28 replies to this topic

[Trevayne]

I have a number of projects at various points of completion, but I'm curious as to what players would like to see being built next. Please limit your discussions to things that are practical for the development staff (which does not include code changes, new classes, new races, or other radical changes to game rules).

(I pay more attention to comments than I do to votes, so don't bother spamming the poll. Also, this is not a discussion of 1a vs Main. Any offtopic posts will be deleted.)

[shomer]

i'd like to see a higher level training area, like a step up from the desert

[Crane]

I would personally like to see a more involved quest at some point that involves genuinely rare and valuable prizes, like the Greed quest, although previous discussion stated that that we may not see things like that now, so I'll go for the high-level areas.

[Master1988]

more area's and boss's for paci's

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

Co-op, appeal, challenge, excitement, rivalry... all words that come to mind when i think of new areas like SS & Strong hold. So that all the way.

[Crane]

more area's and boss's for paci's

There was one Pacifist item I designed once that is still in the /library - I'm surprised it hasn't been deleted actually - it would be nice to see that appear and potentially find a use, but one can only hope.

[Angelus]

I would love more crafting idea's. It's just a shame that most become either useless or very very pricey. Although things like Armored Boots and Silken Sandals of Time worked out very well. This isn't that high on my chart as there is still enough I haven't made and would like to make.

I would go for higher level areas (something that might promote teaming more). And perhaps in a slightly lower desire some more stand-alone bosses, won't have to be any major prices. I find myself logging on sometimes for a small boss run and the regular bosses I do are mostly hourly, like cappy, Wolf Lord, run through museum etc. It's more about the quick run then the drops. And knowing that they are mostly in just waiting for me to arrive on my pwning machine.

[Prophet]

I'd love to see some more high level areas in particular the area to the east of Harabec where I think some great storylines could be done

[Isolated]

Rooted for more areas/events..

[Wind]

High level area's... and Stand alone bosses!

[Gaddy]

I'd like to see more fun areas that I have to sort out at some point, similar to the Dvergar Stronghold...perhaps less challenging, perhaps more.

[Trevayne]

I'm very surprised by the desire for more high level areas, since the last ones built seem to get no use at all.

Not a single monster in the Dvergar Stronghold has been killed in the last month, and exactly one attempt at Shifting Sands has been made in the same time. It's very hard for me to justify 100+ hours to develop a new area when they aren't getting used at all.

As a comparison, something like the Wolf Lord (which I do not kill at all) has been killed almost 100 times in the last month.

Maybe someone can explain why you all seem to want things but never use the ones that are there.

[Isolated]

I'm very surprised by the desire for more high level areas, since the last ones built seem to get no use at all.

Not a single monster in the Dvergar Stronghold has been killed in the last month, and exactly one attempt at Shifting Sands has been made in the same time. It's very hard for me to justify 100+ hours to develop a new area when they aren't getting used at all.

As a comparison, something like the Wolf Lord (which I do not kill at all) has been killed almost 100 times in the last month.

Maybe someone can explain why you all seem to want things but never use the ones that are there.

1: Wolf lord is alot more accessible
2: you need at least 40 crits - 2 users to do stronghold/sands
3: rewind to a cuople months back when those 2 were implemented how popular were they?

[shomer]

nice high level training area would be nice, so you wouldn't need 3-4 monsters on a square in desert just to give every crit a chance to hit. tirantek is nice for that if you just kill templars/priestesses..but there's nothing like that over in nm

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

Most people that play main, do it casualy as angelus stated. For those of us that don't. There are not many people that use the required class to use the boss drop of strong hold. Nore the market to sell them for the most part i don't believe. If you build challenging areas geared more twards the current player base it would be aces.

[Trevayne]

1) Even when they first came out, both the Stronghold and Shifting Sands were hardly ever used by players. Their respective bosses have been killed very rarely compared to other bosses that have the same spawn rate.

2) Stronghold is also an area that can be used very effectively as a high-level training area. It has experience that is on par or better than the best Drow areas in Tirantek, fewer traps than Tirantek, similar HP on monsters as the more powerful Drow, is accessible from NM, and doesn't require rare keys to enter... yet it's not used as such. If you want training areas for high levels, why are you not using this?

3) For casual players, I'd think that more stand-alone bosses would be best as they require little committment. Yet, nobody is voting for this... anyone want to comment why?

[Sleeping]

I'm very surprised by the desire for more high level areas, since the last ones built seem to get no use at all.

Not a single monster in the Dvergar Stronghold has been killed in the last month, and exactly one attempt at Shifting Sands has been made in the same time. It's very hard for me to justify 100+ hours to develop a new area when they aren't getting used at all.

As a comparison, something like the Wolf Lord (which I do not kill at all) has been killed almost 100 times in the last month.

Maybe someone can explain why you all seem to want things but never use the ones that are there.

I think the desire is for good high level areas which suits peoples playing style. Personally I consider neither Shifting Sands, nor Dvergar Stronghold as truly successful ones at this.

To make my point, let’s compare the Pacifist Area and Tirantek:
Both are certainly high level areas (requires a skilled player and plenty of time to complete). Also both have a valuable drop at the end. Economic-wise, you can make nearly the same amount of gold (if not more) by playing Pacifist Area as much as you make in Tirantek but the latter is increasable popular, while the former is abandoned. Why? It’s obvious that the reason is the vastly differ playing style associated with two areas.
Like it or not, but 95% of current nightmist players prefer running massive parties (actual alt number varies) over playing a single alt, and would rather go to an area which suits their playing style well, over an area which offers some better rewards.

Now that is exactly the problem with Shifting Sands and Dvergar Stronghold. Rather an adapting to players needs, they try to force their own playing style upon the players. Lack of interest in these areas, despite the good drops clearly demonstrates that this approach failed.

So to answer your question – players want more high level areas they would enjoy playing, rather then unsuccessful ones.

If need be, I can go more into more details as to why I consider Shifting Sands and Dvergar Stronghold so different from the rest of the game and why I dislike them personally.

[shomer]

2) Stronghold is also an area that can be used very effectively as a high-level training area. It has experience that is on par or better than the best Drow areas in Tirantek, fewer traps than Tirantek, similar HP on monsters as the more powerful Drow, is accessible from NM, and doesn't require rare keys to enter... yet it's not used as such. If you want training areas for high levels, why are you not using this?

ah i didn't think of that, my apologies

[Trevayne]

I think the desire is for good high level areas which suits peoples playing style....

Now that is exactly the problem with Shifting Sands and Dvergar Stronghold. Rather an adapting to players needs, they try to force their own playing style upon the players. Lack of interest in these areas, despite the good drops clearly demonstrates that this approach failed.

So to answer your question – players want more high level areas they would enjoy playing, rather then unsuccessful ones.

When both of these areas were created, the #1 request that players made was for cooperative level 31+ areas. That's what we built, and they aren't really being used. Players on this very thread are still asking for more high-level cooperative areas, which is why I bring up these examples.

I'm also confused by why you think that these two areas force a particular playing style more so than any other area of the game. They dictate a playing style no more than Tirantek did when there was a level 30 cap, nor are they class-restricted like the Pacifist or Paladin areas.

Finally, nowhere here do you actually say what you do want, you just poke holes in existing things... that's both counter-productive to your own interests and not at all helpful to me.

[Ember]

Speaking for myself i think that these areas that are being spoke of the Stronghold and Shifting Sands, will be more used with more people leaving the 1alt server and coming over to multi server, b/c i know myself, in the near future once i develop a stronger party i will be gathering a couple friends to do these areas, but as for creating new areas for higher lvl's. Maybe possibly tone the difficulty down a tad, without compromising the challenge of the area, if even possible.

[ice_cold]

i like 1 alt, because it doesnt require me to use 20 alts, as the main server is going towards. when someone can kill bosses by themselves, what makes them take other people? on 1 alt, there's a lot more cooperation. if i was to go back to main, i would use no more then 4 alts, thats the most ive ever used and will ever use when it comes to nightmist.

i voted for low areas. ive always loved SDG and i believe i was one of the VERY few that used the gnoll fortress between 2003 and 2004. the swamps were very nice also. The dying woodland *is that what its called?* northwest of nightmist is fairly nice as well. it would be nice to see a something come of the desecrated church, maybe a lower lvl for characters lvl 15 and under, its never used.

i really just dont like putting all kinds of time into a crit to get it to lvl 30, but i like playing nightmist, if there were more low level areas where i could feel i was accomplishing something, i would probably play multi again. there's a lot of areas built for higher lvl crits because more people use them, but i dont think it should be limited to that. The last lvl restricted areas i know of was the sewer drainoff which requires a lot of teamwork for a weapon which is was useful for 1 lvl, and the entangled growth *i think thats what its called* east of the enchanted forest, this area offered nothing for players until alchemy once they lowered the gold in the area.

Edit: i'd also like to see more alchemy currently there isn't much reason to run around getting all these alchemy items like wolf stomach when they take forever to get for something that's so cheap or for a potion that drops in the game. i understand there isnt a lot of working space for items and potions though.

Edited by ice_cold, 17 April 2009 - 05:34 AM.

[Dublin]

I voted for more high level areas.

To go along with the Tirantek vs Shifting Sands/Stronghold posting.. I believe the reason people enjoy Tirantek over Shifting Sands/Stronghold for various reasons.

For starters, Most of the current players who still play main daily do it because they enjoy being able to do things by themselves. They find the "load up and kill what I want" nature of the game funner. In Tirantek it is soloable by 20 ArchMasters, which is an easy task these days. Also, in Tirantek there is always something you could be doing.. Camping archmage for a Seal, translating journals to get to bodyguards for keys etc. In the Stronghold (from what I explored) its just a vast area with alot of kill to pass monsters and etc. There is really no objective except to fight your way to the boss. I know especially before the 3 day restore and the 50k back trip from Tirantek, some of the higher players had multiple partys just so they could keep 1 in Tirantek and have something to do and have another in nightmist to kill the easy stand alone bosses.

To me, I find that an area like Tirantek keeps you intrested longer because there is so much to do. Its not just a fight your way to the boss and log type thing. I think that more High level Solo areas that actually challenge the player in more ways then just mapping the area once and being able to easily go back everyday, would be the best thing for main.

[Trevayne]

Icecold, you've missed some recent additions. We put in a few low-level-restricted areas that have seen virtually no use for more than a year. (Try looking for the NM rooftops which Lokey designed.)

I don't think the Tirantek/Stronghold comparison is worth taking quite that far. When it was released, Tirantek increased the number of playable grids in game by 50% ... doing that at this point would involve creating more than 12,000 grid squares. (For comparison, the Stronghold is about 500 grid squares and Chronos is roughly 300 squares.) I appreciate the desire not to have a straight-through dungeon run, but given that only a handful of players ever bother looking at new content, you're not likely to get huge new projects built.

[Dublin]

I agree and see where you are coming from about why there is no reason to build an area as vast or complex as Tirantek. I was simply stating why I believe people still choose to use Tirantek over Stronghold. Not to mention I don't know how difficult the stronghold boss is but I know that everything in tirantek is 20 altable with just lvl 30's, not sure on wether or not the Stronghold boss is 20altable. However, I find areas with puzzles and such more enjoyable then those that are just one square after another.

[Bender]

More Events like CTF would be pwner. CTF is the best event that ever happened to Main... WE NEED MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Crane]

I don't think anyone will be able to out-do Tirantek, which stands at 3,500 squares in size if you include the Entangled Overgrowth and the Subterranean Waterways and the like... even I said that it would be my best area.

Regarding the Dvergar Stronghold, I don't think anyone will use it for pure training because it is simply so difficult and the XP gained isn't really worth it; the 'grunts' of the Dvergar, the Hammerlord and the Firetender, offer 80 and 90 XP respectively, and getting to them (never mind trying to get out again) is excessively difficult. Therefore, would you choose the Dvergar Stronghold or the Jahanna Desert, whose monsters offer similar XP for a fraction of the difficulty and a lot more gold? Any new area intended for, say, Grandmaster crits, needs to have XP possibly in excess of 100, and bosses that require multiple players to take down should potentially have even higher XP (the Witch that appeared in 1-alt and an old multi quest was 125, I believe), at least as a small reward for the effort of getting a team together.

[ice_cold]

Icecold, you've missed some recent additions. We put in a few low-level-restricted areas that have seen virtually no use for more than a year. (Try looking for the NM rooftops which Lokey designed.)

i dont consider roof tops an area. ive been there. all its use is for getting free advanced pots and thats about it, theres no challange to the area what so ever. and its comprised of what, 15 squares or something? maybe a couple more. SDG is small but theres people who still dont know certain hidden parts in there. same with dying woodland, theres an area in there that little people know of. im just throwing in my 2 cents like you wanted ^.^ i would like to see a low level area that offers more then just a drop. something that might be interesting to explore, colorful, somewhere i can chill for the next 5 years like i have in sdg lol.

[Shera]

Having such a high level, hard area, that has its main reward being a fighter only weapon, will not get used. Ever. Except for rappy.

If you had an area with the difficulty of dvengar, and put say, a SoE at the end, you would see ALOT more use of the area. Personally if there was a SoE at the end of stronghold, me and cody would kill it daily. But for a fighter weapon, im not even going to go there. Waste of time. Most used classes on main, are zerks and rangers. If you are creating area's for the game, direct boss drops towards them.

What would be wrong with adding an area of say, 800 squares, encompasing minibosses, and one hard boss? Minibosses offering low rate drops for some of the less used classes, Thieves,Pallys, Druids, and the main boss of the area dropping a ranger/zerk weapon. Or better than in game ranger armor.

If you create such a hard area, and make the end reward something that i, and most people, class as worthless, the area wont get used.

Change the end boss drop from dvengar to a renamed SoE or an elven long bow without the negative armor, and you will see increased use for the area.

[Trevayne]

I want to thank everyone for their responses, but I'm going to close this now as I think I've gotten what I needed.

I'll sum up this discussion (and some that happened off the forums):

1. Players are too lazy to explore. While there are one or two people in this discussion who do explore, the vast majority of players will only go places if someone else hands them a map and tells them all the riddles and drops. The posts of "if you make a drop like X, we would go there" only serve to convince me more of this. I'll say right now that there are unknown drops in game right now, some of which have even been described in this post, but none are being hunted. Area design is much less interesting to me when only one or two people will really look at them.

2. The relative experience of active players is lower than it was 18 months ago. The most active players 18 months ago ran with parties of level 33-36 characters (mostly). The most active players now run around with parties of level 28-31 characters (mostly) and have less experience using them. This makes many areas that were designed during the brief period after levels 30-40 were released but before the playerbase shifted more difficult than players currently can handle. Areas like the Stronghold and Shifting Sands can be done solo with these higher level parties, but only by a few of the current players.

3. Most people want things that only they will use. The two pacifist players in game want pacifist areas (which only they will use). The few players who explore want more puzzles and riddles (which only they will figure out). The players who sit on low-level parties want low-level areas (which only they will use). There is little overlap in player interests at this point, which also makes development difficult since virtually nobody will be happy with whatever is built.

4. I should stop listening to player requests for development. When I listen to requests, we get areas that the majority of current players request. (Demands for high-level coop areas lead to areas like Dvergar or Shifting Sands which now get little use). When I develop what I think is best and ignore player requests, we get events like CTF (that people yell for almost every day) or stand-alone bosses (which are killed constantly).