Friday with Means - July 3rd, 2009 - German Server and AO Learning Curve

[Gresshoppe]

We were talking about this yesterday in org chat.

I think its about time to boost RK XP.

I think this would really help making "new players" stick around.

I mean, lets face it. Back when we started RK had players. You could find teams and actually feel like you're headed in the right direction. If RK mobs shared the same XP as SL mobs, I think the results would be RK slowly coming back to life with new players.

People will still go to SL, when they are ready. But if I started this game today as compared to when I did in 2002, I'm pretty sure I would have never renewed after the first 30 days since the first impression is RK, and ATM its dead...


We all know hecklers were never intended to be farmed. But thats been the reality for years now. We need to stop that. When I think of leveling in AO, I think of killing the same rocks over and over, then doing the same inferno mission over and over (which I never got to enjoy, it was hecklers for me). How many Halen Van Dummy's do we need to kill?

I would gladly do RK missions if they offered the same XP. Or hell, I'd kill Cyborgs, Rhinos, theres so many amazing hunting spots on RK, its a shame.

Or hey, make an item that can be crafted called "Deja Vu" that can be worn. It would convert XP to SK. All this would pull current players to RK, where NEW players start off. Teams would be going, chat channels would be active. A lot would happen.

We dont need to merge servers. We need to repair the game to make it more interesting to play for lower levels/new players.

Aye to this!

[Mamman]

On top of trying to ease up the learning curve and introduce things a bit more gradually instead of a big wall of "wtf is this" already at level 20 I think a full IPR gained at say level 50, which then expires at level 100 can be a way to keep some players that once they start to learn the game a bit more, realize their toons are very messed up.
Most people I know in the game rerolled their first toon because they deemed it beyond repair once they understood wth was going on, I imagine some people quit instead of reroll at that point

[Lupusceleri]

Hai there

Some things you could do to lessen the learning curve for AO, without making the game stupidly easy:

• Pre-made implants in the Basic shops: currently, they are beyond crap. Ideally, you would have some experienced members of the community redesign them, mostly with agi/sta/str reqs. I personally stopped using pre-built implants at all, even for my levelling toons I custom-build them.
• Ammo on newbie island: most newbies (me included, back when) are puzzled as to the reason there is no ammo on the island. You are hugely favouring melee professions like this - after all, they can use better weapons and not run out of ammo after 5 minutes.
• Weapons in shops: while probably great weapons years before, nowadays they are usually crap compared to what's out there. I would suggest putting some of the more useful RK weapons into these shops permanently, such as:
  
  • SOL Fire Executioner
  • (Sharpened) Kinetic Axe
  • Gripo-Com AKR 1K20 (and 1K21)
  • The Original Electronicum
  • FDA Caterwaul 913
  • SOL K-91
  • Division 9 Plasmaprojector
  • Seburo C-99a
  • Guard of the Gentleman (currently buyable in SL gardens, but no SL req)
  • Vektor ND
  • S.A. Home Defender
  • Mausser Particle Streamer
  • OT Kerans Automatic Grinner
  • Support Beam
  • Murder Maul (currently SL loot, but no SL req)
  These are just some starter suggestions, there are probably a lot more useful weapons out there.
• Useful armor after the newbie island: the Omni-only Tailor quests go a LONG way to these ends - very nice armor. Clan and Neutral doesn't have such a quest, with as reward useful armor. Add one.
• XP increase on RK, especially (!!) in the subway: I don't know why, but as it is now you get better xp off a L1 Beach Leet from the island than from much higher mobs in the subway.
• Add new lowbie RK quests, that are of course optional, teaching players as they go: Galilei here has made one of the best suggested questlines out there. Subway really could use a quest, utilizing those dead ends. We need more life here, peoples shouldn't run the hell to SL as soon as they get off newbie island.
• Add another dungeon, or rather, expand the subway beyond L24 so as to remove the levelling gap between subway and ToTW: again, read Galilei's thread. That dead end tunnel in the subways (on the "perron", coords can be found here) could lead down to a newly uncovered part.. I mean hey, uncovering the rest of the subway must be progressing.. right? Check this video, around 1:20 there is a damn nice piece of zone that would barely need any work to go ingame.
• Revamp Cyborg Barracks so players have somewhere to go after ToTW: especially increase xp, make the mobs drop upgrades for the weapons and armor the Cyborgs in there drop. It's also near ToTW so that is a definite plus. If at all possible: make a road to connect ToTW and the Cyborg Barracks, so new players are lured down there (or an experienced player can easily tell them how to find the place).
• Pick one 3rd party built PlanetMap, and put it in AO by default: like you have done before with the Peace "Dovve" Forejt map, please please please get AO a new pre-installed PlanetMap to choose from. These old standard maps are simply completely outdated, when compared to a piece of art like Onackkeep's Atlas of Rubi-Ka and Atlas of ShadowLands. It pains me to see so many new players lost, simply because their planetmap is so crappy you can't see even the most basic places on it.
• On the topic of PlanetMap, again, if your map files can't be found automatically let AO select the default map: currently you have to type /setoption PlanetMapIndexFile normal/PlanetMapIndexNormal.txt and /setoption ShadowlandMapIndexFile Shadowlands/ShadowlandsMap.txt to reset your maps. There is no way newbies would know this!
• As Mamman above me suggested, full IPR when breaking a new TitleLevel: lots of newbies indeed notice they messed up badly. Refreshing the full IPR used flag, to unused, every time one gain a new TitleLevel - L15/L50/L100/L150/L190/L205 - would go a long way to allowing these toons to fix themselves on the go, rather than rerolling to fix the various IP mistakes they have made.
• Fix the suggested IP distribution tool: I know that even players can modify this piece of AO to distribute IP different from the standard suggested IP distribution. Let good, experienced players redesign the tool, as it is now there are again lots of errors in the IP distribution you will have to fix with an IPR later. Also raise the max supported level from 20, to 75 or so at least. By then one ought to know what's going on - at L20, one doesn't.

Might add more if I can think of new stuff. Not for now. Hope that was any help.

[ingiss]

Hai there

Some things you could do to lessen the learning curve for AO, without making the game stupidly easy:

• Pre-made implants in the Basic shops: currently, they are beyond crap. Ideally, you would have some experienced members of the community redesign them, mostly with agi/sta/str reqs. I personally stopped using pre-built implants at all, even for my levelling toons I custom-build them.
• Ammo on newbie island: most newbies (me included, back when) are puzzled as to the reason there is no ammo on the island. You are hugely favouring melee professions like this - after all, they can use better weapons and not run out of ammo after 5 minutes.
• Weapons in shops: while probably great weapons years before, nowadays they are usually crap compared to what's out there. I would suggest putting some of the more useful RK weapons into these shops permanently, such as:
  
  • SOL Fire Executioner
  • (Sharpened) Kinetic Axe
  • Gripo-Com AKR 1K20 (and 1K21)
  • The Original Electronicum
  • FDA Caterwaul 913
  • SOL K-91
  • Division 9 Plasmaprojector
  • Seburo C-99a
  • Guard of the Gentleman (currently buyable in SL gardens, but no SL req)
  • Vektor ND
  • S.A. Home Defender
  • Mausser Particle Streamer
  • OT Kerans Automatic Grinner
  • Support Beam
  • Murder Maul (currently SL loot, but no SL req)
  These are just some starter suggestions, there are probably a lot more useful weapons out there.
• Useful armor after the newbie island: the Omni-only Tailor quests go a LONG way to these ends - very nice armor. Clan and Neutral doesn't have such a quest, with as reward useful armor. Add one.
• XP increase on RK, especially (!!) in the subway: I don't know why, but as it is now you get better xp off a L1 Beach Leet from the island than from much higher mobs in the subway.
• Add new lowbie RK quests, that are of course optional, teaching players as they go: Galilei here has made one of the best suggested questlines out there. Subway really could use a quest, utilizing those dead ends. We need more life here, peoples shouldn't run the hell to SL as soon as they get off newbie island.
• Add another dungeon, or rather, expand the subway beyond L24 so as to remove the levelling gap between subway and ToTW: again, read Galilei's thread. That dead end tunnel in the subways (on the "perron", I will post coords in a bit) could lead down to a newly uncovered part.. I mean hey, uncovering the rest of the subway must be progressing.. right? Check this video, around 1:20 there is a damn nice piece of zone that would barely need any work to go ingame.
• Revamp Cyborg Barracks so players have somewhere to go after ToTW: especially increase xp, make the mobs drop upgrades for the weapons and armor the Cyborgs in there drop. It's also near ToTW so that is a definite plus. If at all possible: make a road to connect ToTW and the Cyborg Barracks, so new players are lured down there (or an experienced player can easily tell them how to find the place).
• Pick one 3rd party built PlanetMap, and put it in AO by default: like you have done before with the Peace "Dovve" Forejt map, please please please get AO a new pre-installed PlanetMap to choose from. These old standard maps are simply completely outdated, when compared to a piece of art like Onackkeep's Atlas of Rubi-Ka and Atlas of ShadowLands. It pains me to see so many new players lost, simply because their planetmap is so crappy you can't see even the most basic places on it.
• On the topic of PlanetMap, again, if your map files can't be found automatically let AO select the default map: currently you have to type /setoption PlanetMapIndexFile normal/PlanetMapIndexNormal.txt and /setoption ShadowlandMapIndexFile Shadowlands/ShadowlandsMap.txt to reset your maps. There is no way newbies would know this!
• As Mamman above me suggested, full IPR when breaking a new TitleLevel: lots of newbies indeed notice they messed up badly. Refreshing the full IPR used flag, to unused, every time one gain a new TitleLevel - L15/L50/L100/L150/L190/L205 - would go a long way to allowing these toons to fix themselves on the go, rather than rerolling to fix the various IP mistakes they have made.
• Fix the suggested IP distribution tool: I know that even players can modify this piece of AO to distribute IP different from the standard suggested IP distribution. Let good, experienced players redesign the tool, as it is now there are again lots of errors in the IP distribution you will have to fix with an IPR later. Also raise the max supported level from 20, to 75 or so at least. By then one ought to know what's going on - at L20, one doesn't.

Might add more if I can think of new stuff. Not for now. Hope that was any help.

Best post so far , gets a bump from me

[Lupusceleri]

Add another dungeon, or rather, expand the subway beyond L24 so as to remove the levelling gap between subway and ToTW: again, read Galilei's thread. That dead end tunnel in the subways (on the "perron", I will post coords in a bit) could lead down to a newly uncovered part.. I mean hey, uncovering the rest of the subway must be progressing.. right? Check this video, around 1:20 there is a damn nice piece of zone that would barely need any work to go ingame.

As promised, the tunnel I was talking about is here (face west):

Extended location information:
- 319.0, 234.9, 102.8 (319.0 234.9 y 102.8 2421138)
- Pf Proxy: Model=51102:127 GS=1 SG=3223192097 R=2421138, resource: 127
- zone: 25, area: "Condemned Subway"
Server id: 3146, character id: 50000:**********, time: 2009-07-04 10:41:46 (UTC)
Version: 18.1.1_EP1, map id: 18.1.1_24.06.2009_23.40.23, build: 48018.

Another nice place to work from is behind the shops, where a few thugs have made a hangout (face east):

Extended location information:
- 262.5, 285.2, 107.6 (262.5 285.2 y 107.6 2421138)
- Pf Proxy: Model=51102:127 GS=1 SG=3223192097 R=2421138, resource: 127
- zone: 0, area: "Abandoned Mall"
Server id: 3146, character id: 50000:**********, time: 2009-07-04 10:48:41 (UTC)
Version: 18.1.1_EP1, map id: 18.1.1_24.06.2009_23.40.23, build: 48018.

[Klodovik]

Question for Means about MP offensive perks (Ancient Knowledge and Ranger perkline looks like a joke at the moment).

Every support profession and their dog got nice perks to go with their pistols, now, when will a MP get some nice damage dealing perks (probably with 70% def check only, since our average AR with bow, at level 220 is lower or equal to level 165 Soldier ones) for their bow and/or creation weapons?

[tchakolli]

Even if a merger is against the wishes of the majority of the players on RK3, it should still be considered. There are too few players on all of the servers, RK 2 included. RK 3 should be merged into either RK 1 or 2, or they should all be merged into a single server.

[Quefixer]

First!!!

Seconds after means.... HACKER!!!!!!!!!!!1111

[Telnarus]

Pre-made implants in the Basic shops: currently, they are beyond crap. Ideally, you would have some experienced members of the community redesign them, mostly with agi/sta/str reqs. I personally stopped using pre-built implants at all, even for my levelling toons I custom-build them.

This is the concept most player have the difficult time understanding. And could easily be overcomed by a small quest where there is a buffing character that they talk to that gives them a buff then sends them to a treatment terminal to actually put the implant in. The chain of events would be... the quest should be level dependant 1-10 give the new player an implant based on their level (i.e. on newbie island) make it so the buf would be required to get the implant in reguardless of the highest level obtainable in the newbie zone. Send them to the terminal once without the buff to show the message you can not equip this without x stat. Then send them to the buffer to get buff then have them go back to the treament terminal and put it in. so like a ql10-20 implant being put on a level 10ish toon.

[Esproc]

I like where you are going with that Lupusceleri, bump ^^.

The only real strikes against server merging are player citys, tower sites and duplicate names.
If a solution to those was implemented they could freely merge the servers.

Possible options:

German server could easily gain an "OT German OOC" and etc like the current japan ones, that I never see used...

Expand the planet map for more zones and reworking under used zones.

Tally all city locations and in the expanding of the map put in an equal or greater number of sites. As well as spreading out over-crowded areas.
Credit all city owners with a voucher that can be used on any unclaimed site and then wipe all cities.
For a period of time city plots could only be claimed by using the voucher.
Once that time has passed open all remaining plots to regular forms of claiming.

Do the same with tower sites, maybe make them not open to attack during the time period where they may be claimed in this way.
While doing this maybe relocate a few that are too close to high traffic player areas, or make the tower sites level range have a significant gap to the playfield.
I.E. if you are an omni playing in the area between barracks and omni ent at levels where the mobs are yellow/green you will end up getting 4 hour flagged on those towers unless you leave auto attack off.
How many new players are we scaring off when they get a flag and then chain ganked in and around subway? Any number is too many if we are trying to grow.

As for the name thing, only real solution would be to set EVERYONE to a defautXXXX and let them /petition for new ones

[Flyingengi]

[*]Division 9 Plasmaprojector

EN-RAL over Div 9. Div 9 is AR/RE with burst(EWWWW) vs EN-RAL is AR with FA/Burst. Alot better in showing new soldiers what weapon skills they should be using, not to mention it is already shop buyable if you can find it.

EDIT: After reading over your list again...drop the sol k-91 for bbi's, keep dyna loot only weapons dyna loot only ^^

[Flyingengi]

Question for Means about MP offensive perks (Ancient Knowledge and Ranger perkline looks like a joke at the moment).

Every support profession and their dog got nice perks to go with their pistols, now, when will a MP get some nice damage dealing perks (probably with 70% def check only, since our average AR with bow, at level 220 is lower or equal to level 165 Soldier ones) for their bow and/or creation weapons?

Never, ebag wants us all to go pistol

[tchakolli]

player cities

If you create a way to "choose" which city you enter when you go through the serenity islands whom-pah, the above would not be much of a problem as then player shops would work on instanced cities too, no? It would perhaps make non-instanced ones obsolete, but as long as the price is the same for both I can still see people wanting "real" cities.

I think there are a lot of great ideas here, I hope at least some of them get implemented because the game really needs new players. Paying money each month to sit on LFT hoping that you get invited to a team, or that a doc logs on so you can make a team on your own, for hours on end is really not worth it...

[Mereditche]

I like the RK XP idea!!!

If you want newbies to stay, you need to make sure they got people to team with. If we veterans would bother with RK again this would happen. At what cost? Nascene hecklers dying... who cares? Only reason we go there now is for the exp. Give us better exp on rk and we'll be there. Or reduce exp on hecklers as an alternative.

Close down SoM for higher level players and add exp there as well.

What would most prefer?
Nascene hecks -> tiigs -> ely hecks
or
Subway -> SoM -> Totw -> Foremans -> CoH (at least here you learn to play your toon without outside tanks and healers)

You can push people to SL after level 100

Hell, I don't know, I think the damage ahs been done. Too much content for to few people. Like the new pvp encounters: I like the idea, but I fear it will only kill TL5 and TL7 bs which will do more bad than good.

[SoldiTwo]

...

Translate the game.
While this would be beneficial to the German community it would be an absurd amount of code work to localize AO. Only a very small amount of AO is currently available in a translateable text database...getting the rest in there would represent months (if not years when considering the work of actually translating the text) of code work and can not be justified with the current number of players. Other games that have produced translated versions have not seen a return on the investment made...I don't think we can afford to take that kind of gamble in terms of time and money. While I appreciate the communities generosity in offering to translate the game I unfortunately can't agree to release something we have no quality control over. It would be impossible for us to verify each translation...and therefore impossible for us to make it public.
...

Well I don't understand why Funcom would need control over the quality.

For example on www.wowinterface.com you have thousands of addons for WoW and as far as I know, none of these addons is controlled by Blizzard.

City of Heroes has a system to even let the players create there own Missions:
"Issue #14, "Architect", was released on April 8, 2009. This issue added a Mission Architect feature allowing players to create their own missions and story arcs using a tool similar to the character creator."

Ryzom has a system for player generated content and soon Star Wars Galaxies (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=18616).

If I would make a translation with hundreds of swear words funcom wouldn't be responsible for it - I would be responsible. All Funcom would have to do is - to not include any user content out of the box and make a disclaimer for user generated content.

IMHO the community created translations would be just like the addons for WoW etc.

Anyways I can understand if such effort is too much for AO's small dev team.

[Telnarus]

I like where you are going with that Lupusceleri, bump ^^.

The only real strikes against server merging are player citys, tower sites and duplicate names.
If a solution to those was implemented they could freely merge the servers.

Possible options:

German server could easily gain an "OT German OOC" and etc like the current japan ones, that I never see used...

Expand the planet map for more zones and reworking under used zones.

Tally all city locations and in the expanding of the map put in an equal or greater number of sites. As well as spreading out over-crowded areas.
Credit all city owners with a voucher that can be used on any unclaimed site and then wipe all cities.
For a period of time city plots could only be claimed by using the voucher.
Once that time has passed open all remaining plots to regular forms of claiming.

Do the same with tower sites, maybe make them not open to attack during the time period where they may be claimed in this way.
While doing this maybe relocate a few that are too close to high traffic player areas, or make the tower sites level range have a significant gap to the playfield.
I.E. if you are an omni playing in the area between barracks and omni ent at levels where the mobs are yellow/green you will end up getting 4 hour flagged on those towers unless you leave auto attack off.
How many new players are we scaring off when they get a flag and then chain ganked in and around subway? Any number is too many if we are trying to grow.

As for the name thing, only real solution would be to set EVERYONE to a defautXXXX and let them /petition for new ones

This problem is not near as big a deal as some people make it. The cities, if the city that is currently occupying landmass rather than instanced is being used for nothing more than farm aliens which can be detirmed pretty easily, that city is put in to an instance or the city instance is already creditted to the org to be place in to an instance.

Tower sites are not even an issue either, simply put, fight over them. That is their intent no? you could argue the cost of towers. OK, the towers a given person has placed are yanked up and put in their backpack pack ready to be place upon transfering and them GAINING control of a tower site.

We can argue the merits of various points but now that farm orgs can easily have their own city in an instance leave the shop space for actual players.

[Ashram]

City of Heroes has a system to even let the players create there own Missions:
"Issue #14, "Architect", was released on April 8, 2009. This issue added a Mission Architect feature allowing players to create their own missions and story arcs using a tool similar to the character creator."

Ryzom has a system for player generated content and soon Star Wars Galaxies (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=18616).

There -was- a player-made mission system in AO a -LONG- time ago, but it was removed as it was heavily exploited, and didn't work very well.

[Esproc]

If you create a way to "choose" which city you enter when you go through the serenity islands whom-pah

If that sent you directly into the player shops of the selected org.
And then required you to be teamed with (or given a temp passkey from) a member
of the owning org in order to enter the city from the shop.

This would allow instanced cities to have player shops as well.

Sure this would obsolete "real" cities.
But if they cost the same, take buildings the same and let you raid the same...
Who cares.

WTB those instanced cities floating over rubi-ka where they can be seen from the ground.
Like those floating landmasses in shadowlands.

Let us fly up into them maybe

That'd be way more fun.

Let the in game explanation be that the technology was developed by jobe scientists who were studying shadowlands.
Maybe each city could have an Ergo interface or sided statue so you could access gardens from your city.

[Keldros]

WTB a few more islands in the newbie island playfield.

A separate island partially outside the suppression gas could give newbies a taste of PVP, and making it a separate island could vastly lower the chances of someone going there by accident.

And another island could be a destination for low-level team missions. Just spin a story about the place being an old weapons depot from the corporate wars, and people could go there for instanced team missions. Maybe they could even get some QL10-15 implants.

[Boltgun]

About noob island : You don't have to be subtle and good looking.

I started in the old backyard, there is boxes there floating with "shift+click" on them. So I did so and got basic infos. Also I started shift + clicking everything such as terminals, items, myself, etc...

Add these boxes to noob island explaining what is what and how to do item, add a huge ''right click this guy!" behind the paramedic, there is nothing wrong as putting such things as is serves the most vital info.
After that, what lupus said, plus it's hard to manage your cash and inventory without info.

One last thing that doesn't help keeping new players in is sound. Or the lack of it. Sound in AO sucks, and while music is great there is plenty of places where you don't hear any. That almost all of us have sound disabled is a good sign that it should be looked at.
I'm not kidding, I see people looking at the game complains about the sounds before even the graphics.