WARNING: Long post!
For a TL;DR rundown,
skim the green text below.
For a TL;DR rundown,
skim the green text below.
Disclaimer: I'm deliberately posting this in the "wrong" subforum (i.e. not Suggestions & Requests) because it applies to a bigger discussion about the state of the server and its direction.
In 2014, a snarky forum user thought this was funny. Compare that image to this recent one taken during the wee hours of the morning:
Purely for reference, here is a screenshot of the most popular EQEmu servers taken at the same time:
Shards of Dalaya has been in gradual decline for many years, but 2016 was especially hard on the server. The bug-riddled client upgrade turned veterans and newcomers away in droves like never before. Much of the staff fell silent and withdrew from view. Updates to the homepage grew fewer and farther apart than ever before in server history, giving the impression that Dalaya had become a ghost town.
To be fair, our server is a reimagined version of an emulated version of an outdated version of a fading MMO that was released in the 90s. That’s quite a stretch! That also means this server will likely never achieve the cushy player count of Project 1999, which capitalizes on nostalgia, familiarity, and a predetermined server direction to sustain its numbers. Nevertheless, SoD’s unique content and gameplay remain top-notch, and the potential for adventure and enjoyment is still here – if only the server could achieve some kind of turnaround.
I want to believe such a turnaround is still possible. The number one deterrent for most players is, of course, the awful client. Sometimes you can’t form groups whatsoever in a zone. Or you spend thirty minutes trying in vain to zone into Deepshade before giving up in frustration and noping out of the game. Or you unwittingly destroy your weapon by attempting to use the bandolier. Most of these issues that came with 2.5 are deep-seated, code-heavy problems.
But putting the client bugs aside, there are many measures that could be undertaken at any given time to make the server more accessible, more user-friendly, and more likely to retain incoming players. Many of these measures can be implemented with minimal to no coding and would, if nothing else, boost morale and give a fresh coat of paint to the game.
To that end, here’s what I jokingly call “Make Dalaya Great Again” – a starter list of suggestions and ideas, some broad and some narrow, aimed at sprucing up the game without bogging the staff down in lots of code:
========== MAKE DALAYA GREAT AGAIN ==========
Policy
- Greatly simplify and relax the draconian naming policy.
- As it stands, the naming policy is a hindrance to the server and prioritizes policing something trivial over welcoming new players.
- The policy consists of nine rules (https://www.shardsofdalaya.com/rules.htm) supplemented by a 1040-word “clarification” (https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/threads/naming-policy-clarifications.21900/).
- The so-called clarification is full of loopholes, legalese, and arbitrary distinctions that serve no one.
- Allow players the dignity of judging names for themselves.
- Let a quality name (e.g. Astranolus, Wigbert, Xoranath) stand on its own merit and speak to the originality of the player.
- Let an ostensibly bad name (e.g. Buffs, Meowmix, Trump, Yoloswaggins) risk judgment or even dismissal at face value by fellow players.
- Or, to put it optimistically, let the bad name be an opportunity for that player to rise above his questionable naming habits and build a reputation in spite of his silly name.
- A simplified naming policy need only state the obvious:
- No profanity (e.g. this name I’m not going to type out)
- No vulgarity (e.g. Chode)
- No blatantly offensive names (e.g. Abortion, Nazi)
- No unsearchable names (e.g. Gnome, Shaman)
- No deliberately hard-to-decipher names (e.g. Illll, Mmmmmmmmmnmmmmm)
- (Optional) No high-profile names from Dalayan lore (e.g. Jayla, Kelethin)
- Honestly, whose experience in Dalaya was diminished by the presence of a potion vendor named Poshenz?
Artwork
- Patch in fresh SoD artwork for the login process and loading screen for the first time since 2010.
- I shared my own custom artwork in this thread, but I'm sure other players could do better.
- If the staff are feeling ambitious, this could even be run as a contest for fame points, with the playerbase voting on which new artwork should go into the game.
New Content
- Add a banker, a general goods merchant, and an exit to any deity plane that lacks them.
- Marlow's Plane of Nightmare, for example, gets all of these in a single, convenient place, while others (e.g. Shojar's Plane of Frost) have none.
- This addition is no substitute for fully-fledged deity augment quests (which are very time-consuming and code-heavy), but it would add fresh appeal to the less popular gods and would work toward diminishing the sense that the deity side of SoD is still "under construction" after all these years.
- If need be, players would likely be eager to suggest names, /loc placements, and even /hail text for such NPCs.
Old Content
- Make all city bankers invulnerable (or at least level 50+).
- Banking in this game is done entirely through mouse clicks, and a single misclicked Taunt or /pet attack hotbutton can aggro and even kill a banker, sometimes leading to the loss of a hard-earned gate neck.
- All it takes is one unfortunate riposte or one round from a well-meaning pet to kill most bankers!
- This very simple change can save a player hours of discouraging faction repair duty.
- Banking in this game is done entirely through mouse clicks, and a single misclicked Taunt or /pet attack hotbutton can aggro and even kill a banker, sometimes leading to the loss of a hard-earned gate neck.
- Greatly reduce the amount of combines between Fletching skillups to stimulate Dalaya’s arrow economy, which has been decidedly slim (or even nonexistent for months at a time) since even before the client upgrade.
- Rangers deserve equal consideration among the classes when players are making a new character, but the class’s reliance on player-made arrows for “big boy” DPS is a major deterrent, given the daunting number of combines required for just a single gain in Fletching skill and the resulting rarity of devoted arrow sellers.
- For example, a player at 230 skill making nothing but Bundles of Superb Varnished Arrows would need to do a whopping 2,800 mouse clicks within his inventory and Fletching Kit before he will advance to 231 skill, and this doesn’t even account for misclicks, the need to micromanage inventory space along the way, or the many clicks involved in purchasing ingredients from the Fletching merchant!
- Rangers deserve equal consideration among the classes when players are making a new character, but the class’s reliance on player-made arrows for “big boy” DPS is a major deterrent, given the daunting number of combines required for just a single gain in Fletching skill and the resulting rarity of devoted arrow sellers.
- Double or even triple the drop rate on global loot (a.k.a. “world drops”).
- Some exp sessions can go a couple hours without a single world drop being seen. This is especially true of the early game, in which levels come quickly with fewer kills and slower kill rates. The result is that many of the low-level world drops are virtually never seen due to the way level dictates which world drops are eligible to drop off a given kill.
- Examples are Orichalcum Bands, Fortune’s End, and Map to the Loci of Faith; I’ve raised dozens of characters up the levels for my community toon project and have never seen any of these myself — not even in a link!
- Frankly, many of these drops are novelties or, at best, supplemental gear that will outgrow its usefulness even among true newbies once they can afford entry-level buyable gear. What harm can come of increasing the visibility of these rarely seen items?
- Some exp sessions can go a couple hours without a single world drop being seen. This is especially true of the early game, in which levels come quickly with fewer kills and slower kill rates. The result is that many of the low-level world drops are virtually never seen due to the way level dictates which world drops are eligible to drop off a given kill.
- Remove the unused “prototype” quest pieces from all “Instrument of Vengeance” quest mobs.
- This includes the following:
- Captain Tigribl’s Chevron from Captain Tigribl
- Fingerbone Assasin’s Trophy from a master rogue
- High Exalted Sigil from Glidrik the Exalted
- Mine Overseer’s Badge from a mine overseer
- Ragarati’s Eye from Lord Commander Ragarati
- Undertaker’s Shroud from The Undertaker
- This quest quickly became one of the most popular in the game for up-and-coming characters once it went live, and this clutter only serves to confuse questers.
- This includes the following:
- Roll back and/or tone down the unsightly fog in zones where it continues to be a problem.
- Believe it or not, this is doable with nothing more than up to four simple GM commands, including /cmd zsky, /cmd zcolor, /cmd zclip, and /cmd zsave. No coding necessary, and the change happens instantaneously without the need to patch anything!
- The new client is capable of greater draw distances than the old one, but we've unfortunately been saddled with really awful default fog/sky settings in many zones. The Big S began to roll back the fog in some zones (most notably North Karana) in early 2016, but many zones could still use a facelift in this regard.
- Players would be eager to chime in with zone names if prodded by the staff, seeing as some zones are just about unusable in their current state (such as Haegra Malath B, which feels like playing an early Silent Hill title!).
- To put the awfulness of our zones into perspective, here's what we see in Everfrost:
- And here's what we could see if a staff member simply zoned into Permafrost and typed /cmd zsky 0, /cmd zcolor 225 225 255, /cmd zclip 200 5000, and /cmd zsave:
- For a second example, here's what we see in East Karana:
- And here's what we could see if a staff member typed /cmd zclip 200 10000 and /cmd zsave in the zone:
Miscellaneous
- Add all new loading bar gag messages and, if possible, remove any holdovers from Live.
- “Removing Dev-Taryth’s patience…” and similar messages immediately remind the player he's entering a whole new sandbox compared to the plethora of servers that simply imitate the Live game, and the possibilities for new gag messages are endless.
- If the staff are feeling ambitious, these messages could be drawn from the playerbase for fame points.
==========
I freely admit that this post, like many of mine, is obscenely long. I also have a feeling that most of you could easily type out just as many words about your own frustration with the state of the game and ideas about what could save it. Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach, or maybe some of my ideas are misplaced. If that's the case, I'd like to hear from anyone who wants to jump in.
At any rate, my hope with this thread is twofold:
- To persuade any remaining Powers That Be that there’s still time to save Shards of Dalaya, and
- To demonstrate that a number of approaches can be explored to "Make Dalaya Great Again" beyond wading waist-deep through bugs in the 2.5 code.
...
Some things I didn't address that might also be worth considering include:
- The awful default UI layout.
- The (probably code-heavy) prospect of eliminating the need for food/drink.
- Wildly inconsistent and arbitrary raid buff durations (e.g. Relic: Gift of Aegolism vs. Spiritual Bliss).
- The many "quality of life" gripes outlined in this well-received thread, which was ultimately snubbed and never revisited.
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