Make Dalaya Great Again

This post was going so well until I saw the first bullet: naming policy.

Then I just had to laugh when I saw fletching brought up. Made me reread some of my 2013 posts. Good times.
 
well... now after simply skimming SOME of that, I'm getting upset with fletching- more than I thought I'd be.. Someone put it in a perspective I never thought about before.. The ranger class is the ONLY class where you pretty much HAVE to pay to play- otherwise invest countless hours into a tradeskill so you can play your character at its' fullest potential. Even in 2013 when they talked about it and mentioned how there was little-to-no market of people selling arrows, here we are in 2017 with a VERY low population and an even LESS supply of arrows being sold (which is none, absolutely no vendors selling arrows- ever)..

Wizards don't need to buy specific gems, like fire/cold/magic, to be placed in the powersource slot (live used this as a drainable source of energy to give bonus stats on gear- dumb AF).. Rogue's don't NEED to make poisons in order to backstab.. Beastlords don't need to bake to feed their warder.. Sk's don't need to brew booze to be a solid tank.. So wtf, why do rangers have to rely on a tradeskill, muchless one that requires you to carry so many different items from the TS at any given moment

I just went from not liking fletching to absolutely hating it now. Maybe the bane dmg should be an investment into AA's AND/or tomes, instead of quivers. That'd free up a lot of space in our inventory going from 10 quivers down to 1-2, also wouldn't have excessive amounts of arrows taking up space in inventory till we kill that bane again, because lets face it- nobody is summong 1-2 stacks at a time, I summon at least 4-5 each time. It's easy to have 3 stacks of dragonkin arrows on you from your last grp but don't want to waste them so you summon other stacks, then a raid is called shortly after- now you have 6-7 stacks of arrows you have to go and bank so you can have inventory to summon the arrows you need for guild raids. ughh
 
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i understand the position of every player that is left on the server. We the retired have all felt this way!

Unfortunately the hardest part of this server isnt the exp curve, the grind, farming for supreme charms, or even playing with people you hate. Its understanding and knowing when you just have to give it up and move on.
 
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Seriously.... it wasn't an issue since i had like 30quivers i had banked for the last several months, but now that I'm back in a guild and am out of arrows, this SUCKS !!! nobody sells quivers and I had to sit in front of a vendor wasting my entire night skilling up my tradeskill instead of working on vah, instead of raiding turruj, sanctum, and missing out on 6man.. this is NOT FAIR to me, or any ranger!!!!!!
 
huey said:
It feels like there are a lot of these. Rivervale and Whisperling are a couple off the top of my head.
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Some zones are supposed to be difficult to navigate in, it fits the lore and quests in them. I do think that the low-level zones should look more appealing, though, especially those huge ones you need to cross without any run speed at level 20.
 
I get that, but I gate into Rivervale and can't even see the first building in front of me anymore. I'm having to navigate through some of these places out of finger memory. It doesn't feel like they're foggy as much as it feel like they're just glitched graphically.
 
Sometimes you start to remodel a house and realize the only place to start is a pack of matches. You salvage what you can, pour a new foundation, and end up better off all around.

The 2.5 release, directionless decision making, some really dubious class balancing, makeshift fixes (tomes, stances, listsend, etc...) that would never exist in the new client, mudflation, and problems taking advantage of what should be default features has left this once great server in a sorry state. True, you could continue working on 2.5 fixes (how many years in the making?) which will probably take less time and might end up working, or start a new server from scratch with all of the lore, dev experience, player experience, and excellence that is Shards of Dalaya.

Bonus: go back in the story to when Kaezel controlled most of the landmass. This greatly reduces the amount of work needed (few zones, could have a lower lvl cap, a permanent newbie area so new players years from now aren't all alone, etc...) to get the server up and running AND gives players a chance to experience key moments in the World's history.

2nd Bonus: Makeshift fixes and bad decisions can be eliminated in mass.

3rd Bonus: All new improvements (auras, instancing every X tiers to mitigate poopsocking, all those windows that do not work, etc...) could be implemented in mass.

I guess the biggest question is of motivation. Does the dev team of SoD want to be bug fixing or working on content? Do the players log on to marvel at their throbbing t13 e-peens or is this meant to be a social game with lots of players? Will you attract more new players with a those low tier guilds that form every couple of years or a game that functions properly?
 
huey said:
I get that, but I gate into Rivervale and can't even see the first building in front of me anymore. I'm having to navigate through some of these places out of finger memory. It doesn't feel like they're foggy as much as it feel like they're just glitched graphically.
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I'm confused, this is what zoning into Rivervale looks like to me, foggy but visible - is your far clip plane really low or something?:
6wAiDwA.png
 
About a week ago Rivervale looked like it always had. The other day when I zoned in it looked like that ^. Probably got changed very recently?
 
Yeah, I almost posted something two or three days ago. It seems like it got fixed. That picture is what it looks like for me now also. A week ago or so, not so much.
 
@tinkaa has been sneakily experimenting with sky settings in numerous zones lately. Haenir's screenshot is likely a reflection of this. Unfortunately, the change will wear off once the zone is reconnected since /cmd zsave (which makes new sky modifications permanent) is inexplicably disabled for staff currently. :(
 
Nebi said:
i understand the position of every player that is left on the server. We the retired have all felt this way!

Unfortunately the hardest part of this server isnt the exp curve, the grind, farming for supreme charms, or even playing with people you hate. Its understanding and knowing when you just have to give it up and move on.
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This is the truth the game itself is stupid easy its knowing when to let go that is difficult...
 
Moraelintz said:
This is the truth the game itself is stupid easy its knowing when to let go that is difficult...
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Easy is true,I had fun nonetheless and still would happily run new players (along with Irelc,but they even managed to drove this most die hard player away) through the adepts,CMal,Rust,ToT etc.
 
From what I see, this is what is to be expected. Most games basically restart after a year or two by increasing the level, bringing in new content that will last 1-2 years (3 months for the super hardcore), increasing the level to make the old stuff no longer meaningful. It seems like in the first two years Wiz was doing that... increasing the level cap from 60 -> 65. Also he wiped out a whole chunk of content with Land of Magic and then changed the whole two faction war into what the game is today. But since then nothing has really changed. Sure there is more content, but I was reading posts that people were on T13 three or four years ago. It is a recipe for burnout... no one is going to sit and play the same game for 3 years on the same content with a maxed out toon. Also, the further the gap between new players and T13+ players is also a deterrent for new players. The newbies struggle to kill a few dark blues one at a time with a party, and then you got some boxing T13 king going around pulling 10 of them at once and killing them as fast as the group takes down a few.

I am not giving any suggestions on how to fix the game's fundamental problems, as many people will point out there is no need to follow the typical mode where content is flushed and re-done every few years. It is just hard to maintain a player base with this schema.

I personally have been playing the game like it was new again and have really been enjoying myself. Adepts, MQ, Deities... all things that I can dive into at any point. There is also a very good wiki and tons of quests while leveling. With just a little effort to make the server more friendly to new players and an account drive, I think the population could spike up again until a majority of those players cap out their toons and get bored. The bugs are annoying around raids and groups, but trust me they are not THAT huge of a showstopper.

I'd say these are what need done:
  1. Update the main shardofdalaya.com page to be more newbie friendly.
    • It needs one of the big picture links to be a 'Getting Started' button. This should not link to the wiki, as I personally believe the getting started page should just be how to install the game and make an account... not a multi-page intro tutorial once in game. That can be a separate link at the end.
    • The links should be for the discord, not IRC chat. IRC is outdated but if you look at the webpage you'd think that was the main chat source.
    • There should be a 'Getting Started' forum section where newbies can ask anything under the sun. Players can answer all of the questions... the Welcome back page and introduction just does not cut it. If you look at the P99 website, they handle new players very well even if it is a less than stellar webpage.
    • There needs to be some very simple posts about the main differences between other EQ servers (MQ, Deities, Specialization, spell/class changes, and stances)
  2. In general, information needs updated...
    • Staff page is way outdated.
    • Contact posts have not been updated for years and the emails are not answered by any active members.
    • I'd say every sticky post needs reviewed. I mean I was reading about client 3.0 upgrades and some developers 'new SoD' that never got started... time to clear the old stuff.
  3. An account drive needs to happen.
    • I don't have many ideas here, but you could set up account creations to earning Fame points for every successful reference that makes it past level 40 in some timeframe (might need to check ips? no idea).
    • I saw the one in 2015 gave a small xp boost for a while.
I'd image you'd need a driving force behind all that though... and if what the others are saying is true, and Woldoff isn't active, responding to people, or willing to pass on the reigns... then it would be hard to accomplish any of that. Not that I know if that is true, I just read a few posts regarding the main administrator not only not being here, but making the current staff's jobs difficult. Either way, I am enjoying the content again. I think a lot of people would if they gave it a shot.
 
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I've said it before. Making things more accessible and not such a struggle from start to finish is the way to draw people in . First the large chunk of the game should be relatively easy. Soloable, questable, group if you want or one is available. The newbie quests were a good idea, but they weren't expanded upon enough. My very (I mean very very) brief stint on the staff was with the focus of streamlining level 1-60. Making a couple paths more favorable. Wow style quests that weren't necessary by any means, but kind of guided players from all over Dalaya to a gradually narrowing array of zones to get new players together as zones became harder. Doing the fetch or kill quests would net players gear that would suit them for the areas they were in, or heading into. Quest reward armor, weapons, spells, money, bags. Everything necessary to advance.

I made an NPC script a few years ago for tome turn ins in tur-ruj to be similar to Dreadlands currency system, which was ignored by all staff members. All it needed were some values from the server to make work. This kind of QoL change would have a significant impact on raiding end game. The ability to get those tomes you've been after for years, for showing up to raids and collecting books nobody else needs? Players should be able to advance, even if slowly, as long as they play. Logging in to raids month after month with zero progress is awful.

Tur'Ruj NPC (I dont know if it would even work now with the server upgrade, but maybe)

There is a lot more that could be fixed, but would take a lot of effort. The idea of scaling raid mobs based on raid size. So even in SoD's current state, raids could still happen. Boosted exp (more than already) from 1-60 in addition to toned down NPCs in leveling zones. Are they hard now? Not with a group, no. But for someone trying to two-box their Warrior Wizard duo, it could be nearly impossible post lvl 20.
 
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