Logged on for a game today. Population at its lowest point (2-3%) and i was watching a conversation on help channel about the gr rules and how clans can lock people out.
First off im gonna go on record and say to all the people who dismissed this thread out of hand last time i raised the idea of reverting the rules to stop clans locking grs to please either contribute in a more discursive way or dont bother posting. (ie fuck off)
I have always been of the thought that these rules imo killed the game in a lot of ways by allowing too much control to the players. Im not gonna go in to a huge argument about how and why but the rules were better when you couldnt lock the gen reps. I dont care who argues differently as this is my opinion and i really am not here to debate this topic with you all.
Now the suggestion. It occurred to me that ops ought to be worth fighting over allegedly. I disagree on this point as in my eyes the reason people op fight is because its fun and there isnt much thats gonna change that. It is the most fun you can have with neocron and if people were really honest with themselves most i think would agree it is more about having the fight than winning. Its only certain members of certain clans who are short sighted enough to say only *insert nationality* are allowed to own ops ^^.
The idea is that the op should cost money to keep not generate money. Take the money off the clans not give it to them. It will be a gigantic money sink with the op eating up cash from the clans bank. This forces them to pay for the op to be kept. It eliminates greed from wanting to own all the ops. It will also encourage clans to open up the gen reps and let the ten people who play at night (US/AEST) actually be able to get around and do stuff.
By opening the grs to all the money paid from the person using the Gen rep can make a direct deposit of cash in to the clans bank account. Obviously this could be scaled to fit different fees and potentially the more lucrative and high traffic grs would be taking a bigger cut of the gr fee out of it before the deposit (say it goes to next or whoever).
I apologise for a long post on the subject but given the recent lack of activity on these forums and in the game in regards development i didnt want this post to get ignored or tossed by the wayside when its something that i have always felt very strongly about and would like to see changed in some way. FUN > Everything else and i don't foresee this as being a massive change to be implemented really nor do i see that its gonna do any harm to the current op scene etc.
My friends and clan mates in the game have been trying to drag me back in to play but with the state of things currently im happy to sit on the fence and observe but i do hope that there is still development taking place and the game will start to pick up again in the future. I also hope that this idea and many others will one day be implemented in the game but having played for less than an hour tonight and again seeing people discussing the same old tired issues of ops being locked it just makes me think well fuck neocron then i can play something else thats a lot more fun.
However what i would like to see is a game that draws people back in because its easy to pick up and play and get back in to, to encourage people to come and play in times like now (7pm AEDT = 8am in the UK) when pops are at the lowest and i too will want to come back and play it.
Something to consider anyway.