People will come when it’s free.. in droves. Whether they stay or not is another question. Kilrain, can we get a free week soon to test the theory?
You need a game that you can jump in and play. Darkfall isn't that unless you're experienced. The amount of bindings alone...
Not sure if this has been mentioned ever but how about new armor? Make a new ore "gold ore" put in in 2 major city's and that's it. Don't care if its the infernal skins, color it gold. New grind. Sieges will be popular again etc. Is this hard to implement? My 2 cents.
There have been many free trial periods, and it does bring in new people and more players. The challenge is of course keeping those players and there are many factors at play that can complicate that. @Animal Unless combat is simplified, rather drastically, I do not believe a Battle Royale style game would be popular in Rise of Agon. Very, very few people would put the time needed to "learn the ropes", especially when they get wrecked by a 10-year veteran, when they can hop on PUBG, Fortnite, or Realm Royale with literally no experience and are able to not only understand the combat mechanics, but have a chance to actually win. I really think many of you overlook how complicated this game's combat system is.....
I'd argue that they're synonymous in the context of combat design. The complexity of Darkfall is the bindings. The depth is the game knowledge required to play at a particular level(weapon swaps, statting, positioning, spell selection, etc). If you remove the number of binds... then you've essentially ruined the depth. Idk. I may be of a different ilk than the normal gamer. Plus, we're all forgetting that BR are complete mayhem and you almost always get caught by a third party after a win. Obviously... this is all conjecture and food for thought because we're already on an existing path with the game development. I like to imagine the best ways to bring in money for the game.
??? Let me get this straight: - You removed portal chambers for a year and left all these players with nothing. - After that was evidently an issue, instead of SIMPLY RE-ENABLING PORTAL CHAMBERS, You spent dev time creating runebooks so players DON'T HAVE TO REMARK THEIR RUNES AFTER USAGE instead of reverting drop rates and making mob loot drop more runes. - And even when you completed the rune books, it still didn't help population which is CLEARLY depicated currently. The fact that you think: "The value of holdings being tied directly to portal chamber is poor and unacceptable." goes to show the lack of understanding. It wasn't just about having portal chamber access, it was about having access to YOUR HOLDINGS, that were near VALUABLE MOB SPAWNS. "I know, as do many, many others that this caused more people to quit playing than it kept people playing." WHAT? WHO? THE SAME PEOPLE THAT STILL AREN'T PLAYING? "The only people who don't see that are the ones that kept taking cities for the simple use of a port. It's a classic "I don't have a problem, so there isn't a problem" situation." So you're saying players sieging holdings is a bad thing? Why didn't those players use the runes that dropped off mobs to get around? Why, instead of scrapping the system, didn't you expand on it? or add a wilderness system in-conjunction? or add a deterrent such as an upkeep, or a requirement to have X amount of holdings? Why is a system that makes holdings, literally worthless to have, a better solution? You do realize that sieges were the only large-scale clan activity in the game right? You realize it was a fundamental aspect of the game right? You realize this is why the game is so dead right? False.
When did you start playing Darkfall? "I know, as do many, many others, that this caused more people to quit playing than it kept people playing" Why is this anecdote cast as a fact in BPG land? I played since 2 weeks after launch in 2009. The first year of Darkfall was an absolute fucking blast. Have you ever seen the saved maps from back then, with huge alliances scattered all over the map, huge wars, the insane pvp videos? Of course a ton of people quit 2009, and also a lot of people lost their holdings during that same time period. But I am sure you have heard that obnoxious saying, "Correlation does not equal Causation" before, but sadly I don't think you guys have really considered that. The biggest reason people quit in 2009 was how unfair it was, with people glitching, duping, macro'ing like crazy, and then destroying other people with their cheated to hell characters. I even remember when an entire clan quit when their holding got captured. Except they didn't quit *because* their holding got captured, they quit because they shouldn't have lost their holding, except the game was bugged and didn't end the siege when it was supposed to. Losing a holding wasn't the issue, the bullshit was the issue. Obviously you don't want to screw with the game's combat at this point. But I feel like I am taking crazy pills here, why isn't a temporary/seasonal server with varying rulesets not on the table? Why not try a month long server where everything except melee/archey/heals/utility spells is disabled? You guys are so adamant about changing things and not staying the game, but only if its certain things that you think can change and hell will freeze over before you try something else.
I followed from the first announcement and I played from the beginning. I'm fully aware of how things went down. The reason portal chambers were removed was due to the fact that clans quit when they lost a holding only to have it be another empty city only used as a port location for the bigger clan/alliance. This has been mentioned since the day we made the decision. The only regret we have in making that decision is not having something else in place before hand, but considering that we had to launch and didn't have time to do everything we wanted first there wasn't much choice.
The last line is the saddest part. They do not realize that is why the game is dead. Lack of holding value drove clan after clan out. Lets change combat.
*Citation needed. Do/Did you have access to Darkfalls database at the time to prove this? Or, is it just an anecdote that has been confirmed as fact in BPG land. Also, how many people stayed and kept playing for the sieges? Sieges, even as badly as they were implemented in DF1, were incredible amounts of fun that lots of people loved.
^ I also find it funny that they think TCS would be any different. Small clan in the way of a big clans territory expansion? Get fucked.
There's too many damn holdings for how few people there are. Maybe disable some so there's only like 2 cities per sub-continent and 10 on the mainland. Then make each one awesome and desirable. If the end goal is to allow freeform cities to form placed by players then this is an ideal stopgap. Keep all the hamlets but change how they siege. A siege on a hamlet goes live 6 hours after drop with the old shard carrier mechanic. You need to successfully siege and own all hamlets neighbouring a city so that the city becomes vulnerable to siege. Add the new 'Resource Control Points' in crucial halfway points between cities. Add the Clan Platinum shit to encourage clan play and raiding. Boom - halfway to a working territory control system.
3 or 4 classes won't provide the combinations of 100+ champions(or whatever you want to call them). The skill cap is probably because of the depth of knowledge required to play at a particular level - similar to remembering key binds and spell rotations that work well in certain situations. /shrug That's my best guess. (Most of the skill in any MOBA is positioning and understanding the potential of your opponent based on what they have available to them - spell timers, range, etc.) It's almost all rooted in knowledge and experience. If you remove the complexity(possible choices of champions to play), then you're left with a watered down version of a MOBA that doesn't present much room for competition. Depth == Complexity - from my perspective, at least.
Me personally, I would rather fight the opponent rather than my keyboard. If I wanted to fight my keyboard then I would go play Starcraft.
