vistachiri
Dalayan Master
Greetings Programs, it has been awhile.
Life has released its relentless grasp somewhat, and I'm at the stage now where I can begin to have a sort-of life again. As that has happened, of course my thoughts turn to SoD.
What I realized is what many of us know - the game is old and hampered by some old decisions and technology. That sucks. But the story of Dalaya, IMO, is incredibly compelling and enjoyable.
For awhile, I've contemplated building a sequel to the game. Same platform (EQEmu with some modifications), but one that tracks to the EQEmu master code so our game can adapt as EQEmu does. The old hodgepodge of ours-and-theirs sucks, for us AND them. Imagine a working task system. Instancing of dungeons (!). Not to mention a chance to start over on classes and races. I just think it's a neat idea.
I am in the early stages of planning. I have a rough story (it takes place a few hundred years after the current SoD). It is a greenfield game, meaning nothing will carry over beyond some story elements, lineages and other things. Everyone will start over, though I'm open to ideas about BALANCED ways of rewarding people for being SoD players.
So here's what I want to do. Tell me what you like about SoD. Tell me what you don't like. Within the limits of the "EQ system," what are things that would be really cool to have?
This is not a democracy. *IF* I do this (and it's possible I won't, though I'm enjoying this phase of things), I still get to decide what it looks like.Some things that players want, frankly, just aren't feasible or realistic in terms of long-term survival of a game. That said, over the years I have heard some great suggestions over the years, many of which just can't be done because of balance, technical infeasibility or other reasons. We have a chance to re-examine those with a new game.
If this happens, it will take a lot of work. When we get to that point, I'd love to enlist some help from folks - think about how many new NPCs, quests, items, etc. need to be created, not to mention actually adminning the game. Then there are costs. It's daunting, but I think doable, too. Give it some thought, PM me here or reply to the thread. If you're an asshole, I will just delete your comments, so don't waste both our time, ok?
A few things to consider:
- What level limit?
- How can we make the game more fun for non-raiders? How do we accommodate different play styles better?
- Progression - what methods are most fun and how do they scale?
- Substories. There is one major overarching theme to the game (like Kaezul was in SoD), but other things will be long gone or forgotten. Vah quest won't be a thing anymore. Silver Crown and the like have long disbanded. Relationships built around the Kaezul struggle are largely a thing of the past. With all this - what else makes the world go round? What makes it interesting? One concept being floated at present is that it is the good guys who are the outcasts - various forms of evil-aligned groups run most things, and there's a lot of blending-in that needs to happen to get anything done if you are good-aligned. A significant thought in the game is allowing good to begin to retake some ground, through one-time quests, GM events, etc., but what else can we do here?
- Races and classes. IMO, one of the more uninteresting parts of SoD right now. I'm looking at a complete revamp - what are some of your ideas?
Good to see you all again, I'll probably pop in game at some point to talk more about ideas.
--t
Okay, here we go
Level limit? Mostly irrelevant and arbitrary. Given that aa's are a thing, and can pretty much be expanded. I'd put it at a nice round number though just for aesthetics, maybe 80, or 100.
Things I liked about SoD:
Social component in groups. This was actually a pretty big thing. Brimz mentioned it to me recently and I'd have to say I agree. Most of the regular grouping content in SoD kind of gets steamrolled, which I think in the kind of game that this is, is absolutely fine. It allows for heavy socialization, and makes grouping one of the most fun things to do in this game as a whole. This is an attractor almost completely independent of most content development, and keeps people playing for an extremely long time. Having had a healthy amount of experience in games that make things substantially harder, the same kind of opportunity isn't really there for most (GW2 as an example, where higher level fractals require a lot of concentration and coordination, and dungeons are mostly rush through as fast as possible and skip everything with a pug), as they are concentrating on the fights. SoD for the most part, did grouping right. The 6 man content notsomuch, but that's another story, as was the reward structure.
Boxing: There are likely people that disagree about this, but quite frankly I very much enjoyed boxing when I started doing it, and playing a single character became extremely boring for me after doing it for so long. It's not for everyone, but I think it extends the life of the game for some, and helps fill out groups that otherwise might be lacking. It also helps address deficiencies in classes, one of the reasons I started to in the first place was the crippling of mages with the nerf of pet heal.
Bounties are great. Rewards could stand to be a bit more useful, though keep in mind that's coming from the perspective of playing Aisling. They probably were very useful to people earlier on.
Things SoD did poorly
$ sinks. I'll just come right out and say it. Charms are a shitty $ sink. They always have been, and always will be, and generate a ton of money that wouldn't even be generated if not for their presence, which is part of the problem. What you want to do with these is not take half a mil chunks of plat out of the economy at once. Think death by a thousand cuts here. You want to dye your armor? Okay pay 50pp/piece by buying some halfassed reagent from an npc. You want to get somewhere halfway across the globe relatively easily and quickly instead of running across several zones? Pay a small toll, and voila, there instantly, or right outside, etc. There are tons of ways to do this, and have people barely even notice it. What they do notice is a half a million in currency they need to farm up. It is bad, and it feels that way too.
More quests, and quests with useful rewards that don't require you to monopolize raid bosses. This is somewhat difficult, but there are a plethora of ways to have useful items with niche uses introduced to the game, clickies of course being a personal favorite of mine. needs epics too, like the shaman mask,but for all classes. Perhaps also a way independent from the wiki to indicate someone does have a quest for you, rather than repeatedly hailing every npc with an actual name.
Solo, casual, and early balance. I started a pretty casual player, and this almost put me off the game entirely. It also put almost every single person I attempted to introduce to the game off the game in the first ten or so levels. This was not a small number of people. The difficulty in the beginning, needs a tone down from what SoD's is. That is, provided you want high retention, which I'm assuming you do. Don't immediately slap the player in the face when they start, because you have to realize there are a couple thousand other games out there that, even if they have a high difficulty, ease people into it. You also want to give them stuff that FEELS awesome. Not necessarily that is awesome, or even stuff that is absolutely mechanically awesome. Just that feels that way, right in the beginning. Through quests, or whatever. You want to engender those positive feelings of reward in people ASAP, then let the social interaction and gameplay keep them going, even when you do ratchet up the difficulty later. Thinkmeats at one point I believe touched on how a good percentage of the early loot was either garbage, useless or just plain felt bad (that's going a while back though).
As far as the balancing, in a game you really want most classes to be able to actually accomplish something on their own. Not as fast as a group of course, but they should be able to do some stuff, not just get their ass handed to them by blues. This can be a little difficult to balance, but I suggest at the very least indicating (if a text change is possible) which classes are solo friendly, so that at least players that are completely new can make an informed choice about what to expect from a given class. Perhaps some rankings from 1-10 in different categories that are more useful than the wordy class descriptions are in order there (things like DPS, HealingPS, Role, HP, soloability, difficulty of play, etc). I always find this to be a problem starting a given game, and always find myself scouring the web for info regarding it. Having it right there would be super user friendly. As far as general balancing, while there may be some difficult areas, maybe make cons mean something, instead of just by level. Sure there can be difficult areas, but if you present what is supposed to be an eventually powerful player character, getting their ass kicked by a bug right outside of the starting town, that they should be on at least even footing with? They are probably just going to immediately head elsewhere. Take a page from most mmos. Fighting a bunch of things at once makes you feel powerful, which in most storylines you are supposed to be. It feels great, and feeling great keeps people playing. Some of the most fun experiences I've had in this game were groups where we loaded up on AOE dps, a tank and a cleric and went to town pulling literally everything (mielech C and the rust I'm looking at you). Absolute chaos and absolutely fun. Sure there is something to be said for the tense fight against a mob trying not to pull adds and barely killing it, but on the whole that gets old fast when it is literally every few mobs for a large part of the playtime.
Enough with the summoning. It's a cheap gimmick, and made most CC absolutely useless. Everything and it's brother summoning sucks, and it removes a lot of creativity from player strategies. Should some things summon? Yes. But not every damn trash mob in a zone. Nor should absolutely every boss. If it phantom strikes for example, it probably has no reason to have summon. It's basically superfluous at that point.
A few asides
MORE SPEEEEELLLLSS: and fully flesh out the spell lines. You want options for characters, and options that are interesting. Don't have a spell line like scars of sigil that appears once, and never again.
Focus effort where the bulk of the people are. Should there be a dedicated team creating raid content? Sure. Just don't make it your #1 priority unless your game is 80% raiders. You will need an assload of early grouping content, and mid grouping content. A few high end zones. Go about it somewhat proportionately.
Many of the buff problems absolutely disappear when they aren't necessarily a requirement, which is entirely tied to difficulty and the philosophy of the game. SoD went on the higher side of difficulty, so leaving town without buffs wasn't a good idea, and so players buffed. Make it so this isn't an actual issue, and sure many will buff anyways, but it won't be such a hard and fast requirement.
Xp going towards currency isn't a terrible idea, but I'm not necessarily enamored of it replacing AA's. AA's were awesome. Give me more abilities. Let me expand my roles, change my class. Absolutely sign me up for that shit. Given an alternative to shift the xp into currency rather than that would seem a bit lackluster, and the rewards would have to be pretty great. I also wouldn't recommend a long grind before receiving anything. Even if it takes an equivalent amount of effort, and the effort required for the thing you are doing is suitable, you want players to have something to show for it sooner, rather than later. A long grind even if it makes a % bar increased, with nothing tangible to show, just feels bad, and that's what you want to avoid.
As for instancing I'm kind of divided on that. While I like it, I also have to point out there is something to say for the unique interactions I've had with people in various zones which wouldn't have been possible with instancing. Whether it was duoing lasanth for a quest piece and inviting a group early in the zone to do it with me, or the banter I've had in random zones with other people farming. Even the conflicts and the resolutions, or lack thereof contributed to the social environment of the game. /shrug, just something to think about.
Player engagement:
There are a few instances where this was done spectacularly. The rebuilding of athica, some events, etc. You want to engage players in the world, and in the story. In more than just a here we are RPing sort of way. Practical consequences of player choices to shape the world around them, whether it be through supporting a faction, or even naming something. You want them invested? Make the story about them. Not about some big foozle. Will you need some kind of foil for the story? Absolutely, but how to respond to it? That's on them. As a caveat one of the events I remember ended up giving unique rewards to a few people, and there is a problem in that. A few of those people poofed and never came back like a week later. If you run something like that, make it so that doesn't happen. Hand out a bunch, make it repeatable, whatever. It's just a thing to avoid so you can continue the line without retconning or handing out more stuff.
Select the most diplomatic/nicest person you have as a community manager. Seriously. This needs to be a position. You need a buffer, between yourselves, and the community for things like complaints, etc. Not a Gm, dev, or admin. Just a community manager. There is a reason these things exist, and part of that reason is so you don't have to read how an unpopular thing you created or a decision you made is made of aids every day. That can be pretty demoralizing, and while you should have someone saying to you, hey players aren't a big fan of this so you know that information, it's helpful to have a buffer so you can take a step back and not take the whole brunt of it. People who devote a lot of time and energy to a thing, whether it be through playing a game, or making content for it can get pretty emotional about it, because we are all people.
An additional idea. Given that I'm playing a game that could accurately be called fashion wars, something that always bothered me in SoD, was that the higher level we got, the more we looked like we just fished random shit out of a trashbin and decided to wear it. Seriously. My character looked like the very major model of a modern major murderhobo. Felyn looked like a rainbow had decided that it too could play a lute, every iksar in a robe looked like a creepy lizard dude inviting me to soak in his hot tub, and well I could go on forever about this. As far as ideas to mitigate that effect...
Augs. Keep the stats, on augs. The gear is augs. The looks, come from what are essentially weapon and armor blanks. That way you can essentially customize your character however you want. Want to wield an axe, sure, pop your awesome aug in whatever blank axe you want. Now you have the stats you want, with the look you want. Make swapping them a bit more expensive. There is an alternate plat sink. You get cool characters, that make visual sense, and you alleviate a hell of a lot of itemization woes in one shot.
Xpable items were also cool.
Pets: Not like, mage pets, or beastlord pets or whatever. I'm talking things like froggy's jar, the mummy guy. More of that (perhaps as a rare drop AND a use for that xpable currency, or a bounty reward, or all 3). Lots of them, some could be cosmetic, some give minor buffs. Go nuts. People will collect them. It will also likely function as a plat sink. To encourage collection, make them not so much and item, and more of a /keyring sort of function alleviating storage space woes that might prohibit collecting.
I'm probably missing some stuff here, but off the top of my head these are my initial thoughts.
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