Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Back

If you have an idea post it here
Wolverine2
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Wolverine2 »

I support the fact at expanding drak so that free players have a little bit more option, however limiting the level and skill level cap is the exact reason i have LEFT other games and always come to drak, because although you dont get much for it, you can still keep going and dont feel 'done'. I agree that we should still pay for at least cob and NL, but just not a high priced 12$ for each slot of UGH plus gold. Perhaps incorporate UGH into gold and LGH into silver and then it seems a little more cost appropriate.

The idea of a 'pit' for a separate nork is actually an interesting idea. Perhaps (just throwing this out there) for those who are on a 6th-8th character and maybe (another benefit perhaps?!) have silver (or gold only area?!) they can jump in a pit solo and get level appropriate monsters or get a choice of what skill to work on and get skill appropriate monsters they can continuously kill to 'grind' without the benefit of any loot nor exp (if working on a skill) nor skill (if working on exp). Seems like a few easy loop statements implemented in game could make this work of course you'd need beta testers (current players) to help try and figure it all out to see the gains, which should be a bit higher than just dungeon crawling.

Interesting idea that I think personally, would be a new interesting way for drak to work, because right now i always feel like if i ever want to fight monsters my level I never have anyone to hunt with, so perhaps make this a group area too? Just a suggestion, take it or leave it, don't criticize or judge what's wrong. Totally in brad's hands what he wants to do if he wants to do anything expanding upon this idea

Martialarts
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Martialarts »

Look I see all the great idea's But the point is the game could use a total over haul! It would lose player base and maybe more I am not sure Free means new players at all.

You can buy a $4.95 with ugh and still get excellent skill? would this help No I do not think so. Do you really want expanded player base. It very simple and even easy to do one thing only increase you fan base by attracting new players as many games do!

Its very simple One Month free to all areas this will bring in more players for a few months. NOT!

The Pricing has no real value to new players I say keep the groups $4.95 silver is a good value $9.50 for gold a great value for all you get.. Rethink the lower and upper guild hall price make it $7.50 for all slots lower and $9.50 for upper this will drive more players to the UGH and help control out pricing of game content.. And give a player 3 Months Free access to all areas except NL make them max at 35 level skill 25. Here is one other thing make sure if a paid player vs. a free play helps that there rate of skill and experience is cut by 90% this will make them work on working with other free players growing building comradely.

Lets not be worried about better graphics lets be honest the amount of efforts would be better spent making old bugs go away! The one single thing that keeps me here is my friends I have met here. (And yes I have some friends) I want to associate with them and play have fun. With the expansion of the game comes new ways of thinking make Nork all over again Bring in the new graphics add one new area a month or year. But I would spend more time investing what we have.

Re think SDC 2 forget the end game who cares make it so we have to be smart and help others but not so overwhelming that it can’t be done. Achievements and getting things done are way better then grinding. Many here love Drakkar it is our home we would never leave even if it closed you could find us in mIRC talking about the good old day and searching for a similar game and content.

Ok so let me roll the basic idea
1. Free for 3 months all worlds except Nameless
2. rethink guild hall pricing way to pricy.
3. build new players by limiting what a paid player vs. free player gets or can do experience skill wise.
4. make the bugs go away we know what that are.
5. help on some areas of BDC and SDC
6. Let there be Light in SDC!!!!

I am sorry to long winded!

Martialarts and MA2

Mars feel free to delete this old long winded MA!

Brad
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Brad »

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 "

Veega
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Veega »

Exactly Brad! The new player experience is definitely the first thing... All of those are excellent ideas.

I'm looking forward to my return to Drak soon :P

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Merlin
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Merlin »

Brad wrote: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 "
If you follow this line of thought please allow existing accounts to switch back to 'free' and just purchase the boosters, this would be a huge revenue stream for you.
Elessar: karbeck is a sweety

qmtu
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by qmtu »

Badges? Awards?
Be careful that you don't transform this game into one of many carebearish MMO's that die out in 2 years.
That's the reason lots of us left those after trying them out, and came back here.

Martialarts
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Martialarts »

I am not sure all the current player base would find some of this acceptable ?
After paying for all there life seems a bit like kicking them all to the street?
But hey lets try anything..

By the way who is the %100? Seems not to ones i have spoken with
none like the idea of having indefinet free play in all areas..
But any new base i am not sure how it will all work out..
The MA
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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

Ok,

I am here, for an annual visit.
I did not even look in the forums because of the wasted efforts last year.
However I have activated my account 3 days ago and it is an unavoidable ritual, here I come.

Good topic!

I see from my side several sides to the Kingdom Of Drakkar that could be addressed without rewriting whole game in java 3D or iphone compatible something or rather.

This is great game, I like it a lot, I come in at least one time a year for over 10 years.

Topics I am going to cover in follow up post in detail are:

Financials:
*strength of the game is in numbers of players that play it. not all should be required to pay.

Marketing:
Make every one say something about the game, more or less.

Integration of new players:
Lets face it, there is the story, there is some kind of magic here, so much of it in descriptions, rumors, experiences, and even player written fiction.
All of it needs a big, well organized home.
Last edited by Longbeard on Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

#1. The topic of the community, who make Drakkar, the Drakkar. We are currently missing quite a few of these people. The key to the problem is that as soon as you pay $5 for the account you have you must continue on that route, you can never become free again. This is wrong.
Every one who spent their countless hours(days, months and years!) in this game must be able to log in and be able to stand in SF or something rather useful like that.
Now if the game suddenly becomes very populated because every one that ever created an account can log in, then it can be a tremendous turn on for every one, new and old alike.

Together with this there must be created new status “VIP”, make it $5, or $7,50, but under $10. make sure that all of the game content is available to all without going VIP.
Offer special in-game perks to the VIP crowd.
Examples:
300HPs bonus that does not change.
-bigger,
smaller,
12 months,
no months,
whatever,
-you buy VIP – you get 300-VIP-HP,
you go free, you lose your 300-VIP-HP)

Make survival trainers available to VIP customers from level 1 to the infinity in same spot (the new spanking shiny VIP store? – you guessed it right!)
Clearly advertized higher (say 25% bonus skill; exp; QP) gain. Special store where YP and major con potions could be bought in same way current Upper GH major pots are.

As a sideline, not a lot of newer UGH subscribers even know about major drinks there, system is not at all easy to figure out.

So, Guild Hall and VIP store:
Make Guild Hall into an available to all characters part of the game, that requires a quest completion and minimal exp level (not too high, 15?) Wave the exp requirement for VIP.
Take all unique items available in store out of GH and place them in VIP store, make them: YP bottle that can be bought empty and drunk over the pool, and major bottle that can be bought empty and drunk over the pool, preventing them from transfer to non VIP characters.
Find as many other attractive items to place on the grounds and over the counter of the VIP store.

Remove all exp level requirements to all things for VIP subscribers. Maybe not really 100% of the exp level minimum requirements for access level/scenario quests, but to all gear surely.

Make Guild Hall guild specific with generic IH/succor scroll store, extra lockers, existing portals and additional non reset hexes. Players without guild affiliation would use common GH without non-reset hexes. Make GH into another interesting building in the game that would provide safe grounds for each active guild.

Add a PvP continent with several cities on it’s surface, cities that look and feel like Maeling but have a level up and level down. Make number of the cities from 3 to 5, make them possible to be conquered by a quild, offer benefits for guilds that hold a city.

Entry into the PvP continent should be level restricted to all players to say 50.
Upon entry every person entering would receive PvP continent only 10K in HP. Keep the ability of not searching player corpses. Add ability of imprisoning corpses in a tomb for real life duration of 5 min. Figure out benefits of PvP points for individuals and guilds apart from ownership of a city.
-Continue with peaceful, family oriented profile for the rest of the game.

Bottom line,
Community is missing the community.
We need the community back, make it possible for every one to log into the game and participate. Offer very, very tempting perks in game for pay customers. Cross link it in game all over the place like on QP interface put a little note “Activate VIP for 25% QPs gains!”.
If we could have 200 people online, maybe people will want to log in more then one account… then some accounts would become VIP for sure.

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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

#1 – Spread the word.

Now this is great game. I do not believe that it needs very complex 3D graphics or anything.

There are EXTREMEY huge games out there that are text based pretty much.
If you don’t know what I am talking about you should go out there and find out about things that are possible.

Let me mention these three:
Tribal Wars
Grepolis
Holy War.
-While Tribal Wars and Grepolis ALMOST have interface (no graphics or any movement really) Holy war pretty much does not have even as much and almost completely text interface driven.
These are very big and popular commercial, international games with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
So, I am very much convinced that Drakkar can use any number of upgrades but I am sure it does not need a complete overhaul to continue going forward.

There is another game here that is total text based game it has a special “button” that actually is just a link to a page where it tells you “vote for immortal night” you end up on a page where there is 10 buttons that represent 10 gaming websites and next to each
Vote today: “Yes” / “No” –yes is lit-up when you can vote (meaning you did not yet) and No is highlighted when you already did. You can vote only one time in 24 hours. You receive a small but very good bonus for each site you vote in. It is called incentive driven vote and not hard to set up for Drakkar.
The game mentioned above averages 5000 log-ins a day, I do not knowhow many pay, considering it is text only game it is much easier to handle 5000 log ins a day then here, but one can see status next to the player handle there, quite a few can be seen with special “pay” status, especially as players seem to advance higher/stick around…

Introduction of new in-game system of something like “credits” or anything else that could be redeemed for something in game would be important.

I would offer conversion into in-game gold: 20K per website, complete 10=get 200K.
Conversion into real money, possible to redeem only for VIP status, make it so that if some one completes all 10 websites everyday for 11 months he could get a month VIP status free. Or something like that. Making people click these adds every day will boost Drakkar rating and make the game more visible.

Forum website and www.kingdomofdrakkar.com still need “Like us on Facebook” buttons…..

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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

#3. providing more cohesive experience to newer and not so newer players.

Current wikia has too many very annoying adds that sometimes spring up and cover up to a 3rd of the page, are displayed all over, all the time.

Format and layout is not the best.

There must be a regular wiki media script hosted off a server with a domain name attached. Something like www.kingdomofdrakkar.com/wiki
Most importantly the interface must not be bad, it must be good, user friendly, not promote 10 other games on every page.

If it is possible to go to a website like that, run a search and come up with an answer to a question on most anything it would provide to be a very popular resource.

Possible pages can be:
Maps of places.
Descriptions of some monsters
Descriptions of gear pieces.
Pages dedicated to individual guilds.
As there will be users, individual pages of players….
There could be a page about Nork School… Users can use a banner on their pages that could say “Proud Graduate of Nork School. Class of 2013” (year can be customized)
-I can make a wiki like that. I have edited several wikis and done it a lot. I know what I am talking about here. Hosting charge would be something like $30 for 3 months? If we use something like yahoo hosting, it is possible to shop around.

-It can turn into something, it can.

Is it possible to make forum log-in to be same log in as the DZ, to in fact go to the same model as was in use in IEN? One log in two resources: game lobby / game forum…

A streamlined forum with fewer sub forums easily accessible from DZ would benefit the game a lot because people would be encouraged to use it, through the ease of use….

Now, closing remarks.
Let me say this again, I like this game, have spent some time and supported it with $.
I believe it can be organized and not completely rebuild to have many, many more people spend their time and money in it.

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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Freddie »

Community is what probably started most of us playing and is the reason some of us still play. I was drawn back into Drak by my RL cousin and brother. They started playing up again when challenge Nork came out which was something we always talked about would be cool to play. Eventually quirk weekend came out (which you needed gold and UGH for). Some of us signed up for that and gained quirks for the few days we were able, spending a high price compared to the other games out there. My brother and cousin could explain $5.00 a month to their wives, but $17.50 wasn't something they wanted to fight with the wife over. They lost interest and are gone now.

I still play because of the others I play with in challenge. If they lose interest and fade away, I will likely do the same. My biggest issue is my connection to Drak. I still have unresolved issues and nothing has worked yet. Sometimes it's fine and sometimes like right now I can't even stay in the game or move in the game it's just unplayable.

The pricing should definitely be looked into. If you look at the problems Drak has with player base, player issues, game issues, development, new content, etc.... why would anyone logically be willing to pay more that other games that don't have these problems and with better graphics etc? I think gold plan should be changed to allow the ugh benefits to it. Maybe even add gold only content like additions to the Cob scenario. Try to recruit some programming help for it. I think if you asked some of the people who helped you before they would be willing to come and contribute again to expanding Cob.

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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Freddie »

I forgot to mention too allow us players in challenge a way to be able to get into the CC. We have no possible way to get there without Aleria. We would love to go try Laz and the other lairs. Our thieves gave up playing since there is no way to even attempt Laz. This would spark some interest too of course.

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Migam
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Migam »

Brad wrote: .. 100% agree on this
I think he meant he agrees 100%, not that 100% of players agree. Cause I also don't.

I don't think so much should be free.; certainly not Cob. Roller to 50/30 for $0 means many won't pay, esp. those who say they hate NL. That means they can just make a new acct, xfer everything not tied and go free forever. I don't know what Brad pays for hosting multiple servers at a facility that has power backup, reliable internet connection and is even up and running during that last hurricane that hit Brad's hometown but it can't be free :P .

NOTE: Before any of you flame my post , because I express an opinion that you don't agree with, I have 2 words for you :P . You can disagree and still be civil.

This is not back when Drakkar had an army of players on some game service. This is not back when LoK was available thru Compuserve and I think AOL, where the games were exposed daily to anyone there who wanted to see what games they had to offer. It certainly isn't back when ppl creamed their jeans playing a text or ascii graphic game and thought that they were in the elite. Yeah, I recall when Pong was high-tech. Back then, there were less choices or availability (ie: using long-distance fees to play a great game via dial-up).

This is now. With so many options and high-graphics games to select and newer, better comps. And games like LOTRO can afford to do f2p and just pump out incentives to pay a little, now and then, for perks... they have a massive number of players and are selling points cards even in Walmart and Gamestop. Stop comparing Drakkar to these types of games ! Do it when Drak has 1 million players :P .

Again, Drakkar is a niche game. The niche is not as popular as other games. Note: I said not as popular, I didn't say not played; there are many text-games and 2d top down being played today. I mentioned to an old-school player how interesting Drak might be 3D and you could hear a pin drop. I won't do that again, I tell ya.

I love Drak. I got I think 115 gold months on one acct and paid the other one on/off for most of 3 years. It was my comfort after LoK died and I'm grateful Brad saved this from the MMO limbo. I made alot of friends over the years. However I wouldn't mind paying less esp. for UGH since I play slots based on my mood. I'm talking a set price for gold/4UGH. But not at the cost of Brad no longer being able to afford running this game.

I wouldn't mind paying a perk fee if the monthly fee were less. The rename option was great for me since I wanted to rename my thief for ages and it was well worth the cost. I plan to do the same for my ma.

The issue with fees is the diehards saying fees are bad, not part of what Drak is about and just allows the haves to advance faster than the have-nots. Then they are those who just see fees as money-grubbing and not see the whole picture so they just vent, whine and quit.

These are some questions I have for some ideas:

Are there still game services out there that offer a range of games for a monthly sub so, for a cut, Drakkar can be played thru them? If Brad has to offer the game for a lesser fee to them and the result was a flood of paying players, he could afford to cut the subs here too.

Does Xbox have pay-by-month games? If Drakkar were re-written in C#, Microsoft would host this for a cut as well. Some of the self-made games there are more like phone apps, simple graphics that still are popular.

Oh, those 2 words I had for the flames were ... Oh well. What did you think I meant?

Edit: I meant many won't pay if Roller to 50/30 is free, not play.
Last edited by Migam on Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Skip
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Skip »

My 2 cents... from an on and off player since 1995:

1. the level 20 to 50 grind is now just that- a grind that i dont feel like doing again on 2 of my game slots that are level 20. I might be interested if there was additional game content for level 20 to 50. I still dont like a well geared and well skilled (including weapon skill for defense) mid 30's Healer that is essential to a party being barred from Mormar.

2. the cost structure = I sure wish there was a flat, discounted fee for all game slots if someone wanted gold plan and Upper guild hall

3. I think a couple hybrid classes might create some interest - like the old Ninja class (combo thief & MA), or a Sage class (part Ment, Part healer)

4. Would like to see a GUIDE (volunteer) program set up to formally assist new players. The Nork school is a good first step, but the 1 on 1 guide approach might help hang on to more new players. Maybe as something to let us old timers to set a flag in DZ chat to indicate GUIDE, for new players to call upon.

5. the $50 flat to purchase NL seems to be past its time

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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Volcom »

What keeps me from playing for the most part is that I dont have as much time to play as I used to, and only playing a couple weekends a month makes justifying the excessive cost difficult for me. I have been playing drak quite a long time and have acquired a few good characters, however to keep them all active cost more than I even pay for internet. Draks prices are outdated and adjusting the cost, even though it would be a initial loss, would most definitely give reason for many players like myself to keep there accounts open. Something is better than nothing...
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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

No one seems to really pay attention any more to this. The whole idea of the community is not all that important here, all that is important is to make some one that would never buy do that: buy.
Well then you would have to compete and provide. Or there is very little to buy.
I have put all of my very good gear in some hard to reach lair. It will be gone with the next reset. Thus will be gone any inscentive to play this game.
Unfortunately it works like this:
You do not care for the community, community will not really care for you.
You care only for money, well we go and spend it somewhere. Elce.

People is what make this game, not subscriptions. If you do not get this even now, well...
-We come here for fun.

Let me tell you again: subscriptions is secondary.

After 12 years it got to be good bye.

All the names I was known under:
Hama, Homa, Golem, Areyekuwe, Areye.
PS.
It was great to know you all fellow drakkar community members through ICQ, IRC, DZ...
You would know who you are, your friendships where important over the years to me.
All the best to you all and thank you.

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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Merlin »

Longbeard wrote:No one seems to really pay attention any more to this. The whole idea of the community is not all that important here, all that is important is to make some one that would never buy do that: buy.
Well then you would have to compete and provide. Or there is very little to buy.
I have put all of my very good gear in some hard to reach lair. It will be gone with the next reset. Thus will be gone any inscentive to play this game.
Unfortunately it works like this:
You do not care for the community, community will not really care for you.
You care only for money, well we go and spend it somewhere. Elce.

People is what make this game, not subscriptions. If you do not get this even now, well...
-We come here for fun.

Let me tell you again: subscriptions is secondary.

After 12 years it got to be good bye.

All the names I was known under:
Hama, Homa, Golem, Areyekuwe, Areye.
PS.
It was great to know you all fellow drakkar community members through ICQ, IRC, DZ...
You would know who you are, your friendships where important over the years to me.
All the best to you all and thank you.
are you drunk?

you should never drink and drak.
Elessar: karbeck is a sweety

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Volcom
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Volcom »

Longbeard wrote:No one seems to really pay attention any more to this. The whole idea of the community is not all that important here, all that is important is to make some one that would never buy do that: buy.
Well then you would have to compete and provide. Or there is very little to buy.
I have put all of my very good gear in some hard to reach lair. It will be gone with the next reset. Thus will be gone any inscentive to play this game.
Unfortunately it works like this:
You do not care for the community, community will not really care for you.
You care only for money, well we go and spend it somewhere. Elce.

People is what make this game, not subscriptions. If you do not get this even now, well...
-We come here for fun.

Let me tell you again: subscriptions is secondary.

After 12 years it got to be good bye.

All the names I was known under:
Hama, Homa, Golem, Areyekuwe, Areye.
PS.
It was great to know you all fellow drakkar community members through ICQ, IRC, DZ...
You would know who you are, your friendships where important over the years to me.
All the best to you all and thank you.
I would come here for fun if the subscriptions weren't so high. Its not fun to play without all my "bells and whistles" but to have that is unreasonably high. Adjust the subscriptions to be more reasonable and I would be happy to keep my accounts open, but how it stands now I just cant justify the cost for how little time i get to actually play.
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Veega
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Veega »

any word, Brad?

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Longbeard
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Longbeard »

Merlin wrote:
are you drunk?

you should never drink and drak.
Thanks for asking!

Just did not want to give up on this.

But it's time to finally move on.

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Migam
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Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Migam »

Yeah, I can see "someone" doesn't get it.
Starfire: There are two wolves fighting in each man's heart. One is Love, the other is Hate.
Ghost: Which one wins?
Starfire: The one you feed the most.
---Pathfinder

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TheSpif
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Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:12 pm

Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by TheSpif »

Hello all,

I remember visiting the MPGNet stand at GenCon (or perhaps Origins) many years ago and waiting for the Macintosh client to be released. I still have the Macintosh 1.? and 2.1 install disks from 1994, but of course the programs don't really do much anymore as there is no (to my knowledge) way for them to access the servers (and likely wouldn't work with the current communications protocol if they could). I did play on MPGNet for a fair bit of time and don't even remember why I stopped... Though I think the diap-up access cost was fairly high back then.

My take on keeping Drakkar alive is to make no attempt competing with the modern MMORPGs and focus on the "era" when KoD was king of the MMORPGs. There is a fairly large and active vintage Macintosh community and almost certainly something similar on the PC side (for certain systems like the IBM PS2 at least)... And let's not forget the Amiga community, they are as steadfast as they come (though I have no idea if there was ever a KoD client for the AmigaOS). Why not allow people running these older systems play the game? I can certainly see a good number of people playing something like this if it was available... It really was something in the day! I started an email to Brad several years ago on this topic, but got sidetracked and never finished it.

Just my two cents.

Veega
Posts: 31
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:37 pm

Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by Veega »

its obvious nobody cares to continue this topic.. :(

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shadeth
Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2002 10:24 am
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: Drakkar is going to die... Suggestions to bring Drak Bac

Post by shadeth »

Here is an idea that might seem absurd but bare with me until the end... (Superclasses)

Have another copy of nork (as you did with challange nork) but this time make it so characters have access to all class abilities, by having trainers allow dedications irregardless of existing dedications. Namely, your character will be superclassed; able to heal, espear, zerk, parry, etc. if they have the appropriate skill.

Don't put any time into making it cute, or clean, or clever, or balanced, etc. This would be a low investment test to see how players respond, money generated, and/or buzz created. If some classes cannot coexist then just make that class unavailable for the duration of the copy. This is just a quick and dirty test to see if Drakkar might have a larger or continuing audience for the future, by building on its content but changing its class based system.

I suggest making this nork copy accessable only by the first slot/toon. Obviously, there is no reason for multiple slots since the toon is all classes. But it also would give you the ability to use the other slots for other tests you think up or spin off from this first iteration.

I honestly do not know if people will come back, or new players will keep their accounts paid longer, because of this. Or, if existing players won't want to play regular Drakkar anymore once the class restrictions are lifted. But since you have the ability to now create copies of nork/cob/etc this offers you the abiltiy to take your tests even farther. Maybe this will be one of them.

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