<< But putting a swim right next to the starter town that takes 700 swimming is a good way to turn people off to this game because let's face it having 1 rank in a skill and needing 400 ranks to swim the closest useful body of water is a bit of a turn off.

Are you seriously trying to use this argument? I dont know if you are aware, but DR is NOT an instant gratification game. Having a high level swimming area near the beginning is not going to turn people off from the game. True noobs arent even going to know about the swimming, and even then, they would be turned off from the game long before they figured out about the swimming aspect of it if having to achieve skill to do something was a turn off. Or on the other hand, they might be turned off to the game if they were able to do everything right away. I've personally always enjoyed the challenge of things, and having to work toward being able to do something. When bypassing the gondola was released, I didnt have the climbing needed to do it. It took me a while to be able to do it, but when I could, it was all the sweeter.

If something like this was going to turn them off from the game, then so would the million other things that actually requires a lot of invested time and training to actually do. There is a ferry, if people dont have the skill. It is not like they cant bypass the river all together. You are talking about something that has never been able to be done, and act like its going to ruin the game to actually be able to do something NEW that wasnt able to be done before. Can you see the huge hole in your logic? Let me repeat that for you. Something is being added that wasnt even possible before, and you are complaining that there is skill attached to it.

The fact of the matter is, there is plenty of beginning game development. If there wasnt, players would have not been able to get where they are at currently. The is actually very little end game development. There needs to be new things for older players as well. As you mentioned, there are already places to swim at 120-150-225-400 ranks. There is actually a handful of places to train at those ranks. On the other hand there is really only 2-3 places to train at higher ranks, and of course none of them are in the greatest location, which forces you to be pigeon-holed into being in those areas.

If you dont have the swimming to swim the river, you arent out anything. You can do what people have been always doing, and doing for years, and take the ferry. And now you have something to work toward. If you do have the swimming, now you have perhaps another place to train.

Falker

<<On a side note I forgot to add you play a RANGER, you should be able to travel with relative ease. That is the POINT! Not to mention that underground river in Shard isn't really very far. I swim there quite often when I'm in Shard and apparently that teaches around 700. Granted I can't get past the first room but hey. I'm not complaining.

That's right. We are rangers, and you are in a ranger folder. And it's the ranger GM that is making it possible to swim the river. Rangers tend to have more swimming/survival than everyone else, and we get to bypass things with enough skill as one of the neat perks to our guild. We are the terrain masters of the realm. It would be one thing if a ranger was complaining about this. I guess I shouldnt be surprised that it is a non-ranger making a fuss. Take the ferry, and stop complaining. Especially about something that isnt even out yet.

Falker

Lawl I am a Ranger -_-; get your facts straight.

... Your ability to selectively read makes this debate boring and pointless. I -was- directing the comment at you specificaly, only reminding you of the fact that -you- are indeed a Ranger. I've never ever played anything besides a Ranger and I wasn't complaining about needing survivals. You were complaining about having to actually use your survivals that you already have to get somewhere that isn't in the vicinity of Crossing. Case closed.

<<.. Your ability to selectively read makes this debate boring and pointless.

There is not one thing that I have selectively read. I just dont see a point in responding to every little point, but if you insist....

<<I -was- directing the comment at you specificaly,

I believe I covered that with the statement, "whether you are directing that at me or rangers in general"

<<only reminding you of the fact that -you- are indeed a Ranger.

I've probably been a ranger longer than 90% of the people in the game. Being that I rolled Falk up back in the fall of 2000. I dont need any reminder that I'm a ranger, or the abilities that I have as one. I've actually help come up with many of the ideas/abilities that we've gotten over the years. So reminding me that I'm a ranger is rather silly.

<<I've never ever played anything besides a Ranger and I wasn't complaining about needing survivals.

Complaining about the skill it takes (or is going to take) to cross the seg 'in a noob area' is indeed complaining about needing survivals. I dont know what you'd call it.

<<You were complaining about having to actually use your survivals that you already have to get somewhere that isn't in the vicinity of Crossing.

I was?? Where? In fact I think I said I like needing to use and gain survival to get somewhere. I think reading comprehension might be the problem here...

Also, I dont think there is currently a river I can swim to get from Mriss to the Crossings. I actually dont have any place I can train both combat and swimming currently. So if that was your point, its a rather poor one as well.

<<Case closed.

Umm, ya. When you cant win a debate, declare it closed and run away.

Falker

>>I was?? Where? In fact I think I said I like needing to use and gain survival to get somewhere. I think reading comprehension might be the problem here...

>>So instead of fixing a skill that already has a horrible reputation for needing to travel far away just to train it etc etc.

Which Shard really isn't very far at all and very soon you'll be able to SWIM there and then pass the gondola that you already can pass =O

I'm done salutes

<<So instead of fixing a skill that already has a horrible reputation for needing to travel far away just to train it etc etc.

<<Which Shard really isn't very far at all and very soon you'll be able to SWIM there and then pass the gondola that you already can pass =O

Shard's underground river, teaches horribly past a certain point. It's not easy to get to for everyone (for a great many people), which was the original point of my post. So your opinion that shard is not far, really doesnt matter. It is far for some people, that cant climb past, or cant run trails to the gondola. Just because they dont affect ME, doesnt mean it doesnt affect others. I dont just post things for selfish reasons, imagine that.

Also I dont think my opinion would count as a 'repuation'. So indeed reading comprehension, or lack thereof, is to blame here.

Lastly, until they release something on the mainland that I can hunt, any other releases there dont really affect me, what so ever.

This argument is pointless though, because its already been declared that it will be a more difficult swim. It probably still isnt going to be hard enough for my taste, but that was never my point. It should be harder, and it looks like it is going to be.

<<I'm done salutes

Yes. You are.

Falker

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>Most (not all) of us with high swim/climb are in the Armadillo range and find it to be a rather limiting situation :/

Yeah, you end up on the script islands with no real reason to keep working your skills. Mainland hunting please.

I'd like to chime in on something that I found out a few days ago. As a real life person, I would consider myself to be at the 10 ranks level, meaning that a kiddie pool is right about my speed. Well, myself and the girlfriend went out to the Trinity River in Texas few days ago, and while I was splashing around in the river, I noticed a few things right quick.

When I was knee deep in water, wading was perhaps slight against the current, and unnoticeable with the current.
When I was waist deep in the water, wading was moderate against the current, and slight with the current.
When I was neck deep in the water, I was unable to move against the current, and wading was moderate with the current.
The current moved even faster towards the middle of the river, which I admired from a distance.

I booked it back to shore at an angle to the current, moving from moderate to slight to none, and contented myself with building sandcastles while she splashed around.

Now I know that real life sometimes has very little to do with the game itself, but it can lend itself a wee bit.

Why not make a river that is several paces wide and moves from no current to heavy current and back down to no current on the far side? I'm saying this sentence as if I was crossing the river from one side to another.

Additionally, all rivers start somewhere, and end somewhere else. Why not make rivers long enough that you can travel all the way along them from one place to another.

For example, looking at the map on the play.net website, it seems as if there is a river that leads from near Kaerna Village and goes thru the Crossing before dipping into the Segoltha River (and if I am not mistaken, a huge waterfall inside the Reavers is the "in-game" starting point of that river).

Again, looking at the map on the play.net website, it seems as if the Segoltha itself runs from Forfedhdar, to just south of the Tiger Clan, to just south of the Crossing, into the sea.

Just combining a multi-width river which runs for any certain length would allow almost everyone who is interested in Swimming to get what they need without having to travel all over the world to train at any specific rank, as well as "flesh in" the world as we already know it.

Swimming and climbing both being largely modified by strength and stamina makes it THE COMPLETE SUCK for gnomes. Just saying. :(


Tibles

I thought they got rid of these? I hate skills that are penalized for having low strength. Swinging a sword is penalized but that penalty is balanced out by having superior agility. Can we get agility/reflex put into swimming somehow?

>To me while i love the Faldesu I also see it as one of the reasons why Survivals in DR are dumbed down. Everyone wants to be able to swim, no one wants to go find the places to train swimming high enough to brave such places. The fact the current sweeps you back to the same bank you came from with little to no risk to death, make it no longer SURVIVAL.

>Personally I wish for things like attempting to climb down or up something that is severly beyond your skill to be near sucidial. You don't even get a scuff if you fail. Swimming is the same way, most of the areas that teach high go nowhere, simply becuase people get upset because if they cannot do it, they feel cheated in some way.

I agree and think swimming and climbing need to be evaluated to add risk for failure. Having depart items greatly increases the playability of watery death.

Adding some default areas downstream of river crossings where graves would end up (on the same side as departs go) would even mitigate that further.

I absolutely loved the climbs in the Silverwater mine because they were risky. DR needs more climbs like that.

Having risk attached to making challenging climbs or swims should go hand-in-hand with increase experience rewards for them as well.

My only complaint is that the difficulty of this area seems to be driven by the immediate desire for more high-level swimming areas. Again, it just doesn't sit right to me that this swim should be over twice as hard as the Faldesu or the Jiantspire, just because some folks with 500 swimming want an arbitrary benchmark.

On another topic, IIRC you have to cross the mountains to get to the river I am thinking of in the area between P5 and Therengia. And there are some mountain lakes on the maps as well, so lots of room for plenty of survival based barriers where it actually should be really hard.

<.< I'm not sure I follow exactly D=

Oh, that's what I thought he meant.

<<There's an easy solution if you can't accept how we want to put the difficulty, we double or triple the difficulty of some of these other swims :)

-Z, who apparently actually had time for 2 posts>>

Oooooo Z and Audi you make one er ah, heck of a team! But I like the idea of making something to make the swim easier...say a float or raft?

And for another place to revisit and make very hard swims for the folks like Falker (you looked too cute in the ranger race)...there are sharks in Aesery ocean....perhaps a nice swim from Aesry to M'riss? Merkreesh? Don't know the map of the area too well but, just a thought.

Then later, I know much later, when companions are done (perhaps in my lifetime) you can let us train the sharks with enough animal lore or at least get them to understand we are not food and lend us a flipper?

Zinaca adding her 2 coppers in here...Lucky says bring it on but he swims much better than I do : (

<<Then later, I know much later, when companions are done (perhaps in my lifetime) you can let us train the sharks with enough animal lore or at least get them to understand we are not food and lend us a flipper?

"People are friends, not food"

And we could have a few people join us on the island. And then like we could all talk about each other behind their back, and then I vote everyone off the island!

Falker

>>and then I vote everyone off the island!

Lawl. Sounds like a plan! Make it happen!