Just curious on thoughts of longterm

I typically don't, it's a terrible put-off. Unless it's with a small group of people where we basically plan on not really interacting with the rest of the community, and those are typically short lived adventures. I'm surprised anyone starts an MMO that's been running for a year or more and then stays there for a year or more. I'm sure it happens, but I wonder how frequently. Many of the 'end game' things in this game, like housing, which are typically something that is achievable in a game if you stick with it, are much less certain here. I also think there is a (legitimate or not) difference in perception between 'a game that has been running for a year' and 'a beta that didn't wipe the progress of testers'. There are some substantial PR roadblocks the devs face in marketing this to a new audience; I hope they successfully navigate them.

 

I don't think you will have to stress over it I don't see a polished balanced game ever coming out that more than 10 people can be on the screen at one time and still be playable. The more lifelike you try to make it the more it hurts the performance. For the added features as of current I don't think adding pigs, chickens, and chicken coops to the hunting area that I'm currently at was very productive for finishing a broke game.
You can't call a game a MMO that can only be played in single player or with a few select friends.
Start your FLAMES.
Please don't say it's not optimized yet unless your a programmer then you would know their not a ton of that you can do.

 

Hah! They won't even spring for servers to download patches; you get yours through p2p networking from the goodness of others who let you use their upload bandwidth. What makes you think they're going to spring for a brand new shard?

 

There are a zillion issues to be made on this topic, but for right now I just wanted to address one...you have to remember they aren't doing ANY advertising. Imagine when they start buying ad banners and stuff like that, that's gonna pull in a lot of people. Maybe not enough people to matter? Maybe not a lot of people long-term? But it will bring ppl in.

 

I recently started an alternate character from the ground up and it was fun. I don't really believe that the pre existing wealthy players are going to have a negative impact.

As for lots, I disagree. As much as I hate to admit I was wrong before, the best lots are in POTs where the people are.

 

I was at a gathering with Lord British the other day (for the telethon), there were a LOT of people on the screen and the frame rate was still playable. Probably not raid-level playable, but then you don't need 50 people for that kinda thing (never will be in this game, anyway).

I'm not a "programmer" for a living but I made my living as a UNIX systems administrator, I can tell you for sure that turning off debugging symbols in the executable alone will provide a lot of speed increase. There's a lot they can do yet.

 

They have this wonderful thing called a skill training bonus from playing with very high level and grand master players. If you are sociable you can find more then enough groups of people willing to help new players advance through the game faster. So while the players that grind by themselves have to grind like the first players on the server, new players can do it faster. There is no reason a new player can't get as high as any of the longer players it will just take time. There are tons of empty POT and lots all over and just like UO there will be a robust market to buy and sell them. So a player can achieve whatever goal they might have if they work on it. I have been playing for just under a month and I have surpassed many players that have been on since the server wipe. While skills are all open there is still an end cap of 120 so even if someone maxed them all a new person could spend the same amount of time or less in some cases and catch up.

 

Another thought: It is the holiday season for a great many people in the world. You can purchase the gift of this game for $40 and gift it to someone which would also increase the players now. I just gave the game to my mom for xmas. It's really easy to give the game to someone. All you need is an email to send it to them.

 

New players will be attracted because Shroud is a new "old" experience. MMO development was stagnant and dying. You either had WoW or a cheap copy of WoW to choose. Few MMOs since SWG have tried a new experience and few have been successful. Games like EVE Online are a successful niche MMO.

Keeping new players will be dependent upon the community mostly. Forming bonds and helping new players is crucial.

I've been playing MMOs since UO. Never before have I seen a community as helpful as the Shroud of the Avatar community. We mostly lack elitism in this game. We build and create like no other MMO community. Most community leaders actually look out for the community rather than their own interests.

Costs are relatively low, with no licensing fees or shareholders demanding annual dividends.

Shroud will be a slow burner but consistently growing.

 

Sorry, couldn't help it.
I am with @Budner in this topic.
The distance should be a motivation. And there are still a lot of players out there for whom this distance actually IS a motivation.
Motivated ppl can turn a game upside down.
Just look at the Goonies in EvE who pretty much tore BoB appart. As a bunch of underskilled newcomers.

 

Andartianna hit the nail on the head here. New players will most likely be joining in the game to join their friends who have already been playing. If their friends have GM'd any skills, the new players can party with them and train those same skills and will be able to level them much faster than people who have been grinding since the first persistant release. This is thanks to the bonus you get from training with a GM in the particular skill. So the advantage when you consider the time actually going into raising skills actually goes to the new player. If the new player does not have friends in the game, it is just a matter of joining a guild or speaking to other players in order to make friends.

When it comes to knowledge of the game, sure the elders are going to have an advantage there, so again it would be wise for the new player to utilize the great resource of other players when learning the ropes. New players should not be scared to join. While they will be weak at first as you would be in any game new to you, they can catch up quite easily.

 

While this is a fair point, it would be more of a fair point if balancing in this game hadn't been in the direction of easier to harder. Because of this, for some skills it will take many multiples of time spent to gain the same advancement as those who GM'd skills in the first month of persistence. At this point, the best hope of fixing this is that new players will simply be ignorant of what happened pre-release. And many likely will be. They have a good PR opportunity with planning Epi 2 in that they can sort of establish what minimum advancement will be necessary to play that installment and then tell everyone, 'come level up in Epi 1 in preparation for Epi 2', to psychologically negate the advancement gap that exists in Epi 1.