View Full Version : Reviving Titan
I See Blue
17-12-14, 13:52
So here is the problem the confronts us: Titan is almost completely lifeless. There are a few people PvEing, there is next to no PvP, there is little or no trade to be had and player numbers very rarely go up into the 30s. And who knows how many of those are dual logging.
In my view, every day the situation stays like this, we risk losing fellow players. Players that might not "come back for the patch". Players that are very valuable is such a small community of players. I am getting quite disillusioned myself with the state of the game, there seems to me to be very little reason to log on at all anymore.
So how can this trend be turned? What is the NST doing to improve the player count? Are they doing anything at all?
I see a few people coming back to the game and a few new people trying the game out, but are they going to stay in an empty game? It is very hard to get ress/const except in a very short period of time in the evening. It is very hard to find anyone trading rares. It is hard to get help, hard to find a team for whatever you are doing, everything is difficult because Neocron is built up around players supporting each other. And when this few people are playing, the whole system starts to collapse.
There are so many people who like this game, and want to see it do better than it does. Neocron has so much potential for fun, but as it is, it is very rarely even close to reaching that potential lvl of fun.
How about some more openness from the NST?
Where do we stand in the process of balancing?
What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?
What kind of time frame are we talking about?
How patient do you expect people to be?
Communication is pretty key for old players, and especially for new players. Is it possible to get perhaps a weekly update? Maybe even get a few questions from the Germans, and English pages to respond to each week?
William Antrim
17-12-14, 16:10
Fuck. I didnt know it was that bad. I feel for you guys.
Well if you log on, it won't be "as bad"...
William Antrim
17-12-14, 18:00
No offence here but nothing in that first post makes me want to but thanks for suggesting it.
The communication is the biggest thing at the moment. People still hop into our TS and ask about when the patch is going to be released, and all we can say is "I don't know" because we are in the dark regarding releases. Iron Man is right, there is very little incentive to log in anymore, even our die hard players have left.
I think they should just patch it now and adjust on the fly, at least this way we would be playing nc. There's enough new and interesting changes on the test server to bring people back if they released it to retail, especially now when people will be have free time to play over the holidays.
I just really want to play NC again, I miss the op fights and I miss wanting to log in.
No offense taken. On a separate matter, all these negative posts, and back and forth slights between players, and gms/developers... make it less exciting to be back, lol.
This is a bad time to be playing Neocron...
I said i would see this game to its grave...looks like that will be sooner rather than later =(
Roc-a-fella
17-12-14, 20:00
I think the big question right now IS .... What it has almost always been during low pop times in this game. When they DO patch, are they going to wipe the servers? If all the sudden a ton of people are playing the game.. (By a ton i mean like 100 ;) ) are they going to wipe the server to make an "even playing field for people"
Because if so then that just means it even more irrelevant for most of us to be playing right now. I said it in-game the other day i would like to see certain "end game" mobs "balanced" for the sole fact that only 5 people play. How am i supposed to farm the end game things when i can't get a team? Also the reason im leveling a monk because i will have to lom him to PPU to at least attempt to get myself items.
^The above although would be nice i feel would also give them more reason to do a server wipe if and when people came back because the few people playing, you could say, have had an "advantage"........ but in all actuality, don't get me started on people that have had advantages right when Titan was rolled..
William Antrim
17-12-14, 20:25
No to a server wipe. Nobody had any advantage over anyone else. If you werent here you must have been doing something else with your life, thats just the way it goes. If anything it would be easier to ask one of the people who has hoards of rares to give you some spells/parts/guns etc if theyre not playing, rather than asking for the game to be wiped just because you were elsewhere.
Wiping the database for a 2nd time would be the complete death knell for nc. You might as well turn the server off for all the good that would do.
I completely believe the first server wipe was a waste of time and probably killed the game...
Roc-a-fella
17-12-14, 20:52
No to a server wipe. Nobody had any advantage over anyone else. If you werent here you must have been doing something else with your life, thats just the way it goes. If anything it would be easier to ask one of the people who has hoards of rares to give you some spells/parts/guns etc if theyre not playing, rather than asking for the game to be wiped just because you were elsewhere.
Wiping the database for a 2nd time would be the complete death knell for nc. You might as well turn the server off for all the good that would do.
O.K. well i said i didn't want to go in to it but now you made me. After they rerolled titan a number of bugs weren't fixed for a MONTH. FURNITURE DUPING was one of them, Droning WoC, Infinite Ammo Drones, Droning Secret BD HQ etc etc the list goes pretty far. They rerolled the server WITHOUT FIXING THE REASONS FOR REROLLING IT. So people that played for the first two weeks and took advantage of these things... yeah, i would say they have a reasonable advantage over everyone.
I knew it would kill the server so i capped like 5 or 6 spies droning to have my own tradeskillers, yeah, in two weeks, playing CASUALLY.
I See Blue
17-12-14, 21:01
Honestly, if they wipe it, Iīm gone. Why would they punish the people who have actually played the game? That would easily be the dumbest move they could make.
Roc-a-fella
17-12-14, 21:05
I'm sorry, i really shouldn't have brought it up i hope just the idea of a wipe doesn't drive the last few people away lol. I'm 87.564% repeating sure they won't wipe the server, as i've seen GM's quoted saying "Titan is here to stay" I was just speculating at the "What If's"
Your odds will be very good. Titan is a new server that intends to stay.
Terra was closed down about 2 years ago. However we still have backups of your old characters - so they are not lost forever.
So roll a new character and enjoy Neocron again. :)
Wipe for sure! I don't have 8 accounts... Lol
Roc-a-fella
17-12-14, 22:16
Wipe for sure! I don't have 8 accounts... Lol
You can create as many accounts as you want, and although you may not be able to "exploit" yourself to cap level anymore, i swear it is EASIER than ever to level. Since i came back i've played like four hours and had to make like 4 new spells for my APU. It's like she's almost leveling TOO fast. The real test will be when i cap seeing how long till i can WOC though
How about some more openness from the NST?
More openness? Nope, you don't get my mobile phone number ;p - TBH I want to spent my time to actively develop things for neocron, test them on the testserver and interact with the ppl there. I don't wanna write fables here on the forums.
Where do we stand in the process of balancing?
It's fully reset to nearly 0 at moment. Alduin is taking a break from the whole process to get thing sorted in real life which are very important. I did some new changes on vedeena apart from the original balancing plans. These changes are not final yet and I am just focussed to the rare weapons at moment.
What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?
No plans yet - we have to work on the fundamental problems for the existing players at first
What kind of time frame are we talking about?
Not estaminable
How patient do you expect people to be?
It's Neocron we're talking about ;)
The focus is to keeping existing players but this project has to be done by 2 ... we as the NST and YOU as the community.
We - the NST are in the know about the current state. We are currently working ours asses off to get new stuff ingame but It's very hard to get such things working with the old toolset and engine. You can't solve or fix problems in just 1-2 clicks. We made a huge progress by developing tools for editing content - the best example are the "on the fly changes" on vedeena but developing such tools will take some time too and I am the only developer at moment with a very limited resource: TIME.
...But why community?
Neocron was never that big and pvp becomes very emotional in this game - 2 very dangerous components if they are getting combined. Insultings, insinuations and rabble-rousings are very big problems in Neocron which results in deterring old and new players and NST staff members aswell. In my case I can't start a normal discussion ingame without getting flamed for .... whatever - this is very demotivating for me, for the team and players too. So you can simply turn your question from "How patient do you expect people to be?" into "How pantient do you expect the NST to be?" aswell.
Roc-a-fella
17-12-14, 22:31
snip
You guys still need people to test things on test server? I also saw in some notes you needed someone to test a lot of hacknet, i could help with some testing as i have loads of free time for awhile
I See Blue
18-12-14, 02:06
How about some more openness from the NST?
More openness? Nope, you don't get my mobile phone number ;p - TBH I want to spent my time to actively develop things for neocron, test them on the testserver and interact with the ppl there. I don't wanna write fables here on the forums.
You are aware that people consider there to be next to 0 openness at the moment? We are completely in the dark when it comes to timeframes, how you expect Neocron to survive, how you expect to pull people to the game, how you expect to develop Neocron?
Where do we stand in the process of balancing?
It's fully reset to nearly 0 at moment. Alduin is taking a break from the whole process to get thing sorted in real life which are very important. I did some new changes on vedeena apart from the original balancing plans. These changes are not final yet and I am just focussed to the rare weapons at moment.
Titan is still unbalanced and empty. Whatever you have done on the testserver to balance things out, itīs Titan that counts, because thatīs were the majority of people are playing (even though we are approaching the point where there will be more people on the testserver than on Titan, if only because the numbers on Titan are approaching 0). I think it is overly optimistic to think the weapons part of balancing is done until you see it in action on Titan, and adjust it accordingly. And thatīs just part 1 of the project, thereīs still armor and implants left. Not to mention hacknet, vehicles and probably other stuff that I have forgotten.
On a side note, there needs to be more focus on stuff other than end game items and content. The beginner experience in Neocron is awful at the moment, and the few new players that try the game run around with little or no clue about what they are doing.
What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?
No plans yet - we have to work on the fundamental problems for the existing players at first
Existing players? There are virtually no players left. There is a (very) small number of players on the testserver regularly, testing with you. And Titan is just getting emptier and emptier. You will find yourself fixing up a game that noone plays pretty soon. Pick any graph you want on the techhaven stats page, they all tell you population is dropping, and that the number of players right now are extremely critical. And the population will continue to drop when the game is as empty as it is now.
What kind of time frame are we talking about?
Not estaminable
How patient do you expect people to be?
It's Neocron we're talking about ;)
Surprise, surprise. As usual you expect people to wait while being completely in the dark. So you have no idea of the timeframe for the next patch? No idea when you are going to try and pull players to the game? No idea for the timeframe when we can expect decent numbers on Titan? No idea when the balancing project is going to be finished? No idea when the game is going to be improved for new players?
It doesnīt look promising to me when the people running this donīt even know how long the process is going to take. Imagine how frustrating it is to be playing a game when you have no clue when or if it will be playable again? Patience is something you earn from people, and it is a limited currency. You canīt expect people to wait forever, even for something as unique as Neocron.
The focus is to keeping existing players but this project has to be done by 2 ... we as the NST and YOU as the community.
Like I said above, the number of existing players is approaching 0 fast. There hasnīt been an OP-fight for weeks, and next to nothing happens in game. Perhaps it is time to change the focus slightly... Because as it is right now, there is nearly no reason for keeping Titan up at all. The existing players are leaving, one by one, and nearly no one is coming in to replace them. Sure, sometimes an old player drops in and stays for a while, but the numbers will never get anywhere close to what they have been if you are just trying to maintain the existing playerbase. You need fresh blood in this game, and you need it quick.
And if the project has to be done by 2, why are we completely in the dark about the project, itīs goals, itīs timeframes? I certainly feel like I have zero impact on the project, as do many of the people in my clan. And these are people who have been on the testserver to test stuff out, and feel like their input is not appreciated at all. So in the projects current state, there is not really 2 parts working together.
I see tons of stuff suggested in the brainport, but very rarely any talk of implementing it. Or addressing the issues that the suggestions want to fix. So if we truly are partners in the project, open up to us and share.
We - the NST are in the know about the current state. We are currently working ours asses off to get new stuff ingame but It's very hard to get such things working with the old toolset and engine. You can't solve or fix problems in just 1-2 clicks. We made a huge progress by developing tools for editing content - the best example are the "on the fly changes" on vedeena but developing such tools will take some time too and I am the only developer at moment with a very limited resource: TIME.
I know, and I am grateful for your efforts. You have put in a lot of effort, no doubt. I am just worried that you will have very little left for all this this effort. If your time is so limited, are you considering trying to recruit people to help you with this project?
...But why community?
Because the community drives the game. Currently all channels in game are very, very quiet. There is virtually no trading, no teaming up, no nothing. Itīs just silent. So there is virtually no community in game right now. And I think that is something to be worried about.
Neocron was never that big and pvp becomes very emotional in this game - 2 very dangerous components if they are getting combined. Insultings, insinuations and rabble-rousings are very big problems in Neocron which results in deterring old and new players and NST staff members aswell. In my case I can't start a normal discussion ingame without getting flamed for .... whatever - this is very demotivating for me, for the team and players too. So you can simply turn your question from "How patient do you expect people to be?" into "How patient do you expect the NST to be?" aswell.
I appreciate that it can be hard for you when there is a certain amount of bullshit going on. However, this acting out is often from frustration with how things are at the moment. People get angry and sad because Neocron is important to them.
And there are rules in game that you guys are the enforcers of. You set the tone of what is and is not allowed.
I understand that it can be hard to be patient with all us shit talkers and negative people. But you made the commitment to improve and fix the game, so you have to be able to handle the players frustration if they see little or no improvement actually happening and when they see obvious flaws in the game that donīt seem to be fixed.
I am honestly on your side here, I donīt want all your hard work to be for nothing. But I am telling you there is a critical situation on Titan, that it is almost lifeless. If you want to continue working on the game, and improving it, wouldnīt it be more fun doing that for a game that people actually play?
I think a lot of the community vitriol can be reversed if the NST employed a community liaison that could speak authoritatively on behalf of the NST at any time. Zoltan clearly has priorities in development that can not be diminished by spending time being the voice.
I think a lot of the community disbelief can be reversed by adoption of an agile development cycle. Waiting months on end for a megapatch is hard. Low tide begins the minute rumors of the next patch are abound. The amount to fix and mod in this game is staggering, and I have to imagine even the most committed individuals are and have doubted their commitment to sparkle motion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SbgEYBG-Y8)
Everyone needs a break from the negativity. That is an unquestionable truth here. Our common goal is the same, we just have to come to terms with that and align all of the efforts in the community and NST that we can.
Michael Myers
18-12-14, 05:48
im worried for neocron, I have been back playing for a couple of days now and Iron Man is right, Titan is on life support with someone's finger over the power button.
I don't have anything to do in the game apart from solo PvE. That's down to the low population.
Its sometimes impossible to find a Poker, Constructor or Repairs if you don't have another account to duel log. New players don't stand much of a chance.
The server needs a shot in the arm to give it life.
I will stick around over the Xmas holidays but something needs to happen if you want players like myself to stay around.
Well I think the finger over the power button might be a strange thing to say. The only people currently that I think would have their finger on it... would be NST. So even if no one is on, they don't have to hit the power button. I often leave my computer on, even when I am at work, and no one is here to pew pew things.
Zoltan, now you didn't give answers people wanted, but what you did do.. was communicate with us... in what came across as a who cares way, but you did communicate with us. I thank you for that. As far as you getting flamed Zoltan, I don't fully understand it. I have seen you get slapped in the forums by a few players, but then you also seem just as harsh in response to many as well. It seems to be a screwy thing between many people here.
I wish that people could leave their baggage behind. Things never go as fast as we want. Clearly this balancing thing must have been going on for a while, with how hot peoples tempers are. It is late, and I think I am off to sleep soon, lol. Good luck peoples of Neocron. Remember for most of us this is a game. Most of us have real jobs, and we shouldn't be getting this furious over a game. Clearly the many players that have been around, and even the ever flamed Zoltan have a love of the game. Also bacon.
The balancing and Neocron Client/Server development was managed by Alduin and got slowed down to zero because of his real life troubles (I can tell you these are not that easy), this rl troubles ended up with the decision to leave the team. This happened ~1.5 month ago.
The latest changes you'll find are from my side - same as balancing which started by 0 again - I did some heavy changes inside the server communication and business logic which needs to get tested on vedeena before I can drop the patch over Titan. Please understand that I don't have the time to working trough nights again to get an eventually broken titan back working again.
To the "on the fly" weapon changes: Yes I could simply apply these to titan and correct them if they need some adjusting BUT the following scenario:
* Dissy is overpowered -> Zoltan is logging in to adjust it on the fly -> 10 mins later: Shitstorm on the forums "Zoltan is making Falk uber - Zoltan/Falk is destroying the game - Zoltan is al-quaida.... blah..."
Thats why I don't fix stuff on Titan on the fly anymore.
To the "commitment" thing:
Hard words this time:
Neocron ended in 2012. More or less forced by some individuals of the community who started an huge DDoS attack on the canadian servers which finally breaks them down. Party is over.
"Titan" was my idea to rescue Neocron from death with a more powerful server infrastructure and specially for Neocron developed proxy software which could resist DDoS attacks from outside - these DDoS attack are still running as you can see @ vedeena.
I had tons of nightshifts together with Alduin to harden the servers against attacks from outside.
I am not REAKKTOR or NUKKLEAR and I never signed a contract apart from the traditional NDA and the agreement to run Neocron, so I actually don't have a commitment to maintain, develop or running Neocron. Everything I do is in a context of a very very expensive hobby and as long you don't pay the team members or at least the servers you don't have to "demand" anything.
--
Sorry for these harsh words but I don't wanna justify my work over and over again here.
My vacation starts at the 23th but until this date I have to work on a very time consuming project (for the company I working for).
Thanks for the updates. Good to hear you get a vacation soon. Real life is stupid, lol!
..
Thank you for keeping Neocron alive!
William Antrim
18-12-14, 16:55
Sorry but all of these excuses about time and real life just wash over my head. You volunteered to take the project on so you have to be prepared for the backlash when you don't deliver what the people want. Whether you think that is unfair or undeserved or not. You can't come on here, a fan forum, wearing a copbot badge and getting the ego rubs if you don't deliver what people want and have asked for. Tonnes of people, myself included, have volunteered time and effort into this game and money too. We love the game, not you and at the moment you're wrecking the game we love. Why would we not flame you for that?
Sure the game wouldn't be here without you that's for sure but that is something you need to use as an advantage, not keep all this to yourself. You're captaining a drowning vessel and if you think coming on here making vague posts with the same old vitriol like the one above then plaza 1 will be a ghost town in 2015.
This thread is closed until I can bring you some more detailed information and prevent it spiralling from this point. I need some time to get back up to speed with the events of that last three months.
EDIT: And I need find my proper avatar. *blows dust off admin privs*
Not forgotten about this. Taking longer than expected to get caught up entirely. My getting my head around everything and answering this thread is the first step into improving the poor communication situation. Will have a proper update as soon as possible. Figured an honest update was better than no update now it's been 24 hours.
Sorry this has taken a couple of days. A lot of information to absorb and a lot of questions to ask, not to mention some other issues to solve in the meantime both internally and externally.
From Post #1 through in order…
…there seems to me to be very little reason to log on at all anymore.
This may seem like a stupid question but what do you consider a reason to logon? Is this solely for PvP or for other elements? It’s important to understand what players see as worthwhile.
So how can this trend be turned? What is the NST doing to improve the player count? Are they doing anything at all?
As always, development is continuing behind the scenes. As you should be aware a patch is being worked on (lots (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155899-R-191-T-192-193-194-195-Patch-Notes) of (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155914-R-192-T-199-Patchnotes) test (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155920-R-192-T-200-201-Patchnotes) patches (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155922-R-192-T-202-203-Patchnotes)) which is available for testing public test server Vedeena for your feedback.
As feedback has tapered off, that patch will be released to Titan this weekend. We’ll then manage any further changes in the next set of test patches.
There are so many people who like this game, and want to see it do better than it does. Neocron has so much potential for fun, but as it is, it is very rarely even close to reaching that potential lvl of fun.
Neocron's ridiculous amount of potential is the reason the people on the NST are here, just like you guys. While we strive to start chip away at reaching that potential - and to be very blunt - it takes ages. If we could please everyone over night we would.
The answer to reaching that potential is obvious: do more, do it faster. To do that we need people. Dedicated, hard working, self starting, skilled, eager, trustworthy, and motivated people. We needed them in 2012 when we took over and we need them now. We've always needed people to work their arses off with us and we still do.
I can count the applications/offers of assistance we've had in 2014 on one hand. That's less than the number of people who have had to leave the team in 2014. Some have left due to real world constraints, some have left due to health concerns and some (including me) have left due to stress. Working 40 hours a week on Neocron on top of your real life job can do that to you.
How about some more openness from the NST?
That's why I decided to come back. Hopefully the above and the rest of this post will show a sign of improving that. Previously I attempted (and failed) to split my time between too many things. My role today is simply to focus on improving communication with the community and internally within the team.
As Zoltan has already said in this thread, I would also rather he spent his time on development rather than writing essays like this. Rather than communication being ditched while he does that though, you guys get to put up with me writing fables here on the forums.
Where do we stand in the process of balancing?
This is the hardest part. It's almost an impossible challenge. It's sledge hammer versus toffee hammer. A lot of people would say Reakktor's sledge hammer of 2.2 did a lot of damage, some would say the same kind of approach would do even more. Others also say that we can't simply tweak a value here and a value there.
We've tried going the mathematical route, we've tried going down the "play it by ear" route. This kind of stuff needs a lot of thinking and a lot of testing. Testing is the hard bit, we straight up can't do that bit on our own.
We've tried a number of failed efforts to get the community involved in this before changes reach Titan. Some individuals contribute, others do not, others do not even see the point. To be honest I totally get that. Some people play Neocron to play a game while others (like the NST) are involved in Neocron because it's continued development and survival is a hobby in itself. The issue is, if we can't rely on the maths, we simply do not have the man power to test everything. Basically an approach of identifying problems and then seeing what happens seems to strike the best balance between progress and quality (i.e. not breaking shit) progress.
We reset the baseline for weapons mathematically, we're now in the process of changing some weapons on a play it by ear approach. The first set of those changes are in the next patch (the one you can test now and give us feedback on). It'll then be a case of seeing what gets used and what doesn't. We'll then continue to modify weapons on a case by case basis depending on what is over powered and what isn't.
What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?
Hopefully we can do more via social media to spread the word about Neocron's continued survival. We'll need help from the community to share this though to ensure it has the biggest outreach it can. If you see stuff going down via our social media channels, it would be great to see your interactions.
Word of mouth is Neocron's best route for advertisement. I personally hope that with a bit more communication flow between us and the existing community, those who stop by will have more incentive to stick around.
To keep new players we need to improve certain aspects of the game. For example we know that the new player experience is pretty crap by today's standards. It takes a lot of time and effort to change those things. If you have the skills, please let us know (http://neocron-game.com/jobs). If you have ideas, please let us know about those too (http://forum.neocron-game.com/forumdisplay.php?234-Brainport).
What kind of time frame are we talking about?
What are you asking for a time frame for? For the next patch, probably this weekend or pre-Christmas. For improvements in communication? Now and over the next few weeks things will hopefully be made a bit clearer for everyone. It will take a little while to bring things together.
How patient do you expect people to be?
We can't expect anything but we can ask for your continued patience which we appreciate. Obviously it is up to you whether or not you can give us that patience. We have to ask for your patience when it comes to Neocron reaching more of it's potential but we hope to be able to reward that with steady change. We have sucked at delivering that steady change though. What can we do to improve visible progress? Do we remove a layer of testing and after our internal tests for game breakers go straight to Titan? That's one possibility perhaps.
Communication is pretty key for old players, and especially for new players. Is it possible to get perhaps a weekly update? Maybe even get a few questions from the Germans, and English pages to respond to each week?
A short update once a week will be the aim. It will likely be a few sentences about the activities in each part of the team, so; assets, development, balance, content, events and storyline.
I'll see what I can do about getting specific questions answered. We might have to put that on a slightly slower schedule (maybe every 2 or 4 weeks) so we have time to get the questions to the right people and suitable answers put together.
I think they should just patch it now and adjust on the fly, at least this way we would be playing nc. There's enough new and interesting changes on the test server to bring people back if they released it to retail, especially now when people will be have free time to play over the holidays.
Changes on Vedeena will come to Titan pre-Christmas. Quite possibly this weekend. Quite possibly this evening, actually. I am of the personal opinion that frequent patches keep people interested. Striking a balance between not breaking stuff and releasing stuff quickly is a problem though.
I'm going to see what we can do internally to maybe improve this. It could mean that we remove a testing layer (Vedeena) for certain types of change for example. We won't perform soft patches on Titan though. That opens too many cans of worms.
When they DO patch, are they going to wipe the servers?
Why would we do that? We launched Titan due to the rot on the old servers caused by 5 years of exploitation and abuse. That and 10 years of data corruption, significantly less powerful hardware and poor network support. Wiping Titan makes absolutely no sense. No. We won't wipe Titan. We haven't after any patch we've (NST) launched, so I'm not sure why this even crossed your mind.
You guys still need people to test things on test server? I also saw in some notes you needed someone to test a lot of hacknet, i could help with some testing as i have loads of free time for awhile
We always post when we need help (http://forum.neocron-game.com/forumdisplay.php?232-Vedeena-Announcements-amp-Discussion) on the test server. If there's stuff on Vedeena that isn't on Titan, we need your feedback on it.
Part 2 in coming...
Part 2.
You are aware that people consider there to be next to 0 openness at the moment?
We're going to fix the openess. More information will be coming your way as soon as possible. I had to leave the team earlier in the year, I also did a lot of the communication among other things. Unfortunately no one was able to/had the time to take up that responsibility and as such communication has been neglected in the last three months. This will now be my focus.
We are completely in the dark when it comes to timeframes, how you expect Neocron to survive, how you expect to pull people to the game, how you expect to develop Neocron?Timeframes are difficult, especially when communication fails with what information we do have on them. Hopefully with a more open approach we can make this better in future however I cannot change that over night.
Titan is still unbalanced and empty. Whatever you have done on the testserver to balance things out, itīs Titan that counts, because thatīs were the majority of people are playing Patch enroute this evening. We will then address any glaring issues on a case by case basis once weapons are used in anger on the battlefield.
And thatīs just part 1 of the project, thereīs still armor and implants left. Not to mention hacknet, vehicles and probably other stuff that I have forgotten.
Absolutely correct. We have a discussion on going for implants right now (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155928-Your-input-on-Tier-3-implants-vs-Rare-and-MC5-implants). Please contribute as much as you can. This will be the next set of changes alongside on-going adjustments to weapons.
On a side note, there needs to be more focus on stuff other than end game items and content. The beginner experience in Neocron is awful at the moment, and the few new players that try the game run around with little or no clue about what they are doing.
We're definitely aware of this. The difficult part is making enough changes to end game to keep current/older players interested while also improving earlier parts of the experience so new players stick around. A revamp of the new player experience is something we've been trying to get off the ground for a long time (more or less since we took over). Sadly our resources don't stretch far enough to get that done quickly as well as fix pre-existing issues and address things like the soul light system, balance and end-game content.
I'll see what I can find out about the next focus area for our various teams in the first info update. I hope to release the first one over the holiday period.
So you have no idea of the timeframe for the next patch?
Pre-Christmas. Potentially this evening.
No idea when you are going to try and pull players to the game?
We're always trying to draw in more players, the development which is accomplished day in and day out is all part of that effort. Actually telling people about it and getting people engaged in that progress is the bit that totally sucks. I've already talked about that above though.
No idea for the timeframe when we can expect decent numbers on Titan?
Patches often see spikes in activity. I will certainly be unleashing updates in as many places as I can once the patch is released. The event team has another set of things planned to happen in the next few weeks. The Neocronicle is also active again to produce some ways of mixing up the day to day life of players in game.
No idea when the balancing project is going to be finished?
Balancing will forever be an unending iterative process. Changes to come weapons will happen in R#192. Changes to weapons will continue from patch to patch as and when we see how each set of changes perform. Implants will get changes after a little more discussion (http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155928-Your-input-on-Tier-3-implants-vs-Rare-and-MC5-implants). As with weapons, once the implant changes are launched we'll tweak those too as issues are identified.
No idea when the game is going to be improved for new players?
I'll quiz the content team on their thoughts on this. It wouldn't be fair for me to give any information on this without their input.
I see tons of stuff suggested in the brainport, but very rarely any talk of implementing it. Or addressing the issues that the suggestions want to fix. So if we truly are partners in the project, open up to us and share.
We have implemented a few things from the brainport but discussion on our part is definitely lacking. We can address that. Implementing can take time though, especially as we need to balance our priorities. I've explained more on that already in this thread though.
I am just worried that you will have very little left for all this this effort. If your time is so limited, are you considering trying to recruit people to help you with this project?
Our application process is always open, as I said earlier though we have only received 5 applications in the last 12 months. Once I've had time to quiz the team, I hope to be able to shout about what we actually need a bit more. Hopefully that will improve that process for both us and the community.
I think a lot of the community vitriol can be reversed if the NST employed a community liaison that could speak authoritatively on behalf of the NST at any time.
Done. Hello. Feedback welcome. :)
Zoltan clearly has priorities in development that can not be diminished by spending time being the voice.
This a million times over. As the man himself says, his time is better spent doing development rather than writing essays. That is now my job (again).
I think a lot of the community disbelief can be reversed by adoption of an agile development cycle. Waiting months on end for a megapatch is hard. Low tide begins the minute rumors of the next patch are abound.
We have tried to shift to a more agile method, this is often why patches are released in bits to Vedeena before being bundled together for Titan. I'll go digging and raise some discussions internally. Might be a few weeks before I can discuss this more though. Obviously the more patches the better. I don't know how well a tiny patch would go down though!
Everyone needs a break from the negativity. That is an unquestionable truth here. Our common goal is the same, we just have to come to terms with that and align all of the efforts in the community and NST that we can.
<3
The only people currently that I think would have their finger on it... would be NST.
Correct. Neocron is currently funded (with some donation assistance (http://neocron-game.com/announcements/want-to-help-now-you-can)) and 100% operated by the Neocron Support Team. Our use of the Neocron IP and it's source code is in agreement with Kirk Lenke.
Sorry but all of these excuses about time and real life just wash over my head. You volunteered to take the project on so you have to be prepared for the backlash when you don't deliver what the people want. Whether you think that is unfair or undeserved or not.
We're fully prepared to take criticism, it's bound to happen over the course of any project. However frustration and anger come a lot easier when it comes to voluntary work. What you might see as excuses about real life and time limitations is actually the only thing we're always open about. We'd rather not make excuses that things take a long time due to our low resources but at least it's the truth.
Things not happening quick enough is something we're aware of and slow releases or development is certainly not something we're proud of. We'd love to fix all the problems over night.
You might be sick of hearing it but some of the people working on Neocron pour their lives into Neocron. We see criticism and we take criticism and we also receive far far worse than criticism.
You can't come on here, a fan forum, wearing a copbot badge and getting the ego rubs if you don't deliver what people want and have asked for.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. We work on Neocron because we love Neocron and want it to continue being a thing. If we did this for ego rubs the straight up verbal abuse and death threats would have out weighed that a long time ago.
Tonnes of people, myself included, have volunteered time and effort into this game and money too.
We're incredibly grateful for all the input people give to Neocron and the team. We're also happy for people to join us in making the game they love better.
We love the game, not you
We love the game too and it's community, granted it can be hard to force a smile and keep working sometimes.
and at the moment you're wrecking the game we love.
I can't say I agree with you. We're working to add changes to the game all the time, we also discuss those a lot with the community. Granted in recent times the communication has been pretty awful but steps have been made to begin remedying that.
Why would we not flame you for that?
We're happy to receive constructive criticism, which is what a lot of this thread has been. Hopefully we can take that constructive criticism and work with it to improve the situation. There will certainly be a lot of opportunities for community feedback in the coming weeks as we work to right our communication wrongs.
Thread re-opened.
I enjoy Neocron, and most of the players, and since you guys are supplying Neocron for me to play, I believe I have to also enjoy your continued existence as well!
You answered like a billion things... so fuck you! (I mean that in a comical way... don't ban me for to long...)
Seriously wow. Don't get yourself all stressed already Trivaldi, that you leave the team again. That was great. I know time frames can't always be met. I am not a computer guy as far as designing, programing, and such. I am a machinist, and we have a time frame we expect things to get done, but sometimes the simplest things can get in the way. Like one of our owners who by accident cut the power to my co-workers machines, causing him to scrap 3 pieces simultaneously.
You guys have stated you have a real life, and real jobs outside of Neocron. So I speak for myself, but I don't expect you guys to put in an additional 40+ here. I'll take 36, and call it even!
Sadly the only help I can probably be.. is logging onto the test server, and asking stupid questions so noobs don't have to.
Lastly at the moment... Flaming doesn't get anyone anywhere. At least not my generation. Maybe flaming temper tantrums worked with some kids, or work today. I grew up in a different house, a flaming temper tantrum at my mom, got me a bloody nose, and spent the rest of the day, or week grounded from all but breathing. Flaming, screaming, yelling, furiously typing, and USING ALL CAPS.. doesn't get anything resolved ever. Go hit a punching bag if you are that pissed off, or go rub one out. Relax, and then come back. Video gaming is a hobby for me, as I assume it is for most gamers. You should never be getting so pissed off at gaming... you start breaking shit (like your hard drive - I've heard a guy do it... till he cut out because he smacked his laptop, and crashed his hard drive) Enjoy, and happy holidays to all!
I am very happy about the comeback of Trivaldi aswell (<3) that gives me a chance to take a breath again. I think he is the right man to handle community related stuff and fits his new position perfectly.
Back to topic:
Today we will "deliver" some of the new changes to Titan, I personally believe we need to have more testing on vedeena but I can understand that you guys are running out of patience.
I expect some critical feedback if anything goes wrong instead of flaming and trolling around here.
Don't worry Zoltan I will tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Jesus! =)
I See Blue
20-12-14, 22:51
Excellent post Trivaldi, lots of questions answered. Will be good to see a patch.
On that note, here are my points of views on some of the stuff you raised.
Beginner experience, I've made a post in the Brainport on simple changes (at least stuff I think could improve the experience and not be hard to implement) to the beginner experience. http://forum.neocron-game.com/showthread.php?155919-Improving-the-beginner-experience Would be interesting to see someone from the team give some opinions on that thread.
When it comes to patches, I think saving up the changes and releasing a huge patch every 4-5 months is a bad idea. The only impression of the projects progress for the players is changes on Titan. So I would suggest making smaller patches more often. Even down to changing one or two weapons at the time and one or two pieces of improved graphics. Honestly, the players don't care if one weapon is slightly overpowered for a short period of time, as long as there is overall progress towards the balance goals.
When it comes to improving the beginner experience and recruiting new players, I'd love to see more focus on this. The reason is that it would benefit every single part of the game. The oldtimers who just want to fight get new players to fight (I think we are all tired fighting the same guys over and over), traders and PvE'ers get people to tradeskill for, people to hunt with and buy and sell stuff to, and people who just sit around chatting get more people to talk to. As for recruiting, If I was you, I would spend a couple of hours checking out the different free MMO-forums and sites, and just make sure Neocron is represented and properly presented, because my impression is that it isn't.
Now, I'm not a huge guy for testing stuff in general, so in general I'll leave that for others. I can try to contribute in other ways though. I can see I can force some of the guys in clan to help make some instructional videos, walkthroughs and guides for new players. I could also make an effort to post in some of thos free-mmo forums, with videos from Neocron PvP and PvE.
If numbers go up a bit, I can also try to do some stuff in game, events etc.
As for reasons to log on for us players, it's different of course, some old players play only for the PvP, some just tradeskill, some like PvP. As for me, I trade and build rares, I fight, I help out noobs and I do some endgame PvE like DoY mission, DoY tunnels etc.
I honestly believe that the easiest way to get people to log on is to try and get some new players in the game. New players have enthusiam and curiosity, they create need for tradeskillers, populate the zones and provide new meat for the PvP grinder.
Anyway, good post, Trivaldi, I'll post some more later.
Blue, could... you possibly give a few of the links for Free MMOs, and MMO's that you think are big ones.. good ones? :p Anyone else also... that knows great places to possibly list Neocron...
William Antrim
22-12-14, 16:25
I think the best move you can pull from here is to deputise the remaining playerbase and get everyone on-board and testing.
Your team as it stands is tiny and you need to find a way to utilise the people still here who know plenty about the game.
Communication is the best way to do that. Tell them what you want and tell them WHY you want it and what it will do to help. This will give them a reason to do it and motivation to feel like they belong to something bigger. This will encourage and empower them and help you get the game tested faster.
It has to start with some wide open posting though, as in brutal honesty like we saw above. That needs to happen now and forever. If this is nc the community edition then let the community build it together. Sorry if that sounds mushy to some of you but it's the truth.
A set of goals needs to be established with people knowing their place and their role and having the tools and the processes to make something of it.
As you did see this evening the player count raised up to 134 ;) so it will be nice if we just hit the 150 players (hopefully the server is not crashing with this high number :P
12488
We peaked out at 137 according to my numbers, inline with peaks from around August/September (and the beginning of) 2014. The refresh rate of the API just so happened to distribute the numbers before and then after the fact this evening. :)
Also, I know I need to revisit a few points in this thread still. Getting there.
jvasquez33
12-01-15, 01:10
What would be nice (not just for me but for new people)
- 3x perma exp
- repeatable missions (aka you dont have to constantly go back to the citycom, it just keeps recycles until completion)
With the recent activity I almost got some of my guildies to come play this game (im in Lords of Death, big guild dating back to UO). We are all old now, small time to play, not enough time to simply grind out korean style with the stats hence why i'm constantly nagging for 3x exp lol.
if you compare nc1 leveling to where its now its just a joke.
0/2 to woc on spy/tank and apu takes you 1 day if you got a bit of equip and money to start with.
even pe who used to take monthes to woc is now only a bit of grinding for like a week.
i mean if they even do more double driple or whatever xp then they could also just copy paste the testserver with the 1 minute to woc guy. The next problem will be showing up if it would be always 3x xp: no money for weapons, no parts for lategame equip, more people in forums who bitch bout that weapons etc should be cheaper and the drop should be like 10x ;)
i miss the old times in neocron where you leveled a character for more then a months...:rolleyes:
Stormlord
12-01-15, 01:32
What would be nice (not just for me but for new people)
- 3x perma exp
- repeatable missions (aka you dont have to constantly go back to the citycom, it just keeps recycles until completion)
No.
Dont make this game to easy. We need competition in leveling as in pvp / pve as well.
xp events, like on holidays or double xp weekend event every now and then are great, but just dont make this cool game permanently too easy...
i miss the old times in neocron where you leveled a character for more then a months...:rolleyes:
THIS! only the old players that were active before more than 5 years want to get their char capped as fast as possible to play end game. As I started Neocron in 2003 it was fun to level the char by killing rats, hunt with great groups warbots next to the military base and compete with other groups. Now there are so many players that would like to have an NPC in the appartment that will spawn the items and full capp a char to start with op fights in less than 30 minutes... I think Neocron wasn intended to have a PVE part that nobody wants to play. Of course most of the missions did you do more than one time. But we got a new mission by the Christmas contest that got implemented by a new tool that hopefully allows the NST to create more further missions.
Please take more than 5 minutes to think about the results if you increase exp to triple. New players don't enjoy the PVE part before taking over to the PVP part... ;)
There is more to PVE than leveling. You could actually greatly enhance the PVE game if you were to shorten the leveling ramp and recycle a lot of the environment and world into high-level content.
jvasquez33
12-01-15, 04:13
No.
Dont make this game to easy. We need competition in leveling as in pvp / pve as well.
xp events, like on holidays or double xp weekend event every now and then are great, but just dont make this cool game permanently too easy...
Look around you chief, the game isn't blazing with population, so why not try to mix it up for a while?. I'm just going from personal experience that's been around the game from beta to now. And can honestly say that we (some of my friends that played) had a much better experience when the game was 3x exp than normal.
The double exp events are a perfect example of what i'm talking about, everyone that I know played a ton, even more than they probably should have lol. Seriously though, why not let it go for couple weeks longer (not everyone had a chance to play during that time you know).
for example yesterday... close to 140 players were on the server, around 30-40 were op fighting. The rest was idling in plaza or pveing and i know of at least, over the half of them doesnt even want to pvp, they play neocron to trade and pve. The speed of the leveling is fast enough atm, 1 day per character is way to fast anyway, but you can also do it over a periode of half a months if you want to.
and like i said before, you need to pve anyway for rareparts/mc5s/woc disks and money, just do it while leveling so you can get your stuff when ur reaching cap. i had over 15 customers the last week who needed equip (imps, woc disk and mc5 implants) and told me they got like 500k and 10 rareparts... i mean.... wtf?
jvasquez33
12-01-15, 11:51
1 day per character? Is this guy playing the same game lol? It's not really 140 actual players, thats just the number of logged in accounts. I have a few accounts logged in myself, and I know a few people that also have couple logged in too. So either you are completely new to the game (given your 2012 join date) or you just love the korean grind (which is fine, I don't like crazy boring grinds).
Drachenpaladin
12-01-15, 12:44
I don't like crazy boring grinds
Then go back to CS:GO or wherever you've been hanging out. Of if thats not your cup of tea sign up for Toxikk (http://toxikk.com/) or whatever...
jvasquez33
12-01-15, 13:15
So crazy korean grinds are fun to you? Mindboggling.
Drachenpaladin
12-01-15, 15:24
If you think Neocron is as bad as a Koreagridner you have no idea what you are talking about :)
jvasquez33
12-01-15, 22:38
From Lineage to Lineage 2, Aion to Tera and Archeage, personally for me Lineage 2 was the worst. Really comes down to how young you are and how much free time to play you actually have. If you are young and naive (like you seem) then sure its no problem to make getting your characters up and running a lengthy task.
I get it, longer character development equals longer life of a game for the most part. But hello McFly, its 2015 and we are pushing what, 'maybe' 100 active players? Why not just change the current pace to maybe jump start it, or at the very least try to see what happens? Unless you played Neocron in beta or launch then you have absolutely no idea how much different Neocron is with a booming population. Pretty sure everyone that was there can agree on that.
Drachenpaladin
13-01-15, 00:44
Sure. Ok. Lets ramp XP rates up to eleven. Make everyone come out of MC5 capped and put the GR destination to the medi, next to the MC5 vendor. Sure gonna keep people playing that way... or you know, they just go play CoD instead...
i play the same game as you jvasquenz33, but as i see you are not familiar with neocron if you want a instant woc start into the game and dont trust me that you can do it in 1 day ;)
thats just my new forum account, i started playing neocron beta back in 2002?
and no, i dont really like grinding shit like in other games, but having your character instant pvp ready only leads to 99% unused accounts cause cs and cod kiddys ll join, flame the shit out of the game cause they are to stupid to aim, pve is the best way to train that and also get used to your character in harsh situations ;) and like i said before, without equip capping in 1 day doesnt lead to anything cause you got 0 stuff then.
but how bout we also remove item drops if you die, outposts give you free pink ponys to ride through the wasts and if you beat the mighty dragon in the old dungeon you can even get a flyable one?
jvasquez33
13-01-15, 01:18
Sure. Ok. Lets ramp XP rates up to eleven. Make everyone come out of MC5 capped and put the GR destination to the medi, next to the MC5 vendor. Sure gonna keep people playing that way... or you know, they just go play CoD instead...
Keep people playing that way? Take a good look around you bub, there isn't that many staying around regardless.
jvasquez33
13-01-15, 01:27
i play the same game as you jvasquenz33, but as i see you are not familiar with neocron if you want a instant woc start into the game and dont trust me that you can do it in 1 day ;)
Take a very good look at my join date and my signature, i've been here from the start.
thats just my new forum account, i started playing neocron beta back in 2002?
If you did and loved the population, why you wouldn't want any type of change to spark it up again is beyond me, downright batguano crazy.
and no, i dont really like grinding shit like in other games, but having your character instant pvp ready only leads to 99% unused accounts cause cs and cod kiddys ll join, flame the shit out of the game cause they are to stupid to aim, pve is the best way to train that and also get used to your character in harsh situations ;) and like i said before, without equip capping in 1 day doesnt lead to anything cause you got 0 stuff then.
Lets face it, hardcore full loot servers just don't last long, and that niche of a playerbase is just too small to make a game flourish nowadays. There is only one game currently out that I know of that has that, and that's Darkfall Unholy Wars, and guess what, the population is tiny. I love hardcore full loot games and loved Neocron when you could take peoples weapons, it was insanely fun. Lets be realistic though that increasing exp rate would somehow make people "flameout", like i've said before, look around you, not many people stick around regardless.
but how bout we also remove item drops if you die, outposts give you free pink ponys to ride through the wasts and if you beat the mighty dragon in the old dungeon you can even get a flyable one?
Not entirely sure why you would even say that, maybe a mountain dew sugar rush, or off the a.d.d meds?
outposts give you free pink ponys to ride through the wasts and if you beat the mighty dragon in the old dungeon you can even get a flyable one?
This sounds like GOTY material.
@the naysayers RE: increasing XP-
PVE is more than leveling. In fact, most non-Koreagrinder MMO's with any sort of staying power have significantly greater amounts of end-game content than leveling content. The fix for PVE isn't to force the PVE-only experience of leveling, it is to broaden it by making it richer and more compelling. So people WANT to go PVE.
Making end-game PVE more formulaic by implementing a loot system where specific techs can also drop from pre-destined regions and/or specific mobs/dungeons coupled with a broadened experience where 99% of the seemingly un-purposed elements, actors, and mobs in the world are given some context and purpose would give players a sense of coherence and connection with the world, which would revolutionize the entire experience-- Into something that could maybe actually grip new blood long enough to permanently taint.
Turn shitty, useless, low-level content into real end-game content. Boom. Solved. PVE your faces off and your hearts out.
They say you can't ever go back home. It's true. Neocron will never be the game it once was for any of us no matter what steps we take or how much money we donate or time we contribute or anything we could ever do in a million years. That time has passed, and the opportunity now to reminisce for the rest of our lives is right in front of us. The grand majority of us reminisce about it while it's right on front of our faces. While we are playing it with our crew to this day. Why do we choose to hang up on the past instead of trying something new?
I don't know, signed the dude with a self-validating title referencing the days of yore.
That time is gone now, those people are gone now, those social constructs and emotional anchors are only in what remains of our memories. It's hard to let go, but that is how you move forward. You can always hold on to what is truly important. I'll leave it to you surly assholes to fill in the last sappy line here.
Drachenpaladin
13-01-15, 03:11
I'll leave it to you surly assholes to fill in the last sappy line here.
Mmmmmh, maybe something like: Lay off the booze? :p
Probably going to get flamed for some of this but.....
Unfortunately the solution isn't always to give the players what they want (SWG was a perfect example of this) some changes may be good in the short term and detrimental in the long. Also some design decisions (LOM xp loss) make more sense with a larger population where you are trying to encourage interaction (prevent one guy doing everything himself), but are detrimental in low population (and also punish the new guy for not understanding skill usage).
Increasing XP over long periods/permanent would remove the 'grind' yes but without [enough] end content to entertain (and I'm not just talking about OP wars) that player may leave sooner than they would if they had needed to take longer to level (assuming the 'grind' isn't offputting) although ultimately in this example they would still leave.
I think the problem with 'grind' is partly due to the fact that rank (level) is a dynamic stat (due to buffs) and therefore isn't highlighted like an attribute increase (and several increases in attribute may not have any impact on rank which can be disheartening for new players as they don't feel they are progressing) and partly due to the undirected nature of kill missions in NC (I'm not saying this is a bad thing).
NC differs from other games in that kill missions are not associated with a specific zone nor do they indicate a zone where they might be completed. From an exploration/open world perspective thats cool but doesn't help the new guy that just wants to get some xp/cash.
Perhaps kill mission descriptions need to suggest locations where the target can be found (e.g. lvl 1 sewers) and also display the xp rewards as well as the cash & symp? It may also be helpful to suggest a minimum rank alongside the difficulty which is not very helpful.
Is there anything that tells a player hitting rank 10 that the Epic run has just become available for them?
Granted the above doesn't change any 'grind' but it does allow a new player to more easily direct their efforts towards levelling. Ultimately the min/maxers will always look for/find the most optimum way to level even if it is soul crushingly boring. Soon that becomes the accepted 'norm' that every new player will be told in the help channel and the next thing you know NC has a reputation for being a game with a soul crushing grind just to cap so you can PvP.
For example, most people use Aggy cellars for low level characters, the suitability of this obviously varies by class but it's much easier to run 'Hard' captain missions with a character straight out of MC5 when there are several people running the cellars, but solo certain classes may need to spend considerable time running 'Very Easy' missions in the sewers before they attempt to solo the cellars. Therefore an influx of new players makes the levelling experience easier (and more enjoyable) for all those new players vs. one new guy levelling up on his own.
I'd _like_ to level for example by just exploring main cellar/Outzone but I know this is not as 'efficient' as chain running Captain missions in the cellar and there's no incentive (beyond my curiosity) for me to visit those other zones. I can choose to go anyway if I'm not bothered about my rank but everyone else seems to have the 'grind to cap' mindset.
I think the other mistake vets make is assuming that everyone wants to PvP, granted it's a huge part of the game design but, balance issues notwithstanding, I wonder how many people are out there who would still be playing if it was a little more accomodating to other playstyles?
I'll use Eve as an example. Eve is undoubtly a PvP game however it is perfectly possible to play Eve entirely PvE (suicide ganks notwithstanding) and the game doesn't 'punish' you for it.
NC1 initially had dual skill reqs. (higher for LE) and xp/cash tax and NC2 has reintroduced the tax after a certain rank. NC also prevents LE players from forming a Clan and social grouping is a basic requirements/expectation of any MMO. I think this is backwards, there should be incentives to removing the LE rather than penalties for keeping it in.
As an aside Eve also enables a brand new character to play a meaningful role in PvP whereas PvP in NC is the preserve of the [very nearly] capped.
I wonder how many players back in the early days of NC1/NC2 were put off by the fact that the game all but insisted you take your LE out and then got killed while looking around Pepper Park by another player in a one sided fight just because.
What I'm basically saying is that perhaps NC, like Eve, needs to accomodate PvEers/Explorers/RPers with a view to converting them to PvPers later down the line (which would require allowing the LE to be reimplanted potentially at any level if the player didn't get on with it). The appeal is there as NC has huge exploration and RP potential.
I guess it comes down to would you like a bigger server population of which about 100 [currently] PvP or a server population of 100?
very good post imho. for the LE thing it might be an option to prevent LE users (like myself) from the very highest equipment, but invoke no other penalties. this would enable them to participate in the entire game except for the highest level stuff instead of standing aside until they open themselves to unbalanced PvP... just an idea
Proposition for the NST/Community:
5150 and I will work together and vet all ideas or changes. This man knows how to bring ideas and thoughts to the table.
I was half considering coming back but after losing my original char it was like why bother. I left the game before the exploiting ect got really bad and lost everything in the wipe.
I still remember getting my 4 slot cursed soul in NC1, and fighting across most of saturn with it (dont know who this Divide scrub thinks he is but i believe it was Zonespeak who was king) :) great times but all those good memories are now on a backup somewhere.
The game is just to old, to clunky for me to even want to get into it again. Even if i did want to get give it a try the leveling mechanism is crap. You would think in this day and age to encourage more people to play they would give at least 1 char that is capped for you to jump into.
Unlike the folk who stayed with the game and were bored and wanted a challenge of rebuilding again, newer people or players who left and came back don't really want to jump in from zero.
Haha I love you too Darkener. ZoneseeK is who you were trying to refer to. He'll give me this one, don't worry. He actually agrees with your outlook. I got him back and playing for a while and he was initially wrapped up in the nostalgia but was turned away by the fact that it's not worth discerning gamers' time to take a trip down memory lane when the destination doesn't resemble the path.
You and he are the type of people we all want playing. We should be listening to you instead of telling you that you are wrong.
You would think in this day and age to encourage more people to play they would give at least 1 char that is capped for you to jump into.
I understand the reason for this, I'm just not sure it's been thought through as it's just a short term fix that really only benefits vets. Don't get me wrong this is the 3rd time I've restarted too but this isn't a solution.
There's no point giving new players capped character as they simply won't know what to do with it (if you allocated all the skill points they may not be how that person would want them ultimately and then you need to spend time LOMing stuff - if you don't allocate the skill points the new player has no idea where to put his points assuming they realise they need to allocate them!).
While you may have given everyone a stat capped character you're still going to have starter cash/gear (because people would otherwise just create mule alts to pawn the stuff from in the same way everyone has the Jones NEXT Quad - I'm not judging, I've done that too) so you're still going to need to 'grind' for cash/equipment before you can do anything meaningful unless you're getting handouts from existing players (which only vets will be able to do realistically).
So by giving everyone a capped character you haven't enabled eveyone to PvP [on a level playing field] out of the box at all, all you've done is saved the vets the grind (which I guess was what you had in mind) and given them an advantage over new players that think they might be able to initially compete.
The new guy still gets chain killed (assuming he took his LE out) in one sided fights due to lack of game knowledge, skill point allocation and/or equipment (stuff they would normally learn while levelling up) and actually finds it easier to quit the game as they haven't had any time to develop an attachment to the character they've been given (rather than developed themselves).
I understand the reason for this, I'm just not sure it's been thought through as it's just a short term fix that really only benefits vets. Don't get me wrong this is the 3rd time I've restarted too but this isn't a solution.
There's no point giving new players capped character as they simply won't know what to do with it (if you allocated all the skill points they may not be how that person would want them ultimately and then you need to spend time LOMing stuff - if you don't allocate the skill points the new player has no idea where to put his points assuming they realise they need to allocate them!).
While you may have given everyone a stat capped character you're still going to have starter cash/gear (because people would otherwise just create mule alts to pawn the stuff from in the same way everyone has the Jones NEXT Quad - I'm not judging, I've done that too) so you're still going to need to 'grind' for cash/equipment before you can do anything meaningful unless you're getting handouts from existing players (which only vets will be able to do realistically).
.
No its been thought through pretty well, just because you have started for a third time doesnt mean that i will restart for a second or new people will start at all.
If you put in a capped char or close to it you could put in player support around it for folk to figure out how to play. Look at wow and how they do it for example.
In a game that is basically designed around getting to cap so you can pvp the level aspect of it seems so redundant. It however is not the only problem and all items need to be looked at from a macro environment perspective and not the micro.
Hello, interresting thread for me because when i come back after a while to neocron there was a new server. My old Charakters were gone and i had to start new.
Oh i tried it really but i was eaysier in former times. More ppl, lack of "easy to level" mmos...
Well i spend some time in the severs, on the street and in chat... I went to military base for teaming up but i did not get a team most of the time... At last i left because grind is a bit too hefty this days.
I wished i could get back my old chars (even naked... That does not matter to me)... But afaik theres no way.
if you already complain bout the speed of leveling, then you wouldnt even get your hands on any rares later. Leveling is way faster then equiping the character after capping. For that equip you have to grind. The question with people at the bunker is when have you been there? i m driving noobs up to mb once or twice a day...
I m happy that neocron is not another wow-game, where you get a capped character if you return after a bit of time ;)
Only read the first two pages to apologies if I missed something important or someone making the same point as me.
Neocrons downfalls are not the fault of the NST, sure I too always felt they should be giving more updates/doing more in the community, but considering none of them are being paid and they're updating with more frequency than some of the "early releases" that Steam has let in... Well I think they're doing okay right now.
That being said, Zoltan I've said this before and I even asked for you to help me with this but you always ignored it....
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!11ONE!!!!1!
I understand you have a lot of work on your plate but the biggest draw neocron ever had was the community activities. I mean let's be honest, in terms of content this game has and always will be sorely lacking.What made it great was the GM's 'playing' with the community. Having to break out the leader of DoY from Neocron, having to prevent an assassination on high ranking Neocron officials, etc etc etc. Start those up again, or find someone who you're willing to trust and support to start that up again and it will make a difference in population, I guarantee it.
Moving on to the main problem of why the game has so few people. It's simple really, graphics are the initial bottleneck, and you can't do much about that. But with that being said people are still playing runescape and are happy as can be, so graphics only inhibit you slightly, though it is one of the several issues that hurt this game.
The biggest damage would be the community, when I played there were maybe 3-4 active people, myself included, who were willing to drop what they were doing and help lowbies with information/crafting/taking or showing them to their next destination to continue onwards. To further make this matter worse you have tons of pvp junkies who give bad advice/use underhanded methods to pull douchebag stunts. In a game where you're going to be fighting the same people over and over, literally the same 20-40 people at most. It gets tiring very quickly to have to entertain the same pricks over and over.
As a result the only people who will stick around are those with strong emotional ties to neocron or those who's Epeens are too invested into it.
Alternately if the community can correct itself a bit I'm sure there'll be more retention of players.
TRY FOR STEAM GREENLIGHT FFS! If that PoS Face of Mankind and all those other horrid early release survival games can make it on I'm sure neocron has some small chance...
~Brawndo/Nimoy
AramatOwnedYou
16-02-15, 08:36
Hah, I can't even imagine this game on a steam greenlight. Would the greenlight be for the new project that was supposed to be in the works?
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