Ryzom

arfindel wrote:However we need badly an event team active and a lore reviewed and present on official site. Don't really think this is expensive or hard to do. Can start in small steps, it's time it started already.

Well, it is the hardest part in game development ever. And I dare to say it is the reason why Ryzom went so downhill. There is no better MMO in terms of game mechanics (I want to point out animal behaviour and skill system). But majority of players likes to be led by quest line. Constant supply of live events is even better, but rather hard to achieve to be effecient.

So, extend the Ruins of SIlan story to the mainland. Template quests are not enough. Supply a story behind faction PvP. But most important - I want to know what the hell is going on Atys! What made me sad when Ryzom servers closed recently was, there are many untold stories in this world and I want to know them all.

Thumbs up, What-is-the-name-of-new-owner, you can do it!

Lami

Quest-based "storylines" are lies.

I've done quest based story line in LotrO. I must say I love the books and the team there worked incredibly hard to cover every little detail of the story and add other epical lines which never contradicted the main story.

Maybe I am weird: I got bored to death. While I still respect the huge work done there the results are just boring, it's like you are 6 years old, don't know to read and your mom forces you to read a book when you can only read letters. It's like you put your favourite movie and force yourself to see frame by frame.

Other than my personal oddity, the large majority of the player base were not bothered by these quests at all: they read only the yellow text under: kill 7 orcs.

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Ohh and edit: there are in the current player base people able to conceive and write down events for the CSR team based on the lore that a lot of us part know, part have somewhere on the hardware saved. What about an official contest of such events. I strongly believe some RP and leading in small events would be a lot of fun for the present day CSRs too.

arfindel wrote:I've done quest based story line in LotrO. I must say I love the books and the team there worked incredibly hard to cover every little detail of the story and add other epical lines which never contradicted the main story.

Maybe I am weird: I got bored to death. While I still respect the huge work done there the results are just boring, it's like you are 6 years old, don't know to read and your mom forces you to read a book when you can only read letters. It's like you put your favourite movie and force yourself to see frame by frame.

Other than my personal oddity, the large majority of the player base were not bothered by these quests at all: they read only the yellow text under: kill 7 orcs.

===
Ohh and edit: there are in the current player base people able to conceive and write down events for the CSR team based on the lore that a lot of us part know, part have somewhere on the hardware saved. What about an official contest of such events. I strongly believe some RP and leading in small events would be a lot of fun for the present day CSRs too.

Because there are no choices to make, whilst walking the path they set out, there needs to be forks in the road, even if its like those old choose your own story books that you find in 2nd hand shops - wich would work alot better than the current format.

Nah, even quests that do have choices for you to make still feel fake. Okay, so I let the nice drug dealer go instead of turning him in. All it changes is the storyline I get, possibly the reward, and maybe how the NPC will greet me in the future. It didn't really change anything - the other storyline is still there too, open to anyone who takes the quest after me.

Quests that involve choices in MMOs often just annoy me more than totally linear quests, because it leaves me with a feeling of "well, now I missed the other half of the content".

Choices in MMOs need to be reversible and repeatable, such as the choice to be Kami or Karavan aligned, or permanently shut down the other option for everybody, as in live events. Choices that shut down the other option for your character only while still leaving it open to anyone else, just forces alt-creation and makes the world feel more meaningless, more static and more restricted.

choices and linearity should both play a role in the quests, but quests shouldnt be what drives the story, imo. imagine millions of homins running around each at a different part of the story... that would also make lore and story based events like kitin invasions more difficult to fit in anywhere too...

what would be cool tho is if the quests you do and the choices you make change the world, lets say you do an armour crafting quest, then you actually see NPCs walking around with the armour you crafted or something along that line, who knows that set of max parry HQ HA you crafted for one of the town guards could be the reason whether he lives or dies in the nxt kitin invasion...

I agree with you all, basically. But you are missing one point. Count yourselves - neither me, neither you are majority player base of MMOs, which SW *needs* to make any money to keep this game running. So, as I don't like quests which do not change anything, etc. etc., you named it already, there are lots of players who want to read "Kill 7 orcs, I give you this sword". Great, what next? Oh, 15 goblins.... Mmm, go get them... You know the drill Don't want me start talking about dynamic worlds which I belive in, it is far out of scope of this forum.

Some may think now is the time to make something different. Yes, it definitivelly is, but consider the situation Ryzom is in right now. It has 3rd owner, history of success is rather sad, game is rather old to attract new players and unless they got an investor which do not cares about money, they resources are limited. They need to play safe enough, to return the money investor expects. So I think they will not turn the game upside down, changes will be minor, at least from the begining.

This being said also means they need something extra to stand out of the current MMO crowd. But they also need something WoW-ish (as I hate to say it) to attract enough paying customers.

I really wish they did some analysis before. GF approach seemd like "Look, MMO for sale cheap, go for it, it must work somehow", without actually knowing anything about MMOs.

What Ryzom needs to survive are behind-the-scenes innovations, including heavy but well-directed reliance on volunteers, and effective advertising. The marketing forum, for example, is a step toward both of those. Niche games are different, they need different strategies.

Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted, formerly known as Horizons: Empire of Istaria, should be a role model for Ryzom in terms of management. It's even older, and it too experienced multiple changes of ownership, even being owned for a year by a completely incompetent and seriously fraudulent company (EI Interactive, which New Game World Inc may be related to). After that it was bought back by Virtrium. Virtrium, being composed of people who originally developed Horizons/Istaria, knew how to work with the development toolset and more importantly, were familiar with what kind of game they had in their hands. They have not aimed for the majority. They know Istaria will never have millions of subscribers. But, with the help of volunteers, they've managed to put out good patches at least once a month for over a year. Furthermore, they're in the financial black.

Ryzom does not need to bend over for the majority.

Repetability of quests for all players dillute the content of the story encapsulated in the quest to a disgusting soup.

It's a wonderful thing to revenge the death of Still Wyler, but if 20000 players revenge it, or worse - if everyone can revenge it ad nauseam - the whole immersion is gone within a week.

When SWG fell that was a main choice and discussion:
- the SWG that Raph Costner designed had as a principle that players want to live in SW world as a normal citizen, not as a superhero
- the SOE SWG tried to be based on every kid's wish to be the main hero

As you well know the second choice was taken and it led to lamentable failure.

The quests driven games do this, they try to make every single player the hero of the history. Which is why the game is winnable and ceases to be RPG anymore (unless you are very stubborn and play it isolated from the community).

Tipically mature player base wants to be a simple citizen in a world of choice and while not being the superhero, the king of Yrkanis or lady Loria, still be a citizen with an opinion and still have a way to improve his character.

Tipycally young player base want to incarnate the hero, be Luke Skywalker, meet Ma Duk, leave Ays on a karavan ship and win over all. He wants to do this rather fast and easy then move on to the next game.

Of course being the hero is more shiny, but heroism is unicity. If you make every zorai able to become Mabreka, Mabreka will be empty of content.

Ryzom doesn't need to do something so different from what it did in the past, only it needs to do it at same time, organised.

When Nevrax was keeping players on their toes with events and invasions nobody was marketing the game, when GF was trying to market the game, they started by firing the event team. That's a very good example of how bad timing ruined the business.

Now the company considers the game a beta. Having in mind that a beta needs launching and marketing to become a working game, counting players now won't say much.

Worst thing one can do to Ryzom is put it in competition with strong capital, well organised busineses like WoW, LotrO, VG.

I will be here for as long as Ryzom lives... or I do for that matter. Love the game, love the people.. new additions will be wonderful, but since I am drawn to the game, I'll stick it out.
hell I'd be playing right now if I wasn't too cheap to get a laptop.. granted I'd be able to accomplish nothing with the current internet connections I have.
Though to stimulate the populace some RP events always add to the enjoyment. or maybe... just maybe... and random spawning of mobs by mischievious CSRs.

Take care you lot, and take some photo's of Atys for this ole Pirate here.