I remember this post from Brad several years back. Sometimes I will take breaks from this game I have played since I was a kid and things like this change my perception on the game and give me hope that it may return to the active fun game it used to be. I don't want to go off any any tangents with this post so I will leave it open to others.Brad wrote: 23 Nov 2011
Great ideas guys.
One thing we HAVE to do, before wasting time on any real overhaul, is fix the new player experience. Modern mass market players don't get the tutorial, and flame out quickly. That’s why I was trying to get a new frontend written that can actually be debugged ( and doesn’t have to compile on a 12 year old compiler ).
1) New player experience ( tutorial )
2) Normalize free to play experience with limits on advancement instead of scenario locking.. 100% agree on this.
a. Another great idea is to SLOW advancement for non payers after a certain point, or allow 1 time purchases of “boosts” if they don’t want to subscribe
3) New mid level content, quest based, experience based..
4) Badges, awards, etc
I work closely with many major F2P mmos. The real trick here is that some people dont ever,ever want to "subscribe", they will spend $20.00 a month when they play, but they dont want to subscribe. The way to generate revenue from them is store items that "mimick" subsriptions.. "gain boosters, access to areas, etc "
Please post well-thought short posts giving input and new ideas that are plausible. Not the same old "blame brad for this and that" - Just anything that MAY be used to help bring life back to the game. And then act on it, together, as a community! This used to be an awesome community but now it is very toxic. Several big players are just mean and rude probably because they haven't been heard for years. Get over it, just try to support the game. I will always be a returning player but that doesn't mean I don't want to have everything I've ever dreamed of and more actually happen in the game! I want new players to come to this game despite it not being the best free to play OR paid to play option.
-IDEAS-
- Bring back Challenge Nork and Cobrahn
I've heard it a dozen times. "It's not possible at this time to bring it back" - Mars
Don't 'bring it back' then. Just remake it, start it fresh. Several games I play thrive off of seasonal activity; perhaps you could (every several months) refresh it, and give teams of players something to push themselves for to try to achieve certain goals. You could tweak drops slightly but overall keep it pretty close to the original CNork. I had a BLAST playing it but unfortunately wasn't able to finish my time in the scenario before it crashed!
Also there are TONS of players who never even got to experience it! Just the handful that played it out. Even if it is just another handful, I would be one of them. I really like the idea of a seasonal thing for it though because it would be pointless to leave an alternate game up forever when people have their mains here with new content focused on NL.
- Remove Alt 2
This is a big one for me. I get it, way back in the day we were overpopulated. We also wanted to give paid players an elitist feeling that they were better than the free players stuck in alt 1. We can jump between the alts to hit the same lairs more than once if necessary for maxxing hp or whatever it may be... But now it is COMPLETELY pointless to divide the playerbase in the beginning of the game. You sped up the rounds for both scenarios. Here's the thing, you can just adjust the lair refresh rates, an easy fix for those that argue they need to hit lairs in both alts, AND who even really needs to hit most lairs more than once or twice? None of us do anymore, and the idea is for NEW players not for us old farts.
Remove alt 1, and give events to new players (the classic holidays) - Give them some other kind of fun. Back in the day the events are what pushed me into paying, before I could have even known the benefits of other scenarios.
Update alt 2, a few new beginner lairs, maybe a few small areas added in. Some more interesting party lvling areas to give new players a use for parties other than n6, and to give them the need to increase their party leader EXP
- Utilize Omni's Test Server!!!!!!!
This one is pretty obvious. New menus for chat? YES. New areas and quests? YES. This is good just in general and should be utilized in the regular game, especially the new starting area.
THIS could be the new 'alt 2' - a much cooler reason to go paid, to have differences, not just a clone model of the same thing they already have. Make it useful but NOT an alt that players will stay in to divide from Alt 2. Make it kind of like Mjorin, just a fun little place to go to test and push yourself but no real benefits of staying there. An EVENT server.
"Come on into alt 3 (Omni's test server) for the weekly event! or Monthly event! It's open this weekend only! Stuff like this. YES.
- Unlock all previously-paid accounts
What do I mean? Give everyone the option to revert to free, with decreased benefits. You ALREADY allow Cob items to cross-over into Nork. Players may quit paying and have cut off access to bigger events like omni's test server (which could be sort of a new alt 2 for events) or high end content, but make a majority of the game free to play again. Aleria and Cob as well, included in the base game as all of the focus has been on NL for YEARS. Possibly tweak skill gain to be less, or remove certain features to balance this idea. You could also limit the Lobby to only allow X amount of instances to be run (I am sure some people could avoid this by running virtual PCs or some such but only a few would bother) This would DEFINITELY bring some life back to the game, and give people free will and not a locked-out dead account they abandon
Please submit ideas to be posted, I will try to keep things organized, and would love to hear input from sysops and Brad himself.