When adventuring was fun and there was progression

I'm actually having a good time doing the dailies now that there's a decent amount of XP involved... at least until 2x XP goes away and they adjust the quest XP back down. And yes, I could get a lot more spending that time in a group at a control point but that's really not very fun.

 

I agree they are finally worth completing. Now if we could get some new quests and stories. I've pretty much stopped playing since I made it through the main story quest and most of all of the side quests. The daily quest are finally worth doing, but they are starting to get boring.

 

Elgarion is working on some new Dailies, Sannio just added a new quest in the game (it should have made it with this release if I am not mistaken), basically, they are both working on adding more. If anything, they should leave the 10x to make all these possible new quests interesting!

As for the difficulty of the content, it is ALWAYS like this, when something is new(ish), everything seems difficult and challenging, and then at some point, you become better, and everything is way easier, and then, you have a gap between the players with knowledge and those who don't, and in this game, the gap is HUGE and impactful. These recent changes make the challenge a bit more fun and shorter for new players, while they make the grind a lot less heavy for older players, being able to get 5-8m exp per hour instead of being locked at 1 means that for people who are working on skills at the 140-150 range feel like the grind is a bit more worth, because spending 1000 hours to get from 100-140 on some skills is insane, and older players feel like tthat is not worth it anymore with low rates, at least the higher rates give these older players the idea that they wont be spending 1000 hours just for one skill...

 

Conflict IS the name of the game. There's a lot out there to explore for everyone. However, ongoing creation of static re-playable content comes at a huge cost. Taking advantage of what's already in the world (scenes, lore, etc.) can provide infinite amounts of content and with it, engagement. The challenge of different gaming styles cannot be met adequately by continuing to build the world as if everyone cares about the story or beautiful scenes. Those that do have lots to go through. Those that are done with that or prefer a more immediate, fresh experience need a different kind of experience.

Choosing "staff" with limited create powers allows for the opportunity for spontaneous or planned adventures or scenarios. Staffing across time zones provides the entire player base the opportunity to log in and have something new/unplanned/unexpected happening.

It could be considered risky, sure. Chris would need to be able to trust x number of individuals with create power to enable insta-spwawns and reward distribution. To me though, that seems like it would be a manageable risk, and one that provides zero cost content.

Shifting the mindset from what the game was supposed to be, to what it could (or needs) to be to continue to be viable is a lot more attainable than creating new zones or modifying the curves of XP and loot drops.

We players are often fickle. But with good reason. We come here to be entertained. Some of us pay for it. I'm not saying we should stop building and enhancing the world, but rather to take advantage of what we have in a different way. I'm sure many of us have experienced this type of thing. I ran a very successful UO shard for several years with a combination of static world quests/adventures AND real time, (and scheduled) events and adventures led by staff. I think something similar would be fabulous here. If anyone on staff would like to explore thinking through the logistics/planning of something like this, I'd be happy to help. Just PM me.

Fenris

 

Greetings @GMDavros
Portnip (thanks @macnlos ) is already doing some of that with giving GM power to players to run their own events and other player created content. And more is coming as they relax more GM powers. Player created quest and stories like the Black Sails Chronicles are just an example. As for giving players the ability to create scenes I am actually against this for now. Portnip has a very small Dev team that seems to stay very busy squashing bugs and creating new keeping the 2020 Vision alive. They would have to push some of that back to make sure player created stuff is done right. And think about what has been done recently with the EXP exploit and how much time that took to resolve and is still ongoing.

For now use the tools already given with more to come to create player content, keep making the player created quest and stories. And if nothing else a player made dungeon with adventure areas, mazes, and a Public Cache Chest is an easy thing to create.

 

Thanks for the response B.

I'm not advocating widespread player ability, but more of things like Black Sails. Expanding that capability for "extended staff". Operationalizing it. This helps maintain control while providing low cost content. I'd think a formalization of this as well as some structured planning and energy from Portnip would be the way to have it adopted as part of the roadmap planning. Treating it like a one off, side gig would de-legitimize it, while providing support and thought to it would help it flourish.

Fenris

 

Greetings
Totally agree. We need more player content! It just can not open exploits or take dev time away from their current work. Oh one more things to add to wish list....
Now that Inky is working how about adding actions like so that a choice in the dialog will trigger an action. Like the Vendors and Skill trainers conversation about advanced deck capabilities and then the option to train skills.

Ex
Vendor - Welcome to " XX Sales" how can I help you?
1. Tell me about the quest for the gold
2. Rumors
3. Buy/Sell - triggers vendor list

 

It got too easy for you and too hard for me. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time. I sympathize with the developers who are trying to reconcile two opposite points of view. It's not a job that I would want!

 

That's kinda my point Kara. The cost of continuing to develop content that covers all bases is just too prohibitive. By enabling a group of people to generate scalable, on the spot content using existing assets Portnip can satisfy the need for constant inflow of new things to engage players. It also allows them to focus on developing fewer things better.

Also, @Warrior B'Patrick I just noticed the Tull quote in your signature. Bravo sir.

Fenris

 

I was just discussing this with a former seer and troubador from the early UO days (two discussions, with one of each). Their feedback is that it was a major pain getting events approved and made an already difficult thing (planning interesting events) more difficult. I love the sentiment behind these suggestions, but i hope we can make it more like planning a D&D session or campaign. Your local DM does not need to ask TSR/Wizards for permission to plan and run a tabletop session. I think the direction the team is taking so far is a good start. I'm all for building on that! The amazing housing systems, PoTs, and the ability to spawn creatures gets us quite far. NWN and SWG both have systems to review for things that might work for us here too.

Unless you are advocating carving out time for creative staff to run events too? That is brilliant and would serve multiple goals. The fun of the events themselves, allowing team members time to play in their own creations, and potentially testing systems that might eventually be rolled out to players. The problem today of course is there is so much work to be done maintaining things that these folk are already worked to the nub.

Perhaps we add an NPC role? That is, a player could log in and play as an NPC, but NOT benefit from potential exploits as their player character when they run events like this? I think we need another thread to discuss.

TLDR; I very much DO advocate widespread player ability to create events too.

 

Precisely. The staff on my Sphere shard was broken down by levels. The lowest levels could respond to player requests in real time and had very limited access beyond checking on account info etc. The next level (after being trained and monitored for a period of time) were able to run ad hoc events. (in fact the graduation to this level from tier 1 was the creation and running of a personally designed event). This staff level had limited creation ability, but could request specific items be made to support a story line or adventure. Typically, this level would become an NPC (either protagonist or antagonist) and recruit other staffers to participate as needed.

Other events we ran included raids on pre-arranged area, paintball, capture the flag, and just plain old, try to kill GM Davros. . The bottom line was that it was this creative level staff that LOVED story telling and were given the chance to do it. The Dev team focused on larger scale builds and supported them with quick hit items (e.g. paintball bows that teleported you to a holding area for 30 seconds if hit)

The advantage this gave the shard was that aside from a series of repeatable individual quests/adventures we had scheduled and ad hoc content that was always new. The player base loved it.

Just my thoughts on some past successes.

Fenris

 

I remember those days in UO. They were awesome times. I love those idea yet recently I can't keep from crashing after zoning. I don't think we'll ever get close to what you are proposing in this game.

 

I like to be challenged, and dont like trammelite experiences, though, I prefer new player growth and an expanding community to a more difficult new player experience.