Drakkar, the business

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lalasushi
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Drakkar, the business

Post by lalasushi »

Drakkar is a business.

Brad has had over 100 gold customers in the past, earning him a cash flow of approximately $12,000 a year before expenses for over 3 years. The community in drakkar, in just gold subscriptions alone has invested over $50,000 dollars in drakkar. Yes, 50,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have made a giant investment in drakkar. And what have we got in return, NL, new lairs in cob.

New lairs in Cob (I love them, they are amazing!)
NL (lacked the depth of quests and quest diversity that made cob,nork, and aleria so great. It seems your focus was on stopping the player base from progressing as fast so that you could develop the content in time to keep up with players. This was your first mistake. NL should have been completely done to the way it is now when you released it. Releasing software with bugs is the biggest way to fail as a business)

2nd biggest way to fail as a business, do not give customers what they want.

Ive heard your responses, so many people want so many different things.

WRONG.

Why? They all play drakkar. They all want nork, aleria, cob. If you understand what made drakkar so good in the first place, you can build on its successes. Dont try to make drakkar what it isnt, through reputation (Wow) and endless rare quests that give minor gear improvements.

Add new skills. Add new features. Think outside the box. If you lack ideas, there are many smart people in the drakkar community, LISTEN.

I know you are thinking (Brad) "I cannot code fast enough. I have a job, a life. They are my priorities" Good, all mature adults have priorities. But you bought a business. Do you want to see that business continue its decline, or see skyrocketing numbers?


Action Plan

Step 1 (to get more coders, drakkar needs more money. Where do we get it from if our cash flow isnt enough.) IPO!!!!!!!

Initial Public Offering. That buzz word that every internet tech investor dreads now.

Why would this help?

An IPO is when a private company goes public, and sells shares on the open market to receive money, right now.

The money you could receive for turning drakkar public would be immense.

(It would improve customer satisfaction, because all of your financial records would now be public and solvent, people would know you are not using drakkar as your personal piggy bank, which is what many believe)

(It would work for underage players. see Step 2)

(It would give you the ability to hire 5-10 coders easily, tommorow, and have them code everything for you, and you can focus on content management and idea generation so that you can make the new additions to drakkar as thought provoking and diverse as in the past-----WHY NL FAILED)

(With more coders, and deeper content, updates will be more regular, drawing old faithful players who dont play but still read the forums, evidence of the strong devotion to drakkar, to return.)

Why invest in drakkar anyway?

Buying drakkar stock will give you the ability to no longer have to pay monthly subscriptions once you own a certain ammount of shares. So to play for free, you have to invest in the company. People buying up the shares will increase the value of brads majority holding in the company giving him much larger ammounts of money than the horrible cash flow he is receiving now.

Because drakkar stock will go up as the player base goes up people will have a real incentive to invite new paying players to the game, they will receive money in the stock market, and a larger community. They will make money to play, instead of pay it.

It turns the situation into win-win.

(step 2) How will this work for underage players? Give all underage players a certain ammount of stock for each month of gold or silver etc. that they pay. So that over the coarse of 2-3 yrs of playing, they can now play the basic game for free.

There is a world of creative possibility for this idea.

And this is just 1 of my ideas.


Brad----- WAKE UP. LISTEN. BE A BUSINESS MAN.

We need a business man for drakkar to flourish, not a part time coder who wants to build a piggy bank.


If you dont wanna run drakkar. Sell it to me, i know drakkar is a sound business.


-Clifford Johnson

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Darge
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Post by Darge »

No offense, but this post reminded me of one of those 'in your face' advertisement commercials. :p
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Post by lalasushi »

Its a product of 5 years of customer dissatisfaction.

Sorry if the tone is offensive.

But the message is important. Please look past to see the ideas.

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Post by Ambrose »

Every business in the world wants dissatisfied customers to pay for 5 years ... thank you for voicing your opinion ... I do hope it is the last time I have to hear it.

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Post by Darge »

No, no, it actually came off comical to me, because of the aforementioned reason.

Anyway, as it relates to the original post, unfortunately, drakkar has hit a catch 22, in that to get coders, you need money, and yada yada. Obviously that isn't always true, but for the most part, it holds.

From my perspective, the hits to Drakkar have been a triumvirate.

1. Drakkar started to be a game it wasn't. This got rid of those who loved drakkar for what it used to be, and at the time, was. Yes, this is your standard 'NL killed drak' section. It didn't exactly, but it drove off, or left a real sour taste in the mouths a good portion of the former population.
2. The MMORPG market exploded. I don't think much else needs to be said here.
3. Waiting/Bugged content. If players wait months for something they finish in a few days, they no doubt are not satisfied. If players wait months for content that is broken, they are no doubt, unsatisfied.

Now look at all this from a group perspective. If a guild/group consists of a small number of players, where every player is key, if one person gets fed up with the way things are going, and leaves, it sets a chain reaction in motion (it's occurred a few times in the last three years.) Some players remain, but they are now unable to participate in the new content, and are unhappy most likely.

It's very odd, looking back. I used to be so enamored with Drak, and now I just can't figure out if I'm waiting for the 'next big thing' or just paying in hopes the days I'm still nostalgic about come back somehow. Don't mistake me, and think I hate the game, It just doesn't hold the same place in my (and I imagine many other people's) heart that it did once.

I think Drakkar will always have a player base, or at least will for a good few more years, but once customers lose faith and leave, it takes alot to bring them back, possibly more than Drakkar can now offer.
Last edited by Darge on Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

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Post by Merlin »

Ambrose, Was that really needed? [Rhetorical Question just in case you even consider posting again.]
Don't mistake me, and think I hate the game, It just doesn't hold the same place in my (and I imagine many other people's) heart that it did once.
erm, yes that’s spot on

in my own words:

Drakkar is slowly dieing a painful death and will cease to exist in the not so distant future the player base is getting less and less, the old timers are gone except maybe a handful. from what I see now the drakkar community(that’s what makes/made this game great) is now populated with short term subscribers so people are seeing this game, coming playing for 1-2 year then they’re gone.

I understand that people come and go as they please but drakkar used to hold onto people for much longer than that. What’s changed? same as everyone else's Answer:

A) Not much
B) Introduction of NL

I think you can quite easily combine the two for an appropriate response.

I posted this then realised i missed some off so here's the Edit:

We all agree something needs to change to bring drakkar back to life if thats at all possible. Lala was offering what he thinks to be a solution its an idea and also a risk but whats business without risk?

The new content is slowly drip fed to the player base and its getting old fast.

More people to code the game, would this help? or would they still be waiting on the new graphics? or maybe for brad to let them know what they can do?

I know Flisk is working on a new aleria, but at the end of the day its still going to be drip fed to us painfully slow.

I think to create the bang that drakkar needs to revive its self would have to be an astounding amount of new content that was updated frequently(so fast that we couldnt complete it first) but this is never going to happen wiht just a one mand band.

The way i see it, 2 choices:

A) do something about it i.e, more coders get more, content faster ect..
B) sit back let drakkar tick over like you know it will and ignore the playerbase.


I am going to ask is there anyone who does NOT agree with something along the lines mentioned on this thread, stand up and be counted and voice your opinions now.

no flames please.

*Merlz*
Last edited by Merlin on Wed Apr 18, 2007 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Stormwind »

Scenario construction tools. (Map Maker, Creature Generator, etc)

Let people with great ideas but perhaps not the programming skills help build detailed, vibrant scenarios.

Then Brad can focus on:

1. The main storyline
2. adding new features and technologies that can make it into the 'tools' after they've been introduced in his new content.

-Stormwind
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Post by Darge »

Originally posted by Stormwind


Scenario construction tools. (Map Maker, Creature Generator, etc)

Let people with great ideas but perhaps not the programming skills help build detailed, vibrant scenarios.

Then Brad can focus on:

1. The main storyline
2. adding new features and technologies that can make it into the 'tools' after they've been introduced in his new content.

-Stormwind
This would be one of those ideas that could absolutely revitalize Drakkar.

Obviously not every person's creation would make it in, but it'd be awesome if there were quarterly contests for lairs and dungeons, with the winner of each (determined by community vote) being able to confer with brad to get the lair or dungeon ready for implementation, in the possibility that unique abilities or things are proposed.
Last edited by Darge on Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

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Post by Stormwind »

Yup, folks could build small but fun mini-scenarios or create new areas to hunt that would if nothing else be something new to explore.

It would keep folks interested, occupied and buy Brad time to work on the 'Big Stuff'.

-Stormwind
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."

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Post by Migam »

The idea of a public-owned Drakkar corporation makes me chafe. I recall Gamestorm/LoK being purchased only to shelf it as a potential competitor to the buyers' current online game.


But here's an idea. I enjoyed class-only lairs such as LoK had. The lairs can be specifically created to defeat the normal tactics that a class would use thus making it more of a challenge.These can be mini or temporary/event lairs. Think outside of the box or die. Of course, make sure no corpse can be tp'ed or twigged in and allow the calling of the lair so that enough failures cause lair to poof and the player can at least retrieve their dp (as no large barb or pally slot can retrieve it anyway).

Examples:

Lair in which the creature moves quickly and randomly around walls, attracted to darkness, sees very well through hide, sees through liminv and is immune to ranged attacks for a thief's personal hell.

Lair where the creature can sniff/track the use of mentalist psi to catch the offscreen AoE user, can deplete, can psimirror discs/tiers randomly so it's not just stacking tiers and get a sandwich.

Lair where randomly, a healer's attack can actually heal target for the same amount of damage and can hinder healer healing.

You get the idea. A large group of that class might be needed to defeat it for a specific class-based reward. No getting your huge stick to feed gear to that class.
Last edited by Migam on Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by flisk »

not to throw a cog into the wheel here, but allowing an all access to creating scenarios is probably not the best idea out there, I'm don't particularly agree with a public-owned Drakkar either.

In an all access program to allow anyone to do what they want with the code:

What happens is you end up with LOTS of broken code (remember this is stuff that was, for the most part, done back in the late 80's - early 90's and alot of it is Brad-code. That is you cannot simply go into a bookstore and pick up a "How to" book and figure it out.).

I'm sitting here trying to muddle through this stuff with pretty much zero documentation or help from Brad (not saying that's a bad thing for me, but it is a challenge), but the key to it is, I've used code for a looong time in programming.

The other issue you run into is balance on all levels. Player balance, gear balance, NPC balance, etc. If there was an all access to creating anything, the game would become so distorted with super-weapons that there would be a lack-luster of any challenges.


In a "public owned" Drakkar you have players who "own" shares in the game and will feel they can do no wrong. "I can PK anyone I want because I own part of this game! If you ban me I'll sell my shares and you will lose money!"
"You all have to do what I say because I own shares in this game!"
It's just not a functional idea.

However, with all of that said;

I do recall a post that Brad made asking for programmers and whatnot, to date not a single person has stepped up join that. I'll try to find that post a little later today or this evening.

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Post by Stormwind »

Flisk,

My suggestion was not really intended as an 'all access'. That would pretty much torpedo this game.

It was more along the lines of a toolset that would assist a select few, who have had prior approval from brad (as you have) to be able to create scenarios a bit more efficiently.

Think along the lines of the modules you can build if you have ever played Neverwinter Nights. The toolset there is not for the faint of heart, but a heck of a lot easier than trying to create all that from scratch.

Anyway, just an idea I thought I'd toss into the ring. I don't think there is any 'easy' solution other than some talented programmers volunteering their time to Brad.

-Stormwind
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Post by Darge »

Originally posted by flisk


not to throw a cog into the wheel here, but allowing an all access to creating scenarios is probably not the best idea out there, I'm don't particularly agree with a public-owned Drakkar either.

In an all access program to allow anyone to do what they want with the code:

What happens is you end up with LOTS of broken code (remember this is stuff that was, for the most part, done back in the late 80's - early 90's and alot of it is Brad-code. That is you cannot simply go into a bookstore and pick up a "How to" book and figure it out.).

I'm sitting here trying to muddle through this stuff with pretty much zero documentation or help from Brad (not saying that's a bad thing for me, but it is a challenge), but the key to it is, I've used code for a looong time in programming.

The other issue you run into is balance on all levels. Player balance, gear balance, NPC balance, etc. If there was an all access to creating anything, the game would become so distorted with super-weapons that there would be a lack-luster of any challenges.


In a "public owned" Drakkar you have players who "own" shares in the game and will feel they can do no wrong. "I can PK anyone I want because I own part of this game! If you ban me I'll sell my shares and you will lose money!"
"You all have to do what I say because I own shares in this game!"
It's just not a functional idea.

However, with all of that said;

I do recall a post that Brad made asking for programmers and whatnot, to date not a single person has stepped up join that. I'll try to find that post a little later today or this evening.
If a tool program were created that simplified things down for non-programmers into a heavily GUI based system, it wouldn't be troublesome. The way I imagine it, which might be different from what Stormwind is actually proposing, is sort of like a Map Editor that some FPS' come with. The player pieces terrain types and graphics together, and is able to apply their own descriptions. As for the lairs, the player could alter things such as level, resistances, class, skill levels, innate abilities, etc. In the end, if the player's creation is accepted by Brad, a conversion system would then just translate the assembled attributes into code.

Now, no doubt that's no easy task to create not only the program, but a conversion system as well. But, imagine how streamlined the process of creating content could become, not only for those players using it, but for true programmers. Any extra 'non-included' facets could then be merely programmed afterwards by sorting through the code.

As far as players becoming coders, it's just not an attractive prospect, at least from my viewpoint. People already have real jobs, so if they even do possess the coding knowledge, they may not possess the time, nor may they want to devote as much time as it might require (even with payment from Brad involved.) The question of, can they participate in their own content right away, comes into question as well. Even then, what's to say a player/coder doesn't just get put to working on FE changes.

Alot of us have ideas to make Drakkar better, but not the pre-requisites to get it applied.
Last edited by Darge on Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

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Post by Mars »

This has been done in a way in the past. The area I define as Arun's Jail was done by me. What I did way draw out on a paint page exactly how I envisioned the entire area, hallways, rooms, walls, everything. Laid out where the NPCs should spawn/regen. Laid out attributes I wanted to see in the 2 lair NPCs.

then I gave my completed "design" to Pax who coded it into the existing scenario and we worked out the final details. and Tada, now players have a place in the game that didn't exist before.

But it was much more than just saying we want/need such and such an area. I gave him most of what he needed to make it happen. I left the NPC brains/abilities to him, but I game him what I envisioned the 2 lair NPC could/would do.

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Post by Darge »

Originally posted by Mars_Sysop


This has been done in a way in the past. The area I define as Arun's Jail was done by me. What I did way draw out on a paint page exactly how I envisioned the entire area, hallways, rooms, walls, everything. Laid out where the NPCs should spawn/regen. Laid out attributes I wanted to see in the 2 lair NPCs.

then I gave my completed "design" to Pax who coded it into the existing scenario and we worked out the final details. and Tada, now players have a place in the game that didn't exist before.

But it was much more than just saying we want/need such and such an area. I gave him most of what he needed to make it happen. I left the NPC brains/abilities to him, but I game him what I envisioned the 2 lair NPC could/would do.
So can we do this now then, but as a community? If it comes down to needing to use paint for it, fine, but a master sheet of the 24 bit terrain graphics (and maybe crit graphics) would possibly need to be made public.

If the community can get a contest X amount of times per year, approved by Brad, where the best entry (as voted on by the players) is selected to be put in, then the game will routinely grow and flourish, at least in terms of content.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

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Post by Tirith »

I've been playing since 1999 and I love this game, but I agree that it just doesn't have the same feel as the pre-DZ days. I am positive the introduction of NL and new gear and higher levels has something to do with it. Maybe even all of it. I am not saying NL has destroyed the game, but it has changed the feel of it and maybe more things need to be changed to take us back to the original feel of the game. The idea of area creation tools is very interesting. Depending on how it is implemented, it could be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing.

Heres how I feel it should be done. Made as a separate program with area creation, npc creation, item creation (with updates as brad creates them with different technologies) and once a player has created an area and items and npcs within the area, it can be saved and opened up in the same program, in which you can take an actual player into the area to test it. Once someone has created an area or npc or item, it can be submitted to sysops for testing and then run by Brad before he implements it. Of course there should be an easy upload implementation tool so that it does not take all of brads time to introduce these areas.

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Post by Mars »

I didn't use terrain graphics, just laid out the area on a "drawing"

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Post by Stormwind »

I would have some concerns with having the tools openly available to all players. That might open up some avenues for abuse. Serious thought would have to be given to what a player could do with access to a toolset, not so much within the game but by having access to that much information and being able to create any combination they want.

Example - creating an existing creature from the game and then 'testing' things against it without any repercussions to their actual character.

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Post by Tirith »

That is true, but also, nobody knows the exact stats of any creature in the game and can only give a really good guess based on tests within the game. So actually, to create a replica of a creature in the game, you would have to do extensive in game testing against that creature. That pretty much rules out anyone doing such a thing, but that is something that would need to be safeguarded against.

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Post by flisk »

personally, I'd love to take some player ideas and make areas with them. My issue is the amount of time I have that I can dedicate to doing building. I'm not going to cry about what I do in my free time and how little of it I have, but suffice it to say, I don't have much free time.

That said, I'm always welcome to the idea of incoroporating ideas into what I am doing.
In fact, there are already alot of player ideas that are going into the new aleria area.

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Post by Merlin »

A Map editor would be cool, I was already under the impression that drakkar had one, I remember like 5 years ago? When there was a major backend change to drakkar and it was down for a few days, I was under the impression brad was moving the game over to another platform which enabled him to do stuff and add stuff easier. Using the tools mentioned below.

The company that Brad (and a few others) work for in RL developed some tools to do such things as map editing, object editing etc., I was under the impression that drakkar was now using some of these tools.

I may have just assumed way too much but that was my thoughts at the time.

But the availability of such editing tools would be limited by licenses etc.. Yeah it would be great to have access to such a thing and could mess about with creating your own maps, lairs objects and properties, then submit them for approval and they could get included into the game, which would save brad alot of resources on coming up with idea's if they’re done for him.

There is alot of experienced people play this game and understand alot about it, I think designing such things are not "out of their reach" its just a matter of providing a windows based GUI that enables them to take on such a task.

Hell I’d use any operating system to try stuff out.


In my spare time I play a game called Starcraft which alot of you probably know.

With this game there is a map editor, and you can do such things like set spawn points, loot, critters map objects (water, space, hill, general terrain)

Creating something like the above for drakkar would be awesome, whole scenarios could be designed by the players then mixed/matched by flisk to suite.


Giving the players a totally offline world for them to mess around in/create new stuff and test out isn’t such a bad thing, afterall if its offline there is no risk of any abuse.

What brad wants to provide the user base with is limited.

Obviously it would not be advisable to let players have free reign on current maps as they could find stuff they didn’t know about in game. Keeping the current maps for himself and just giving them a blank pallet to create from scratch would be great.

I've totally gone off on a tangent but just putting my thoughts out there.

*Merlz*
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Post by Migam »

Re: Bugs... the FrontEnd in case Brad reading this thread. I've suggested privately to you about some form of diagnostic plug-in which reports exactly what caused the FE to crash. It can be a separate module used by those in need or willing to participate and should be un-installable with no ill effects to FE. It should be able to send the code executed seconds before, during the crash and of course, not be dependant on the FE running in order to report its findings. I always get the popup from Microsoft about reporting the problem but know no way to grab that info and forward it to Brad ( I did manage to copy and paste the dump and send to Brad but there must be more than that). Sometimes, my FE crashes 4 times per hour on a bad day. With items that poof upon leaving game, hard to sack as I go.

Re: Recoding. There are a lots of routines that are now givens and part of the Drak culture. Some of these are based on old faulty code as well (ex: Chain backstab). Who knows what else will change drastically. I'm all for new and streamlined. But many will rant and rave how everything is not what it used to be like, the days of iEN, etc, how the NPCs no longer react a certain way, etc. You can't win.
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Ravaillac
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Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2002 9:02 am

Replying to Topic 'Drakkar, the business'

Post by Ravaillac »

Guys, the old game we loved was special because it was charming and hand crafted.

There were things to discover through only exploration - not brute force. Hidden climb ups, special drop off hexes, artifacts, and certain death.

Nameless scenario was just chock a block, cut and paste, every dungeon level looks identical, monsters beat you simply through pure power, no chance to really outsmart them through tactics, etc. Brad didn't put the time into making it special, and the players could tell.

To me it had the feeling of being a 2nd rate copy of features that brad liked from other games. Bleh.

If you make Drakkar feel like the OLD drakkar, the old IOK, with the scary dungeons, the interesting lair monsters, the secret areas, and the fat loots, people will enjoy it -- even if it has silly 2D graphics.

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Salah
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Replying to Topic 'Drakkar, the business'

Post by Salah »

If you make Drakkar feel like the OLD drakkar, the old IOK, with the scary dungeons, the interesting lair monsters, the secret areas, and the fat loots, people will enjoy it -- even if it has silly 2D graphics.
I couldn't have said it better myself.

Brad
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Replying to Topic 'Drakkar, the business'

Post by Brad »

I just wanted to thank everyone for the ideas. I am reading all these threads, and greatly struggle for the best avenue to take drakkar towards.

I think, more than anything, (other than the explosion of another online games, which has been the largest hit), the biggest thing drakkar is lacking now is fun new content.

The challenges there are many, fundamentally revolving around the great diversity of levels in the game, to the difficulty in creating new content. This, however, isnt really enough, as everquest / etc have discovered. We really do compete for audiences time now with the choices available (now matter how much you enjoy multiple games, you really only have time to pay/play for one or two). There are exceptions to this, of course.

GDH was great, a lot of fun, a whole new direction for the game. Wacky strategy based content and events, all the secret climbs/etc.. but its target audience was a high end audience, so the mid to lower levels dont get to enjoy it.

In my 20 years of doing this now, i've also learned that, in addition to keeping existing players happy with new content, its important to bring new / fresh blood in so the game stays vital and refreshed. (Guilds replace leaving members, there are people to slave-hunt for the potions you hate, people to buy junk items, and people to excite you with silly questions in the forums). *THESE* people are extremely hard to bring into a game like drakkar now adays, as the "youth" normally filling that role wont even spend 10 minutes in the game to be enamored by the thinks spoken of in earlier messages (IE the excitement of the "old drakkar" areas).

So, in short, i'm VERY open to practical suggestions and ideas. And honestly, i'm pretty sensitive in this area because i'm aware of my own shortcomings, and drakkar has been such a big part of my life.

So How do we:
- Make existing customers of all levels happy
- Bring new blood in to keep the game vital

User friendly, self contained, Content creation tools? You bet that would rock

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