually teleport from Silan to the newbie area of their choice, but they wouldn't be able to leave to mainland areas until they subscribe. That way, new players could actually explore various environments, not just the forest like on Silan, and they could decide whether they are interested to see more.

My point is that not all of Silan should be harder. Some parts, like foraging, should be easier. What should be harder is the second half of Silan. The first half is fine as an easy tutorial, giving new players a chance to learn about Ryzom's complicated mechanics in relative peace and to practice them without every mistake meaning instant death. Once they have those down a bit, the second half should then prepare them for the higher difficulty of the real Atys.

danolt wrote:I wonder if bring back and adapting the old newbie zones to be a sort of transitional gate to the mainland could solve some of those problems.

That's.... not a bad idea. That's a pretty good idea.

Keep Silan the easy tutorial that it is, and allow free teleporting between Silan and the 4 racial islands. Then put the choice mats, the social mobs, the more difficult aggros and all that on the racial islands, and present them as "a taste of the mainland" to the new players on Silan.

With that much to explore in just the trial, you do need to make sure to keep enough appealing mainland-only stuff. So yes, no guns, no mounts, and put some NPCs there with guns and mounts as teaser. I think an outpost to conquer already goes too far, but if outposts ever become more than drilling platforms, it's a good idea to just have an outpost there as eyecandy with an NPC explaining how those can be conquered on the mainland. If the encyclopedia ever becomes worthy of the title 'feature', a single rite on the island would be good too.

iphdrunk wrote:If the new player cannot pull a node after tracking, for whatever mistic reason we can come up with, that is frustrating.

In all, the couple "tracking+prospecting" could be made more intuitive and smooth for a basic understanding,

Can't really blame them if they only have a 50 meter tracking and the inaccuracy of tracking can easily be 50 meter.

I think it's largely the placement of the materials that makes it difficult too. If there's just a 20 by 20 meter area right on that edge that tracking takes you too, where the mats can be found on every spot within that area, they'd be a lot easier to find. But even then prospection is know to miss sources that are right in front of you for some mysterious reasons...

Anyways, making that all more smooth would be the best solution, but may take an entire revamp of the foraging system, hence why I suggested self-popping sources as an easy fix for newbie foragers.

danolt wrote:I was thinking more along the lines of keeping Silan as the opening of the game and players could travel back and forth from the old newbie zones to Silan. This would allow for a better feel for the mainland and also create an area where racial histories and cultures could be better presented.

OK that would be a great idea!

Self popping sources, there are some of them near Silan, it's when looking for that amber on one side of the gate and the stuff away from the camp that people seemed to have issues. Should they really make those easier?

If lots of peope have issues with them, then I would think so. But I don't know, I didn't go through Silan as a newbie, you tell me how hard to find they currently are.

I just remember from my own newbie days that searching for a particular material with 5 meter range prospecting, while only having a general idea of where that material is, could take hours. Not fun. As far as I know nothing has changed since then, except there being a different newbie island now.

tbh all the forage quests are doable with a modicum of patience
after all it does give you radar pointers to all but the fine zun amber. maybe a little more explanation on how to combine tracking with fine stanza needed for that one. but on the whole the only thing you really need for any of the quests is time and patience. but yes i do agree it needs changing. after all i never saw any ppl searching boxes on mainland (please correct me if im wrong on that one)