Eustace
Dalayan Adventurer
Hi, I'm the player formerly known as Eustace. I started back on Winter's Roar and cycled through a few toons, playing on and off over the years before being banned on my main, Eustace, after raising Cain and demanding the deletion of gear acquired by logging out a group within a raid in order to loot with logged-out toons, while the 18-man engage limit was kept by supporting the raid with a group outside of the raid group. Over the years, I've played many games and raided in many games: I played Star Wars Galaxies at launch through the NGE on Chilastra and Bloodfin; I played Everquest from Kunark through Planes of Power in <Artificial Intelligence> on Bristlebane and returned to kill the Sleeper on Zek; I played World of Warcraft a little during vanilla and raided heavily with <Ruin> during Burning Crusade and then again in Cataclysm; I played Guild Wars through launch with <Section One> into their first expansion; I played Guild Wars 2 with <Ruin> until the release of the new daily quests; I was an alpha tester for Last Chaos and worked for Aeria Games as a part-time GM after beta; I was granted early beta access to Path of Exile and still maintain accounts there as well, from time to time.
Today I'd like to share my overview and opinions of Shards of Dalaya. Although some may not agree with my assessments of the game, this draft is a token of my appreciation for the time that's gone into developing and maintaining this emulator. I may not include all aspects of the game. It is quite diverse. However, we must look at the purpose of the game itself overall: to provide entertaining recreation to people who have time to spare, to offer an enthralling story that makes the experience immersive, and to give people not just a reason to come back but to also encourage their friends to play.
Starting off in the game is served well by the adepts. The upgrades to the loot to make them experience-gaining and growing is a very positive change. It does encourage older players to go back and make new characters just to try them out, and it somewhat gives new players reasons to look forward to an end-game raid experience. However, the early community having to rely on community toons and over-twinked toons in order to take down the adepts really takes away the fun of the experience. There isn't a lot of difference between having a level one with Jayla's Boon in the raid and having a level one with 1200hp from gear and augments soloing an adept. Unfortunately, without either a full raid of no-gear level ones or community bots, the adepts are kind of off the slaughtering-block for the person fresh into SoD.
Leveling is fairly easy. The xp goes fast, particularly when you're being leech-carried. However, there is no really effective way to role-play your way through the lore to level. The basic strategy for the new player is to get into <Dalayan Beginners>, then have people like Irelc (Sorry, don't know your forum name) give you gear and take you on field-trips through the world. That sort of experience is good for the long-term gamer looking to get new people started to bring some fresh blood onto the server; however, it's entirely corrosive to the immersive element that leaves you fiending to play your character.
After leveling to 65, you have AA's, tomes, and a charm to fund. The AA's are quite straight-forward. The tomes, on the other hand, leave a lot to be desired. The current system is droppable or raid no-droppable for the tomes. This leaves new people in a position where they can't get to the new tomes unless they get in a guild that raids regularly, has a random drop that they need, or by some stroke of luck happens to have one drop in a Rust group off Arbiter or something of the like. Averaging about 10,000pp per tome on listsold makes these highly inaccessible for new players, particularly when the new player's pp is already tangled up between affording spells that nobody farms any longer, buying a charm, buying augments, etc. Having tomes drop the way they do and putting them on listsold only aids longer-term players in buying Eternals for all their alts. It is prohibitive to the new player in excess, and it will drive people who would play and grind but not raid away.
On the topic of raiding, I've noticed a severe bout of mudflation. The tiers go up and up and up, and to get into the current raid game, you need already geared characters. There is no side progression available, no alternate gearing methods. There are only "best-in-slot" items, despite the ability to make thousands upon millions of combinations of stats available for every slot. Then again, using side progression instead of linear scaling would cause severe strife for the elitists on the Top Five list, who would already die from hemorrhoidal hemorrhaging if all tomes became available to all people without the need of maximum tier raiding. This mudflation doesn't have a trickle-down effect on the lower tiers, either: it absolutely negates the reason to even try and tier your way up from T1 to T13. Luclin kind of got it right when they put in their Candy Land. Instead of handing out 50 more to all stats in the next tier, maybe you should make people choose between effects and stats to build some seriously rad characters and give people a reason to hit targets other than a gaping-maw drool of, "Our [warrior] needs this to stay bestest!"
2.5 looks pretty swell. It's a little bonkered at the moment but you'll get it sorted out. Nice fresh graphics and all.
The lore of the game is great. If you read the quests. If you're not just doing it for the aug. Or running after Ytrazliarch (lawl who needs that crap anymore?) Unfortunately, there aren't regular roleplaying events any longer to supplement the lore. You absolutely have to have a good story teller to keep a community active, and the last one you guys had was Wiz, and if he's done a lore event since 2009 I'll eat my next pack of Marlboros instead of smoking them. I'd volunteer to get on and do roleplaying events, but I absolutely have no respect for Woldaff. So I suppose you're stuck with Slaariel trying to hijack 3D models from other games (meant in jest Slaar; I think it's a good idea.)
To sum it all up, Shards of Dalaya has been a massive undertaking. The development has passed through many hands. Many nerfs have been had. Many improvements have come and gone, and more are planned. But, the game fails to entice new players, to immerse new players, to convince old players to return and just do a group every now and then (fancy a dungeon crawl, mateys?), or to convince a guild like <Section One> to get on here and raid from T1 to T13 with the entire raid flagged pvp the entire time (They and Ruin Nation roll that way. It's fun.) The high end raid game lacks customization. The maximum xp end absolutely lacks access. People like Irelc do what they can to encourage new people to stay and play, but after a while...
...it just isn't fun anymore.
(WTB full AOE damage. WTB ripostes. WTS autofire. WTB 10 Tomes of Power. WTB...shit, I'm just buying a kayak. Fuck this.)
Today I'd like to share my overview and opinions of Shards of Dalaya. Although some may not agree with my assessments of the game, this draft is a token of my appreciation for the time that's gone into developing and maintaining this emulator. I may not include all aspects of the game. It is quite diverse. However, we must look at the purpose of the game itself overall: to provide entertaining recreation to people who have time to spare, to offer an enthralling story that makes the experience immersive, and to give people not just a reason to come back but to also encourage their friends to play.
Starting off in the game is served well by the adepts. The upgrades to the loot to make them experience-gaining and growing is a very positive change. It does encourage older players to go back and make new characters just to try them out, and it somewhat gives new players reasons to look forward to an end-game raid experience. However, the early community having to rely on community toons and over-twinked toons in order to take down the adepts really takes away the fun of the experience. There isn't a lot of difference between having a level one with Jayla's Boon in the raid and having a level one with 1200hp from gear and augments soloing an adept. Unfortunately, without either a full raid of no-gear level ones or community bots, the adepts are kind of off the slaughtering-block for the person fresh into SoD.
Leveling is fairly easy. The xp goes fast, particularly when you're being leech-carried. However, there is no really effective way to role-play your way through the lore to level. The basic strategy for the new player is to get into <Dalayan Beginners>, then have people like Irelc (Sorry, don't know your forum name) give you gear and take you on field-trips through the world. That sort of experience is good for the long-term gamer looking to get new people started to bring some fresh blood onto the server; however, it's entirely corrosive to the immersive element that leaves you fiending to play your character.
After leveling to 65, you have AA's, tomes, and a charm to fund. The AA's are quite straight-forward. The tomes, on the other hand, leave a lot to be desired. The current system is droppable or raid no-droppable for the tomes. This leaves new people in a position where they can't get to the new tomes unless they get in a guild that raids regularly, has a random drop that they need, or by some stroke of luck happens to have one drop in a Rust group off Arbiter or something of the like. Averaging about 10,000pp per tome on listsold makes these highly inaccessible for new players, particularly when the new player's pp is already tangled up between affording spells that nobody farms any longer, buying a charm, buying augments, etc. Having tomes drop the way they do and putting them on listsold only aids longer-term players in buying Eternals for all their alts. It is prohibitive to the new player in excess, and it will drive people who would play and grind but not raid away.
On the topic of raiding, I've noticed a severe bout of mudflation. The tiers go up and up and up, and to get into the current raid game, you need already geared characters. There is no side progression available, no alternate gearing methods. There are only "best-in-slot" items, despite the ability to make thousands upon millions of combinations of stats available for every slot. Then again, using side progression instead of linear scaling would cause severe strife for the elitists on the Top Five list, who would already die from hemorrhoidal hemorrhaging if all tomes became available to all people without the need of maximum tier raiding. This mudflation doesn't have a trickle-down effect on the lower tiers, either: it absolutely negates the reason to even try and tier your way up from T1 to T13. Luclin kind of got it right when they put in their Candy Land. Instead of handing out 50 more to all stats in the next tier, maybe you should make people choose between effects and stats to build some seriously rad characters and give people a reason to hit targets other than a gaping-maw drool of, "Our [warrior] needs this to stay bestest!"
2.5 looks pretty swell. It's a little bonkered at the moment but you'll get it sorted out. Nice fresh graphics and all.
The lore of the game is great. If you read the quests. If you're not just doing it for the aug. Or running after Ytrazliarch (lawl who needs that crap anymore?) Unfortunately, there aren't regular roleplaying events any longer to supplement the lore. You absolutely have to have a good story teller to keep a community active, and the last one you guys had was Wiz, and if he's done a lore event since 2009 I'll eat my next pack of Marlboros instead of smoking them. I'd volunteer to get on and do roleplaying events, but I absolutely have no respect for Woldaff. So I suppose you're stuck with Slaariel trying to hijack 3D models from other games (meant in jest Slaar; I think it's a good idea.)
To sum it all up, Shards of Dalaya has been a massive undertaking. The development has passed through many hands. Many nerfs have been had. Many improvements have come and gone, and more are planned. But, the game fails to entice new players, to immerse new players, to convince old players to return and just do a group every now and then (fancy a dungeon crawl, mateys?), or to convince a guild like <Section One> to get on here and raid from T1 to T13 with the entire raid flagged pvp the entire time (They and Ruin Nation roll that way. It's fun.) The high end raid game lacks customization. The maximum xp end absolutely lacks access. People like Irelc do what they can to encourage new people to stay and play, but after a while...
...it just isn't fun anymore.
(WTB full AOE damage. WTB ripostes. WTS autofire. WTB 10 Tomes of Power. WTB...shit, I'm just buying a kayak. Fuck this.)
