<< Or the forums in which we have been seeing a totally crazy amount of candid info from GMs as opposed to the old norm of PAFO. Well Ill be upfront.. Im terribly disappointed in the lack of attention folks have shown.

With respect, I want to remind you that the majority of people who play games, don't take the time to read forums. They play to play and have fun.

There's also quite the number of people, such as myself who have just returned after extremely long absenses. I lived through DR beta, DR pre web, DR post web, DR 2.0 release and then was gone for various reasons for almost 7 years. When I came back, I personally reached out to a firm dozen of my old friends, one of whom I'm actually paying via GOA's for their account because they have issues right now financially. None of us knew about 3.0 'coming for years'.

Most of these people and many more like them don't have time or inclinations to read forums. That doesn't make them stupid. And I'll for sure say it doesn't make them 'ignorant'. All I'm asking is that we collectively don't walk into Saturday READY to pounce on people asking a million stupid questions.

>>I suppose this is a perfect time to mention that it may be time for you guys to look into a new way of doing this.

Not gonna happen, really. If you ignore it every time, you'll probably end up ignoring any manner of 'hey there's new stuff to read' UI in the game. News is the way we can communicate with people who don't read the forums, which is a HUGE portion of the populace.

>>Believe it or not, there will be a lot of shocked/confused people, even if the GMs had sent gamewide messaging every day for the past year. Just gotta send 'em links, help if you can and be patient.

Yeah, this is the root of it. No matter how aggressive you are about showing people that something's there, a huge number of folks won't take the time to read and/or care about it until it's too late. DR mirrors real life that way - It's very common for a major issue/change/whatever to be known about and talked about for months and years before it happens, but only when it comes down to the wire do the majority of people throw their lot into the mess. It's kind of an cultural thing, I think - We're REALLY focused on 'now', and don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's coming up because there's so much going on at this very moment.

"Not having the time" has a ton of different root causes, but it applies to many of us much of the time.

--

"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.

Renzar trust me. I've wanted to reach out and smack the crap out of people before for being completely stupid. But I haven't. I don't want to lose a single person on Saturday or any time after from DR whether that person is an idiot, a good guy, a confused person, or whatever. DR is what it is because of the people. So I'm going to sit on my fingers, not call them various names and whisper epedia links or give the short short version on magic.

You get what I'm saying I hope? I think we the people with knowledge, need to not take that fact and spoil it with contempt.


Also, I stand my be my statement. Some people, such as my friends who have to choose between RP and reading forums due to time constraints make the choice to RP. Which is the correct one. That doesn't make them ignorant people.

K let's turn this thread around to talking about the DR3 release again.

--

"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.

I don't believe for a second that the only thing keeping people from wanting to play DR is the knowledge that they won't be top dog or the first to X.

Keeping a 2.0 instance also means that those people will never get any game dev ever. How does that sound appealing?

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>No one said anything about being top dog. It's a matter of relevancy.

I also don't believe that the thing keeping people from playing is relevancy.

How quickly would the "new" instance draw die out? A month? Two months? Even if we believe that there would be an initial rush from "I want to be the first to X!," what happens after those take place? Start yet another new instance?

>>And if you think that is not a significant factor in how a gamer distributes their disposable income, you're mistaken.

If you argued that there should be more "achievements" that they can reach (titles can theoretically accomplish this), I would agree with you. A big chunk of modern heavy gaming culture is connected to reaching those achievements. But being "relevant" by becoming the first to X is a very short term thing to bank on as a long-term attraction.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

I don't think this tangeant has much to do with getting back on topic, either, as it won't happen. DR3 is going live into Prime on Saturday.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

<If you want to be relevant, play plat. I feel like I am a relevant part of the plat community (even if I'm not actually, I at least feel that way), despite only being around for 4-5 months or so.

This is an option. But, I'm not speaking about me. I am approaching this from a strict business perspective. Retention and modest growth are what make an IP such as DR viable. To increase the life-cycle of the game, it is my opinion this would be the most effective methodology to pursue.

At any rate, this is an exercise in hypotheticals. I still think it would be fun as hell in the end, however. Once we got past the initial blast of emotive rage.

Peace.

>>My point is that it allows for more creativity in establishing player impact on the environment from the start.

This is already the case. You don't need to be a high level character or have a clean slate in the game to have an impact in the roleplay.

>>From a purely business point of view, sans emotion, it will be the best method to attract fresh meat, regain lost customers (and retain them)and give the Dev Team a blank check.

I'm still not sure how a lack of people who already had an impact in an instance is going to attract people to make an impact themselves. Because other people already had an impact, people don't feel they can? Does this mean that, every few years, we need to make a new instance to draw more people in since the old-new instance has had people leave their mark on it?

>>It might also allow those of us that have been here for the past 15 years or so to rediscover areas of the game we've ignored for a decade or more.

Why not just roll up a new character.

>>Starting a new instance where people would have to leave behind the characters that they have invested years into would end in failure. It's been tried with 2 separate instances (Plat and TF), and both have a population of 20-30 people.

Although, one of the reasons I like Plat is the low population. I actually feel that my character is more capable of "creating an impact" because of the lower population. Less voices in the crowd, and so on.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>I know this won't happen. But if it were to, I'd be all over it.

If the cost isn't an issue, you really should check out Plat. Hell, we're still figuring out what crafts we're all interested in focusing on.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>I don't think this tangeant has much to do with getting back on topic, either

Correct :(. I could go into a lot of detail as to why a game that thrives on its community would suffer from it being split in half, but this is definitely not the time or place to have those discussions. Perhaps if you come to Simucon we can chat about it, though.

--

"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.

<Correct :(. I could go into a lot of detail as to why a game that thrives on its community would suffer from it being split in half, but this is definitely not the time or place to have those discussions. Perhaps if you come to Simucon we can chat about it, though.


My last post on the topic so as not to further derail. This is the exact arguement offered up when The Fallen was announced. The split was temporary then, and would be temporay now. Combine Prime 2.0 and The Fallen, DR 3.0 becomes the new Prime, and eventually you will see the population stabilize into the percentages much the way they are today. The difference would be that now Simu has created an marketing opportunity that will be far more successful in attracting new customers than saying "Come Play DragonRealms! Yes, roughly 100 players control everything, but you can make ingots for them!." Not likely to be successful in my view.

Now, if you can market to potential new clients, and clients that have been gone for years, that coming back to DR 3.0 now while everyone has the chance to make their name from scratch...I view that as having more potential than the former. This could be milked for up to 18 months. Relevancy. Don't underestimate its worth and don't too narrowly define what it means in the context of a subscription based MMO.

And with that I'm out.

Peace.

>You're all purportedly gamers

DragonRealms is very different from most games. I am by no means a gamer, and this is the only game I play. I'm terrible at most video games. That said...

>act like one and learn the half dozen or so new ways of interfacing with the game/quirks, and enjoy the game you already love.

This. The changes are not so crazy as people seem to be making them out to be.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer

>>This. The changes are not so crazy as people seem to be making them out to be.

I just want to stress that I've been playing a live version of 3.0 for over three months now and it makes the game easier_/_better in my eyes, not harder.

When I say easier, I mean:

1) I can take more risks without the risk of instant death. For example, you know how people on Riot I/II and Clocktower runs kinda hate it when the mob of the player notably bigger than they are shows up? Unless you're close to that person's level, you need to run in 2.0, because one or two hits and you're dead. In 3.0, I can get pounded on but not face instant death. I can actually try to take on that bigger mob, because being hit isn't a death sentence anymore. Even though much lower circle people can die from that mob, it actually takes some hits to die, too. So if they can call for help, they can actually get it. To me, these are good things.

2) I can start up new weapons and armor if I want to. With ~300 melee mastery, I can hunt in quartz gargoyles with weapons that I only have two dozen ranks in. Beats going back to rats and goblins again. With weapons in the 100-150 range, I can hunt baby/fledgling gryphons, and the ones closer to 150 can even go up against young.

3) My stamina matters! Sure, you're hit more in 3.0, but you don't get damage until you dip under 90% vit. This means high stamina does something! Spells that courage do more than just let you possibly not bleed to death if someone lops your arm off.

4) Magic is more training-friendly. On one hand, yes, an understanding of mana management is needed to train magic effectively in 3.0, but it was kinda the same in 2.0 too. What is new is that I don't need "that" spell in order to really train magic. It might be different at much much higher ranges, but I'm able to train magic in the 500s using basic spells. Unless I opted to get feats, I probably won't cap them out until I hit 600. And even then I don't know when they'll really stop teaching.

5) New scroll system. People actually use scroll spells without hamstringing themselves under strict mana management. You only lose scrolls if you proactively choose to or die. And you can memorize up to two with the right feat. I'm running around with Piercing Gaze to help train locksmithing and Hodernia's Lilt to help train weapons that normally fatigue me. Now, getting scrolls is still a bit of a pain, let alone the ones you really want, but this is still better than before. I actually WANT to use scroll spells outside of them just being quirky little things for the fun of it.

6) Feats. Love feats. Raw channeling alone would have made 3.0 for me. I always strived to have my Necro run around with RoC up 24/7, and now I can do that even as she's casting magic. Or maybe you want to be the most antisocial/agoraphobic moon mage ever. With enough skill, you could probably keep Steps of Vaun up forever. Fun times.

There are also other things, but I think the list isn't that bad as it is. Don't get me wrong, there are things I want to see different in 3.0 (I kinda hate that FA is pretty difficult to train when hunting, since a light hit on a bleeding wound seems to always result in notable body part damage + a stun, and I never knew how LITTLE you could do when playing an instrument vs humming), but they're minor things.

Over all, the system is a big improvement. Once everything gets a final bit of polish, I don't think anyone is going to be lamenting 2.0 passing.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>But, I firmly believe the best chance for DR to be around another 15 years is to increase the new client base. And the best method to achieve that is to give everyone an even playing field for a bit. Otherwise, its my opinion that a year from now, you're going to find the same people playing as today with little, if any new meat.

Driving away people who spent over a decade on their characters for the sake of maybe attracting people who are too afraid to play a game if they can't instantly be on top of the mountain seems like the craziest MMO suicide pact ever.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>The mass of scripts and knowledge available to people who've played for the entirety of the game. True noobs would still never be on an even playing field.

Hah, I didn't even account that.

But yes.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

<Driving away people who spent over a decade on their characters for the sake of maybe attracting people who are too afraid to play a game if they can't instantly be on top of the mountain seems like the craziest MMO suicide pact ever.

This is why they call it Risk Management. And again, no one said a damn thing about being on top of the mountain. Most people are perfectly fine having it within shouting distance. In DR however, for a new player, its not even in the same galaxy. And have no doubt it is all about the new player. This fact is unavoidable. As far as driving away long-term customers, that's quantifiable. Its referred to as Good Will Revenue. Simu has built up a measureable amount of good will with the current player base. The million dollar question is how big of an impact would a decision such as this have on that variable, and for how long. The second part would be if they believed they could offset that impact with newly minted accounts. Hard numbers might change my mind, but as it stands, I think a cleverly managed marketing strategy based on a clean 3.0 would result in a net increase in overall singular accounts.

I'm alone in this. I get that. I still stand by my assessment.

I don't think your plan would work. I'll use myself as an example. In prime I have an over 100th thief. I know how to train a thief. yet, that is not my highest, even my second or third highest level character in plat. Why? redunacy. You will have what i call the redundancy or - burnout factor. -- people who would say -- I've already been there, done that, I don't want to go through all that all over again. So its a good bet that Simu wouldn't take that sort of gamble and risk losing their long-term customers on making something that would be new for all of a year maybe - before you'd have the same old issues all over again, and without their current base.





<<The real thing DR needs is to get out there to the kids who actually read books.>>

>>- Cyclics pulse way too quickly. I'd like to see an almost 50% reduction in how often all cyclics pulse. Its more difficult than it should be to maintain while in combat.

Yes yes a thousand times yes. Ive been asking for this in the Moon Mage forums for a while now.

>>I've been talking with a friend who is a circle 102 moon mage. With 600 ranks of PM in prime, copied over she can gate to the riverhaven ferry from Crossing... I think moongate difficulty needs a look, before Saturday.

Haven to Crossing? Im thinkin theres a typo in there somewhere. Haven to Crossing is brutally simple and a 600 PM mage should have that easy. If anything MG needs to be harder. With the same magics give or a take a little I was opening gates between Ratha and Shard last night. Which to say the least is impossible for me to even conceive of in Prime. Granted that was at a 16 prep (max prep is 20) so if it stays then woot. But this has been mentioned by Armifer that he is going to slow the pulse down and raise the difficulty on MG after release.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

Well MG is said to be getting a speed fix so Im not totally concerned there. SLS downright sucks right now for me. Currently it pulses its mana on every attack and movement. And it moves and attacks fairly quickly. Unless I have a full camb orb for it to pulse from I end up spending more time trying to keep the mana in the SLS sphere than fighting myself. I think if it were to go to a set timed pulse rather than on every movement it would work a bit better but I could be wrong on that. All I know is that right now it eats mana (and no I dont have Raw Attunement and dont want it) super fast.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."